Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Covid-19 continues to exact a heavy toll
Deaths include ex-athlete, singer
A two-time All-American shot-putter. A Mabelvale man who wrote much of the state’s tax code. A 36-year-old stage actor and mother of two.
They’re among nearly 5,700 Arkansans who have died from covid-19, including 567 in February and March, according to the Arkansas Department of Health.
“It’s bizarre how this virus works,” said Abby Cate, whose 57-year-old husband died March 16. “It just defies any type of predictability. It’s leaving what I would consider [to be] very large holes in our communities.”
This Arkansas Democrat-Gazette occasional series, “Lives Remembered,” tells about Arkansans who died from the disease caused by the coronavirus, through interviews with family members, coroners’ reports, obituaries and other sources.
David Howard Jr., 48, Malvern, Feb 2. Howard was a mechanical whiz who taught himself how to troubleshoot, and repair electronic and computer
system issues as the repairman-turned-“guru” at Riggs Cat.
At home he’d hold forth on the science-fiction worlds of “Star Wars,” “Star Trek” and Harry Potter, as film-watching with his wife and son morphed into “nerd-out” sessions.
Howard also camped and hunted. He piloted helicopters. In college, his tenor voice helped land the lead in the musical “High Society.”
He was, his wife, Julie, wrote in his obituary, a “Renaissance man” with an extraordinary mind and a variety of interests.
Howard could “have his hands covered in grease and stand there and talk to you about philosophy or something in history or the latest tech thing,” said Julie Howard, a 54-year-old psychologist.
He and Julie, married 25 years, were cautious with covid-19. They celebrated their silver anniversary last year with takeout from McClard’s Bar-B-Q in Hot Springs, consumed at a North Mountain picnic area.
It’s not clear how Howard contracted the virus. Given the onset of the symptoms, it’s likely he caught it first and passed it to his wife and son, who both survived.
Howard, who had no known previous medical issues, battled covid-19 for a month.
He tested positive Jan. 4 after a bout with a cough, fatigue and fever. On Jan. 9, he was admitted to Baptist Health Medical Center in Malvern.
“I love you. They’re intubating,” David wrote in a text to his wife on Jan. 15, his last message to her. He died a little more than two weeks later at Baptist Health Medical Center, where he’d been transferred.
“Everybody was just stunned,” Julie said. “‘He’s young, he’s strong. … Why is he this sick?’ There’s no answer to that question that I’ve been given.”
Sarah Jane Guzman, 36, North Little Rock, Feb. 3. Guzman was a “vibrant” woman whom people were naturally drawn to, said her sister, Liz Vaughn.
“She had a very adventurous spirit, always,” even as a child, Vaughn said of her younger sibling. “She wasn’t ever really afraid to try new things or do new things. She was the one that was kind of out there, living big.”
A soprano with a wide vocal range and a magnetic smile, Guzman adored music and performance. She was active in student operas in college and appeared in The Weekend Theater productions, such as “Sweeney Todd,” in Little Rock.
As an adult, she led music for contemporary services at Little Rock’s Second Presbyterian Church when she wasn’t working at Legacy Termite & Pest Control’s offices.
Her outgoing personality led to a happenstance meeting with her future husband, Alex, when the pair struck up conversation at a sushi restaurant where he worked. They married and had a daughter and a son, now ages 6 and 2.
“Once she had those kids, that was it. That was her biggest thing. She just loved being a mom so much,” Vaughn said. As soon as her daughter could sit still, Guzman began sharing her love for the arts, taking the child to see the musical “Newsies.”
When Guzman first learned of the pandemic, she knew she had to be cautious because of medication she took that weakened her immune system. She got tested for covid-19 “anytime she got the sniffles,” Vaughn said.
Her health began to deteriorate last fall. Shortly after Christmas, she was admitted to a North Little Rock hospital, where a lung biopsy revealed a commonplace fungal infection — an ailment most people clear without treatment, according to her sister.
As an inpatient, she became ill with a bacterial infection and then tested positive for covid-19 for the first time. The family believes she contracted the virus in the hospital because she’d tested negative when she was admitted.
Hospitalized more than a month, Guzman would seem to gain ground “and then she’d fall backwards a little bit again. That was really hard,” Vaughn said.
Marty Waldrop, 61, Sherwood, Feb. 5. The manufacturing plant operator also served as the men’s pastor at his church, The Ridge Assembly of Sherwood.
If any church men needed love, counseling or prayer, no matter day or time, they called Waldrop, according to his wife, Shelia.
“He took that job very seriously,” she said. “There were times people called him in the middle of the night. He would pray with them, visit with them. To be such an introvert, he was out there on the front lines.”
The couple met in March of 1989, when Shelia was having lunch with her best friend. Her friend’s brother, Marty, joined them. They married two months later. They have three children and 13 grandchildren.
Marty raced motorcycles for American Honda when he was younger and loved the outdoors, camping and kayaking.
Both were careful during the pandemic, limiting outings to work, grocery shopping and church. His wife believes she contracted the virus first, in November.
She felt mostly fatigue. He did too, but also experienced breathing problems. He was ill for about two weeks before being hospitalized Nov. 30. He was intubated Dec. 4, and on a ventilator for 68 days, she said.
“We were married 31 years,” said his wife.
“I was looking forward to another 131, but God had other plans.”
Jennifer Melton, 51, Perryville, Feb. 14. She made friends of complete strangers right up until she was placed on a ventilator.
A nurse herself, Melton befriended nurses at Baptist Health Medical Center-Conway. After her death, they attended her funeral, said her husband of 30 years, Patrick Melton.
The two met while Jennifer was studying nursing at the University of Central Arkansas and were engaged after just a few months together, on Valentine’s Day.
They are parents of triplets — Jeb, Cole and Kantin — and she loved following her sons’ sports teams around the state to watch them play basketball and baseball. The three are high school seniors. “Those boys were her world,” Patrick said.
He recalled one Christmas when one of the boys’ friends mentioned that he didn’t know if his family could afford to get presents. Jennifer rallied community members to make sure they had Christmas dinner and plenty of gifts.
Her work as a nurse was part of a lifelong effort to leave a positive impact on the world around her, Patrick said.
The largest part of her career was spent as a home health nurse and managing a home health agency. She and Patrick also co-owned the Pizza Ranch in Conway.
At home, she cooked most of her family’s meals. Chicken and dumplings were among her specialties.
The two shared in their Christian faith, which Patrick said has helped him get through this time.
“Knowing the Lord, it sure makes things like this easier,” he said. “That hope that we’re going to see her again one day when we get in heaven, it makes it better.”
Her family established a scholarship in Jennifer’s name. One requirement is for students to write about how to make a “positive impact on everybody you talk to,” her husband said, because that embodies the person Jennifer was.
John Zimpel, 66, Mabelvale, Feb. 16. The longtime state employee spent his life giving back to his community through his work writing state tax codes, volunteer time on education and senior citizen issues, and involvement at his high school alma mater, his son said.
“He’s the person we all wanted to be when we grew up,” son Greg Zimpel said.
John Zimpel worked for the state for more than 30 years. Much of his career was spent at the Arkansas Assessment Coordination Division. He wrote large parts of Arkansas’ tax code.
After retirement, he volunteered with the American Association for Retired Persons, utilizing his expertise in governmental operations to help the nonprofit. He recently was named lead advocate for Hub 2 in Central Arkansas, educating legislators about AARP’s positions on issues such as health care, housing and food insecurity among senior citizens.
He had two children and five older sisters.
“He was always a very giving person, and he was passionate about the work that he did for the state,” his oldest sister, Mary Smith, said.
Zimpel’s son recalled going to horse races with his father, sometimes to Las Vegas. The two also went to baseball games. John Zimpel particularly liked the Cardinals and any sport the Razorbacks played. He also enjoyed playing guitar, especially blues and jazz.
He graduated from Subiaco Academy in western Arkansas, and the faith and friends developed there remained an important part of Zimpel’s life, according to his son. He volunteered at the school.
“He really cared,” his son said. “He put himself last, he was that type of person.”
Linda “Faye” Strong, 55, Tucker, March 3. Strong — called “Faye” by family, friends and co-workers — loved to give, said her daughter Amber Strong-Holland.
Raised in modest circumstances in Tucker, Strong grew up generous with friends, co-workers and her five now-grown children. She loved to help anyone: offering rides to appointments, keeping busy with dishes or laundry when visiting her kids, and staying in near-constant communication with her daughters.
“When 12 o’clock rolls around, she will be calling on her lunch break,” Strong-Holland said. “I looked forward every day to those talks.”
It was not unusual for her mother to strike up a conversation and make a friend in the grocery store aisle. She was beloved by colleagues at a variety of jobs, including at Maybelline in North Little Rock and a nursing home in England — so much so that past employers reached out after her illness to express condolences.
One of Strong’s most cherished roles, however, was grandmother to 19 grandchildren.
“Anytime you see her, she’d have a few grandchildren with her. … If she wasn’t in my home with my children, she’d be in my sister’s house with her children, or my brother’s house with his children,” Strong-Holland said. “She loved those grandchildren, and those grandchildren loved her.”
After being hospitalized with covid-19 on Jan. 24, Strong remained upbeat. Before she was placed on a ventilator, her children played a favorite song at her bedside, to Strong’s delight, the gospel-spiritual piece “Wave My Hand.”
“She was in there, laughing and tapping her feet,” her daughter recalled.
As a coming-home gift, Strong-Holland planned to surprise her mom with a purple Nike fleece suit in a style she had admired. Strong died March 3. The suit stayed in a closet, unworn.
“She used to always tell us kids that, ‘I won’t be here with y’all always,’” Strong-Holland said. “I never thought that saying would hit so hard, so soon.”
Steven Cate, 57, El Dorado, March 16. Laid off as a human resources manager, Cate began picking locks — and cracking safes.
He formed All-American Lock and Key. The name was a call-back to his twiceearned honors as a collegiate shot-putter at Louisiana Tech.
In his business, he opened locked cars, installed and cracked safes, and lent his expertise to local drug task force officers who needed to get inside suspects’ vaults, said his wife, Abby Cate, 52.
Cate’s midlife career change demonstrated his ability to learn on the fly.
“He’s the most intelligent man I’ve ever known,” Abby said. “He could read about something and figure things out and had all kinds of skills. … He could do pretty much anything he set his mind to.”
Cate loved the outdoors, particularly deer hunting. He was a bit of a smart aleck, often sarcastic, and had a great sense of humor, his wife said. He was also a keen observer.
“He would see a situation and pick out one little thing that perhaps everyone else overlooked,” Abby said. “But he saw the details. He saw the little things. That’s really what made him an excellent husband and a fantastic father.”
Cate’s lengthy battle with covid-19 began with feeling ill in mid-February, around the time the state experienced a historic snowfall.
He was first admitted to the Medical Center of South Arkansas and later transferred to Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock. Overall, he spent about a month hospitalized, his condition mostly declining.
On March 9, Abby, their two kids and Steven’s father went to the hospital to say their goodbyes.
Abby was allowed in with her husband.
“I took my phone in the room, and I called the kids, who were waiting just outside the room, looking in,” Abby said. “I put [the phone] on speaker and put it up to his ear. They all got to say whatever it was that they needed to say.”
Raised in modest circumstances in Tucker, Linda “Faye” Strong grew up generous with friends, coworkers and her five now-grown children. She loved to help anyone: offering rides to appointments, keeping busy with dishes or laundry when visiting her kids, and staying in near-constant communication with her daughters.