Anyone visiting Sharon Heflin’s office will soon realize how proud she is of her three granddaughters and grandson.
The grandchildren’s photos — and the artwork of granddaughter Anna, now 10 — dominate said office, an oasis that lies at the crossroads between elegant and casual. Physically, it’s located near Heflin’s sprawling home in the rural Landmark community south of Little Rock.
Also evident in her office is the fact that Heflin is a prolific volunteer. Displayed is a collection of glass plaques, various awards and honors from a variety of organizations — Arkansas Hospice, The Centers for Youth & Families, and others.
These awards will soon be joined by another token of appreciation. Heflin will be recognized by Alzheimer’s Arkansas as its 2015 Outstanding Individual Advocate at the third annual Advocate of the Year Dinner, to be held from 6-9 p.m. Thursday at the Metroplex in Little Rock. Her fellow honorees are Jana Wineland, Outstanding Support Group Facilitator Advocate, and Melissa Longing, Outstanding Volunteer Advocate.
Rick Fleetwood, chief executive officer of Snell Prosthetic & Orthotic Laboratory and fellow Alzheimer’s Arkansas board member, nominated Heflin for her award. “Sharon is probably one of the most caring, dedicated, loving, committed, determined-to-make-a-difference individuals I have ever had the pleasure to know,” he wrote in his nomination letter.
Her father died from complications of Alzheimer’s. “Most people after they have been drained by this terrible disease just want to walk away and forget. But not Sharon. She wants to make the journey for others easier.”
Fleetwood refers to Heflin as the “good and faithful servant” praised by his master in the Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25.
“She embodies what we all should strive to be,” he says. “I can only hope to touch the hem of her garment. I truly love her for making a difference and for being such a wonderful example for all of us to follow.”
So how did Heflin get her start as a champion for her community?
“You know I’m not really sure exactly … I don’t know how it happened,” Heflin says, laughing. “I can’t say no very easily. I don’t even know how I got started.”
She does know that she was led to volunteer with Alzheimer’s Arkansas in 2001, about the time her father developed the disease. “The stuff that touches your family, you’re a lot more interested in that,” she says. ‘‘Also, Johnny [her late husband, Johnny Heflin] and his folks and my folks were very philanthropic-minded. … All parents know that kids aren’t born with the desire to share. They have to be taught — and fortunately I was taught and Johnny was taught.
“Our interests were probably mostly in health, health care, and education, and [I’ve] been very involved with Arkansas Hospice, end-of-life care,” she says. ‘‘I’ve met so many people through … volunteer work; it’s really broadened my horizons about everybody and everything, I think. I enjoy it. I probably get more out of it than I give back.”
Heflin cites the various Alzheimer’s Arkansas events in which she has taken part: its annual Alzheimer’s Arkansas Walk at the Little Rock Zoo; its Alzheimer’s Advocates After Dark, a kickoff to sign up phone volunteers and respite-caregivers; and its annual Hope for the Future symposiums. The latter, for caregivers, is held annually in Little Rock and will also be held annually in Jonesboro, Heflin says. “I think it’s helpful to see that you aren’t in this alone,” she says. “You see other people who are going through the same thing that you’re going through and you think, ‘OK, I’m not the only person in the world who has to deal with this.’ You get a chance to get to meet people and kind of talk things out.”
Elise Siegler, executive director of Alzheimer’s Arkansas, has witnessed firsthand Heflin’s heart for Alzheimer’s caregivers.
FROM THE HEART
“She has such a pure heart of giving, and pure joy to help others,” Siegler says. “She is the essence of the true philanthropist, because there’s not a person she wouldn’t go out of her way to help.”
She cites Heflin’s volunteer hours for the organization, as well as monetary donations for the free services and programs provided to caregivers including education, family counseling, an after-hours caregiver line and referrals.
Rather than expecting to be thanked, Heflin has done the thanking. Siegler tells of the “countless” handwritten, detailed thank-you notes she has received from her for various reasons. “She has just gone above and beyond what any organization can expect from a volunteer.”
The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America defines the disease as “a progressive, degenerative disorder that attacks the brain’s nerve cells, or neurons, resulting in loss of memory, thinking and language skills, and behavioral changes. … Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia, or loss of intellectual function, among people aged 65 and older. Alzheimer’s disease is not a normal part of aging.”
The number of Arkansans with the disease is 52,000, and that is expected to grow to 67,000 by 2025, according to a 2014 report by the Alzheimer’s Association.
“Memory loss is a natural part of aging,” Heflin says. Alzheimer’s disease is not natural; rather, it’s a disease that causes brain cells to die. “In other words, it’s natural memory loss versus a degenerative disease of brain cells dying due to the disease.”
And it doesn’t just happen to old people. It can attack young people as well, as showcased in the movie Still Alice, which won Julianne Moore a Best Actress Oscar. In the movie, Moore plays Alice Howland, a college professor who has early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
Heflin’s aware of the sobering probability associated with Alzheimer’s: “Especially as we age … there [are] more and more people that are going to be affected by it,” she says. You lose loved ones twice when they have Alzheimer’s, she says, first to the disease, then to physical death. Her father lived with the disease eight years before he passed away.
“My daddy didn’t call me by name for three years before he died. But at the same time, whenever I walked into the room, his face would light up and he’d smile and I knew that he knew who I was, he just didn’t know what my name was.”
Heflin cites her mother’s experience caring for her father. She’d go once a week to help her mother care for her father, who’d been a Missouri Pacific railroad engineer and also worked with the railroad’s labor union in St. Louis. “I was actually afraid it was going to kill my mother,” she says. “She was a little bitty thing, and he was a big guy. It’s hard.” But “there are people willing to help you and Alzheimer’s Arkansas has hundreds of those people and they have lots of good professional help” to give the right answers, advice and solutions, Heflin says.
“I think it’d really be hard to be married to a person who has Alzheimer’s,” she says. Of course she realizes that everybody forgets where they put their keys or phone. “It just happens.” But when more serious things are forgotten, then one must consider the possibility that it’s Alzheimer’s, Heflin says.
Two aunts — her father’s older sister, as well as her mother’s younger sister — also had Alzheimer’s. “And so I’ve got it on both sides of the family. Every time I walk out of Wal-Mart and can’t find my car, I think, ‘Oh no, it’s hit [me].’”
Luckily, it hasn’t, and Heflin has remained an active volunteer. She’s also heavily involved with her church, Second Baptist in downtown Little Rock, which she lauds for its mission work and local literacy education. And she’s part of the Little Rock Central High School Alumni Association. “I’m real proud to say I’m a Central Tiger,” she says.
EARLY YEARS
It was at Central that Heflin, who grew up in the Oak Forest neighborhood, served as a cheerleader and excelled academically, being a member of such organizations as the Beta Club and National Honor Society. After graduation in 1964, she went to Ouachita Baptist University, finishing in three years.
She and Johnny Heflin dated in high school. He was a year ahead of her. “He actually was the reason I went to OBU,” she says. Her accelerated college career wasn’t exactly motivated by academic enthusiasm. She’d promised her parents she’d finish college before marrying. And she was eager to marry Johnny, who’d told her she could graduate in three years if she took large class loads and went to summer school. The Heflins graduated from Ouachita together with degrees in business administration in May 1967. At the end of August they married at Oak Forest United Methodist Church.
Johnny Heflin subsequently got a fellowship in management at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, so the Heflins moved to Northwest Arkansas. After Johnny earned his master’s degree in January 1969, they returned to Little Rock. Buying 10 acres of land from Johnny’s parents, they built the house in Landmark. It was a small, unbricked version of the current structure, but “it was our home,” Heflin says. They went on to have their two sons, Jay and Marc.
Around 2001, Johnny and his sons began Bird and Bear Medical. The company offered durable medical equipment such as CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machines, beds, potty chairs, walkers and wheelchairs. Sharon Heflin worked in the accounts receivable department.
After Johnny Heflin passed away in 2006, his family operated the company until 2013, when Bird and Bear was sold to Aerocare of Orlando, Fla. So Bird and Bear Medical is “not us anymore,” Heflin says. “It’s them.”
The brothers operate Bird and Bear Management Co. Inc., which Bloomberg.com describes as a specialized consumer services company whose main line of business is categorized under pest control. One visiting Bird and Bear for the first time might be confused by the fact that the building is on Terminix Drive and is marked Terminix. Johnny Heflin’s father, also named Jay, owned the Terminix franchise in Little Rock. Johnny worked at Terminix Inc. with his father. In 1999, all of Terminix Inc. was sold to Terminix International except for the Hot Springs Village operation.
In 2010 Heflin’s sons decided to start a new pest-control company, Legacy Termite & Pest Control Inc. Heflin is now the accounts payable supervisor for Legacy, Bird and Bear Management, Bird and Bear Properties and Terminix Inc. in Hot Springs Village.
As for hobbies, “I don’t live a very exciting life,” Heflin says. She sees her grandchildren regularly at church: Grace, 15, Ben, 13, Sarah, 12, and the aforementioned Anna. She is part of a group called the Birthday Girls, most of whom are in their 80s and friends of her mother-in-law. They get together for lunch once a month.
A FRIEND INDEED
One could conclude that, well, volunteering is Heflin’s hobby.
“When you ask her for help, she always says yes, whether it’s helping plan the big event, writing a check, or setting up the chairs,” says Ruth Shepherd, executive director of Just Communities of Arkansas, for which Heflin served as a board member. “Sharon always makes you feel like she loves you the most. If I get a second life, I want to come back as Sharon Heflin’s sister. … [She] is a bright thread in the tapestry of my very blessed life.”
Heflin, who like the famed Will Rogers says she has never met a person she didn’t like, is pretty modest about it all.
“I treat people the way they’d like to be treated. … That’s my aim, to do that.”