ROUSES_JulyAug2019_Magazine

SHERIFF LEE Harry Lee went on to serve as sheriff of Jefferson Parish for the next 28 years. He was reelected six times by wide margins. He was larger than life — the sort of celebrity from a different era of Louisiana politics — and voters and the national press couldn’t get enough of him, this highly interesting Chinese sheriff in the Deep South who wore a cowboy hat and shot nutria with the SWAT team. One of Lee’s strengths was his ability to work with and through many people. He was a natural at pairing people to bring out their combined best, and he built a large network of friends that grew of its own volition — people helping people. Being sheriff doesn’t mean riding your horse with a shotgun-wielding deputy by your side — at least, not most days. A lot of it is just managing a bureaucracy with efficiency, so that your decisions can be turned into actions. And Harry Lee was a natural at that. In his daughter’s estimation, his greatest success in Louisiana politics was demon-

In 2007, Lee was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. His family wanted time to process the news, and wanted him to process the news in private. So his office issued a press release that didn’t discuss the diagnosis, and that made Lee deeply uncomfortable. It was like he was lying to the public. He couldn’t wait, and wasn’t interested in waiting, to find the right course of treatment. He needed to tell the public, and in the very next interview that came along, he revealed the bad hand he had been dealt. Cynthia considers the last six months of Lee’s life to be among her most treasured memories of her father, because of the lessons she learned from the example he set. She watched her father face mortality up close, and it was life-changing for her. “He was so humble, so grateful for the incredible life he had lived. He never thought he would have had a life like this.” After he went public with his diagnosis, Jefferson Parish, in ways big and small, revealed how they felt about the man who had served them for so many decades.

Sherrif Harry Lee collectible bobblehead

strating how you can be completely successful by being yourself, and by being honest. “He didn’t know how to lie,” she says. “He told the truth, and he was not going to live his life any other way. He was not going to compromise who he was — and he was successful.” There’s so much discussion today about how a politician has to be clever but, says Cynthia, “He didn’t have a clever bone in his body. Telling the truth was such a strong principle to him that he couldn’t do it any other way.” BEHIND THE SHERIFF’S STAR Harry Lee’s achievements as a sheriff are well-known and practically written into the DNA of New Orleans. Less well-known is Lee as a father and husband to wife Lai. “Because he was a law enforcement man, people want to think he had a gruff exterior,” says Cynthia, “but he was really one of the warmest people that I’ve ever met.” She thinks that on some level people knew that, accounting for some of his popularity. Lee was self-deprecating, with a great physical sense of humor. He loved to make fun of himself, she says, and when he laughed, his laugh was like that of a child — from the gut, every fiber of his being seeming to go into that laugh. He was a warmhearted father, who, despite being sheriff, gave his daughter a lot of slack to make her own mistakes. When she was a teenager, he sat her down and explained that over the next couple of years, she might make mistakes like doing drugs or getting into trouble, and that was OK, but she needed to understand that such things are bad for you. “I was shocked he took that approach,” says Cynthia. She says he had a realistic view of things, and understood that people have to live their own lives, needing only a light hand to stay the proper course. “And for that reason, I never got into trouble!” she says. “I think if he had been strict at home, I would have been more of a rebellious teenage girl.” Later in life when Cynthia had children of her own, Lee’s soft side really came out. “There was complete joy on his face, and complete joy just being in the presence of his grandchildren.”

Near the end of his life, Lee would walk into a restaurant, and everyone would break out into spontaneous applause. Cynthia says it shocked him, that he couldn’t believe he had really lived this life. “There was an understanding on his part that this was the end of his life, but he wasn’t afraid or bitter that he didn’t get to live longer. He was grateful for the 75 years that he had.” THE NEXT GENERATION Lee passed his love of public service on to his daughter. “When I was young, I went to D.C. and I went to all the monuments and read the

PF Changs "Yes, it’s a chain, but it’s one with local roots — co- founder Paul Fleming is from New Iberia, Louisiana, and went to both LSU and Loyola. My wife, Cindy, and I always get the Pad Thai, but sometimes we’ll order a hidden gem from their “secret menu.” It’s the Mongolian Trio with beef, chicken and shrimp served in a crazy-good sauce of smoked black pepper, sweet molasses, soy sauce and garlic. Can’t make it to P.F. Chang’s? Look for their entrées and appetizers in our Frozen Food cases." - Tim, Marketing

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