Jack Neely reports:
Jim Dykes, the singular newspaperman, died Thursday morning at the age of
78. He was a reporter whose byline was familiar by the late 1960s, when he
wrote for the Maryville Times and the News Sentinel, but he may be best
remembered for his irreverent and often outrageous column in the old daily
Knoxville Journal: "Without a Paddle" ran weekly from the early 1980s to the
early 1990s. Many were collected in book form in a 1987 collection of the
same name, a local bestseller.
Our cover story about Dykes, published just last week, was based on a
lengthy interview in October, supplemented by a shorter one, just 11 days
ago. Both were conducted at the unusual Rockford home he called Condorhurst.
Raised in Townsend and Alcoa, Dykes never graduated from college or even
high school, and became a reporter only after stints as a telephone man, a
miner, a lumberjack, an electrical lineman, and an actor. He was also a
veteran of the Korean War, having served on a U.S. Navy destroyer in the
Pacific.
Mostly retired from journalism for the last 20 years--he came out of hiding
now and then to accept a freelance gig--he'd been seriously ill with cancer
of the stomach for more than a year, staying mostly at Condorhurst with
occasional excursions with friends and family. He rallied just four weeks
ago when he came downtown to the Crowne Plaza to be the guest of honor, the
recipient of the Friends of Literacy's East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame
Lifetime Achievement Award. Looking natty and surprisingly comfortable in
his uncustomary suit and tie, he stayed throughout the long banquet, seeing
many old friends and obviously enjoying himself.
Dykes was a father of five; his beloved wife Peggy and one daughter
predeceased him.
He had an influence on certain uncommitted slackers of an impressionable age
by making a weekly newspaper column seem like a hell of a lot of fun.
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