Danny Tackett releases new book
Big Stories from a Small Town
A story of growing up in Armington

[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.

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.”

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]