Question: What Texas-born author wrote the 1956 novel Old Yeller?
Answer: Fred Gipson. Born in 1908, he grew up on a farm near Mason and briefly attended the University of Texas before working as a newspaper journalist. Gipson later began writing western-themed short stories and published his first full-length novel in 1946. A bronze statue of Old Yeller was unveiled in nearby Mason in 1999.
