Danny Malkovich--In Loving Memory
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[When Danny Malkovich's health turned very fragile about a year ago, he told me he hoped that lying to doctors about no history of heart problems and diabetes in his family and a six-pack of diet A & W root beer would buy him several more editions as publisher of the Benton Evening News.
Danny died Friday of a heart attack at the age of 59. The death of this beautiful man saddens me immeasurably.
Dan's father, the late Dan Malkovich died at the age of 52 from a heart attack in his Texas hotel room in March 1980 after a short walk during a trip to address a Texas group on the importance of preserving state historic sites.
Barrels of ink and profound caring and conservation streamed through the Choisser and Malkovich families, thus galvanizing his calling into the community newspaper business.
Danny never met a stranger.
His mother worked for the newspaper well into her retirement years and every time she answered the telephone it was like hearing an old friend.
Danny himself had an amazing grace that was the underpinning of his large frame. He accepted who he was and the role he played in the community with a keen understanding of the human condition. He embraced the fact that his father was a great man who served the Illinois Department of Conservation for many years and that his brother John Malkovich became a great, international actor. He never tried to leverage either. Writing and production and business skills ran throughout his family.
That's why Danny took his role as a community leader very seriously.
Danny was engaging and captivating. He laughed at himself and was a great communicator. To the publishers around him he was a pied piper who could navigate the sensitivities and foibles of hometown newspapering.
He saw the things that others could lose sight of in the glare of the sun. And, he laughed at the absurdity of pomp and circumstance. He believed that no man who walks this earth is better than another.
He had an extraordinary sense of family with nothing more important in his day than a youngster's little league game.
He got to the point quickly.
To understand Danny, you had to know his dad--Dan Malkovich-- who served briefly as editor of the Du Quoin Evening Call after the tenure of another great newspaperman, the late Virgil Bishop.
His father graduated from the Benton Township High School in 1943. He married JoAnn Choisser, whose family had founded, owned and published the Benton Evening News. He served during World War II in the 82nd Airborne, then returned to earn his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 1951. Ultimately the couple would take over the Benton Evening News.
On December 21, 1951, one of the worst mining disasters in Southern Illinois history occurred at the Orient No. 2 mine between Benton and West Frankfort. There were 119 men killed and the search for survivors went on for days. Dan conveyed the hope and heartbreak of the disaster daily in his remarkable accounts. The disaster and Dan's writings prompted changes in regulations protecting the safety of mines and the welfare of those who worked there.
He was also a great conservationist. Danny once said of his father, "On Saturdays and Sundays my dad would always be at Shawnee Forest looking for new and exciting discoveries." In 1962 Dan began publishing and editing Outdoor Illinois, a magazine devoted to conservation and the history of the state. "Dad was an environmentalist before his time."
Family members all bought into this love.
The Du Quoin Evening Call did some of the artwork and engravings for that great magazine.
Danny's father was also a founding father of the Rend Lake Association and director of the Illinois State Historical Society, the Lincoln Heritage Trail Foundation and the Illinois Nature Conservation Association. He would go onto become an acting director of the Illinois Department of Conservation in 1970, where he served for one year under then Gov. Richard Ogilvie.
He returned to his work with the Benton Evening News and Outdoor Illinois until his death in march 1980.
And, all the love that Dan brought to the great outdoors, Danny brought to the pages of the Benton Evening News.
Visitation will be from 4 to 8 p.m. today at Hobbs-Johnson Funeral Home in Benton, and from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011, at Whittington Church in Whittington.
Services will be at 1 p.m. Tuesday at the church, with the Revs. Mark Minor and Julie Smith officiating. Burial will be in Maple Hill Cemetery in Sesser.
Memorial contributions may be made to Whittington Church, 200 W. Main, Whittington, IL 62897; or First United Methodist Church, 108 E. Matthew, Sesser, IL 62884.