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Post by aggierattler on Jan 12, 2016 20:01:03 GMT -5
 Parker, Herbert Col. Ret. Herbert Gerald Parker, PhD, 86, died Friday, Janaury 8, 2016. Funeral services are incomplete.
www.legacy.com/obituaries/tallahassee/obituary-browse.aspx?date=today&page=1&type=1&ln=P
NOTE FROM AGGIERATTLER: Col. Herbert Parker worked in the Army ROTC Departments at both North Carolina A&T State University and Florida A&M University. He was a great friend and financial supporter of athletics at both universities. He will be greatly missed. |
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Post by moonboman on Jan 14, 2016 3:08:26 GMT -5
Sorry to hear this. Co. Parker was head of ROTC when I was a sophomore back in the day.
He was a very nice man.
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Post by aggierattler on Jan 14, 2016 3:29:31 GMT -5
Sorry to hear this. Co. Parker was head of ROTC when I was a sophomore back in the day. He was a very nice man.
Remembering Col. Herbert G. Parker's "super" life
by Byron Dobson, Democrat senior writer 5:32 p.m. EST January 13, 2016 Decorated military officer, community leader, dies at 86 Family and friends are mourning the loss of Herbert G. Parker, a decorated Korean and Vietnam war veteran who rose to the rank of colonel and in retirement became a forceful figure in Tallahassee civic life.
Parker, 86, died last Friday at Miracle Hill Nursing & Rehabilitation Center following an extended illness. His funeral service will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Bethel AME Church, 501 W. Orange Avenue. A wake service will be held 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday at the church.
Parker’s life was one of aspiration and achievement. He went from being denied access to his local segregated high school in Arkansas to earning a doctorate at Florida State University, from enlisted man to colonel in the Army.
Parker was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, the ninth of 12 children. During the 1930s and 1940s, black students were barred from attending the only high school in Fayetteville, forcing many to leave school in the ninth grade. The other option was to move elsewhere, a choice that Parker made with family assistance.
In a 2004 story in the Tallahassee Democrat, Parker described that period.
“We had to go out of town to attend high school, and that’s if your parents could afford to send you and you had family in other places,” he said. “Everyone was on their own.”
Parker left to attend high school in Springfield, Missouri, and later moved to Durham, North Carolina, to live with an older brother. He graduated from Durham's Hillside High School.
At his brother’s urging, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1947. He entered Officers’ Candidate School in 1950 and received a commission as a second lieutenant, Infantry. During the Korean War, he served as a rifle platoon leader, rifle company commander, and heavy weapons company commander. From 1953 to 1957, he commanded a rifle company and heavy weapons company in the 505th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division.
He later attended the United States Army Command and General Staff College in 1960. He was later assigned to the 101st Airborne Division after graduating. From 1962 to 1965, he was assigned to the Joint Staff Military Assistance Advisory Group, Republic of China, as adviser to the Psychological Warfare Group, Ministry of National Defense and staff adviser to the Airborne and Special Forces units in the Army of the Republic of China.
In 1965, Parker and his family returned to the United States, where he became a professor of military science at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. Parker received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1962 and would later earn a master’s degree from NCA&T in 1970.
From 1968 to 1969, he commanded all U.S Special Forces in the Mekong Delta, Republic of Vietnam. In 1969, at the age of 39, he was one of the youngest black officers to be promoted to colonel.
In 1969, he was assigned to the U.S Army Civil Affairs School at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and became the commandant a year later. Parker moved to Tallahassee upon his appointment as professor of military science at Florida A&M University in September 1973 until retirement in August 1977.
Once retired from the military, Parker earned a doctorate in education from Florida State University and entered a second career in public service. He became Florida’s first executive director of the Crimes Compensation and Victim/Witness Services program. He later served as director of the Division of Administration for the Florida State Department of Education, where he worked from 1991 until his retirement in 1994.
COL. (Ret.) Ronald M. Joe worked as an assistant professor of military science under Parker, whom he credits with helping to shape his military career.
“He is a friend and a role model and a mentor,” Joe said, who credits Parker with his promotion to major before he went to his next appointment in 1976. “He made me know that I could make it. He was like a doctor who went on to become a surgeon,” Joe said, describing his friend as a “professional soldier.”
In retirement, Parker was active in numerous organizations, including the Tallahassee Urban League, The Capital Chordsmen, Boy Scouts of America, and The Capital Rotary Club of Tallahassee, becoming its first black president in June 1999.
Parker never lost the discipline he learned in his 30 years of military service. His attire always was neat. He conditioned himself by following a strict exercise regime that included brisk, extended walks through his Killearn neighborhood. He enjoyed many sports and was a golf enthusiast that extended beyond his regular play at local courses to his annual attendance at The Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia.
Friends remember his cheerful smile, his affinity for telling great stories, which made him a popular master of ceremonies at community events. He was also well known for his patented response, “Super,” when asked how he was feeling. The irrepressible Parker sometimes followed with, “Life’s still worth living.”
“Herb had a tremendous influence on those persons and things in which he was involved; and he positively impacted those around him,” said Florida Parker, his wife of 56 years.
The Rev. Ernest Ferrell, president and CEO of the Tallahassee Urban League, was one of those persons influenced by Parker, a former chairman of the Urban League board.
“His presence had an immense impact on my life as well as the Urban League," Ferrell said. "He was a great person in the community; he loved the community."
In addition to his wife, Parker is survived by a daughter, Christie Parker Smith (Gerald), Olney, Maryland, and grandson, Matthew Warren Smith.
He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Jan. 20.
Contact Democrat senior writer Byron Dobson at bdobson@tallahassee.com or on Twitter @byrondobson.
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