The Ennis Daily News:
Author Mike Looney To Speak At Rotary

It’s all in how you sell it. First-time author Mike Looney can vouch for that.

The Dallas-area insurance broker, who is appearing next week at the Ennis Rotary Club, has enjoyed phenomenal success with his baseball-themed novel, “Heroes Are Hard to Find.” It was a book that almost never was.

Originally geared as a movie script, his inspirational story didn’t inspire any home runs with producers. As a novel, Heroes Are Hard to Find found its audience. And since success has a way of delivering big, it looks like the writer may see his brainchild hit the screen after all.

With cover art designed by NFL icon Charlie Waters, Looney’s touching book about the game he loves has come to the attention of filmmaker Mike Humphrey, currently involved with ATO Pictures, the movie production arm of the Dave Matthews Band.

As Looney will tell Rotary members next Tuesday at the group’s weekly luncheon at the Ennis Country Club, his book isn’t just on baseball but about “making the right choices in life.”

Set in old East Dallas where the author grew up, Heroes Are Hard to Find is a tale about the renewal of faith, of self-discovery and the possibility of second chances.
“Looney’s writing is colorful, and his moral’s true-blue,” one reviewer pegged it recently.

And the author has definitely been getting the word out.

Represented by Hal Copeland PR in Dallas in a publicity blitz, Looney has lately appeared nationally on some 70 radio programs (along with Waters) as well as before numerous live audiences at clubs like Rotary.

The hit he’s made of his first book has spawned a second and a third: Tickle the Light is another sports novel while Following GWL’s Trail” is an account of his dad’s World War II combat career.

Born in Arkansas, Looney moved with his family to Dallas in 1963. A graduate of Woodrow Wilson High in 1967, he attended Texas Tech, graduating in ’71 with a marketing degree. He now lives in Lakewood with his wife, actress Sandra Looney, and their three daughters, Sloan, Kate and CeCe.

The Ennis Rotary Club, headed by president Richard Webb and president-elect Jane Mize, is in its 35th year. The organization meets each Tuesday at the Ennis Country Club, located at 2905 Country Club Road.

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