Jack Larsen

LITTLE ROCK — up closegetting to know John Axel ‘Jack’ LarsenBirth date: April 7, 1937 Birthplace: Oak Park, Ill.

Family: Wife, Crystal; son, Eric; daughter, Kristin;

and five grandchildren Biggest influence: I changed high schools three times. That helped me learn the importance of making friends, of being involved in activities, and it also taught me to be independent.

First job: In the seventh grade, I worked in a greenhouse transplanting plants.

When I was a child, I said that when I grew up I wanted to: Work with my hands One thing you want to accomplish in life but haven’t done yet: I want to skydive.

Most people don’t know that I’m: Very sentimental and emotional Favorite quote: “My candle burns at both ends.

It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends - it gives a lovely light.” - Edna St.

Vincent MillayWhen Jack Larsen retired in 1996 and he and his wife, Crystal, moved to Hot Springs Village the next year, they knew they wanted to be active in the community.

“We always got involved wherever we lived,” she said. “After we were first married and got a house in a new community, Jack said we should go to the village meeting and find out what was going on. We have always done that.”

Just a few weeks from turning 75 years old, Jack Larsen is certainly involved in not only his community, but in the region.

“Presently, I am on the board of five not-for-profit organizations. I am the president of the local [Hot Springs Village] Arts Council; I help train medical students in clinical skills at the university hospital (I’m a pretend patient). I sing in two choruses, I am a docent at Garvan Woodland Gardens, and I coordinate all docent volunteers for the botanical garden,” Larsen said. “I am a Master Gardener and work on many Master Gardener projects. I am a member of the local Men’s Village Garden Club and work on their community-oriented projects. I am writing press releases for two organizations, I work with a talent agency and do an occasional TV commercial or print ad, and I am an active member of both local and regional community theaters, having acted, directed and produced a number of plays.”

Along with his active participation in music as a singer, he is the immediate past president and a member of the executive committee of the Hot Springs/ Hot Springs Village Symphony Guild, supporting the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. He has also been a member of the orchestra board of directors.

He and his wife, Crystal, or Crys, as she is called by her husband, began as members of the chorus for the Hot Springs Music Festival, and he became chairman of the festival’s board of directors.

At home in his “spare time,” Larsen is a woodcarver, turning blocks of wood into lifelike decorative decoys.

“I try to make them realistic with every feather and every quill,” Larsen said. “Crys gave two of them to me. I never thought I would have the patience to make them, but I guess it is just part of my creative side.”

Beyond showing everyone that he is no couch potato, why does Larsen stay so active?

“I was giving a talk before an elder-hostel group when I was the chairman of the music festival, and someone asked me why I did everything that I was doing,” he said. “I have a simple philosophy about volunteering - I would rather do it now when I am able than regret not doing it when I am unable.”

Crystal has a more simple explanation.

“He has ants in his pants,” she said. “He has always been this way. If he has nothing to do, he walks around the house all day.”

This need for constant motion and activity in Larsen’s life may have started with his parents, both of whom came to American from Scandinavia.

“My father was from Denmark. He was 28 when he came over, and he said he learned English by going to the movies,” Larsen said. “My mother was from Norway and came with her parents when she was 6 and learned English by total immersion in school.”

His parents moved often around the Chicago area. He started his education at a rural four-room schoolhouse where he first joined a children’s choir and gained a love of music.

Larsen had lived in several places before he entered high school in Illinois; then his parents moved the family to California for a while. Before his senior year, they returned to the Chicago area, and he wanted to return to the same high school where he had begun.

“I was not in the district, and they said I could attend if I paid tuition,” Larsen said. “I got a job as a school janitor for the tuition and graduated with my original class, but by then the group had changed, and I made new friends.”

One friend he made was Crystal. They were in the high school choir together and were prom dates.

“Then she dumped me,” he said.

They would meet again three years later when she had car trouble and Larsen happened by and made a repair. But it would be three more years before he would call her house and talk to her mother, and he and Crystal began to see each other again.

After graduation in 1955, Larsen worked at a tool factory, which had been a longtime plan, but his life took a different direction in a very casual way.

“There were three of us from work standing around a gas station talking about what we wanted to do,” Larsen recalled. “One of them said he was goingto join the Navy. I thought that it was peace time and so should be pretty safe, so we joined. I was 18.”

He trained at the Great lakes Training Center and learned to be a metalsmith. Also during training, he auditioned for the choir at the base chapel and was selected as a member of the Bluejacket Choir, a famous men’s choir created at the base.

“I got out of duties all the time for rehearsals and was also allowed to go off base for performances,” Larsen said. “I was fortunate to be part of it.”

However, while on duty on Guam, Larsen entered college to have something to do.

“I took a course in algebra in a Quonset hut at the Guam Territorial College,” he said. “It let me know that I could handle college work, and while I did not disparage working with my hands, I thought I could look for something better.”

After his three years in the Navy, where hepicked up college credits and an anchor tattoo, he entered Bradley University in Perioa, Ill., and earned a degree in industrial education.

“I thought I could be an industrial trainer,” he said. “It was 1961, and times were good, but the company made me a salesman.”

Soon afterward, he moved to communications pioneer Motorola. Larsen was again hired as a trainer but was soon working as a writer for sales support materials.

“I did brochures and film strips and promotional materials, and I enjoyed it,” he said.

Larsen’s career with the company included promotional work and management positions in public relations and sales. He, his wife and family moved around the country as he served in ever larger and more important positions, including two years in Texas, which Larsen said he enjoyed.

“We loved Dallas. I felt I was born to Texas and that we might stay, but after two years, I was made vice president of sales for the Midwest,” he said.

The Larsens also spent two years in Australia when he was managing director over the operations of the company there and for New Zealand and New Guinea.

Having done so many different things in his career, Larsen took an offer for early retirement in 1996 at the age of 59.

Soon he and his wife joineda group of barbershop singers in Hot Springs Village, and his work promoting the arts in the region began.

“We became part of the Hot Springs Music Festival Chorus, where we met all kinds of different people,” Larsen said. “I joined the board, and I was asked to look at the festival’s foundation, and I was chairman of the board for three years.”

Larsen said he was proud to have helped the festival get out of debt and become solvent.

Today, as chairman of the Hot Springs Village Arts Council, Larsen is working to bring all of the active arts organizations in the Village together in a coordinated effort to support all the arts in the community.

“We are looking at a lot of good ideas,” Larsen said. “We are looking at an annual arts fair where all the different organizations could come together, from camera clubs tothe Hot Springs Village Players, for exhibitions, scenes, music and readings.”

And that would give Larsen something else to do.

Staff writer Wayne Bryan can be reached at (501) 244-4460 or wbryan@arkansasonline.com.