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Today's Featured Biography

 
Linda Ekstam Durkee

Moline native among the stars of reality TV
show
David Burke The Quad-City Times | Posted: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 11:33 pm |

IF YOU WATCH
“Sunset Daze” premieres at 9 p.m. today on WE tv, Channel 68 on Mediacom cable in the Quad-Cities.
For more information on the show, go to www.wetv.com/sunsetdaze on the web.
Linda Durkee-Quigley’s retirement hasn’t meant a rocking chair.
Instead, it’s a rocking new lifestyle in the retirement community of Surprise, Ariz., that is documented
in a new TV series, “Sunset Daze,” premiering tonight on the WE tv cable channel.
The Moline native is one of nine 60-plus residents of Surprise whose escapades are documented in the
10-part series of half-hour episodes.
“It’s been a very empowering, very revealing, but a wonderful opportunity for me,” the 65-year-old
said in a telephone interview Tuesday from Arizona.
After bouncing back and forth between the Quad-Cities and Chicago — her resume includes working
in the Quad-City Times marketing department during the early 1990s, being a model in Chicago,
working at the Rock Island Arsenal and being involved in promotion of the Grand Excursion event on
the Mississippi River during 2004 — the retired event planner moved to Arizona a few months ago.
She was following her boyfriend, Bruce, a retired informational technologies consultant.
She met a producer and director for the series and hoped she’d simply be hired for a job behind the
scenes. Instead, she’s one of nine main characters in the show.
The unscripted series follows each of them in their lives in the Phoenix suburb, known for blinged-out
golf carts, “daily happy hours, hot tub mischief and wild nights at the singles clubs,” according to a
news release.
“It’s inspiring to watch each of us do different things we haven’t done before,” Durkee-Quigley said.
“There’s going to be someone out there who identifies with each of us.”
Critics already have compared the show with — albeit a few generations removed — the MTV hit
“Jersey Shore,” complete with sexual escapades and debauchery.
“Some of it is that way,” Durkee-Quigley said with a laugh. “A lot of times, people think, ‘How can
that be possible?’ But that is the whole point we’re trying to get across to people. You’re not dead at 64.
We’re a lot closer to still being in our 30s and 40s. There’s great energy we all have. I know I found out
a lot.
“All of us are very romantic,” she continued. “We love being in love, still, and we’re very involved
sexually, but at our age, that’s a good thing. A lot of time, TV’s afraid to talk about that, but this is
about all that: individuals finding love, chasing love, broken hearts, all that.”
Durkee-Quigley, who is identified only by her first name on the show, is described as the “New Girl in
Town,” wondering whether the others will accept her.
“At this point I’m probably one of the more subdued characters — but I haven’t come out of my shell
yet,” she said. “What they try to do is take your own personality ... and see how they blossom.”
A 1963 graduate of Moline High School, the former Linda Ekstam has four brothers, a sister and other
family members who still live in the Quad-Cities.
She said they may not expect what they see.
“I’ve told them not to be surprised. I’m still their daughter, still their mother, still their grandma,” she
said, “but I’m sometimes a little wild, so you’ll have to deal with it.”
Durkee-Quigley said the atmosphere in Surprise is very much like her hometown.
“It typifies all the personality and friendliness that the Quad-Cities does. Everybody’s so personable
and friendly,” she said. “It’s like someone just dropped you into this wonderful land of Surprise, which
really is a perfect name. It’s all about life and great energy.”
She hopes “Sunset Daze” will help people more than just with its entertainment factor.
“Retirement used to be just relax and enjoy yourself,” she said. “But when you realize what’s out there,
it’s really going to help a lot of people.”

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