Thousands turn out in remembrance of Coe

[Times photo: Thomas M. Goethe] Mourners leave the wake held Tuesday night for Hillsborough State Attorney Harry Lee Coe. A memorial service will be held today.

By GRAHAM BRINK and ANGELA MOORE

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 19, 2000

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TAMPA -- Harry Lee Coe IV recalled his father Tuesday as a humble and understated man, someone who didn't like much fanfare.

It made sense to Coe that his father, Hillsborough State Attorney Harry Lee Coe III, had asked his family to simply cremate his body and forgo a funeral. Coe's body was found Thursday after he shot himself under the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway, a few hundred yards from his apartment.

"That's his personality, 'nothing special for me,' " Coe said Monday. "But we felt we had to do something. His life was spent in public service and he touched a lot of people. It happened so fast that we all need a chance to say goodbye."

Thousands of people took that chance Tuesday night at a wake in Coe's honor at Living Water Church in east Tampa. Though the service started at 6 p.m., people began lining up in the church lobby about 5 p.m. Most mourners waited in line for two hours, filing past Coe's flag-draped casket and its honor guard to offer their condolences to his oldest son, his ex-wife, his sister and other relatives.

Crushed together in the hot, stuffy lobby were people from all walks of life, testifying to Coe's diverse impact on the community. Politicians like state Sen. John Grant, Hillsborough County commissioners Jan Platt and Thomas Scott and Tampa City Council member Charlie Miranda waited alongside citizens in neighborhood watch T-shirts.

Tampa police detectives, judges, prosecutors and others from the legal community swapped stories while gray-haired classmates from the University of Florida looked at recent pictures of Coe in a backslapping, jovial mood.

The line wound around picture displays depicting Coe's life, from baby pictures, to newspaper articles when he was the Tampa Tarpon's "ace pitcher," to wedding photos with his first wife, Ida, to baby pictures with his oldest son, to pictures of Coe meeting Queen Elizabeth II and President Bill Clinton.

A memorial service, expected to last about two hours, begins at 10 a.m. today at Living Water Church at 6850 Living Water Place, off Interstate 4, west of Orient Road in Tampa. Hundreds of mourners are expected to attend.

After the service, a procession including a police escort will travel from Living Water Church to St. John's Episcopal Church at 902 S Orleans Ave. for a reception. Coe, 68, was a member of the St. John's congregation, but the church cannot hold the large crowd expected for the 10 a.m. service.

The procession route is subject to change, although it is tentatively planned to leave Living Water Church south on 50th Street to I-4 and onto Interstate 275. The procession will exit at Howard Street and continue on to Bayshore Boulevard where it will turn south and work its way to St. John's.

The family is establishing a Harry Lee Coe Memorial Fund for the many people who expressed an interest in contributing. The money will be donated to charities Coe supported and to the two churches handling the services, the younger Coe said.

"We have had so many people call and ask how they can help out," Coe said. "The support has been incredible."

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