Theba Renee Lolley
Theba Lolley leaned on her faith while caring for her parents, who both developed dementia. She strives to help other caregivers through TV, her podcast and social media.
On the afternoon of March 31, Theba Lolley and her mother, Barbara, were going about their daily routines at their home in the Foxcroft neighborhood of Little Rock. Because severe weather was predicted, Theba had turned on KTHV, Channel 11, and was watching the station’s meteorologists track a tornado that had formed southwest of Little Rock.
Tom Brannon, the station’s chief meteorologist, said the tornado appeared to be headed down Interstate 630 toward downtown and urged fellow staff members at the station’s headquarters to get in a safe place.
“I’m like OK, 630, I think we are going to be all right,” Theba says. “He thinks it’s coming downtown. By then, the sirens were going off, and I was following along.”
Next, she heard them talk about the Breckenridge and Colony West areas in west Little Rock. She paused to think about their locations because she did not travel in that part of town often. Just to be safe, she made sure she and her mother had put on bicycle helmets to protect them from any flying debris if the tornado were to hit their home. She told Barbara to go into her bathroom while she stepped back into the bedroom to watch Brannon and others follow the storm.
Watching Channel 11’s weather team was natural for her. She worked in marketing for the station for 24 years before she retired in 2021 to become a full-time caregiver for her mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease.
“Tom sounds nervous,” she recalls, adding that she then heard meteorologist Nathan Scott mention Reservoir Road and debris on the ground. Foxcroft is near Reservoir Road.
“I looked out the window and saw debris; I saw what looked unusual,” she says. “Now, at the same time, I am hearing that train sound.”
She then ran into the bathroom with her mother, shut the door and pulled her mom close. “The power goes off and immediately I started hearing the crashing of the trees and, of course, I didn’t know where they were,” she says.
As they huddled in the bathroom, they prayed. “We just kept saying, ‘We love you, Jesus; we need you, Jesus.’”
The whole thing lasted only about 12 seconds, but major damage had been inflicted on their neighborhood. The EF3-rated tornado had already damaged parts of west Little Rock, and from Foxcroft it would continue its rampage across the capital city, traveling over the Arkansas River and on to North Little Rock, Sherwood and Jacksonville. Many were hurt, but amazingly, there were not many fatalities. There was one death.
Theba and Barbara were not injured. Part of their roof was damaged, and neighbors’ trees fell in their yard. They lost a beloved oak. But it could have been much worse. For many of their neighbors, it was.
Theba found herself shaking as she ventured outside to survey the
damage. At one point, she says, she “cussed out that tornado.” And, even though she has a strong faith, she found herself feeling mad at God. Later, after a visit with a counselor, she says, she realized that she was telling God what she wanted. Without difficulties in life, she says, “how am I going to experience His goodness and all things in His provision?
“I can now look back and see how He provided all these things for us.”
Her insurance agent, contractors and utility workers responded quickly to her calls, making needed repairs and restoring power within a few days. She credits God with taking care of her and her mother during this trying time. And it is her faith that has been her guiding force while providing 24/7 care to her mother, as it was when she supported her father, who died in 2019 of complications from Lewy body dementia.
Her faith has also inspired her to help other caregivers and patients by providing information through various sources, including traditional media, social media and podcasts.
“Paramount in Theba’s life is her unyielding faith in God,” says Anne Jansen Broadwater, a former anchor at Channel 11 whose mother also had Alzheimer’s. “Her faith is not just a part of who she is, it defines her. It drives every decision she makes and is at the heart of how she lives.”
FINDING A HOME
Theba was born in 1964 in Albuquerque, N.M., to Clint and Barbara Lolley. The family soon moved to Scottsdale, Ariz., where her father took a job with IBM. When she was in the fourth grade, her father was transferred to IBM’s Little Rock office. They moved into the then-new Foxcroft neighborhood, which was the perfect place for the family, Theba says. Little Rock Racquet Club is in the neighborhood, and her father, an avid tennis player and coach, joined and began playing and coaching there.
“Because of the time period, our childhood was spent roaming this neighborhood on bikes, going up to the Racquet Club,” she recalls. “No internet, no video games, and my parents did not have a TV, on purpose.” Her parents would soon relent on the TV, however, as they began to make friends with other members of the Racquet Club and became Razorbacks fans. “If they were going to have people over here to watch the game, of course they had to have a TV.”
In addition to football, tennis matches featuring the stars of the day were often on at the Lolley house. A self-described tomboy, Theba and her father watched both religiously. And Theba took up tennis as well.
“Tennis was my sport because it was my dad’s,” she says. “And I had, as they say, a natural talent for it.”
She attended Hall High School, graduating in 1982, and then enrolled at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock to study radio, television and film. She continued to play tennis while attending college, but despite her love for the sport, she had no desire to play professionally.
Barbara was a stay-athome mom until Theba and her brother, Mikel, went to high school. At that point, she began working at Barbara Jean’s in Little Rock, selling cosmetics.
“She was the go-getter,” Theba says of her mother, adding that she would arrange with other neighborhood mothers for celebrations of holidays like Independence Day, when they would close off Tallyho Lane for fireworks and festivities.
In addition to fun, Theba says, she learned from her mother the importance of caring for parents. “I’ve witnessed her sacrifice for her parents when they needed her,” she says. “I witnessed the way she took charge at hospitals.”
Her mother also instilled in her the need to live a faithbased life.
“She took us to church every Sunday,” she says, but as she grew older, her interest in church waned and the family experienced dark times, including her parents’ divorce.
MEETING BILLY BOB
During her first round at UALR, she didn’t finish her degree. She says she “got discombobulated in life” for awhile before going back to graduate. She wasn’t sure what she would do with a degree in radio, television and film, but she knew she wanted to do something creative related to movies.
She proceeded to get experience locally, working in production for commercials and other film projects, including “The Ernest Green Story,” a 1993 docudrama about a member of the Little Rock Nine, the Black students who desegregated Central High School in Little Rock in 1957. Later, she would join the set of “Sling Blade,” an independent film produced by Arkansas native Billy Bob Thornton; she worked in the wardrobe department. She says she enjoyed working with the famously eccentric Thornton, describing him as “very strange, but such a nice guy.” “Sling Blade,” which was filmed in Central Arkansas, won many awards, including the Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) in 1997.
As much as she liked working on the movies, she would pack up and head home when her work was done. She didn’t join the hard partying lifestyle of the crews. “I was too tender for it,” she says. “I hadn’t lived life like that. So, it scared me. And I wanted to have sleep as well. And they did not sleep.”
Soon after “Sling Blade,” Theba learned about a marketing position at Channel 11. She had been referred for the job by Gary Jones of Jones Production Co. in Little Rock. He knew her from her work as a freelance production assistant. She was unsure about working in television but eventually decided to take the plunge. She joined the station in 1997 in the promotions department and later became the coordinator for community relations.
Also during the 1990s, her faith was renewed when she joined Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock. In 1998, she met Beth Maris at the church, and they became roommates and best friends. “I’m most impressed by Theba’s confidence in her lord and savior. She trusts beyond a shadow of a doubt that He loves her and has her right where she is supposed to be,” Maris says.
JOEY THE GARDEN CAT
The outdoor weather garden at Channel 11’s downtown studio attracted stray cats. A cat lover, Theba began building a relationship with one of those cats. She named him Larry, and he became known as Larry the Garden Cat, often making appearances on camera. In 2007, another, much more personable cat, who would be named Joey, showed up and began bonding with Theba and other staff members. Tom Brannon, also a cat fan, hosted the morning weather segment and began letting Joey hang out with him for the garden shots. The station’s viewers quickly took to Joey.
“My manager at the time saw that we had a gold mine,” Theba says, adding that she began further promoting Joey through the then-new Facebook and other social media. “Part of my job was following Joey around three times a day, basically videoing him and taking pictures,” she says. “So, I was the voice of Joey the Garden Cat on social media.” She also shared posts as Joey’s “Mama Agent.”
Joey’s popularity continued to grow, even prompting the Animal Planet cable channel to come to Little Rock to do a feature about him. Joey had more than 50,000 fans on Facebook at one point, including people from China and elsewhere around the world. Fans would stop by the studio to visit the cat, including celebrities such as “Star Trek’s” George Takei.
Joey developed cancer, which he survived, and then feline infectious peritonitis, or FIP, which he didn’t. He died unexpectedly in September 2014 while Theba was on a trip to Russia with her father. They were on a cruise, and she didn’t have access to the internet and so missed the announcement of his death. Finally, when she was able to check her email, she discovered that he had died and also found thousands of condolences from friends, co-workers and Joey the Garden Cat fans.
“I have never seen such a flood of warmth and beauty from all over the world,” she says. “I was devastated, and I was worried about Tom. I was hurting for the rest of the community.”
She shared the news with her father and later, while they were having breakfast, she had a strong desire to see an eagle and take its photo. An avid birder, she had taken her camera in hopes of catching such an image. “I said to him, ‘Dad, do you think God’s going to let me see an eagle today? To get over the grief of the cat?’”
Later that evening, they were having dinner on the boat as the sun set. “I look out of the corner of my eye, and it’s an eagle. A golden eagle.” She grabbed her camera and took “this incredible shot of him in the tree.”
‘HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER’
In 2017, Theba’s father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but later his condition was determined to be Lewy body dementia. He was living in Alton, Ill., at his birthplace home when symptoms began to alarm him. Theba asked him if he would like to move back to Little Rock so she could help, and he agreed.
Around the same time, Theba noticed that her mother was having memory lapses. “She would get confused and lost trying to go to the doctor,” Theba says, adding that those problems were soon determined to be the result of Alzheimer’s disease.
As her parents’ diseases progressed, Theba juggled caregiver duties while working full time. She was living with her mother and would stop at her father’s apartment near the Racquet Club at least twice a day to check on him. She bought groceries for both households. If she stayed too long at her father’s apartment, her mother would be calling her, asking her to come home.
She read books and took classes hosted by local Alzheimer’s experts. Among many things, she learned that she was dealing with grief as she struggled to take care of both parents.
“That’s what that was when I was stuck at Kroger for about 30 minutes,” she says. “I think I was staring at the cereal for about 30 minutes, and I couldn’t move.”
Despite her strong faith, she found herself turning to wine more often in the evenings to relax from the stress of the days. Then, during Thanksgiving 2019, less than a month after her father died, she felt an almost audible voice/message telling her: “Theba, enough, I need you to stop.”
“It blew my mind,” she says, adding that she has not drunk alcohol since.
Regardless of how well caregivers handle their roles, there is enormous stress. Theba found another calling, which she was able to devote time to during the pandemic, when she began co-hosting Channel 11’s “The Vine,” a local lifestyle program. She was able to present information about dementia and the challenges caregivers face. She also produced a weekly segment called “Discover Arkansas.”
In 2021, it became clear that her mother needed someone at home 24/7. That’s when she decided to retire from TV. Since then, she has chronicled daily life with her mother on social media, produced the podcast “Don’t You Remember” for caregivers, and is a regular guest on “The Vine,” where she continues to give caregiver tips.
With her down-to-earth, high-energy, humorous approach to her work, she, much like her beloved Joey, has devoted fans.
“Theba’s main goal is that her mother feels safe and loved,” Maris says. “She certainly is accomplishing that goal and also educates others as she chronicles their journey through her podcast and social media.”
“I know many people who have faith,” Broadwater says. “Theba lives her faith every day, in every storm.”