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ARKANSAS
Ar kansas
PRESS
Publisher Weekly
Vol. 13 | No. 48 | Thursday, November 29, 2018
ASSOCIATION
Serving Press and State Since 1873
After 50 years in industry and one year of health problems, Warren’s Danny Cook ready to get back to work
If there’s anything Danny Cook’s learned in the last few months of his 50-year newspaper career, it’s that he’s not ready to quit any time soon.
Cook, publisher of the Eagle Democrat in Warren, has been sidelined with health problems since last December. Hopefully on the road to recovery now, Cook said this week he’s eager to get back to the same newspaper he started at as a 17-year-old print shop worker in 1968. “A lot of people say, ‘You can afford to retire,’ and ‘You can still pretty well do everything you want for the rest of your life,’” Cook said. “But the last year, the way I have been in the hospitals and laid up at the house looking at four walls at a time, I know I’m not ready to retire. I’m ready to get out of the house.” Cook underwent multiple surgeries over the past year, and he said he’s spent a total of 65 nights at the hospital since December 2017. The medical troubles started during a routine colonoscopy when his colon was accidentally perforated. Resulting complications led to more surgeries. Finally, just two weeks ago, an expert gastrointestinal specialist in Little Rock performed a complicated surgery to repair the problems and hopefully get Cook back to normal soon. Cook praised his wife, Pam, for managing the paper and tending to his health during what’s been a long and trying year for both. “My wife is more or less keeping the paper going until I get back. If it hadn’t been for my wife, I don’t know what I would have done. She’s worked a lot in the year since all my trouble started,” he said. “It’s really been a toll for her, keeping me as healthy
as I can be and running the newspaper, too.”
The Cooks met at the same newspaper they now own, and just this month they made their final installment payment to the widow of former owner Bob Newton. Danny Cook bought the Eagle Democrat from Newton in 1998.
jobs prevented him from leaving the industry altogether in 1980, when he got training in the HVAC business and opened Cook’s Heating and Air. That business remains open to this day.
“I had been there so long when we bought it, it was in my blood to stay in the newspaper business,” he said. Just before his 18th birthday, in August 1968, Cook started “at the very bottom,” he said, working with hot type. When the publication transitioned to offset printing, Cook took the lead and learned the craft as production manager. As he gained seniority at the paper he also gained responsibilities. In the later years of Newton’s ownership, he said the publisher would often be at his Hot Springs condominium or at the beach, leaving day-to-day operations to Cook. “I caught on to the print industry pretty good,” Cook said. “After learning all about offset printing, I started making pretty good salaries; there wasn’t a better job out there and I was still interested in (the newspaper business.) Mr. Newton put a whole lot of responsibility on me.” Newton gave Cook the first opportunity to buy the newspaper when he decided to retire, Cook said. Additionally, Newton gave him flexibility to pursue his other business interest, the heating and airconditioning trade. Newton’s willingness to let Cook do both
Danny Cook shows off the Eagle Democrat in front of the newspaper office in Warren.
“I’ve kept running both of them all these years,” Cook said, though the avid crappie fisherman admits he’s been tempted to retire to the lake and to doting on his four grandchildren. “I’m not going to say that if someone came along right now and offered me anything close to what the newspaper was worth, I wouldn’t sell it.” One thing’s for certain, though, he’ll never venture far from Warren. “I was born here and I’ve been here all my life,” he said. “I’ve never been in the big towns that much. I can be at my deer camp in 15 minutes, and a lot of places I like to fish I can be at within the hour. I’ve always enjoyed the small towns.”