I learned last night that Odell Baker died over the weekend. Odell was very active in the Shelby County community and the Republican party; it is said that he helped register more voters than anybody in the Mid-South. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to meet and speak with him just last month at a Christmas party, where he was awarded with a lifetime service award for his outstanding leadership and civic activism. Odell will certainly be missed.

The Commercial Appeal is hosting a guestbook for family and friends of Odell. Here’s the writeup:

ELMON ODELL BAKER, 82, of Germantown, died Sunday, January 8, 2006 at Baptist Memorial Hospital Memphis. Funeral Services will be 10 a.m. Thursday at Memorial Park Funeral Home with burial in Memorial Park Cemetery. A visitation will be held Wednesday evening from 5-7 p.m. He came to Memphis from Corinth, MS in 1945 and drove a bus for Memphis Street Railway for 12 years. In 1950 he started Baker Furniture Company and worked there until the end. In the early 1960’s he started New Comers Tours to Memphis. He loved the Republican Party and registering people to vote. He was a member of the First Baptist Church of Memphis, a 32 degree Mason, a Shriner, and the Lions Club of Germantown’s 2005 Man of the Year. In 1990 he was one of the Memphis 1000 Points of Light under President Bush. He will be remembered by the many lives he touched by being a model of a good citizen. He really loved the people of Memphis. He was preceded in death by his son, Philip. He leaves his wife, Madge; three daughters, Janis Powell, of Charleston, SC, Cathy Baker, of London, England, and Lisa Turetzky, of Cordova; a sister, Ella Archer of Corinth, MS; seven grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. The family requests that any memorials be sent to Wings West Clinic, or First Baptist Church of Memphis. Memorial Park Funeral Home 901- 767-8930

The Memphis Flyer also has a tribute:

All of us who believe in democracy have to be grateful for the dogged, decades-long efforts of Odell Baker, a furniture dealer and old-fashioned patriot, to personally enroll as many voters as he could in various registration efforts. The kindly Baker, who died this week, was a dedicated Republican, but he was just as avid about signing up Democrats. A citizen’s citizen, he believed in the process.

UPDATE: The Commercial Appeal also ran another article on Odell: Baker, 82, was booster for city, democracy.