STEVEN KIRL PARKS,

68, passed away July 22, 2021, in Little Rock. Steve was born in his beloved Oxford, Miss., and spent several of his formative years in Memphis, Tenn.

He was very much a son of the South, indelibly influenced by its sights (The Square and Rowan Oak in Oxford), sounds (the blues, with Tedeschi Trucks Band having been a favorite in recent years) and its better traditions, including the region’s rich historical association with baseball, a sport Steve loved and followed virtually all of his life. While attending what was then Memphis State University, Steve was a member of that school’s varsity baseball team. It is telling that Steve recalled his trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., even more enthusiastically than his trips to places like the famed Cipriani Hotel in Venice and the Tetons in Jackson Hole. Whenever the opportunity presented itself, Steve would wax eloquent about the Yankees and many of its Hall of Famers, including Mantle, Maris, Berra (“it’s so popular no one goes there anymore”), Rivera and Jeter, and he watched the Ken Burns’ documentary, “Baseball,” whenever he could catch it on PBS. Golf rivaled his love of baseball, but only as a distant second. If Steve was anything, he was a great salesman, having honed his sales skills at one of the largest BMW dealerships in the Mid-South while still in his twenties. His talents as a salesman eventually propelled him to significant financial success and heights in the business world … but he also made and acknowledged his mistakes, mistakes for which he paid and suffered very dearly, both financially and personally with loss of fortune and separation, for a time, from family. However, Steve emerged from that cauldron of loss with a clear vision of those values of true import: love and importance of family and a quiet but sure faith. He was working tirelessly, typically six days a week every week, in an effort to reclaim a portion of what he had lost, even ignoring and hiding the signs of declining health and serious disease until he could ignore and hide them no longer, and that disease claimed Steve as another of its victims, but one who faced it with courage, knowing and accepting the odds against him, and one who now struggles no more.

Steve is survived by mother, Martha Jane Goolsby Parks; wife, Anna Louise Harper; daughter, Cooper DesLauriers of the home; son, Madison Kirl Parks (Tracy) of Southhaven, Miss.; daughter, Dana Marie Parks Messina (Paolo) of Baton Rouge, La.; three grandchildren; one great-grandchild.

A memorial service will be held at a later time when COVID restrictions have eased. Memorials can be made to Arkansas Autism & Outreach Center (AAROC), Partners for Inclusive Communities, uofapartners.uark. edu. Cremation services are under the direction on Cremation Services of Ark. (501) 313-5431 www.cremationservicesofarkansas.com