RICHMOND, Va. – Jimmy Dean, a country music legend for his smash hit about a workingman hero, “Big Bad John,” and an entrepreneur known for his sausage brand, died on Sunday. He was 81.
His wife, Donna Meade Dean, said her husband died at their Henrico County, Va., home.
She told The Associated Press that he had some health problems but was still functioning well, so his death came as a shock. She said he was eating in front of the television. She left the room for a time and came back and he was unresponsive. She said he was pronounced dead at 7:54 p.m.
“He was amazing,” she said. “He had a lot of talents.”
Born in 1928, Dean was raised in poverty in Plainview, Texas, and dropped out of high school after the ninth grade. He went on to a successful entertainment career in the 1950s and ’60s that included the nationally televised “The Jimmy Dean Show.”
In 1969, Dean went into the sausage business, starting the Jimmy Dean Meat Co. in his hometown. He sold the company to Sara Lee Corp. in 1984.
He was also a bit of a Conservative:
In the late ’60s, Dean entered the hog business — something he knew well. His family had butchered hogs, with the young Dean whacking them over the head with the blunt end of an ax. The Dean brothers — Jimmy and Don — ground the meat and their mother seasoned it.
The Jimmy Dean Meat Co. opened with a plant in Plainview. After six months, the company was profitable.
His fortune was estimated at $75 million in the early ’90s.
Having watched other stars fritter away their fortunes, Dean said he learned to be careful with his money.
“I’ve seen so many people in this business that made a fortune,” he told the AP. “They get old and broke and can’t make any money. … I tell you something, … no one’s going to play a benefit for Jimmy Dean.”
Rest in Peace, Mr. Dean. You have more than earned it.
Politics is one thing, real life is another… Some very sad news to report at WizBang Blog:
Hugh Slatery
Wizbang author Hugh Slatery, who published here as HughS, died suddenly Sunday evening. Hugh was 53 years-old, and is survived by his mother, his three children and their mother, two brothers, and a niece and five nephews.
I think it would be a good idea for everyone to say a silent prayer this night and into the week for the Slatery family and for everyone over at Wizbang Blog. May the Lord Jesus Christ be with those children, especially the oldest one.
Another legend from the golden era of Television has died: (H/T AmSpec Blog)
Art Linkletter - Rest in Peace
Art Linkletter, who encouraged both kids and grown-ups to say the “darndest things” during his decades as a genial but gently mischievous television personality, has died at age 97.
The host of “People Are Funny” and “House Party” of the 1950s and ’60s died Wednesday at his home in the Bel-Air section of Los Angeles.
“He lived a long, full, pure life, and the Lord had need for him,” said his son-in-law, Art Hershey, the husband of Sharon Linkletter.
Linkletter had been ill “in the last few weeks time, but bear in mind he was 97 years old. He wasn’t eating well, and the aging process took him,” Hershey said.
Linkletter hadn’t been diagnosed with any life-threatening disease, he said.
Linkletter was known on TV for his funny interviews with children and ordinary folks. He also collected their comments in a number of best-selling books.
“Because of Art Linkletter, adults found themselves enjoying children,” said Bill Cosby, whose style interviewing kids on his own show in the late ’90s was often compared to Linkletter’s.
“An amazing fellow, a terrific broadcast talent, a brilliant businessman. An all-around good guy,” CNN’s Larry King added about his longtime friend and frequent guest.
Asked what made Linkletter so appealing to audiences, King said, “He had an unusual voice, a twang to his voice that was immediately recognizable. And he looked like your favorite uncle.”
I could write so much; but, much of it has already been written. He was one of the great ones from an era when people and yes, Democrats still loved this Country.
Today my heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45am 16th May. Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away. Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all. We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us. Please give us a few days of privacy to deal with this terrible loss. Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever.
Television showed chunks of flaming fuselage scattered in a bare forest near Smolensk, where the president was arriving for a ceremony commemorating the murder of more than 20,000 Polish officers by the Red Army as it invaded Poland.
The governor of Smolensk region, Sergei Antufiyev, said the plane did not reach the runway but instead hit the treetops and broke apart. An official with the Russia’s Investigative Committee said possible causes were bad weather, mechanical failure and human error.
The crash came as a staggering blow to Poland, killing what may be a tenth of country’s top leadership in one fiery explosion. In the numb hours after the crash, leaders in Warsaw evoked the horror of the massacre at Katyn, which stood for decades as a symbol of Russian domination of Poland.
Why this is so horrible:
Photo from the crash site In Russia
“It is a damned place,” former president Aleksander Kwasniewski told TVN24. “It sends shivers down my spine. First the flower of the Second Polish Republic is murdered in the forests around Smolensk, now the intellectual elite of the Third Polish Republic die in this tragic plane crash when approaching Smolensk airport.”
“This is a wound which will be very difficult to heal,” he said.
Former president Lech Walesa, who presided over Poland’s transition from communism, cast the crash in similarly historic terms.
“This is the second disaster after Katyn,” he said. “They wanted to cut off our head there, and here the flower of our nation has also perished. Regardless of the differences, the intellectual class of those on the plane was truly great.”
Poland is a good friend of the United States, and President Kaczynski went out of his way to honor Ronald Reagan for the fight to free Poland from communism when he visited the United States in 2007 (photo above right from Reagan Library).
Kaczynski also worked to acknowledge the Holocaust and the extermination of millions of Polish Jews during World War II, including honoring Poles who risked their lives to save Jews, and just recently giving a Polish national medal to the head of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Israel:
On January 27, 2010, during a ceremony marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day held at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland, Polish President Lech Kaczy?ski awarded Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate Avner Shalev with the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.
During the ceremony, which marked this year 65 years since the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Army, speeches were delivered by the President and Prime Minister of Poland, the Prime Minister of Israel, international delegates and figures, and Holocaust survivors. Polish President Kaczy?ski also awarded decorations during the ceremony to United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Director Sara Bloomfield and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Director Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywi?ski.
The three decorations were awarded for “eminent services in educational and museum work commemorating the victims of the Nazi German labor camps, concentration camps, and extermination centers, and for their accomplishments in the development of the Polish-Jewish dialogue.”
I can only fathom what the people of Poland are going through this day. My prayers are with the families, and with the people of Poland this evening. If there was ever a time, for President Barack Obama to show some class and leadership; this would be that time.
More information will be posted, as it becomes available.
A special message to the people of Poland:
Do dobrych ludzi Polska.
Uprzejmie informujemy, ten pisarz serce jest podzielone na wie?? o swoje straszne straty. Prosz? wybaczy? z?e t?umaczenie, jak ja jestem przy pomocy Google Translate.
Mam nadziej?, ?e ten komunikat ma sens dla mieszka?ców Polska.
Nie mog? tu siedzie? i wyobra?a? sobie co to smutek przechodzi. Jednak wiem, ?e jest to tragedi?.
Uprzejmie informujemy, ?e modl? si? za was wszystkich i ?e modlitwy, Comfort, Wszechmog?cego Boga i Jego Syna Jezusa Chrystusa b?dzie z wami wszystkimi. To jest moja nadzieja i wyrazi? moje osobiste modlitwy, ?e pokój, który pochodzi od Boga tylko w niebie, b?dzie tam komfort was wszystkich, w momencie utraty.
Niech Wszechmog?cy Bóg w niebie, Bless i przechowywa? ka?dego z was.
-Patrick
W?a?ciciel
politicalbyline.com
English Translation:
To the good people of Poland.
Please know this writer’s heart is broken at the news of your horrible loss. Please excuse the bad translation; as I am using Google Translate.
Hopefully this message makes sense to the people of Poland.
I cannot sit here and imagine what sort of sorrow you are going through. However, I do know that this is a human tragedy.
Please know, that I am praying for you all and that I prayer that the Comfort, of the Almighty God and his son Jesus Christ would be with you all. It is my express hope and my personal prayer, that the peace that only comes from God in Heaven; would be there to comfort you all, in your time of loss.
May the Almighty God in Heaven, Bless and Keep each and every one of you.
Keith, if you happen to read this, hang in there buddy:
Theodore Oldermann and Keith
Though the financial constraints of his youth made college infeasible, he accomplished the near-impossible, becoming an architect licensed in 40 states. Much of his work was commercial, for a series of shoe store chains and department stores. There was a time in the 1970’s when nearly all of the Baskin-Robbins outlets in the country had been built to his design, and under his direction. Through much of my youth and my early adult life, it was almost impossible to be anywhere in this country and not be a short drive to one of “his” stores.
My Dad was predeceased last year by my mother, Marie, his wife of nearly 60 years. He died peacefully after a long fight against the complications that ensued after successful colon surgery last September at the New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center. My sister Jenna and I were at his side, and I was reading him his favorite James Thurber short stories, as he left us. – Source: Baseball Nerd: Keith Olbermann’s MLB Blog
Because I am a Christian, I will show more class, than has been shown towards the Conservatives, by liberals as of late. Having said all that; May Theodore Olbermann rest in peace and My prayers are with the Olbermann Family. While I may disagree with Keith on his politics, I can much relate to the pain of losing a family member. I couldn’t fathom losing my Dad or Mom this early on. It is, however, eventually inevitable.
Again, my prayers and thoughts are with Keith, his sister and the rest of the family. As I said in the beginning of this blog posting, Hang in there Keith.
