Dan Eakin is a friend of mine. At 85, Dan has been in the newspaper business well over 65 years.
He started as a teenage typesetter at his hometown DeQueen Bee — in DeQueen, Arkansas.
For about that same amount of time, Dan has been an ordained Baptist minister.
He has made a career of practicing both professions across East and Northeast Texas.
You’ll remember Dan from his time here at the News-Record and the decade he spent at Collinsville Bible Baptist Church.
He left here to take a job at a church and newspaper in Silsbee.
I went to his retirement party at the Silsbee Bee last summer.
Retirement didn’t stick. Dan recently took a job at the Lufkin News and, by last count, wrote almost the entire front page of last Sunday’s edition.
I once asked him how many newspapers he’d worked at.
“I lost count,” he said. “But probably 25 or 30.”
“How many churches have you pastored?” I asked.
“I lost count there, too,” he said. “But probably 25 or 30.”
He has performed well over 300 baptisms and thousands of weddings. The latter was a result of maintaining a healthy wedding officiating business for many years.
For a time, in the 1980s and ‘90s, he managed a professional photography business. He always told me a newspaper man must have a few other side jobs in order to make a living (he is correct about this).
Nonetheless, I was Dan’s publisher for a few years here in Grayson County.
I enjoy leading people from whom I am blessed to learn so much. I respect the work experience of co-workers and seek to learn as much from them as possible.
While Dan flattered me once saying I was the “best boss he’d ever had,” I was the one who benefited more from the relationship.
One of the most valuable newspaper lessons I learned from Dan was one that transcends into every walk of life.
“I learned a long time ago, there is a lot to publishing a newspaper,” he once said. “Whether you are daily or weekly, there is just as much work. Your staff may vary in size, but it is still a lot of work. I found out a long time ago as long as you DO SOMETHING, the work seems to get done. It doesn’t really matter where you jump in, but as long as you are constantly doing something — it will all come together.”
It seems simple, but it can be a tough concept to grasp. When you have a pile of work and don’t know where to start, start somewhere — do something.
When you have gone a month without balancing the checkbook, and you don’t know how to get it all caught up; just jump in somewhere and start working the calculator — do something.
If you want to start exercising, but don’t know where to start; just start — get up and do something.
When you realize you have talked about writing a book for ten years and don’t know where to begin; just sit down and start — do something.
Do anything.
By doing something, Dan can maintain two jobs at the age of 85.
You don’t lead hundreds of people to salvation and unite thousands of couples in marriage overnight. These things take action, and action requires doing something. Dan has always done something.
In his bestselling book “The Final Summit,” author Andy Andrews asserts that “do something” are the two words that can save humanity.
Author Mark Manson reminds us that just doing something inspires motivation. Once we start doing something, it feels good. We are motivated to then do more... and more... more... and then more.
Action yields motivation which, in turn, compounds into more action. It is a snowball effect that all we must do to initiate is: do something.
Austin Lewter is the director of the Texas Center for Community Journalism, an instructor of journalism at Tarleton State University and the publisher of the Whitesboro News-Record. He can be reached at [email protected]