The Arkansas Leader

AN AMAZING LIFEFree Access

THE LEADER HONORS FOUNDER, FAMILY MAN, JOURNALIST

We buried Garrick Feldman, founder of The Arkansas Leader, on Tuesday morning at Oakland Jewish Cemetery in Little Rock.
Longtime friend Rabbi Pinchus Ciment officiated. The newsman died at 4:50 p.m. Sunday in hospice with his wife, son and daughter-in-law at his side.
Three things Garrick loved above all else were newspapering, family and freedom. And maybe jazz. And the blues.
He was a proud Jew, son of Holocaust survivors, and with only family, a few close friends and some current and past Leader employees, he was buried on a cool and sunny morning.
At Garrick’s wish, word of his illness, which manifested in September and diagnosed as cancer in October, was played close to the vest.
A newspaper man until the end, some have speculated he didn’t want the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to scoop the Leader on news of his death. Turns out Arkansas Business scooped everyone with its well-written story published on its website.
BORN TO BE A JOURNALIST
“Garrick and his newspapers were always exemplars for everyone in the business,” said Ernie Dumas, dean of Arkansas news reporters and editors. “Better than any of us, anyone in journalism, he knew what the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press meant to a country and to a people.”
When the Soviet Union invaded Hungary in 1956 to suppress an uprising against communist tyranny in the country, Garrick, his parents and younger brother fled on foot to Austria and eventually to the United States in search of the freedom.
He was born to be a journalist and a champion of freedom, Dumas said. “He found a voice in Arkansas and we are lucky for it.”
“We’re the last of the Mohicans,” Garrick told his son, Jonathan. “Nobody does this anymore,” he said of family newspapering. The Leader is the second largest general interest newspaper in central Arkansas.
Garrick got a bachelor’s in history from Loyola University in Chicago and attended high school at Skokie Yeshiva, famous for producing rabbis.
“He always said journalism is the only profession mentioned in the Constitution,” Jonathan said. “He loved the people at The Leader. He did it till the very end.”
Garrick’s mother, Ilona, survived Auschwitz and his father the forced labor camps in Second World War, before they knew each other. After Second World War, they fled from Hungary to Austria, just ahead of the Soviets.
Still children, Garrick, his younger brother Steven, a cousin and both fathers paid a farmer to smuggle them across the border into Austria. The younger boys were medicated to keep them quiet, according to Steve Feldman.
As Steve tells it, upon emigrating the family landed in Chicago, where they had relatives. As a youngster, Garrick sold pop and popcorn at baseball games. It was in Chicago he fell in love with journalism and read foreign newspapers and magazines.
His first newspaper job was for a group of neighborhood weeklies in Chicago.
It’s where he met and fell in love with Eileen Mulcahy, an Irish woman and life partner. Workmates, they married and started a family, moving eventually to Arkansas. In March 1987, they founded Leader Publishing, a weekly newspaper with separate editions in Cabot and in Jacksonville, and The Leader Extra, a free paper to the nonsubscribers, which allowed The Leader to promise advertisers total market coverage.
At first, residents were ambivalent toward The Leader, but the quality of the journalism and production increased steadily, and among Garrick’s skills were terrific writing, as evidenced by his award-winning columns, editorials and articles about his parents.
From a paper some considered a driveway nuisance, respect and recognition grew and for the past 13 years, The Leader has won the General Excellence Award for larger weeklies nearly every year.
Eventually, The Leader’s Cabot/Lonoke County and the Jacksonville/Pulaski County papers consolidated. The Leader, judging by awards for larger Arkansas weekly papers, was a regular winner for photography, news coverage, columns, editorials, layout and advertising, and sports editor Ray Benton knows why.
“He wasn’t just a great journalist, he knew how to make you a good writer. I learned that quickly, and I told every sportswriter that ever worked on my staff to listen to him when he’s giving you pointers.
“He was the greatest influence in helping me hone the craft and make a successful career in a field I enjoyed. For that I will forever be grateful.
Garrick, and by extension The Leader, were strong supporters of a stand-alone school district for the Jacksonville area, and covered the 30-year effort to detach from the Pulaski County Special School District throughout.
LEADER’S ROLE
Every time we had a meeting (about a new school district), he would always ask what The Leader could do to help, said JNPSD Board president Daniel Gray.
“The Leader’s role in our creation was significant. They were always fair and supportive,” he said.
Matt Robinson, publications manager for the Leader, spoke at the service to say he came to work with Garrick and Eileen 29 years ago, and named half a dozen others who had been there about that long. “We are like a family,” he said, “and like a family we bicker sometimes or get cranky, but we love each other.”
For proof of that, for several weeks, while Garrick was sick or hospitalized, several former Leader employees pitched in to help. That includes those who had left for other jobs or gone back to school, one who put off retirement, a sports editor who filled in as the editor, and one sick himself, who kept the back of the shop going.
MAYORS LOOK BACK
Jacksonville Mayor Bob Johnson said he and Garrick met and become fast friends back in 1991. “We’d go out for dinner, meals and I even officiated at his son Jonathan’s wedding.”
“I think we talked just about every week and I have few friends that I have that connection with. We’d talk politics, baseball and often about our religious faith,” Johnson said.
He quipped, “Garrick often called me a Righteous Gentile. At first I wasn’t sure what he meant, but later found out it was a high compliment.”
Garrick had a vision for his community paper and a great nose for news. He had a desire to give people news that they couldn’t get elsewhere.
“He was always there. It won’t be the same. He was a pillar in the community. We all lost a friend.”
Gary Fletcher was John-son’s predecessor.
“I met Garrick in 1986 when I was running for mayor, and he was starting up his newspaper,” recalled Fletcher.
“From our first meeting we struck up a friendship that lasted through good times and bad over 35 years. Garrick and his paper have been a solid foundational institution of Jacksonville and the surrounding area.
“We have a huge hole in our community that will be difficult if not impossible to fill.”
Mike Wilson, the former state senator, businessman and lawyer and Garrick were long-time friends.
“The efforts he made in journalism and public policy will live on for many, many years,” said Wilson. His support of the schools, and local and state government has been tremendous. He will be greatly missed by family and people of the community.
Among family members present, his brother Steven flew in from Washington with his children, Ezra and Molly Deutsch-Feldman.
Jonathan is Garrick and Eileen’s son. He has been editor of The Leader since moving back to Jacksonville from Brooklyn in 2008 with his wife, Jessica. Their children are Amelia, Hannah and Isaac.
Jonathan had been at his father’s bedside, seemingly non-stop for weeks. Rebecca, the oldest of Garrick and Eileen’s three children spoke at the service, encouraging people to go home and listen to a favorite Muddy Waters’ song “My Home is in Delta.” One of her sons came from New York.
Garrick and Eileen’s other daughter, Aliya, also of New York sat with her mother, through the service.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Please login or subscribe to get unlimited access! If you're not a current subscriber, submit your email to receive our weekly newsletter and get 5 free articles!
Please login or subscribe to get unlimited access! If you're not a current subscriber, submit your email to receive our weekly newsletter and get 5 free articles!