| Michael Alan Jeu | Frank Blackstock | William "Jack" McGee | H.N. Means Jr. | Arlene Laman |
One North Little Rock police sergeant on the color guard called it the "toughest funeral I've ever don," a farewell to a retired officer respected for his investigative prowess as well as his SWAT team savvy, his eloquence at the podium and heart for his community and young family, who died after a long battle with lung cancer Tuesday, April 7, at age 46.
Hundreds of law enforcement officers from around the state and region packed the Fellowship Bible Church last Friday to honor Michael Alan Jeu, the first Asian officer in the North Little Rock Police Department and the first firearms instructor for the Department of Veteran's Affairs' training institute, for his energy and drive, distinguished marksmanship and devotion to police work and people.
"He saw police work as helping people," said his wife of 14 years, Diane Jeu. "He love North Little Rock, and he saw this as a way to give back to his community."
The outgoing oldest son of a businessman turned pipe fitter and community activist, the late Jack Jeu, Sgt. Jeu was a graduate of North Little Rock High School who joined the police force after trying a number of other jobs, including railroad work, in his early 20s.
He joined the force in 1975 when the department had only 80 officers, training at the academy in Camden, where he quickly made a name for himself for his expert pistol shooting.
Three years later, he would be named Policeman of the Year by the North Little Rock Jaycees and he would move quickly from a patrolman assigned to the streets of Levy to SWAT team member, Honor Guard member, 1988 gold medal Pistol Team leader and sergeant detective assigned to crimes against people.
Colleagues and family members say he was a dogged investigator who would not give up no matter the hours, and the pride of his career were the successful arrests and convictions in the Stacey Rae Erickson murder case and the Johnnie Hubbert abuse case.
He also willing appeared on the America's Most Wanted program that led to the arrest and conviction of a man who had killed an Asian police officer in Springdale.
"Mike was a man of action," said Sgt. Jim Scott. "We spent three days one time working on a case without food or rest...He passed his drive and energy on to his troops. He kept us very focused. He was a mentor."
Others speak of his marksmanship, a hobby that took him to the shooting range many hours a week, especially when he was preparing for competition, and distinguished him in the FBI National Academy's 163rd session, where he was the only officer in history to shoot 100 percent twice in the revolver and pistol "Possibles Club."
He retired in 1995 after 20 years and was hired as the firearms instructor at the national training institute at Fort Roots shortly after the VA decided to arm its hospital security police. He also founded his own hand gun training and home security business, Shooters Inc.
His time away from work was devoted to family, his first marriage having ended in divorce and with the custody of son Jon who shared his interest in police work and joined the force himself three years ago.
"He took me everywhere with him," Jon recalled. "Taught me how to shoot when I was 5 years old...Took me duck hunting and bass fishing...That's when we really got to talk to each other."
He met his wife Diane when he pulled her over for speeding through the McCain Mall parking lot one day and friends would later fix them up on a blind date, and theirs was a marriage of caring support for one another and their three children, the others ages 11 and 8.
"There was never a dull moment in our house. We were always talking, laughing, wrestling or planning our next adventure," Jon said.
"Knowing near the end that he was losing his battle with cancer, Sgt. Jeu wrote each one of his family members a person letter recounting special memories of each of them to hold as a memory of him, his wife said.
More memories surfaced at the memorial service last Friday, she said, when one person after another in the community shared moments of when he had touched their lives, from the gentleness he had used to tell a mother she had lost her son in a car accident to the baby he delivered in the back of his squad car to the soft spot he had showed for the winos he encounted along the way.
But his final display of quiet courage was the way he approached the disease that was consuming him, she noted.
"He was awesome, he simply would not give up," she said, "Days before he died he would take our 11-year-old hunting so he would have that memory...take our little daughter to the Starlite Diner on a date" so they could have that visiting time.
"He talked at our church about the positive effect of his cancer, how it had not been a test as much as an affirmation of his faith. He was never bitter or angry, never asked 'Why me?'"
Besides his wife and children Jon, Spencer and Casey, he is survived by his daughter-in-law, Jennifer Jeu, grandson, Austin Jeu; mother, May Jeu; brother, Richard C. Jeu; and sister, Teresa Huckabay, all of North Little Rock.
The family requests that memorials be made to the Fellowship Bible Church, #1 52nd Place, North Little Rock.
The Times - Apr. 16, 1998
After sowing blood, sweat and cotton into his West Texas farm land for more than 50 years, Frank Blackstock left the farm behind two years ago for city life in North Little Rock.
A cattle trader and flea market bargain hunter who knew everyone within a 200-mile radius of his farm, Blackstock and his wife, Pauline, moved to Arkansas to be near their only child, Wayland Blackstock, the longtime city parks director who recently retired as the city's landscaper.
The couple moved to a home on Nevada Street that was right across from their son and his wife.
The senior Mr. Blackstock couldn't comprehend how his quiet son, despite having lived on Utah Street for 10 years, did not know his immediate neighbors. Every night, the elder Blackstock would walk through the neighborhood, stopping to make new acquaintances.
"After he was there a week, he knew more people in the neighborhood than I did," said Wayland Blackstock, a former North Little Rock Parks director who recently retired as the city's landscaper. "Dad never met a stranger."
On April 7, Frank Blackstock died at age 86 after a seven-month bout with lung cancer.
He was the oldest and last surviving child of the late Lewis and Audie Blackstock's five sons and one daughter. Born on a farm in Central Texas, he had lost his father in a railroad accident as a young adult.
After marrying his sweetheart, Pauline, who grew up on an adjoining farm, he had moved with his five siblings and mother to Roscoe in West Texas, searching for a brighter future. The young couple would settle on a farm, raising cotton, wheat, maize as well as their only son, born in 1935.
The difficult financial times weathered by the Blackstocks and the country during the 1930s forged a thriftiness that remained with Frank Blackstock the rest of his life.
"He said anyone that lived through that time would never forget it," Wayland Blackstock said.
The Blackstocks were solid members of the Church of Christ who made their way out of the fields and into a church pew every Sunday.
The path to church could be a tiresome one for the younger Blackstock, who would have to jump in and out of the family truck to pick solitary weeds his father would spot in the fields they were passing, he recalled.
But the farm was his life, his son said. "He went from the farming with a horse and mule to farming with the modern farming."
And even in retirement he still planted small crops, once producing a one pound, 12 ounce tomato beside his house.
"He just couldn't quit growing things," his son said.
Fishing and storytelling were his other great past times, and he loved to tell selp-deprecating stories about himself and his family, like about the time father and son went night fishing with another family and bored for lack of a nibble, the men drove to a drive-in movie while their children slept under quilts in the bed of the truck.
Except that while they were paying admission, Wayland Blackstock awakened, raising his head just enough that the drive-in employee spied him and charged the dads with trying to sneak something over on him.
"He never let me live that down," Wayland Blackstock said. "While Dad was telling stories, my mother would just sit and listen, shaking her head."
Another favorite pastime was dominos, and he was good at it, his son said, even after his memory began to fade in his aging years.
"My son always said Dad's memory came flooding out onto the table with the dominos," Wayland Blackstock said.
Funeral services were held Thursday, April 9, at Griffin Leggett-Rest Hills chapel. Burial was in Rest Hills Memorial Park.
The family requests that memorials be made to CARTI in Little Rock.
The Times - Apr. 16, 1998
William "Jack" McGee loved to smile, laugh and visit with people. In fact, he was doing just that the evening of July 7. The next day, he died of heart failure at age 75.
The son of Alabama natives who lived on the Dortsch plantation in Scott, Mr. McGee rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Air Force. Despite his humble beginnings, friends say, Mr. McGee lived a life full of purposeful richness.
"He always made himself available," said Gary Neil, a preacher at Levy Church of Christ where Mr. McGee was an active member for 28 years. "He loved people and loved to spend a lot of time with the sick. He gave a lot of himself to others."
He was about 7, when his family moved from Scott to Leland Miss., where he graduated from high school. He then went off to study agricultural engineering at Mississippi State College at Starkville.
He was a student when he met his future wife, then a student at Mississippi State College for Women, on a blind date in 1949.
"You see, you couldn't single date in those days," Mrs. McGee said. "So my roommate set me up on a blind date."
It didn't take long for love to bloom. After graduating from college, the McGees were married in 1950, and Mr. McGee joined the Air Force to serve in the Korean War as an electronic counter-measure officer. He retired from a long career in the Air Force in 1968.
But five years before that milestone, Mr. McGee and his wife and three children moved from Michigan to North Little Rock. After retirement, Mr. McGee stayed very active.
Since childhood, he had always loved airplanes. So in 1976 at the age of 53, he earned his pilot's license only to develop the heart condition that eventually took his life.
But he didn't let his health problems deter him from community work, joining the board of Central Arkansas Christian Schools, serving as president of the North Little Rock Civitan Club and dedicating himself to his church, where he served as an elder.
Neil said Mr. McGee was especially effective in the marital counseling program at the Levy church.
"He taught classes at our Rivercity Ministry," Neil said. "He went on mission trips to Russia, which he financed himself. He was a loving person."
Survivors include his wife, Lillian; two daughters, Sally Allinder of Conway and Nancy McGee of College Park, Md.; a son, Cliff McGee of Keller, Texas, and five grandchildren. Funeral services were held Saturday, July 11, at Levy Church of Christ.
Burial with full military honors was in Pinecrest Memorial Park. The family requests that memorial be made to Rivercity Ministry or Paragould Children's Home in care of the Levy Church of Christ.
The Times - July 16, 1998
H.N. Means Jr. of North Little Rock was an honest businessman who went out of his way to make sure that his customers got the best service at the lowest price.
Mr. Means, 30-year owner of Means' Garage in North Little Rock, died in his home on July 9, of congestive heart failure at age 87.
Before settling in North Little Rock, Mr. Means' father, H.N. Means Sr. moved all seven siblings and his wife, Leta Westbrook Means, from Beebe to Jacksonville and to Cabot before opening an automotive shop at Maple Street in 1918.
Eager to follow in his father's footsteps early on, Mr. Means was driving a wrecker alone for his dad by the age of 10.
"He was very versatile," said his brother, Melvin "Buck" Means. "When he was 18 he knew everything about engines and auto repair." Because of his talents, old timers used to call him "painter," his brother said.
His father would go on to become the first Exxon dealer in Central Arkansas, as well as to own the area's first frame straightening machine.
For years the family would live above the shop, and family members say Mr. Means like to tell the story about how he and his six other siblings were sitting down for dinner one night when their mother got too close to the wood stove and daughter her clothes on fire.
When his father retired in 1957, Mr. Means left his job as service manager for the Studebaker dealer on Broadway to rent a building on Washington and Maple and open the first Means' Garage, which was the only authorized studebaker repair station in the state.
Urban renewal would force the business to move to a site on West Fifth Street where it would stay until 1987, when Mr. Means retired in his mid-70s.
In his spare time, he had always been an avid crappie fisherman, going out virtually "every weekend, until he retired."
After retirement, however, "he would come home every weekend, because he didn't like the weekend crowds" his son H.N. "Hank" III said.
"He was a very simple person," his son said. "He never [even] got into exotic cars." "He was [also}...very well read," his brother remembered.
In business, Mr. Means tried to help his customers. "He really took care of people's cars," his son remembered. "He would talk people into not replacing things that didn't need it. He would try to save them money."
Mr. Means' honest approach won him a loyal customer following and several large accounts servicing the whole fleets of Mayflower Dairy and Alltel, among others.
Mr. Means was a Mason and also served as a deacon and an elder at the First Christian Church in Sherwood.
Preceded in death by his wife who died just five months ago, he is survived by his son and daughter-in-law, H.N. "Hank" III and Emily Means of Little Rock; daughter, Sue Means Beach of North Little Rock; sister, Katie VanEerden of Grand Rapids, Mich.; brother, Melvin "Buck" Means of North Little Rock; four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Graveside services were at noon Saturday, July 11, at Edgewood Memorial Park with the Rev. Miles Cook presiding.
The family asks that memorials be made to Hospice Home Care, 1501 N. University Avenue, Little Rock, Ark. 72207.
The Times - July 16, 1998
A gracious, soft-spoken woman who was the mayor's severest critic, but also his strongest supporter, Arlene Laman represented the city with dignity as its first lady for 16 1/2 years, some of them among the most tumultuous in North Little Rock's history.
While her husband, former Mayor Casey Laman, immersed himself in the issues and quarrels of that day, she remained above the fray during the years he served from 1958 to 1973 and again in 1979 and 1980.
"She would tell him, "You were too hard on the," City Clerk Mary Munns recalled of Mrs. Laman's critiques of the plain-spoken mayor who was her husband for 63 years and her steady companion for 70 years.
"He was building this town and she was the strength he needed," Munns added.
Mrs. Laman, 82, died Jan. 15 after a long fight against Alzheimers disease and degenerative arthritis.
"Arlene could talk to anybody," Casey Laman said. "She was gregarious, easy to know and easy to talk to...She was good for me politically because she knew a lot of people.
Often at his side during official functions and meetings, Mrs. Laman also pursued her own interests, twice serving as president of the North Little Rock Junior Service League, a predecessor of the Junior League of which she was later a sustaining member.
Her lobbying efforts with the city fathers helped establish the Junior League house at 216 W. Fourth St. where the city health department had operated. She also was active in the North Little Rock Woman's Club and lobbied for their home headquarters in Burns Park.
"There was no pretense, no put on." Casey Laman said of his wife. "She had the attitude, I've got to be me.'"
And that included advising him. "She'd go down to council and be sitting out there looking at me," he said. "Sometimes she'd just be shaking her head or give the sign [to] cut it off."
Former Arkansas Gazette reporter John Woodruff, who covered North Little Rock full time for 21 years, remember her as "the ultimate at being polite."
"Anyone who puts up with a reporter calling at odd hours, you've got to be very nice," he commented.
At on point when the mayor was upset with reporters, he worked out of his car to avoid them and Woodruff was calling the Laman home as early as 6:30 a.m. to try to reach him.
But Woodruff didn't always succeed in getting through at first, thought the mayor always eventually called him back.
"She'd say, 'John, he's in the shower,'" Woodruff said.
Her graciousness was never more apparent, Munns said, than the year-sometime in the 1960s-when Casey Laman canceled the annual City Hall Christmas party out of anger at city department heads.
Mrs. Laman, however, convinced her husband that the women who worked in City Hall weren't to blame. "Arlene the peacemaker softened his heart and he relented," Munns said. He agreed to let Mrs. Laman throw a party for the women employees in his office.
Munns said Mrs. Laman always spoke to everyone at City Hall, recalling the day she noticed that a new employee she had just met had no nameplate and quickly moved to get her one.
She was born on Sept. 2, 1915, in Stamps in southwest Arkansas, the daughter of Lee and Minnie Ellis. Soon the family moved to Lonoke where her father managed a dry goods store. He picked up again when she was 8 and headed to Baring Cross where she attended the McRae school and later North Little Rock High School.
Her father was a route carrier for the Arkansas Democrat until he retired.
She was 12 when she met Casey Laman, two years her senior, through Baring Cross Baptist Church.
"I remember seeing her in church," th thought back. Gradually over the weeks he sat closer to her, reaching the same row of pews and finally working up the courage to plop down next to her.
And like many of the youngsters of that era, they started meeting each other after school at the bench under the Oak tree at 14th and Pike. When he was in senior high, then located on Fourth Street downtown, Casey Laman said he would pedal his bicycle "like a fool to get down where she was" getting out of McRae at 18th and Parker streets so he could carry her books in his handle-bar basket.
He went off to college at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in 1930 and they married four years later. Living first on West 11th and then on Parker, he worked for his father's furniture store and she landed a job at Woolworth's earning $1.50 a day.
Soon Mrs. Laman befriended Lois Bryan, who ran Laman Furniture from 1935 until it closed in the 300 block of Main in 1971. They accompanied each other to market, often in Dallas, where they shopped and especially enjoyed eating at the Neiman Marcus Tea Room. "It was just a fun time for us," Bryan recounted.
She said the Lamans took to her "like family," and her husband, Charles Bryan, became Casey Laman's friend and the city's first purchasing agent.
In addition to her membership in the Junior Service League, Junior League and the Woman's Club, Mrs. Laman was an honorary member of Tri Delta sorority, and a member of Green Keeper and Baring Cross Garden Club. "She loved pretty things," Casey Laman said.
She is survived by her husband, a daughter, Christy Simon and son-in-law, Dr. Eugene F. Simon; and three grandchildren.
Funeral services were held at Park Hill Baptist Church on Saturday, Jan. 17. Burial was in Roselawn Memorial Park.
The family requests that memorials be made to the William Laman Library or the Visiting Nurse Association Hospice.
The Times - Jan. 22, 1998