Friends rally to support 'well-loved man' in need

Blaine LeCouris, a longtime public servant in North Pinellas, says he is overwhelmed by the outpouring to help pay for his family's high medical expenses.

By KATHERINE GAZELLA

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 19, 2000

TARPON SPRINGS -- In nearly half a century working for the Clearwater Police Department and the city of Tarpon Springs, Blaine LeCouris made a lot of friends.

"Blaine has served upper Pinellas for the last 50 years," restaurant owner Louis Pappas said. "He's just a well-loved man."

Now people are showing their love for LeCouris, a former police chief, city manager and city commissioner in Tarpon Springs, by rallying around him and helping his family pay mounting medical bills.

Friends have set up a trust fund to help LeCouris and his wife, Alice, with health care costs. Alice LeCouris has more than $30,000 in medical bills from a fall in which she broke her hip and a bad case of colitis, an inflammation of the colon.

LeCouris, 77, said his wife used to have insurance and thought she still did, but learned when she broke her hip earlier this year that the coverage had lapsed. Because of her existing health problems, she has been unable to get new insurance and she later was found to have colitis.

LeCouris, the father of Tarpon Springs Police Chief Mark LeCouris, has prostate cancer and had two steel plates put in his neck earlier this year because of an injury from an old motorcycle accident. His health care costs primarily have been covered by his Medicare HMO, he said. Alice LeCouris is 57 and not eligible for Medicare.

LeCouris said he was reluctant to accept help.

"But when you get bad luck falling on you, you have to swallow your pride," he said.

LeCouris does security work two nights a week for Pappas. But that income and his pensions from Clearwater and Tarpon Springs -- about $800 a month combined -- are not nearly enough to cover his expenses, he said. After his wife broke her hip earlier this year, he cashed in CDs and IRAs, he said.

"Practically everything I had," he said.

But it wasn't enough, especially after the mounting hospital bills for her colitis.

Pappas, longtime friend Wayne King and others set up a trust fund at Bank of America that only will be used to pay the LeCourises' medical bills. They also are planning a fundraiser Dec. 3 at the Pappas ranch in Holiday, where food and drinks will be served and couples can make minimum donations of $50 to the trust fund.

Letters were sent out last week to Tarpon Springs Chamber of Commerce members, and Pappas said he has gotten a tremendous response already. He had received 50 to 60 phone calls, he said, and more people had contacted King and others.

King, who hired LeCouris to the Clearwater Police Department in 1951, said several people have pledged to make contributions much higher than the requested $50. Some are offering $200 to $300, and a few people have offered to donate $500, he said.

"It's a heck of a lot more than Louie and I expected," King said.

In spite of LeCouris' health problems, he was in good spirits this week and managed to laugh about his situation. With the steel plates in his neck and the radiated pellets that are shot into his body to fight the cancer, he joked that he can set off metal detectors and glow in the dark.

He plans to attend the Dec. 3 event, but his wife probably won't have the strength to go, he said. He said he was pleased by the public's interest in helping him, and he is touched by his friends' efforts.

"It just goes back to the old saying, a good friend is worth a million dollars," he said.

For more information about the trust fund or the event on Dec. 3, call Pappas' Restaurant at (727) 937-5101.

- Staff writer Katherine Gazella can be reached at (727) 445-4182 or gazella@sptimes.com.

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