FURNITURE MAKING: TOM SATHER CHOSE MAKING FURNITURE AFTER TEACHING, THE NAVY AND CHIROPRACTIC

It took more than 30 years for Tom Sather to find out what he wanted to do for the rest of his life, and it was something he'd been doing all along.

Sather, 54, of Cobden, Ill., is a woodworker and a furniture maker. As the owner of South Pass Woodworking, he claims that if it is wooden, and someone will pay him, he can make it.

"I'd do anything for a buck," Sather said. "I'm woodworking for a living. Anything that anybody wants me to build, I'll build it.

"But I don't build kitchen cabinets -- they're a real pain."

What Sather will build is, among other things, high-end accessories, tables, entertainment centers and display cabinets.

"High-end means expensive," Sather said, smiling.

He is probably best known for his accessory boxes, but makes his living making custom furniture. Orders for his work are backed up right now, causing him to be a little late in delivering an order of boxes to Southern Illinois University.

These boxes, which are made with exacting care, will be given to visiting dignitaries by the university. This arrangement has distributed Sather's works from Thailand to France and Ethiopia to Russia.

"Boxes get my name out," he said. "Boxes are fun to make, but after you've made three or four hundred of them it gets a little old."

An air of satisfaction hangs about Sather like the smell of sawdust. He's happy with what he is doing. He especially likes being his own boss.

"You're totally in control of the whole works," he said. "The final product is yours and yours alone, no one else's."

During the years that Sather was searching for a profession he could live with, he never stopped working with wood. Even as a cup-turner in a china factory, his first job, then in his four-year stint in the Navy, his five years as a teacher, 11 years as a chiropractor and five years as an administrator at Palmer College, Sather never put aside the tools that would lead to his trade.

"I just found it psychologically uplifting, relaxing. It allowed me to express my creativity," he said. "It's challenging and the fact that when you're doing commission work what you're doing is satisfying the needs of a client and at the same time you're trying to produce a piece that is aesthetically pleasing."

So, three years ago, Sather decided to leave his last post and set up shop as a woodworker. He talked it over with his wife, Ginger, who was raised locally and attended Jonesboro High School, and they decided to move to Cobden.

He moved his table saws, work benches and sanders into an abandoned auto-body shop next door to his house. The shop faces an alley. Since Sather gets most of his work from referrals, he's never bothered to take down the faded auto shop sign that sits over the main bay door.

"I just tell anyone who wants to find the place to look for the sign that says, 'We use Dupont auto finishes,'" he said.

When clients do find their way to Sather's shop, they're met with an artist who takes great pride in creating a product that meets the buyer's needs, and satisfies the artist's creativity.

"I don't start building something until the client and I agree on exactly what it is they want," he said. In this case, exactly means the type of wood, the color, size, shape, what it will be used for, what part of the house it will go into and the furniture that it will fit in with.

"Sometimes they don't know what they want in terms of, 'Well, we haven't given it that much thought.'

"Then it's part of my job to design something."

That kind of attention to detail caught the eye of the wife of the president of Millikin University in Decatur. To accent the president's Frank Lloyd Wright house, Sather was commissioned to build a sofa table and 12-foot-long, intricately detailed dining room table -- the jewel in Sather's crown.

There is no more searching for Sather. He has found what he wants to do for the rest of his life.

"I'm too old to change," he said. "This has everything -- creativity, problem solving, design. I enjoy designing. I enjoy working with wood. It has it's own personality.

"Each species works in a particular way. Each board of each species works in a particular way."

His most recent occupation just can't compete.

"Health care is tough. Working with sick people is not fun," he said. "You don't see that many people smile and laughing when they're sick."