As 2020 soon comes to a close, we remember and honor the following neighbors we lost this year:
Wildcat alum Cleve Whitener killed in Abilene plane crash
Lake Highlands High School graduate Cleve Whitener, 70, died in a plane crash in February. Whitener graduated from LHHS in 1968 and was a giant in the construction industry. He founded Lauren Engineers and Constructors in 1984, with design-and-build projects throughout the Southeast and Southwest. He relocated the company from Atlanta to Abilene in 1994 and became active in the community there.
Cleve Whitener
Hannah Hargrove-Roberts was one of our Lake Highlands’ Fierce Females in 2018. Hargrove-Roberts has spent the past six years managing and revamping her family’s business, Orr-Reed Wrecking. On Friday, March 27, her grandfather and Dallas native, Cecil ‘Mac’ Hargrove, died of COVID-19. Hannah says “He was a Baptist pastor. He used his platform to show people that the color of your skin did not matter — God loved everybody. For Bishop Arts, he was a real estate broker. They helped people who might not fit the best credit profiles but would bring good things to the neighborhood.”
Hargrove-Roberts and her grandfather Cecil on her wedding day.
Exchange Club leader Don Lee dies
Community leader Don Lee died in May at a retirement home in Flower Mound. He moved there from Lake Highlands not long after his beloved wife, Patsy, died in 2018. He is survived by daughter Jennifer Gross and her family, also in Flower Mound. Don and Patsy moved to Lake Highlands in 1977 and quickly jumped into activities in the neighborhood. They joined Lake Highlands United Methodist Church and Don volunteered with the Exchange Club.
Patsy and Don Lee with the Melinda Lee Memorial Scholarship plaque.
Journalist, author, Lake Highlands neighbor Karen Blumenthal dies at 61
Karen Blumenthal, award-winning author of young adult nonfiction and journalist who worked as the business editor at the Dallas Morning News, died in May after a heart attack. The Lake Highlands resident wrote about topics such as Bonnie and Clyde, Roe v. Wade, Hilary Rodham Clinton and Steve Jobs.
Karen Blumenthal. Photo by Robin Sachs Photography
Mom of three dies after 2017 brain aneurysm
In 2017, Shamille Britton suffered a brain aneurysm which left her in the hospital’s critical care unit for months. The woman, known as “Pinky” to friends and to nurses inspired by her will to live, battled the lingering effects of her injury and worked to get home to her three boys. In June, Pinky lost her fight against the medical issues which plagued her. Many Wildcat football fans knew Pinky as single mom and head cheerleader for Tamoz Britton-Thomas, Lake Highlands High School all-district wide receiver and graduate in 2019.
Shamille Britton
Death of Brenda Owens, longtime coach at Forest Meadow
For 32 years, Brenda Owens made it cool for girls at Forest Meadow Junior High to play sports. She died Oct. 14 at the age of 69. When Owens first came to Forest Meadow in 1985 as coach, then later as athletic coordinator, many girls were more interested in dance and cheerleading. Seventh grade Spirit Leader signup and eighth grade cheer tryouts drew big numbers, and classes stayed full at nearby Kitty Carter Dance Factory, Janie Christy School of Dance and Dallas Ballet Center. Owens told those girls, most of whom aspired to be Highlandettes or Wranglers at Lake Highlands High School, that they could also play volleyball or basketball or run track for the Chargers and have fun doing it.
Brenda Owens
