UNIVERSITY OFFICIAL SPICER DIES, AGE 60

Edward M. Spicer, associate to the president at Southeast Missouri State University, died Wednesday of an apparent heart attack. He was 60.

Spicer had been at Southeast since 1977, returning to his hometown from a post at the University of Wisconsin.

A funeral mass will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Mary's Cathedral. Monsignor Richard Rolwing will officiate, with burial in Fairmount Cemetery.

Friends may call at Ford and Sons Sprigg Street Chapel from 4-8 p.m. today. Parish prayers will be held at 7 tonight.

Southeast Missouri State University President Kala Stroup said Thursday, "I will miss him both professionally and personally. He has been especially helpful to me in my transition."

As associate to the president, Spicer served as ombudsman for the university, Stroup said.

"He dealt with a lot of the concerns and on-campus complaints and then concerns externally as well," Stroup said.

"He was extraordinarily effective in dealing with all these grievances and complaints," Stroup said. "And he was very effective in making sure people were handled fairly and their concerns addressed.

"He was a very sensitive man and made an enormous contribution to this university," she said. "He was known as a fair man, full of integrity.

"We were fortunate to have him at Southeast," she said.

Robert Foster, executive vice president at the university, said, "I lost a really good friend. I felt Ed Spicer and I were brothers. This is a great personal loss."

Foster said the university also has sustained a great loss.

"He's the best person I've ever seen for conflict resolution," Foster said. "He would deal with people in a humane way and also do what was right. He would help people to understand what was right even when it was not what they wanted."

Foster said, "The projects he dealt with were people projects. That was where his great expertise was.

"He was seen as the person you could go talk to if you had a problem," Foster said.

Spicer was the affirmative-action officer on campus. He monitored implementation of the university's affirmative-action and equal-employment policy.

Stroup said Spicer was working to bring the Upward Bound program to the Southeast campus. Upward Bound reaches out to public schools to find talented students at risk of dropping out. The university would begin working with those students as early as seventh grade.

Spicer was director of the Upward Bound project at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee from 1968-1970.

He was also one of the principal organizers of the "Grow Your Own" cooperative program between the Professional Black Men's Club and the Cape Girardeau Public Schools. The program is designed to develop minority teachers.

In fact, Spicer was in the process of personally selling peanut brittle candy to help raise money for the program's scholarships, said Mack A. Wilson.

Wilson, an associate professor of agriculture at the university and treasurer of the Professional Black Men's Club, said, "The Grow Your Own program was really important to him. He always said if we don't do anything else, I want the Grow Your Own program to be successful.

"He was the type of person I could always talk to, as a colleague and a friend," Wilson said.

Southeast student Derek Hudson, who is president of the Association of Black Collegians, said Spicer worked closely with black students.

Hudson said Spicer helped him get an internship in Washington, D.C. this summer.

"He has also been very supportive of ABC (Association of Black Collegians)," Hudson said. "He's given money for some programming and he came to events and talked with students. That's a real plus for us."

Hudson had an appointment with Spicer Thursday to discuss ways to fund a leadership trip for members of ABC.

"He was going to try to help me find some resources to fund a couple members to go. He was always trying to find ways to help."

Spicer founded and served as chief solicitor for the university's Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Fund for minority students.

He served as chairman of the university's ethnic diversity task force in 1989-90 and was currently chairman of a task force on handicapped accessibility.

Spicer was born June 12, 1931 in Cape Girardeau, son of John Henry and Helen Johnson Spicer. He and the former Juanita Ware were married June 30, 1957 in Fort Smith, Ark.

He attended Cape Girardeau public schools. He earned a bachelor's degree from Lincoln University in Jefferson City and master's and doctorate degrees from the University of Wisconsin. His area of specialty was urban education.

Spicer returned to Cape Girardeau in 1977 as assistant to the president at Southeast, a post he held until 1981, when he became associate to the president. He was acting dean of students from 1977-78. He was named affirmative-action officer in 1980 and ombudsman in 1987.

"Ed Spicer was a hometown Cape Girardean who brought us a senior administrator of color, and that was reassuring to the minority community that the university had a place for all our citizens," said Bill Stacy, former Southeast president.

Stacy said Spicer was versatile and talented as an administrative troubleshooter. "He was a great `Mr. Fix-it' for me," said Stacy. "When something wasn't working well, he could move in and resolve it, and then move on to something else."

Spicer, who lived at 1841 Vincent, was a member of St. Mary's Cathedral and Omega Psi Phi fraternity, and past member of St. Mary's School Board.

Survivors include his wife; three sons, Edward Spicer Jr. of Riverside, Calif., Eric Spicer of Junction City, Kan., and Vincent Spicer of Cape Girardeau; two brothers, John Spicer of Richmond Heights and Robert Spicer of Los Angeles; two sisters, Alberta Bank-Kemp and Evelyn Jenkins of Cape Girardeau; and five grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by a brother and two sisters.