An Arizona native, Alan was born in the small southeast town of Safford in October of 1965 and moved four days later to Morenci where he was raised and attended school. As a young boy Alan spent much of his summers with his grandfather on his ranch outside of Duncan where he would spend hours looking through the boxes of old Arizona Highways magazines and the old, true west, wild west and old west magazines. He was fascinated reading about the history of the old west including such characters as Cochise, Geronimo, his favorite, Wild Bill , Billy the Kid and his other favorite Doc Holiday.