| Sources |
- [S4] Knoxville News-Sentinel (Tennessee), 5 Mar 2006.
Elsa chambers Dykes obituary
- [S27] The Daily Times, http://www.thedailytimes.com/, (Blount County, Tennessee), 18 Nov 2011.
Columnist, former Times staffer Dykes dead at 78
Renowned East Tennessee journalist Jim Dykes died Thursday morning at the age of 78 at his Rockford home, known as Condorhurst, after a long battle with cancer.
“They’ve been giving him six weeks for two years now, so I can’t say that it was out of the blue,” his son, David Dykes said Friday. “But the thing is if you keep pulling those eleventh-hour recoveries, then when it actually comes to the eleventh hour it’s kind of shocking.”
Dykes began his journalism career at the then-Maryville Times in 1965. Editor Dean Stone said, “He found his niche when he became a columnist.”
Dykes later joined the staff of The Knoxville News-Sentinel, followed by The Knoxville Journal. During his tenure at The Journal, Dykes penned a popular weekly column, “Without a Paddle,” a compilation of which was published in 1987 as “Without a Paddle: Meticulously Wrought Essays From The Knoxville Journal.”
In October, Dykes received the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award.
In a recent interview with Jack Neely of Metropulse, Dykes said, “I’ve had at least 35 jobs. I’ve done a lot of damn stuff.” Among those cited by Neely: “a miner, a logger, a sailor, a security guard, an electrical tower jockey ... telephone man, a professional stage actor, a Vol linebacker, and very briefly, a rodeo rider. And for about 26 years, he was a newspaperman.”
Dykes was also a Navy veteran, having joined at the age of 17, and served on a destroyer during the Korean War.
He was a native of Townsend and attended Alcoa High School, as well as University of Tennessee.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Peggy Elaine Booker Dykes; a daughter, Sally Ann Dykes Pearson; his mother, Elsa Chambers Dykes; father, Boone Dykes; and sister, Eleanor Flo Patterson.
Survivors include his children, Kathleen Marie Pace, Kelly Margaret Dykes, James Robert Dykes III, and William David Dykes; two grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; as well as a niece and nephew.
No public service is planned.
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1933 - 2011 (78 years)
, d. Sep 1965 (Age 55 years)