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Wednesday, April 30, 1997

Separatist leader a former Ohioan described as ambitious

WILMINGTON, Ohio (AP) - The leader of an armed group demanding independence for Texas and surrounded by state and federal agents in West Texas always was ambitious but never violent, said a man who knew him in Ohio.

However, Richard McLaren "has always hung with people that could be violent," Ralph Fizer said Tuesday.

"He probably won't give up. They'll have to shoot him," said Fizer, who serves as the sheriff of Clinton County, Ohio.

McLaren, the self-styled "ambassador" of one faction of the Republic of Texas secessionist group, is among about 10 Republic members believed to be entrenched in the Davis Mountains Resort community near Fort Davis, Texas. Their standoff with authorities began Sunday, and they have said they will not surrender.

Republic members have contended for several years that they are the legitimate government of Texas, which they say was annexed illegally by the United States in 1845.

McLaren is a Missouri native but lived in the Wilmington area in the 1970s and 1980s. He graduated from Wilmington High School in 1972 and moved to Texas about 15 years ago, said Fizer, whose niece was formerly married to McLaren.

Fizer said McLaren was "a very nervous-type individual" but was intelligent and ambitious.

"He was always looking to do something. He was going to discover something or invent something," the sheriff said.

The FBI contacted Fizer about a month ago, seeking information about McLaren.

Wilmington police Detective Gary Brannon was a classmate of McLaren's at Wilmington High.

Brannon remembered McLaren as being a quiet and reserved classmate who wore his hair fashionably long in the 1970s and drove around in souped-up cars.

"He wasn't a troubled person or anything like that," said Brannon, 42. "From what I remember, he pretty much kept to himself most of the time. He wasn't a real outgoing person or big into athletics."

Fizer said McLaren and his wife left Wilmington, a city of 11,200 people 40 miles northeast of Cincinnati, to start a business in Texas.

"He told me they were going to go down there and start this grape arbor and their own vineyard."

He said they divorced about 10 years ago after McLaren drew up his own divorce papers. Both Fizer and Brannon said they knew of no family members still living around Wilmington.

A high school student who wrote about McLaren for the school newspaper, "Hurricane," April 17 said she was impressed with him after talking to him on the telephone.

"He knew what he was talking about," senior Jennifer Burgel told Dayton radio station WHIO-AM. "What he was talking about was way out there, but he was very knowledgeable on what he was talking about. A very nice guy, very pleasant."

Burgel, the newspaper's editor, said she became aware of McLaren's Ohio ties when a newspaper in Texas called the school to confirm he was a graduate.Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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