Fort Myers FL Funeral Homes
$20 OFF
Heart-felt tributes to honor a dear friend or loved one who has passed away
13932 Palm Beach Boulevard
Fort Myers, FL 33905
(239) 694-6444
2701 Cleveland Avenue Suite A
Fort Myers, FL 33901
(239) 337-7311
2966 Drive Martin Luther Kin
Fort Myers, FL 33916
(239) 337-5222
1589 Colonial Boulevard
Fort Myers, FL 33907
(239) 936-0555
1600 Colonial Boulevard
Fort Myers, FL 33907
(239) 936-2177
9231 Cypress Lake Dr
Fort Myers, FL 33919
(239) 481-4341
Fort Myers FL Obituaries and Death Notices
Monday, December 12, 2016Sen. Bob Graham on Charles Reed, his chief of staff when he was Florida governorUnder Reed’s watch in Florida, from 1985 to 1998, universities added a 10th campus, Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers. Florida A&M University was selected as the first College of the Year by Time magazine and the Princeton Review College Guide in 1997, a significant accolade for the historically black college. And he oversaw the advent of a popular prepaid tuition program for future state university students.Reed also pushed for tougher standards for student-athletes to meet minimum academic requirements, including a C average, to remain eligible for play — a stance that put him at odds with many coaches.“I know what it means to be offered an opportunity, and I know what it takes to earn it,” he told the Herald in 1989.In California, Reed headed the nation’s largest public university system from 1998 to his retirement in 2012. He remained chancellor emeritus.During his tenure, enrollment soared by more than 100,000 students, but so did tuition. The system also dealt with a series of budget cutbacks before and after the recession.However, Reed was applauded for expanding educational opportunities for minorities and lower-income students.Reed is survived by his wife, Catherine Reed, two children and five grandchildren.The Associated Press contributed to this obituary.
Monday, November 28, 2016Wednesday at 94.Laird served on the destroyer USS Maddox in the Pacific in World War II and carried shrapnel from the crash of the Japanese plane until his death of respiratory failure in a Fort Myers, Fla., hospital. For all his life, Laird remained both a strong advocate for national defense and skeptic of sending American troops into long wars in Asia and the Middle East, eventually helping to end the Vietnam-era draft."He came back with a different view of war and a different set of priorities and we're all better for it," said his son, David Laird, a real estate developer in McLean, Va.Bob Williams, a friend and former campaign aide to Laird, said the former Pentagon head had been thinking recently about ways to ensure that either President-elect Donald Trump or his losing opponent, Hillary Clinton, picked a capable secretary of defense to lead the nation's military."Oh my, yes, he took that so seriously because of the power you had and the power to influence the president," Williams said of the defense appointment.Laird served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and received the Purple Heart. Back in Wisconsin, he served in the state Senate and represented the 7th Congressional District for nine consecutive terms, helping to build up the Marshfield Clinic and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.As the top defense appointee for President Richard Nixon, he presided over the withdrawal of a half million troops from Vietnam and the establishment of an all-volunteer army.He helped select two vice presidents; guided ...
Melvin Laird, Nixon defense secretary at the height of the Vietnam War, dies at 94 - Washington Post
Monday, November 21, 2016Richard M. Nixon’s defense secretary at the height of the Vietnam War and designed policies that eventually led to the American withdrawal from combat operations, died Nov. 16 at a hospital in Fort Myers, Fla. He was 94.The cause was complications from congestive heart failure, said a son, David Laird.A shrewd and influential Wisconsin Republican, Mr. Laird became his party’s leading expert on military affairs during his 16 years in the House of Representatives.Out of party loyalty, he reluctantly agreed to leave Congress and become defense secretary in January 1969, at a moment when U.S. troop strength in Vietnam — around 550,000 — was nearing its peak. During his four years at the Pentagon, Mr. Laird dramatically reduced U.S. troop involvement in the conflict, supported the cause of bringing home U.S. prisoners of war held under horrible conditions in North Vietnam and worked to end the deeply unpopular draft.“Laird was not a revolutionary, seeking to change the Pentagon in fundamental ways,” military historian Charles A. Stevenson wrote in “SecDef” (2006), a history of the secretaries of defense. “Nor was he merely a manager, fulfilling his legal responsibilities and leading the Defense Department. Instead, Laird was the quintessential firefighte...
Fort Myers News
Monday, December 12, 2016Sen. Bob Graham on Charles Reed, his chief of staff when he was Florida governorUnder Reed’s watch in Florida, from 1985 to 1998, universities added a 10th campus, Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers. Florida A&M University was selected as the first College of the Year by Time magazine and the Princeton Review College Guide in 1997, a significant accolade for the historically black college. And he oversaw the advent of a popular prepaid tuition program for future state university students.Reed also pushed for tougher standards for student-athletes to meet minimum academic requirements, including a C average, to remain eligible for play — a stance that put him at odds with many coaches.“I know what it means to be offered an opportunity, and I know what it takes to earn it,” he told the Herald in 1989.In California, Reed headed the nation’s largest public university system from 1998 to his retirement in 2012. He remained chancellor emeritus.During his tenure, enrollment soared by more than 100,000 students, but so did tuition. The system also dealt with a series of budget cutbacks before and after the recession.However, Reed was applauded for expanding educational opportunities for minorities and lower-income students.Reed is survived by his wife, Catherine Reed, two children and five grandchildren.The Associated Press contributed to this obituary.
Monday, November 28, 2016Wednesday at 94.Laird served on the destroyer USS Maddox in the Pacific in World War II and carried shrapnel from the crash of the Japanese plane until his death of respiratory failure in a Fort Myers, Fla., hospital. For all his life, Laird remained both a strong advocate for national defense and skeptic of sending American troops into long wars in Asia and the Middle East, eventually helping to end the Vietnam-era draft."He came back with a different view of war and a different set of priorities and we're all better for it," said his son, David Laird, a real estate developer in McLean, Va.Bob Williams, a friend and former campaign aide to Laird, said the former Pentagon head had been thinking recently about ways to ensure that either President-elect Donald Trump or his losing opponent, Hillary Clinton, picked a capable secretary of defense to lead the nation's military."Oh my, yes, he took that so seriously because of the power you had and the power to influence the president," Williams said of the defense appointment.Laird served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and received the Purple Heart. Back in Wisconsin, he served in the state Senate and represented the 7th Congressional District for nine consecutive terms, helping to build up the Marshfield Clinic and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.As the top defense appointee for President Richard Nixon, he presided over the withdrawal of a half million troops from Vietnam and the establishment of an all-volunteer army.He helped select two vice presidents; guided ...
Melvin Laird, Nixon defense secretary at the height of the Vietnam War, dies at 94 - Washington Post
Monday, November 21, 2016Richard M. Nixon’s defense secretary at the height of the Vietnam War and designed policies that eventually led to the American withdrawal from combat operations, died Nov. 16 at a hospital in Fort Myers, Fla. He was 94.The cause was complications from congestive heart failure, said a son, David Laird.A shrewd and influential Wisconsin Republican, Mr. Laird became his party’s leading expert on military affairs during his 16 years in the House of Representatives.Out of party loyalty, he reluctantly agreed to leave Congress and become defense secretary in January 1969, at a moment when U.S. troop strength in Vietnam — around 550,000 — was nearing its peak. During his four years at the Pentagon, Mr. Laird dramatically reduced U.S. troop involvement in the conflict, supported the cause of bringing home U.S. prisoners of war held under horrible conditions in North Vietnam and worked to end the deeply unpopular draft.“Laird was not a revolutionary, seeking to change the Pentagon in fundamental ways,” military historian Charles A. Stevenson wrote in “SecDef” (2006), a history of the secretaries of defense. “Nor was he merely a manager, fulfilling his legal responsibilities and leading the Defense Department. Instead, Laird was the quintessential firefighte...
