Don McAlavy was born in 1931 in Clovis, NM, in Curry County. His first six years was in a rural school in the Claud community. He graduated from Clovis High School in 1950 and following that he served in the Korean War. In 1958 he attended college for one year at East Contra Costa Junior College at Concord, California and a semester at Eastern New Mexico University at Portales, NM. He began his 46-year career as a printer in 1948 and when he retired in 1994 he was co-owner of City Printing, Inc. of Clovis, NM.

In 1972 Don founded the High Plains Historical Fd., Inc. of Eastern New Mexico, a nonprofit historical society. He was co-editor and writer of the two massive volumes of family and area history, Curry County History in 1978 and High Plains History in 1980. Don researched and wrote the 77 pages of Open Range History of central-eastern New Mexico in the High Plains book.

Don co-founded the first Clovis-Portales Arts Council in 1968 and from 1968 until 1973 was an appointed member (by Gov. David Cargo) of the New Mexico Arts Commission.

He began writing a history column for the now defunct Curry County Times weekly newspaper in 1976. From 1980-1986 and again from 1999 to the present has written a weekly history column for the daily Clovis News Journal. In 1985 Don wrote the outdoor drama Billy the Kid which was featured at the Caprock Amphitheater near San Jon, NM, for ten years. Don was for the first four years the villain of this historical drama, Deputy Bob Olinger, later in other roles and finally the director of the show.

In 1988 Don published Eula Mae Edwards' novel Red is my Color (written ca 1940 about a young girl and her troubles around the end of the 19^th century) in co-operation with Eastern New Mexico University-Clovis. The Eula Mae Edwards Museum (now at Clovis Community College) is the home of her Indian artifacts. Don has published several other booklets on Clovis history.

Don retired from City Printing, Inc. in 1994 to write a novel based on the history of the Spike-Gholson feud which ended in the deaths of three Spikes in 1902 at Mesa Redondo south of Tucumcari, NM. The first printing of Our Kind is Hard to Kill was done by the Eastern New Mexico University Printing Department in 1997, and the second printing by ENMU was in 1998.

Don's wife is Katherine Whiteman McAlavy, a retired school teacher from the Clovis Municipal Schools. They have 6 children, 16 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. The boys are handsome, the girls are beautiful, and all are above average. Don and Kathy still make the Clovis area their home.