Alexander leaves mighty legacy in city that claimed her
Mourners packed the El Dorado Municipal Auditorium on Wednesday, when funeral services for Alexis Alexander were held. Foo Fighters hits played softly as attendees filtered inside the theater, until Alexander’s family entered and local singers Mason Halstead and Clayton Evers began the services with a song.
“You all knew Alexis?” her father, Lance Alexander, asked no one in particular, looking around the crowded room.
“And more,” someone answered, and the services began.
Mayor Paul Choate welcomed attendees, becoming emotional as he recounted Alexis’s many – nearly countless – contributions to the community. He was followed by her pastor, the Salvation Army’s Maj. David Robinson, who read from 2 Timothy. Charley Hankins delivered her eulogy.
“Just look at the legacy she’s left,” Hankins said, gesturing to the full auditorium. “So what can we do to honor her memory? What can we do to live up to the example she set for us, for all of us?
“All we can do is try, try to live the way she lived. You get involved, that’s the first thing. Live big, live deliberately. Be a doer, and a fighter for the little people. Love freely and openly.
“All we can do is try, try to live the way she lived. You get involved, that’s the first thing. Live big, live deliberately. Be a doer, and a fighter for the little people. Love freely and openly. Have a big heart. Rescue a dozen dogs or so . ... ”
—CHARLEY HANKINS
Have a big heart. Rescue a dozen dogs or so. Scream for your team like she did with LSU and the Saints, even in a sea of Arkansas people, and everybody still loved everybody at the end of the game. Never be afraid to show off the people and things you love; if you want, have them tattooed all over your body. Don’t be afraid. Never miss an opportunity to help those in need. Be fiercely loyal to your friends and family. Never turn your back on anyone. Live so your life is an inspiration to others… And do it all with that genuine, ear to ear smile she was known for,” he concluded.
BEGINNINGS
Alexis’s story didn’t begin in El Dorado. She was born in May, 1973 in Shreveport, Louisiana, where her father and brother, Ryan, still live. Her mother, Ann Graham, lives in Alexandria, La.
She attended Caddo Magnet High School, then Louisiana State University at Shreveport, where she studied journalism. A year later, she moved to El Dorado, where she lived until her death last Saturday.
Her first job in El Dorado was at the News-Times, where she covered everything from the county Quorum Court and the Smackover School Board to federal court cases and car accidents.
She stayed at the News-Times from March 1996 until 1998, when she began working as Public Information Officer at what is now South Arkansas College.
After that, she took a marketing position at the El Dorado-Union County Chamber of Commerce, where she managed community projects and programs like Leadership Union County. In her spare time, she began joining community clubs, like the Jaycees. She also helped lead efforts to organize assistance for victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
“Any time there was a hurricane, she was the first to make sure (evacuees) had a place in the community. She organized meals, made sure they knew what was happening in town. She drove to every hotel in town every night to make sure the evacuees had food,” her friend Karen Hicks said. “There was a lot of behindthe-scenes stuff she did.”
It was when she began working as the Executive Director of United Way of Union County that her influence really started to spread. She led the nonprofit for more than 16 years.
Her dad said moving to El Dorado changed something in Alexis, and the more involved she got in the community, the stronger she became.
“She was just not as secure, and then when she moved to El Dorado with the newspaper, and then she went to work for the college, did media for the college, then she went to work for the Chamber of Commerce and then finally to the United Way, and each job, I think, threw her out in the public more and more to know people, and go everywhere, and somewhere in there, I don’t know how, she became fiercely independent,” Lance Alexander said.
A LIFE OF SERVICE
“There’s not a single person I can find that didn’t know her, love her, respect her. I think we’re all of the same mindset that it might take 30 of us to fill the hole she’s left,” said her friend Steve Biernacki. “Now it’s up to us to step up and carry on with her legacy.”
At the time of her death, Alexis was serving on 35 different board, commissions and committees, Hicks said. Starting with the Jaycees, Alexander by 2007 had graduated to chairing the MusicFest El Dorado committee, judging the Union County Animal Protection Society’s Mutt Stutt, organizing the LifeTouch Hospice Follies and more.
She started at United Way in 2007 as well, and just four years later, she launched the Dolly Parton Imagination Library at the local chapter, helping to provide free books to young children.
Through her efforts, the local United Way chapter raised more than $1 million annually, which was distributed to the nonprofit’s partner agencies who support literacy, animal services, education, women and children.
“When we were kids, being my big sister, she was always bossing me around. I would say, ‘quit bossing me,’ and she would say, ‘I’m not bossy, I’m right,’ or something like that. I think she kind of managed to channel that bossiness into getting stuff done up here,” said her brother Ryan Alexander. “That’s just kind of how she was; it’s like she’d tell you her opinion or fight you on something, but it was for a positive outcome. It has been really amazing to see how good the town was for her, that she was able to become this person, and obviously, the town loved having her here.”
REAL LADIES, NONPROFIT MAFIA
As her work with the United Way continued and her community involvement grew, so did Alexis’s circle of friends. Kristi Lowery
first met Alexis when HOPE Landing became a United Way agency. A few years into their professional relationship, they developed a friendship, Lowery said.
“Whenever MAD opened, we would show up to the same events, the same concerts, and it seemed to be this same group of several girls that would sit by each other. We had common interests in music, and three of us were nonprofit leaders,” she said. “We just fit together and we started going to concerts together, the Thursday Night Lives together. The friendship just blossomed.”
Hicks said she became close with Alexander around that time as well.
“I knew who she was for years – she used to work with my sister at the News-Times – and one night, I decided I wanted to go to Business After Hours, but I didn’t want to go alone, so I reached out to her on Facebook and we went together, then to Applebees and then we went to the Griffin and watched a MusicFest announcement,” Hicks said. “We didn’t leave each others’ sides after that.”
Eventually, the group of women started calling themselves “the Real Ladies of El Dorado” and got matching t-shirts. They could regularly be found at nonprofit banquets, local concerts, city parades and any other place people gather.
Hicks was particularly close with Alexis. She said their friendship really developed after she left her marriage and Alexis stepped in to help her come out the other side.
“I always admired how Alexis embraced the fact that she could do things alone. I was coming out of a divorce and I realized that was the path I wanted to take. I looked at her for leadership and validation that that was something I could have,” Hicks said.
Biernacki moved to El Dorado about three years ago, and Alexis was one of his first friends in town.
“Karen Hicks’s son Avery named us the ‘Nonprofit Mafia.’ If one of us wasn’t there, the other two were,” he said, recalling that Alexis later made and gave him and Hicks coasters with their trio’s nickname.
Over the pandemic, when everyone had to narrow down their face-to-face contacts, Hicks and Alexis became even closer; she said she viewed her as an extra parent for her children even.
“Alexis was very present in my personal life, very present in my parenting roles, in my work life,” she said. “She came into our lives at a time that our family had been disrupted, and she didn’t really tolerate much self-pity.”
The ‘Real Ladies’ celebrated several members’ 50th birthdays – including Alexis’s – earlier this year with a group trip to Mexico.
“One of the most cherished things I’ve been thinking about – we went to Mexico and she and I shared a room. Getting to experience something like that with her, it was a joy in the moment, and now I look back and think of all the little things, from eating breakfast to looking at the ocean for hours, just sitting by the ocean – getting to experience such an amazing trip with her – at the time, I recognized that it was special, but now I see it was even more special,” Hicks said.
Lowery said the trip was the perfect fit for Alexis, who loved to celebrate anything and everything.
“She loved to celebrate things, no matter how small they were.
Even when the big kiln came through El Dorado, she created an event and took Spudnuts and had a watch party. She loved to celebrate things, didn’t matter if it was a grand opening of a business or a simple as a watch party for a kiln,” said Lowery. “She loved to celebrate life.”
BIG SHOES TO FILL
One recurring sentiment among those who knew Alexis is that she left an awfully big pair of shoes to fill, and no one person is likely to be able to do it alone.
“We were so very fortunate to have this Louisiana transplant decide that El Dorado was the place she loved. Sometimes I think it’s easy to take that for granted, because she was so very involved,” Biernacki said.
The personal touch Alexis put on every interaction will be especially hard to replicate, Lowery said.
“Everyone thought Alexis was their best friend. She made you feel heard, gave you her undivided attention, made you feel important in whatever cause or belief you had – she made them important to her. She was involved in every part of this community from the city government to the nonprofit world to the entertainment community,” she said. “She just had a passion and a heart for our community and wanted it to be the best El Dorado and Union County it could possibly be.”
Hicks said it’s up to those who remain in El Dorado to step up to the plate now.
“I don’t think anybody can, at all, but her shoes have to be filled. If she would want me to say anything, it would be that we just have to. Alexis wasn’t anything if she wasn’t one that sacrificed and took care of business. She didn’t stand for excuses,” she said. “If you want to live out her legacy, find out how you can get involved.”
Alexis was a music lover, a trivia champion, a party animal, a Tigers and Saints fan, a pup parent –she left five dogs, “Damn” Sam, Sadie, PJ, Dixie and Emmy, who Hicks said will be in good homes by this time next week — , a strong leader, an empowered woman, a daughter, sister, friend and an advocate for those experiencing hunger, poverty, illiteracy, abuse, disease or disability – and so much more.
In his eulogy Wednesday, Hankins referenced one of the Foo Fighters’ songs, “My Hero.” “There goes my hero,” he said, quoting the song and referring to Alexis. The next line – or, at least, a feminized version of it – also fits her: “She’s ordinary.” Alexis was a person like anyone else, but she took it on herself to give of herself to others – a hero, indeed.
“If anybody’s wondering how they can help, what they can do, know that Alexis’s answer would be to go do something – whatever you’re passionate about, whatever pulls at your heart strings, whether that’s housing, clothing, food, seniors, kids, literacy – if everybody in this community did something, even a couple hours a month, the power that we could harness would be the biggest, shining, brightest star in the country, and that would all be because of Alexis,” Biernacki said. “Don’t make excuses; go help.”