Danny Brinker

COOK – There are certain constants about Danny Brinker, this year’s Grand Marshal for the Cook Timber Days parade.
One is his volunteerism in the community, the primary reason he’s being honored this year by the Timber Days committee. Another is his wife, Roxanne, his partner since the early years of his work at Hill Wood Products, where they met. And a third is a flat toothpick, Brinker’s signature trademark since the day he quit smoking over four decades ago. It’s become such a part of his identity that he wouldn’t be photographed without it.
“People wouldn’t recognize me without it,” he laughed.
Brinker learned the value of volunteering while growing up in a small town near Rockford, Ill.
“My dad was big in the Moose Club,” Brinker said. “We kids were always at the Moose Club.”
But of the four Brinker siblings, it was Danny who seemed to take to volunteering the most.
“I enjoy it,” he said.
After graduating from high school, Brinker answered the call to military service by enlisting in the Navy in 1966, at the height of the Vietnam War. He served overseas as a corpsman with the Marines in 1968-69 and ended his military career in 1970.
Immediately after the war, Brinker’s life was a bit nomadic for a few years.
“I just bummed around. I was in Maine for a while,” he said. “My sister lived up on Pelican Lake, she’d moved there with her husband, so I came up this way in 1976.”
Brinker got a job at Hill Wood Products and was there for 37 years. It was a good steady job and it introduced him to his wife-to-be in 1978. But while his life before coming to Cook was somewhat impulsive, his courtship of Roxanne was more deliberate.
“It was eight years,” Brinker said. “We’ve been married, what, 37 years?”
After coming to Cook, Brinker got involved with the local VFW post and the Masons in Virginia, until the Masons moved to Eveleth.
“That was just too far,” he said.
But the Cook Lions Club has been a suitable replacement for the Masons that, along with the VFW, has allowed Brinker to be a vibrant and enthusiastic contributor to the community. Brinker said that if there’s a need, he’s willing to tackle it.
“I do everything, really,” he said. “I don’t pick one certain thing. When the Lions are going to do hamburgers (for Timber Days) I’ll be down there one night cooking. We do the Halloween party, and we do the pancake breakfast. And we do anything else they need. I don’t do the brat shack because I work at Zup’s on Fridays. But yeah, I’m there whenever they need me.”
Brinker also used to have a regular volunteer gig cooking brats and burgers at the Cook Care Center on Fridays but had to discontinue that when the COVID pandemic restrictions were imposed.
Brinker said he’s been impressed and gratified to see the spirit of volunteerism in the community.
“I’m surprised at how many people show up to help out,” he said. “At the VFW we have folks come in and help us run our burger nights. The majority of them in the kitchen are all volunteers and they don’t belong to our post. They’re just local people coming in and volunteering so that we can have it open.”
Like most communities, Brinker said the volunteer base in Cook seems to skew toward the older generation that grew up with a strong sense of community and who have the time to devote to volunteer activities. He’d like to see some younger people get involved and noted that the Lions have added a number of younger members in recent years.
Brinker commended another local project driven by volunteers, the creation of Veterans Riverfront Park, an effort spearheaded by Cook Friends of the Park that was supported by the VFW.
“We donated quite a bit to help get it started,” he said. “They did a beautiful job down there.”
Brinker, who serves as quartermaster for the VFW, is also a member of the post honor guard, and noted the collaborative efforts they have with the Orr American Legion members.
“When you do a funeral, it’s nice to have a big group, so three or four of them have come down, and when they don’t have enough people we go up there and help them,” he said.
When he’s not volunteering or toting out customers’ groceries at Zup’s, Brinker said he and Roxanne enjoy fishing. Crappie have their attention right now, and they’ll focus on walleye some as the summer progresses.
Also competing for his attention are five grandchildren, all under the age of three and including the recent addition of twins. The Brinkers’ daughters Jill and Heidi live in Buhl and Gonvick, not too far away for Danny and Roxanne to enjoy some family time.
Brinker will be out volunteering again after taking his turn leading the Timber Days parade, as the Lions Club is planning to be out cleaning up the town after the three-day festival. That and other volunteer activities are good ways for people to get involved in the community and get to know their neighbors, Brinker said. Being around other volunteers is what Brinker enjoys the most.
“You get to meet different people,” he said. “The people you meet are the ones that make you have fun. It doesn’t seem like it’s a job when you’ve got a bunch of people around to join in. The Lions are a good group – they like to kid around and have a good time. It’s not work, it’s fun.”