Maintenance Worker’s Holiday Book to Become a Television Movie

A high school maintenance worker in suburban Chicago who writes in his spare time is having his holiday book turned into a movie for the Hallmark television station, NBC 5 reports.

Rikk Dunlap, a worker on the maintenance crew at Homewood-Flossmore High School in Flossmore, Illinois, wrote a book titled The Christmas Tree Lot which was inspired by a lot he passed each holiday season on his way to a previous job. When he was laid off from that job at an engineering firm after 37 years, Dunlap took a year off to write the book. Even after he returned to work at the suburban high school, he takes time to write every day.

Dunlap will be mentioned in the opening credits of the television film, which airs November 16, the Chicago Tribune reports. He retains the rights to the original 336-page manuscript and his agent is working on finding a publisher.