Katrina hits the state and ends up helping with
rescue efforts in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward where
he sees some things that causes him to have night-
mares and develop symptoms of PTSD.
Hayes gets treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder and meets several veterans of the First
Iraq War. Through their stories the book deals with
a lot of veterans’ issues.
Brock shared that this book also includes a link
to a murder mystery that is the plot of Book 2 in
the series. The Life and Times of Tom Hayes has a
lot of action, but it is also described as a romance.
Hayes meets and falls in love with a nun which
creates some interesting situations. Brocks says the
book deals with a lot of different elements.
And if the name of the college sounds familiar to
you, it’s because he based it on Cullman’s St. Ber-
nard College which is now St. Bernard Preparatory
School.
“In most of my writing, there is a factual per-
spective and/or setting. That is the case here. I
attended St. Bernard from 1969-1971, and used the
campus as the setting for this story. I moved it to
St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana to use Hurricane
Katrina in the story,” he said.
The book and its characters are fictional, accord-
ing to Brock, but there may be some people in the
Cullman area who think they recognize certain
characters, although any similarities are uninten-
tional.
Brock said that while retirement gave him the
opportunity to write; he stays very busy and mostly
spends his winters writing. The first book actually
took two winters just to write and two to complete
the editing process.
“I only write when the mood hits me, which is
mostly when the weather is bad and I can’t be out-
side,” Brock says laughing.
Brock credits his cousin, Reba Ponder Weiss, an
author who has written several books of her own
and served as the editor of his first book, for her
encouragement. “Reba provided a lot of help with
the writing process and in the development of
the characters,” he said. “I taught history in high
school and she taught me writing when I retired.”
The second book in the Life and Times of Tom
This is a photo of Darrell Brock and his wife, and
mother while standing on the steps of Shady Grove
Methodist Church.
Hayes series has been completed and is in the edit-
ing stage. It should be out soon. Brock is currently
putting the finishing touches on his third book
which focuses on events in Winston County after
the Civil War and during reconstruction. It should
be out by the time this article is published.
As for the Life and Times of Tom Hayes, Brock
said he believes there could still be a happy ending
for the characters, despite the heavy topics that
book two deals with.
Looking back, it is evident that Brock was fasci-
nated by his family’s history and stories from his
98-year-old mother and her memories and the sto-
ries passed down from her father and grandfather,
George Washington Kilgo, aka The Black Hawk.
The Black Hawk is the story of George Wash-
ington Kilgo, his great grandfather, and George’s
struggles during the Civil War in Winston County,
Alabama. Writing this book is Brocks’ way of pre-
serving a fascinating chapter in his family’s story
and sharing it with his kin.
“I wanted to write the first Black Hawk book, for
my mother, because it’s her grandfather’s story,”
Brock said.
He explained his mom repeated stories told her
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