Haysbert

Baltimore businessman and political activist Raymond V. Haysbert was in critical condition last night at Good Samaritan Hospital after he collapsed about 6: 30 p.m. at a fund-raiser in Northeast Baltimore.The former chairman of Parks Sausage Co., Haysbert, who is in his late 70s, collapsed after speaking to about 200 people at the event sponsored by the North Central Democratic Coalition to raise money for Sylvia Williams' campaign for a 3rd District City Council seat."He was speaking, and he just fell backward," said Ruth Sparks, who held the event at her home in the 2500 block of Montebello Terrace.

At the memorial service Wednesday for Raymond V. Haysbert Sr., Kweisi Mfume recalled the frank advice handed to him by the respected statesman of the African-American business and political community. "He said come to the house and led me into the sunroom," the former congressman said of a 1978 meeting. "He told me, 'Young man, if you want to get elected, lose all that jewelry, cut your hair and never wear a pink suit.' " Mr. Mfume was one of those Mr. Haysbert counseled, coached and occasionally supported financially during his lengthy career that mixed business with politics.

A Baltimore District Court judge yesterday ordered the parent company of Parks Sausage to pay $16,250 to the company's former president for consulting services.District Court Judge H. Gary Bass ruled that the payment was required by a consulting agreement between Parks LLC, the parent company, and Reginald Haysbert, the former president.Haysbert and his father, former company Chairman Raymond V. Haysbert, sold the bankrupt company last year to a group led by former football star Franco Harris.

The legacy of Raymond Haysbert goes beyond business and politics ("Business and policy leader Raymond V. Haysbert Sr. 1920-2010," May 25). He was also a visionary in higher education and played an important role in an innovative program developed at Johns Hopkins in the 1990s. The Leadership Development Program for Minority Managers (LDP) was designed to attract a cohort of mid-level black professionals who sought a challenging and supportive academic business environment that combined the rich resources of the university and the Baltimore business community.

Raymond V. Haysbert, the 79-year-old former chairman of Parks Sausage Co., was in stable condition last night at Good Samaritan Hospital after suffering a heart attack Sunday evening at a political fund-raiser, his family said.Haysbert was speaking at an event for City Council candidate Sylvia Williams in Northeast Baltimore when he fell and hit his head. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation was performed until paramedics arrived.It was the second heart attack for Haysbert, who in 1952 joined the sausage business started in Baltimore by Henry G. Parks Jr. In 1969, the company became the first minority-owned firm in the United States to go public.

These are heady times for Raymond V. Haysbert Sr., chairman and chief executive officer of Parks Sausage Co.A year and a half ago his company moved into its new $16.5 million plant on Parks Industrial Circle in northwest Baltimore. Then, on Sept. 25, Haysbert received the award of Minority Entrepreneur of the Year from President Bush."Shaking hands with the most powerful man in the world since Desert Storm was quite a thrill," Haysbert recalls. "That recognition has to be a high point. Now all I need is some more business."

In an article Tuesday, Sen. Verda F. Welcome was misidentified as the first black person elected to the Maryland Senate. In fact, Welcome was the first black woman elected to the Senate. The first African-American elected to the chamber was Harry A. Cole in 1954.The Sun regrets the errors.News that state Sen. Larry Young will lose his General Assembly leadership positions and possibly his Senate seat angered his supporters yesterday, but they vowed to fight on to keep Young in the Senate.

Raymond V. Haysbert, an elder statesman of Maryland's African-American business community, testified yesterday that he quit the board of investment banker Nathan A. Chapman Jr.'s company after being asked to sign off on documents he wasn't shown. Haysbert, the 84-year-old former chief executive of Parks Sausage Co., said he would not accept legal liability for signing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings without seeing the complete documents. "So I refused to sign," Haysbert said.

The Baltimore Urban League took a major step yesterday on its road back from the brink of bankruptcy as organization leaders announced that Raymond V. Haysbert Sr., an established and respected businessman, had signed on as chairman of the board of directors. "They approached me," said Haysbert, former chairman of Parks Sausage Co. "It was like a presentation: `We can't afford to lose this institution, and we don't want Baltimore to be besmirched by the failure of this institution.'" Financial improprieties and huge debts almost killed the civil rights organization last year.

Franco Harris, who has emerged as the best hope for saving Parks Sausage Co., yesterday said his attorneys were spending the night in Baltimore to try to close a deal to buy the shutdown company."

Raymond V. Haysbert Sr., an elder statesman of Maryland's African-American business community, died at Union Memorial hospital Monday. He was 90. Haysbert had been the chief executive officer of the Parks Sausage Co., one of the largest black-owned businesses in the country. He was a longtime chairman of the Urban League in Baltimore. He moved to the city in the 1950s, recruited by Henry Parks, and helped turn the sausage company into a success. Known for its popular "More Parks Sausages Mom, Please" slogan, it became the first minority-owned company to go public on the stock exchange and earned record financial profits.

Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele has collected thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from board members of the not-for-profit organizations selected by his office to receive unrestricted state grants, a review of campaign finance records shows. Officials with three of four African-American groups that in early 2004 received a combined $250,000 - the result of an insurance settlement received by the state - gave $13,711 to the lieutenant governor about the same time or in the months after, according to a state elections board database.

B. Tyrous "Terry" Addison, an entrepreneur and decorated Air Force veteran who was active in African-American business circles, died of congestive heart failure Saturday at Good Samaritan Hospital. The Govans resident was 76. Born in Lumberton, N.C., Mr. Addison was one of 12 children. He worked on his family's tenant tobacco farm until he was 18, and won a partial scholarship to Livingstone College in Salisbury, N.C. He lacked money to complete his education and enlisted in the Air Force, serving in the Korean War and completing 50 combat missions as an aerial gunner and gunner instructor.

Raymond V. Haysbert, an elder statesman of Maryland's African-American business community, testified yesterday that he quit the board of investment banker Nathan A. Chapman Jr.'s company after being asked to sign off on documents he wasn't shown. Haysbert, the 84-year-old former chief executive of Parks Sausage Co., said he would not accept legal liability for signing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings without seeing the complete documents. "So I refused to sign," Haysbert said.

Charles Thomas Bruce, a longtime official with the old Parks Sausage Co., died of congestive heart failure Saturday at Sinai Hospital. The Ashburton resident was 73. Mr. Bruce was born and raised in Philadelphia, where he attended public schools, and served from 1945 to 1947 with an Army ordnance company. He also studied business at the University of Baltimore. After working at several jobs in Philadelphia, he moved to Baltimore in 1954 to join Parks Sausage. The company, founded four years earlier by Henry G. Parks Jr., grew into the nation's 35th-largest black-owned business and the first to sell stock to the public.

Charges filed yesterday against Nathan A. Chapman Jr. threaten to end the career of a charismatic business leader who dreamed of creating "the black Merrill Lynch" and was held up as a role model for young African-Americans. Chapman, 45, was for a time one of the stars of a new wave of black investment professionals. Smart, energetic and handsome, he made a strong impression at Alex. Brown & Sons, the venerable Baltimore firm he joined in the early 1980s as one of its first African-American brokers.

Reginald Haysbert, the former Parks Sausage Co. president who sold the bankrupt company to Franco Harris last year, is suing Parks for more than $16,000.In a lawsuit scheduled for trial Sept. 16 in city District Court, Haysbert charges that Parks LLC, Harris' company, failed to live up to an agreement to pay him $150,000 over two years. The agreement required Haysbert to provide consulting services and to refrain from competing with Parks.The payments to Haysbert were supposed to be made in monthly installments over two years, starting last October.

The management of Parks Sausage Co. moved a small step closer to selling the shut-down business to a group led by former football star Franco Harris as the two sides yesterday inspected an agreement with details of the deal.Lawyers for Harris plan to meet today with lawyers for Parks, as well as with the company's two largest creditors -- NationsBank and Baltimore -- representatives of the company and Harris' group said.But Parks Chairman Raymond V. Haysbert said yesterday that he was unsure about the sale's prospects.

With the city's primary less than four months away, an organized effort to find the best African-American candidate to challenge Mayor Martin O'Malley is quietly under way. Raymond V. Haysbert, chairman of the Greater Baltimore Urban League, had O'Malley's six leading rivals to a private dinner convened Wednesday to develop strategies to defeat the popular incumbent. "It wasn't about who was going to be the best mayor or that we didn't already have the best mayor," said Haysbert, campaign treasurer for state Sen. Joan Carter Conway, who is considering challenging O'Malley.

The president of the Baltimore Urban League is polishing his pitch for cash and recruiting new members, unmistakable signs of change for a venerable organization that nearly collapsed three years ago. J. Howard Henderson says that until recently, the league couldn't in good faith ask for money. Unpaid bills had grown into a $2.2 million debt, which, when revealed to the public, had disgraced the organization and scared away donors. The organization's money problems, attributed to mismanagement, were exposed in early 2000 when it couldn't make its payroll.