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After learning a little more about Darrell Staedtler’s accomplishments last week, I decided to look at copies of The Llano News in 1983 to see how much of a stir his Number One hit, A Fire I Can’t Put Out, made in Llano that year. For the surprising answer, read on.

The year started calmly enough. A new rectory was under construction for the Catholic Church; Gary and Beverly Gatliff bought Jim’s Jewelry from her parents, Jim and Sue Stumfoll, who were retiring. Horst and Barbara Mueller, from Wiesbaden, Germany, opened the Kalaka Palace restaurant in Rex Wooten’s building on Bessemer. Courtney Osbourn showed the Grand Champion steer; Four Japanese businessmen visited Buttery Hardware to see how Americans were marketing their Echo and Kioritz products, and Sam Oatman was the new assistant D.A.

The biggest advertisers were H.E.B. (in Kingsland), Pinkie’s, Shelley’s Grocery Store and Acme Dry Goods. Hasse’s and Charlie’s also had large ads. Cleo Hallmark Parisher wrote a fascinating article called “Buchanan Dam as I Remember it,” telling about how Brown & Root started clearing 17,000 acres of lake basin, from “960 elevation to 1820,” in June of 1936. They removed many homes and beautiful pecan trees, but still had 7,000 acres to go when the lake suddenly filled all the way up in 1937.

Llano National Bank ran a “Thanks, Llano!” ad, saying that their first week’s deposits had totaled $1,600,000. Don Mabry Ford, at 122 East Main, advertised that customers could “save hundreds in finance charges” at their special rate of 11.9 percent APR. Hal Cunningham was given a special cake, decorated as a newspaper, for his 24th anniversary as publisher of The Llano News. The headline read, “After owning The Llano News for 24 years, he was promoted from janitor to president.”

After extensive renovations at the old Badu House, Earl and Ann Ruff, of Houston, held a formal opening at their restaurant and club on April 16. The Llano Bridge had one lane closed most of the summer as the highway department cleaned and painted it. Then after some controversy, City of Llano annexed land across from the high school in preparation for a new Walmart. The museum was remodeled and expanded to include the building next door. Llano High School held its graduation ceremony for 55 seniors. Jimmy Beasley was named “a 1983 U.S. National Award winner in mathematics.” Bryan Miiller won the P.T. Montfort Fellowship at Texas A&M.

Tommy Duncan was promoted to vice-president of First Llano Bank; Mac Hutto was appointed DPS Emergency Planning Officer for Llano County, and Hal Cunningham announced his retirement even as the office of The Llano News was getting a facelift. The Log Cabin Restaurant opened three miles east of town on Hwy 71, and the slab was poured for the new Llano National Bank building on Ford Street.

And as George Strait’s version of Darrell Staedtler’s song reached #14 on the charts, he finally made the front page. The following article is from The Llano News, July 21, 1983. I corrected some obvious typos, but left the singer’s misspelled name as it appeared in the story.

Staedtler Song Climbing Charts

By John Bramhal

There are 20,000 songwriters currently out of work in Nashville. Of the total population there involved in music, only a tiny percentage manage to eke out a living for even a short time. The chances for having an actual hit are infinitesimally small. Still, some do manage to overcome these overwhelming odds and produce a hit.

Llano’s own Darrell Staedtler is in that august group. Staedtler’s latest song, “A Fire I Can’t Put Out,” has been recorded by George Strake, and has been in the charts for the past seven weeks. It will be listed as number 14 with a bullet in Billboard magazine next week, and Nashville promoters are predicting that it will be “the biggest hit that George Strake ever had.”

The song’s success marks the peak of a 15-year C&W career for Staedtler. In addition to songwriting, Staedtler has also gone the performing route.

“I recorded for Dots Records in 1968,” said Staedtler, “but I don’t have a personality.”

“It takes a number of personal qualities,” said Staedtler. “One, you have to never take no for an answer. Two, you have to keep thinking you’re going to make it.”

“If it means writing 2,000 letters, you do it. You just ignore all the odds and just go to it.”

“Most people,” said Staedtler, “aren’t willing to sacrifice their family and everything else in life for their career.” One good example, he said, is Loretta Lynn, who seldom saw her two youngest daughters throughout their childhood.

Staedtler said he has been told that the Strake record has every chance to make the top ten. Previous efforts by Staedtler that eventually made their way to the top ten were: “It’s Another World,” and “I Can’t Keep Away From You,” by the Wilburn Brothers and “Blues and Boogie Woogie,” recorded in 1975 by Billy “Crash” Craddock. Through it all, though, Staedtler still yearns to have one of his songs become Numero Uno.

The only song he has written in the last three or four years, “A Fire I Can’t Put Out” seems to stand a better-than-even chance of granting Staedtler that hoped-for Number One hit.

“It’s a freak kind of a fluke,” Staedtler said of the song. “It’s doing more than I really thought it would.”

The song, which Staedtler began in 1979 and only finished in 1982, has sold 80,000 copies, well-deserved repayment for the myriad torturous hours Staedtler agonized over it.

“It doesn’t come easy like it used to,” Staedtler said of his songwriting agility. “I worked a concentrated three hours on just one verse. The whole song is just 12 lines long, but it took me three years. A country song is probably the hardest to write – it’s a very rigid formula.”

After living in Nashville for 15 years, Staedtler finally returned to his hometown of Llano after being “burned out” on the C&W capital.

“The music community there is about the size of Llano. Just 16th and 17th Avenues,” said Staedtler. “To me, creativity is a very small part of it. It’s a business; it’s politics.”

“Nashville has smog. It rains all the time. It’s nothing like the Nashville movie.”

If “Fire” climbs all the way to the top of the charts, it will be a milestone for Staedtler. And for Llano. The Great American Dream will have come true one more time.

The week after this article appeared, Bud and Sarah Buckner purchased the newspaper. Fred Taylor became the News Editor, and Darrell Staedtler never got another mention (at least none that I could find). He tells me that his song made #1 on September 1, and that fact was advertised on the marquee sign in front of the courthouse, but there was apparently nothing about it in The Llano News. Jennie Lou Leeder won the district 4-H fashion show with her formal gown, and Lee Roy Strayhorn retired after 33 years with the telephone company. Bill’s Dollar Store burned, Walmart canceled plans for a Llano store, and Ace Reid visited Llano. John Hoover, of Burnet, began construction on the Llano Square Apartments. But judging from the local newspaper in 1983, Darrell Staedtler’s song never made #1.