TOP PHOTO: A home grown success story David Hicks wears many hats and has certainly followed his dreams over the years. A successful businessman, car enthusiast, minister, father, husband, war veteran, and much more, he’s careful to point out that it’s not money that measures success or makes the man. Just out is a new book on life of Hicks life, and he will be featured on WLAF on Thursday at 10am ahead of a 2pm book signing, his first, at the La Follette Public Library.

LAFOLLETTE, TN (WLAF) – The story of the life of Campbell Countian David Hicks is out in his new book entitled “To Be Somebody; Life Story of a Man Called P. David Hicks.”  Hicks will be interviewed on WLAF Radio (AM 1450 and FM 100.9) on Thursday at 10am and will host his first book signing later that day at 2pm at the La Follette Public Library.

Hicks next book signing will be Saturday from 4pm to 6pm at the Chapman Hill Winery at 450 South Chapman Road in La Follette.  He will also be speaking at the Tue., Dec. 14, South Campbell County Rotary Club luncheon at the La Follette United Methodist Church.

Hicks is known by many people in many different ways; family member, friend, entrepreneur, war veteran, car enthusiast and minister. However, his latest venture is something he’s doing for his family, preserving history.

Together with local author Jocelyn Woods Griffo, who grew up in Caryville, Hicks has released a book on his life’s story. “This is a way for me to pass my life’s experiences and story down to my family,” said Hicks. “To Be Somebody; Life Story of a Man Called P. David Hicks” is the name of the Campbell County native’s book and is available online.

Hicks is hosting a book signing at the La Follette Public Library. It’s set for Thursday, December 2, at 2pm.

To Be Somebody

                        Life Story of a Man Called P. David Hicks

                        As Told to Jocelyn Woods Griffo

Synopsis:                    

            Barefoot and dirty, his only pair of pants smudged from rolling abandoned tires for play, the twelve-year-old boy, whose father was a coal miner and his mother a “cutter” in a shirt factory, had only one dream — to be somebody. 

            Born in post WWII forties, raised in the fifties in a scruffy Appalachian small town with extremely limited career opportunities, David escaped in the sixties via the U.S. Army only to find himself at the age of 18 on Hill 875 in Vietnam — one of the deadliest engagements of that infamous war.

            Now strapped with post traumatic stress disorder, he refused to lose his vision of becoming a person of merit — but with conditions: he had to like what was under his skin, never abandon his roots, always treasure and support his family. To do so, he lived by a motto: adapt, improvise and overcome.

            Scrambling over the wall of an eighth grade education, and through years of struggle, he became a highly successful homegrown entrepreneur.  God came along on the journey. Pushing his sons and grandsons to not just shoot for the moon but aim past it, Reverend P. David Hicks of Jacksboro, Tennessee is the boy who became the man who simply wanted to be somebody. Did he succeed?

(WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED – 12/01/2021-6AM)

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