His novel, Discipline, was published in July 2007 by Greenleaf Book Group; it went on to receive three awards for commercial fiction.

[1][2][3] Ahlgren began his musical career in 1987 as a teenager in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, playing shows with his band The Bentley Tock.

[4] In 1989, they played a well-received show at the University of Alabama's Riverside Amphitheater and recorded a 6-song EP,[4] and then a full-length album in 1992 entitled Able.

[12] A federal grand jury indicted Frank Richard Ahlgren III, of Austin for filing false tax returns that underreported or did not report the sale of $4 million worth of bitcoin in which he had substantial gains on February 6, 2024.

Ahlgren Sr. was involved in developing the university's School of Journalism in 1957, and was inducted into the Tennessee Newspaper Hall of Fame in November 2007.