Danny Tackett, 74, of Clarksdale, Miss., died Friday, March 28, at Clarksdale Nursing Center, with his wife by his side, from complications following a fall last summer. Following a private family burial, friends and loved ones are invited to visitation at Clarksdale Methodist Church on April 1, 2025, at 10 a.m., with memorial service following at 11 a.m.
Meredith Nowell Funeral Home is handling arrangements.
Vernie Daniel Tackett was born at home in Quitman County, Miss., on Sept. 10, 1950, the youngest of seven children of Vernie and Opal Tackett. His sisters remembered their mother singing “Danny Boy” to him when he was a baby. Mr. Tackett farmed, and the boys grew up as farmers and athletes.
Danny graduated from Lambert High School, where he excelled at football, basketball and baseball. After playing football on a scholarship at Northwest Community College, he attended Delta State, where he played baseball for famed Coach Boo Ferris. His dreams of becoming a major league baseball player were crushed in a car accident that his doctors did not think he would survive. But after several weeks in a coma, and several more in bed eating pea soup fed to him by his sister Ashia, he gradually learned to feed himself, to talk and to walk again.
Danny worked for Tackett Farms (and later TNT Farms), coached kids’ baseball, enjoyed playing cards, pool and dominoes with his friends, and didn’t let his limp slow him down or dampen his zest for life.
When he was 31, he asked a woman to dance with him at a night club in Clarksdale, and the next chapter of his life began. Danny and Rachel got married the next summer, in 1983, and Danny was welcomed into the family by three stepchildren, aged 9 to 19. They grew to love Danny dearly, and he loved them. Rachel, too, was accepted warmly into the close-knit Tackett family.
Over the years, Danny and Rachel enjoyed taking trips to visit friends, in New Orleans (where Danny liked to buy shrimp and bring it back to sell to his friends or cook for his family), and Arkansas (where they enjoyed the horse races). Danny loved giving gifts to Rachel and others, he loved – often gifts of food, which he loved. Danny was an Ole Miss fan, and a New York Yankees fan, and loved going to Delta State baseball reunions. He also loved watching professional wrestling, westerns and old war movies. Mostly he loved his family, which grew to include grandkids and great grandkids, and great nieces and nephews. And his dogs: Mollie, then Boss, then Rascal.
As he aged, Danny’s old injuries continued to present new obstacles. Following back surgery in his early sixties, he had to relearn to walk again. After complications from heart surgery in his mid-sixties left him on a feeding tube for several months, he had to relearn to eat again.
In the summer of 2024, he fell in his home and broke his back, leading to a decline in health that he was not able to recover from. Throughout his ordeal, he remained hopeful, continued to love and appreciate his family, kept his sense of humor, and never lost his will to live, or his faith in God.
The family wishes to express their appreciation to Danny’s care team at Clarksdale Nursing and Gentiva Hospice, as well as the many friends whose prayers, visits, and expressions of love and care sustained Danny and Rachel over the last year.
Danny was preceded in death by his parents; two sisters, Ashia Tackett and Johnnie Faye Walker; two nephews, Je Nassar and Mike Walker; and a granddaughter, Josie Griffith.
In addition to his wife, Danny is survived by two brothers, Donald Tackett (Betty) and Roy Tackett (Faye); two sisters, Dorothy Ann Nasser and Sue Tackett; three stepchildren, Jennifer Hale, Jason Hale (Helen), and Jackie Duff; two nieces; three nephews; several cousins; 11 grandchildren; and four great grandchildren.
