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Obituary

Her glow was extinguished too soon

By LISA BUIE
Published February 19, 2005

Those close to Geraldine McCants always noticed her inner glow.

She always wore a big smile that showed off gleaming white teeth. And she always kidded around with her co-workers at Zephyrhills Correctional Institution.

But Feb. 11 was different. Levy Roberts came to realize that later.

Sgt. McCants begged him to spend his break outside with her.

"You know what?" she told her longtime friend. "Right now, I feel better than I've felt my whole life."

Like others close to McCants, Roberts knew she had recurring diverticulitis and often suffered from pain.

But that was gone, McCants said.

"I have no pain. I feel good," she told him.

"The Lord is working on my insides."

After some more chitchat, McCants and Roberts went back to their jobs.

Two hours later, as Roberts walked into his house, the phone was ringing.

"Hello."

The sobbing male voice on the other end could barely get out the words.

"Geri's gone."

Both lanes of U.S. 301 were shut down as Pasco sheriff's deputies and state troopers worked the crash that happened about 4:10 p.m., right after shift change at Zephyrhills Correctional Institution.

McCants was leaving work. Co-workers knew she was eager to get home that Friday night. One of her two sisters would have a birthday Monday, and the trio planned to celebrate at Frontier Steak House in Tampa. The weekend was going to be busy, with a Black History Month program set for Saturday morning. McCants' sisters were the co-chairwomen. Her nephew, Ryan Pickett, a Zephyrhills native who plays nose tackle for the St. Louis Rams, was to sign autographs.

Driving her beloved green 1999 Mazda Millennium, McCants, 58, turned left onto the rural two-lane road, into the path of southbound Matthew Frassrand, 22, of St. Leo. Troopers didn't charge Frassrand. McCants was pronounced dead at East Pasco Medical Center.

Trooper Larry Coggins said U.S. 301 has become busier in recent years as Pasco County grows and more Tampa commuters use it as an alternate to State Road 54. In 2004, 14 people were killed on that highway in Hillsborough. Only one died in Pasco that year, but he fears those numbers will rise with the traffic volume. Nearby Festival Park in Zephyrhills also has become a popular venue. That puts more stress on 301, he said, "especially on the weekends."

The neat light gray mobile home on Airport Road is filled with roses.

"Happy Birthday and Happy Valentine's Day. Love ya! John" says the card attached to a vase of a dozen bright red ones.

A 5-year-old boy bats around a balloon with a picture of the Grim Reaper that says, "Relax, I'm just here for the cake."

Amid the trappings of a celebration, Frankie Mae McKenzie sits in a shorts outfit her older sister bought her and remembers. She hasn't felt this distraught since 2003, when her close friend, sheriff's Lt. Charles "Bo" Harrison, was gunned down. During that ordeal, Geraldine never left her side.

Geraldine, nicknamed Daneena for reasons no one can quite recall, was her idol.

"Everything she did, I had to do it, too," she said.

When Geraldine got married and moved to Ocala, Frankie Mae moved there, too. When her sister moved to Michigan, so did Frankie Mae. Frankie Mae couldn't stand the cold, so she came back after about two months.

The three sisters were close.

"We had to make our own fun," baby sister Thelma Durr said.

Black folks had to back in the 1950s and '60s, family members said. Durr recalled how blacks were barred from the drug store lunch counter in downtown Zephyrhills. A water fountain had a sign that said "Whites Only." Hooded Ku Klux Klan members would burn crosses at the railroad tracks that separated black neighborhoods from white ones.

Segregation vanished from the law books, and McCants eventually landed a spot as the first black member of the city planning commission.

But some struggles remained. Three years ago, the Zephyrhills Police Department apologized to the family after a confrontation with McCants' adult son, saying an officer should have handled things differently when he approached several men gathered in McKenzie's yard. The officer handcuffed McCants' son and his cousin but did not take them to jail.

The officer, who was white, was reprimanded and ordered to attend diversity training.

In 2003, a controversy erupted over the renaming of Sixth Avenue in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. The council reversed the action after opposition from mostly white residents.

McCants was upset about the council's action, Durr recalled. After all the years of racism, naming a street for the slain civil rights leader was the least the city could do.

The family, longtime Zephyrhills residents, has strong ties to the city. Frankie Mae McKenzie works in the utility department. When City Manager Steve Spina heard about the crash that Friday, he rushed to the scene.

"She was a very good person," Spina said the day after the accident. "She was a little feisty. She said what was on her mind. That was what made her an asset on the Planning Commission."

Family and friends will say goodbye to Geraldine McCants at 1 p.m today at First Baptist Church in Zephyrhills. She belonged to Victorious Church of God in Christ, but she touched too many people for that sanctuary. Mourners will pay tribute to the mother of two, who put her sons through college by herself. Who loved midnight snacks so much she sometimes kept a secret Oreos stash. Who threatened to perform All My Ex-es Live In Texas at the family reunion talent show.

Levy Roberts will be among those at McCants' homegoing service.

After he hung up the phone, and as the tears fell, he told his wife that he couldn't help but think McCants was trying to tell him something during the break they shared that day.

His wife smiled. Couldn't he see?

"Geri was telling you bye."

Lisa Buie is the editor for the central/east edition of the Pasco Times. She can be reached at 813 909-4604 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4604. Her e-mail address is buie@sptimes.com

[Last modified February 21, 2005, 12:23:58]