William D. Deskins

A man of diverse interests and talents, William “David” Deskins was born in Pikeville to Bill and Lois (Anderson) Deskins, his childhood was spent in several places along the East Coast. As his father sought work, David and his sister, Jane, moved with their family throughout Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. During his teenage years, the family returned to Pikeville, where David spent the remainder of his youth.

1967 Pikeville High School graduate David Deskins lettered in football as an offensive and defensive tackle. He was named First Team, All Area and East Kentucky Mountain Conference, and played in the 1966 Williamson Kiwanis Bowl, which featured all-star players from Southern West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky.

Deskins earned a Bachelor of Science in English Literature with a double minor in Political Science and Drama from Pikeville College in 1971. While there, he portrayed England’s King Henry II in A Lion in Winter as well as King Pellinore in Camelot. As a playwright, he wrote A Lesson in Daisies, which was performed by the Peach Orchard Players.

He also entered the literary world as a published poet in 1973 with a volume titled No Blues for the Renaissance of Late. Selections from this volume appeared in national literary magazines of the time, including POEM, University Press, Huntsville, Alabama; Approaches, Elizabethtown, Kentucky; and The College Poetry Review, Los Angeles, California; as well as local publications Twigs, Wind, and Bastion Review.

Deskins married Barbara Patteson Fox, in 1972. He built the couple’s first home on Greasy Creek, using dovetailed logs and featuring a wraparound porch. Married 54 years this year, they are the parents of three: twins Sarah and Matthew and daughter Rebecca, and grandparents of five: Sarah’s Noah and Sophie and Rebecca’s Nicholas, Jacob, and Emma.

From 1972 through 1980, Deskins served as a Conservation Officer with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, assigned to the 7th Wildlife District, which includes Pike County. In 1978 he was honored as the first recipient of the Shelly Nickel Award for outstanding contributions to the restoration of the Eastern Wild Turkey in Kentucky, presented by the Kentucky Chapter, National Wild Turkey Federation. 

For six years, 1981-1987, he worked with his father, William M. Deskins, for the family business, Primary Energies, as tipple supervisor, loading coal in what he describes as “long days, hard work, and coal dust.” 

His lifelong interest in astronomy (he bought his first telescope in 1964, at age 16, with money he earned from a summer job, when most boys his age were saving for a car or truck) served as inspiration for his first book, Amateur Adventures with Halley’s Comet, which documented the 1986-87 apparition of Comet Halley from all corners of Earth. A small ad that ran one time in Sky and Telescope magazine asked amateur astronomers around the world to submit their photographs of the comet, along with information about when, where, and with what type of film and camera they took the pictures. The coffee table-type book features entries from 25 states, Washington, D.C., 12 foreign countries and 76 individual photographers as well as pictures taken by the European Space Agency’s Giotto spacecraft, used with permission from the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. The book earned accolades from Stephen Edberg with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, who reviewed it for Sky and Telescope.

His next publishing venture was the result of a remarkable discovery he made while a student at Pikeville College. He joined Professor Bruce Brown in curating the books and papers of Sylvia Auxier, one of the finest lyric poets in Kentucky literature, widely published, and a teacher at Johns Creek High School. In the process, he discovered two books of poetry by Effie Waller Smith, a Pike County native and a female African American author, an almost unheard-of combination in the late 1800s/early 1900s. After reading Songs of the Months (1904) and Rhymes from the Cumberlands (1909), Deskins began an extensive research and discovery project into her life and writings. In 1987 he reprinted her books of poetry at his own expense and completed a biography of Miss Effie, which remains unpublished at this time.

In 1992 Deskins wrote the introduction to the Collected Works of Effie Waller Smith, published by Oxford University Press. He was invited to do so by Henry Louis Gates Jr., American literary critic, professor, historian, filmmaker, and host of Finding Your Roots, a PBS television series. Gates serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Students of poetry and African American literature throughout the world are now reading Miss Effie’s poems; it is doubtful this would be possible had David not discovered her two books in the attic.

After a brief time as Sports Editor of the Appalachian News-Express, and a stint as Hunter Training Officer for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (30 counties in Eastern Kentucky), Deskins resigned as a state employee to seek political office. He was elected Pike Circuit Court Clerk in 1992 and re-elected for a total of four terms, retiring in 2012 after a total of 35 years of public service. This period saw the conversion of court records from paper “hard” copies to digital computerized copies, perhaps the most significant modernization in the history of this state agency, as well as plans for the new Judicial Center on Main Street that now houses local and state courts.

Kentucky celebrated its bicentennial in 1992, and Deskins was commissioned by the Pike County Bicentennial Committee to write a county history. Although the committee could only afford to print 1,000 copies, Pike County: A Very Different Place received the highest critical acclaim: Dr. Thomas D. Clark, American historian, retired chair of the University of Kentucky’s History Department, and the Commonwealth’s Historian Laureate wrote to Deskins, saying his history of the county was “one of the best two or three projects in the Commonwealth . . . and I have read them all.”

At the time of his death, Deskins was writing his first historical novel, centered around the 1862 assassination of Pike County Judge William Cecil, a Confederate sympathizer, by Thomas Jefferson Sowards, a member of McLaughlin's Squadron of Ohio Cavalry under (then Colonel) James A. Garfield. Sowards was Deskins' great-great-grandfather.

A founding member of the Big Sandy Heritage Center Museum, Deskins expanded and updated his county history 25 years later, publishing Ginseng, Coal Dust, and Moving Mountains – A History of Pike County, Kentucky in 2018. He served as an adviser to Pikeville 200, a project of the City of Pikeville celebrating the town’s 2024 bicentennial celebration. In 2023 he was named a Pikeville High School Distinguished Alumnus by the Pikeville Alumni Association, an honor which he said was more precious to him than any other.

David enjoyed hunting, fishing, gardening, researching, and writing. He loved feeding the birds and watching the deer and other wildlife that visited his backyard. He was a devoted Cincinnati Reds fan and rarely missed an opportunity to watch them play.

David had a special love for animals. He lovingly bottle-raised two orange kittens and cherished all of his pets throughout the years. He found comfort and companionship in his beloved cats, Morris and Minie, and his faithful dogs, Rocky and Macy. It brought him peace to know they were waiting to welcome him in heaven.

Above all of his many accomplishments, David was most proud of his children and grandchildren. They were the greatest joy of his life, and his love for them was unwaverin

We will be doing a Celebration of Life at First Christian Church of Pikeville on August 1st, there will be visitation from 1-3 and services at 3 with a dinner to follow.

In Lieu of flowers we would like for blood to be donated or donations to Salvation Army, Red Cross or Humane Society