{"id":8339,"date":"2011-07-11T16:20:26","date_gmt":"2011-07-11T20:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=8339"},"modified":"2011-07-11T16:20:26","modified_gmt":"2011-07-11T20:20:26","slug":"first-black-major-at-sheriff%e2%80%99s-office-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=8339","title":{"rendered":"First Black Major At Sheriff\u2019s Office Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY IRIS B. HOLTON<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Sentinel City Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, the first African American promoted to the rank of Major with the Hillsborough County Sheriff\u2019s Office died.\u00a0 Retired <strong>Major Arnie Lee Myers, Jr.<\/strong>, was 82 years old.<\/p>\n<p>His daughter, <strong>Mrs. Adrienne Myers Comache<\/strong> said her father had been on dialysis for the past three years. He had completed his treatment at the center Tuesday, when he suffered a heart attack and did not recover from it.<strong>[private]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A native of Haines City, <strong>Major Myers <\/strong>attended the public schools of Polk County. He continued his education and earned an AA Degree in Political Science and Administration; a Bachelor\u2019s Degree in Literature; and a Master\u2019s Degree in Public Administration.<\/p>\n<p>He served several years in the U. S. Army and in later decided to pursue a career in law enforcement. <strong>Major Myers<\/strong> joined the Hillsborough County Sheriff\u2019s Office in January 1965. During his tenure, he became the first African American promoted to the rank of Major.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Major Myers <\/strong>received numerous awards and commendations during his 23-year career in law enforcement. He served as President of N.O.B.L.E. of Florida and was the recipient of the \u201cDetective of the Year\u201d Award.<\/p>\n<p>He ended his career with retirement on May 24, 1988, and in his retirement letter to then <strong>Sheriff Walter C. Heinrich, Sr<\/strong>.,<strong> Major Myers<\/strong> wrote, \u201cI\u2019ve enjoyed a law enforcement career in which I accomplished much more than originally expected.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After retiring, <strong>Major Myers<\/strong> became a published author of 4 books; hosted a radio program entitled \u201cThe Law And You;\u201d hosted a weekly television series entitled \u201cThe Two Way Street\u201d on USF Channel 16; and wrote a column for the <em>Florida Sentinel Bulletin<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Major Myers<\/strong> is survived by <strong>Mrs. Marye A. Herrington Myers<\/strong>, his wife of 51 years; 5 children; 16 grandchildren; 3 great grandchildren; and numerous other family members and friends.<\/p>\n<p>Funeral services for <strong>Major Myers <\/strong>took place Monday (today) at 1 p.m., at Mt. Tabor M. B. Church. Stones Memorial Funeral Home was in charge of handling arrangements.<strong>[\/private]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor On Tuesday, the first African American promoted to the rank of Major with the Hillsborough County Sheriff\u2019s Office died.\u00a0 Retired Major Arnie Lee Myers, Jr., was 82 years old. His daughter, Mrs. Adrienne Myers Comache said her father had been on dialysis for the past three years. He [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}