LET’S TALK

Loss of super lady, husband ripples across state, nation

I just didn’t seem to be able to get it together this particular morning, June 12. It was a hot, blah morning, and I was dragging my feet.

I’d checked my cell phone - which I usually put on “silent” for church, then inevitably leave there - earlier that morning: no calls or messages. When I checked it again, shortly before finishing up the morning routine, I saw that a couple of people had called multiple times. One of them was my aunt, who had been keeping me posted on a mutual friend who’d gone into the hospital the previous week, been diagnosed with cancer and had been scheduled to take her first round of chemotherapy the day before.

I knew if I called her back, it wouldn’t be good news. It always seems to be this particular aunt who has to break really bad news to me, including the news that fateful March 1997 morning that my mother had passed away.

Sure enough, it wasn’t good news. The friend had died.

There was a pause as I digested this. Had the cancer taken her that suddenly?

My aunt continued. Our friend’s husband had passed away, too.

The news had gone from bad - the cancer diagnosis - to worse - the friend’s passing - to unreal. Husband and wife had perished in a house fire. “It’s all over Facebook,” said my non-Facebook-using aunt.

After returning the other call (from a friend who’d gotten the same news), I tuned in to Facebook as well as the television reports. It wasn’t a bad dream. It had happened. Donna Creer, and her husband, Don, were gone.

I hadn’t felt quite this way since … March 1997.

I wasn’t the only one. There were few people in Little Rock who had not at least heard of Donna Creer - through her job as executive director of the Magnet (school) Review Committee; her work with the Arkansas Gospel Announcers Guild, the Gospel Workshop Music of America and the Stellar Awards (gospel music industry); her side gig as a wedding planner; her volunteer work for the annual Arkansas Black Hall of Fame induction ceremony; her turns as a master of ceremonies at various events; and her stints as a voice-over artist and star of television commercials, among others.Everybody knew, and loved, her. Same for Don, a classical singer who performed at area events.

My relationship with Donna blossomed sometime in the mid-1990s. I’d listened to the Sunday morning gospel radio show she’d co-hosted, and for a time we did volunteer work together. Eventually she began showing up in one or another of my newspaper features. One of the earliest in our archives is a short Sept. 22, 1996, story about gospel plays, in which she’d been an expert source.

Then came others: a brief quotation by Donna in a June 27, 1997, story about an Arkansas Artist Showcase hosted by the Arkansas Gospel Announcers Guild, which she headed. An Aug. 29, 1996, review of a local gospel recording artist, with a couple of quotes from Donna.

On Aug. 6, 1998, came my story about Donna and her radio-show co-host, the Rev. Clarence Thornton, part of a series about black morning radio personalities in the community. The two told of how the station hosting their show had taken over the radio frequency of a station that featured big bands and crooners from the past - and how they’d had to field calls from angry listeners of the former station. One of them had told Donna the gospel music sounded like “background music for a voodoo convention,” Donna recalled in the story. Very sweetly, Donna had responded: “Ma’am, where are those held?”

But that was Donna. As many have said, she did everything with a smile and never seemed to be in a bad mood.

More clippings in which Donna appears: my June 8, 2005, story about theme weddings, for which she was, again, an expert source. An Aug. 6, 2006, feature about the emergence of multiple black Little Rock-area stations with an all-gospel format, which mentioned the move of Donna and Thornton’s show to one of those stations. A Sept. 10, 1996, first-person story about getting a hair weave via a stylist who counted Donna among his customers and who had been referred to me by her. A March 15, 2009, Let’s Talk highlighting everyday heroes in the community, one of whom was nominated by Donna. In-passing mentions of her in short write-ups, mostly having to do with Arkansas Gospel Announcers Guild conferences.

A Sept. 25, 2011, High Profile account of a benefit concert was my last mention of her, and it included a photo of her and Don.

There were many more stories in which Donna wasn’t mentioned, but that she helped to influence. She was my go-to person if I needed a good story source, or wanted to know anything about anything.

And, in a nondestructive way, I envied her. She was one of the people I knew who seemed to do everything right and could mega-multitask with poise, grace, good humor and that ever present smile. I often wished I could do half as many things half as well.

But her busy pace apparently took its toll on her body. Cancer came knocking. And before any of us would know how that story would end … Donna’s story ended.

I’m grateful for the memories, and know that Donna’s name and legacy will live on.

But I’m still wishing I could just wake up.

E-mail: [email protected]

Style, Pages 47 on 06/23/2013

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