Danny
Tackett releases new book
Big Stories from a Small Town
A story of growing up in Armington
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[July 18, 2015]
LINCOLN
- Dan Tackett, a retired managing editor of The Courier in Lincoln,
is releasing his first book, “Big Stories from a Small Town.”
Lincoln IGA owners Bill Campbell and Charlie Lee will host a book
signing at their store on Saturday, Aug. 1, and the author’s cousin,
Rick Tackett, will host another book signing Aug. 2 at his
restaurant and bar, The Outpost in Armington. More details,
including times, will be released later.
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The book is now available at Prairie Years in downtown Lincoln,
and copies will also be available at the Logan County Fair, which
opens Aug. 2.
“Big Stories from a Small Town” is a collection of non-fiction
essays about growing up in and around Armington during the 1960s.
Many of the stories focus on the eclectic cast of characters Tackett
vividly remembers from his pre-teen and teenage years in the small
Tazewell County town.
“The folks I wrote about, they were real salt-of-the-earth types,
mainly the little people who spent a lifetime at hard work, little
play and with their own individual traits unabashedly on display for
the world to see,” said Tackett. “When I worked as a reporter and
editor at The Courier, I always thought the common man and woman
didn’t get their fair share of ink in the newspaper. We were too
busy writing about small-town politicians, Illinois politicians who
landed in prison and all the public meetings we covered. But I never
met anyone on the street or along a country road that didn’t have a
good story in them. So, ‘Big Stories from a Small Town’ is all about
that very essential and important class of people that seldom makes
headlines.
“A good example of that is my mother. What an influence she had on
me and scores of other folks who were lucky enough to cross her
path. But Ma, as I called her, was never a media star. So, yes, she
gets a fair share of long overdue ink in ‘Big Stories.’
The book includes essays on Arthur “Gabe” Ludden, Armington’s
longtime barber; Dr. Herbert Lang, one of the last true country
doctors; Billie Mert Israel, a farmer who might have been a baseball
star; James DeLoss “Pete” Mapes, the beloved music and band teacher,
who spent his entire career at Armington’s schools; and Gary Sutter,
Tackett’s best buddy in high school. Other chapters dwell on some of
Tackett’s family members, including his late mother and grandmother,
his uncles Poddy and Peck and his brother Mike, a retired state
police officer who resides in Lincoln.
“It took a lot of years to realize that all these folks left some
pretty deep marks on me and helped to carve the mold of who I became
as the years rolled by,” said Tackett. “If I had to establish a
target audience for my book, it would be the people who grew up in a
small, rural town with small-town values, perhaps before a thing
called Vietnam ripped at the seams of our country.”
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Tackett dedicated his book to his children and grandchildren. “I don’t recall
sharing these stories of my childhood and teenage years with you,” he wrote in
the book’s dedication. “I hope you enjoy them and perhaps might come to know the
early influences that played a part in me becoming who I am. Indeed, I’ve
probably become one of those old codgers who crossed my path as I ventured
through the slow and often painful process of getting dry behind the ears.”
Many of the essays were spawned by some of the author’s weekly columns,
Tackett’s Take, that have appeared in Saturday editions of The Courier. “Most of
the time, I feel somewhat restricted by the length of these columns, and when I
finish writing one, I often think there was so much more to say. So, I took some
of those old columns, in most cases rewrote them and came up with expanded
versions,” he said.
Tackett, who still considers Armington his hometown, joined The Courier news
staff as a part-time Mason County reporter and correspondent in 1968. After a
stint in the U.S. Army, he was offered a full-time reporter’s position. He went
on to serve as the newspaper’s city editor, assistant managing editor and
managing editor, a position he held when he left staff in mid-2012.
He and his wife Carol make their home in Lincoln with two canine companions.
[Dan Tackett]
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