Max Lale grew up on a cotton farm in Oklahoma homesteaded by his grandfather only twenty-five years before his birth. He graduated from Shawnee High School in 1932 in the depths of the Great Depression, and with only $35 in borrowed money, he hitchhiked to Norman where he later graduated with a degree in journalism and an ROTC reserve commission in the army. World War II cut short his newspaper career.

He served in four campaigns in Europe for which he received both French and American decorations. After the war, Lale became publisher of both the Greenville Herald-Banner, and then "adopted hometown," Marshall, where he not only served as publisher of the Marshall News-Messenger, but served on the city commission, as president of its chamber of commerce, and on numerous committees which guided its progression into the twenty-first century.

A lifelong historian, he is a former president and fellow of the East Texas Historical Association, and former president of the Texas State Historical Association. Lale and his wife, Cissy, also a historian with a newspaper background, make their home in Fort Worth.