Danny A. “Booner” Brinkman, who worked for the City of Platteville for 39 years, died at Southwest Health Thursday.

“He may have been small in stature, but he was big in heart,” said Paul Budden, with whom Brinkman worked in the city Streets Department for 17 years until Budden’s retirement in 2013. “He’d do a lot of things that nobody else would do. You didn’t have to ask Booner to do it; he’d do it on his own.”

Brinkman, 55, began working for the city while he was still a Platteville High School student, in 1977. 

He graduated from Platteville High School in 1978 and then began working for the city Parks and Recreation Department full-time.

“If you needed something, he was there,” said Budden. “He was a good guy to work with, an easy guy to work with. He was the type of guy that wasn’t just a foreman; he was one of the guys.”

Budden said Brinkman dealt with health problems for several years.

“He always put his job above his own needs,” said Budden. “The average person would have pulled the plug and looked for an easier way out, but not Booner.”

Brinkman’s funeral was held Tuesday (see Obituaries, page 5A).