Joseph David Alsbrook's Obituary
Joseph David Alsbrook of Fayetteville, Arkansas, had a dry wit and an unending curiosity. He loved reading and learning about history, religion, philosophy, art, and everything in between. On January 4, 2024, he departed peacefully from this life.
Joe was complicated, curmudgeonly, but always fiercely well-intended. His life-long passion was self-improvement, and alongside his wife Valerie he engaged in constant study to become better people and better citizens. Many close friendships were forged through the learning courses, programs, and educational endeavors they embraced over the years. Joe often said: “I am not the man I want to be, I’m not the man I need to be, but I thank God I am not the man I used to be.” His family’s final wish for Joe is that he rest in peace knowing they see and honor his lifelong effort to be “a good man.”
Joe was born on August 2, 1943 and grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. His mother Margaret Agnes Hoag Alsbrook was the first valedictorian of Arkansas’ first nursing school, and his father Clarence Virgil Alsbrook worked for Railway Express. Margaret’s sisters, Mary and Harriet, were also nurses, and he had three younger brothers. The entire family was very active in the Arkansas Catholic church community.
In 1953, when Joe was ten, his younger brother Johnny (John August Alsbrook) was diagnosed with advanced cancer and became gravely ill. Johnny passed away at 7 o’clock on Christmas Eve in the family’s home, shaping Joe’s understandably mixed feelings on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day for the rest of his life.
Even as a child, Joe enjoyed writing and spending time outdoors. He won several essay contests and actively participated in the Boy Scouts. A proud graduate of Little Rock’s Catholic High School for Boys, Joe promptly enlisted in the Army. During this time he briefly married and had a beloved son, James Christopher Alsbrook, before returning to Little Rock to study history at UALR. As a student Joe was elected to be an officer and pledge trainer for Sigma Alpha Epsilon and was active in organizations such as the Phi Alpha Theta honor society and Alpha Kappa Psi.
In 1968, at a singles mixer for young Catholic adults, Joe met Valerie. She was a nursing student, and that night she was focused on an upcoming church ski trip so Joe pretended he could ski in order to keep talking to her. The ploy worked, and they later married and welcomed a treasured daughter named Margaret Louise Alsbrook (“Margie”). In later years, Joe and Valerie enjoyed creating jewelry together, and Joe was Val’s biggest jewelry cheerleader. Even in the last days of his life he never failed to tell her that her latest creation was “beautiful.”
Joe worked various jobs while in college, including selling shoes, and this marked his life-long connection to advertising and sales. Joe was a good talker who knew a little bit about a lot of things so he could talk to anyone. His sharp wit and social personality meant he easily befriended customers and colleagues.
One of the colleagues Joe befriended in the 1970s was Alan Leveritt. When Alan first started the Union Station Times, which later became The Arkansas Times, he convinced Joe and Valerie to keep some of the printing equipment used to produce these publications in the attic of their first house. Joe worked for the Times intermittently for many years, eventually moving to Fayetteville with Valerie and Margie in 1984 to initiate the Times sales division in Northwest Arkansas. The family became an active part of the Fayetteville community, residing in a house in the woods just outside of the city limits.
Later, Joe spent many years working for all of the Nelms car dealerships, serving as salesperson and head of the dealerships’ advertising efforts. During the 1980s and 1990s, car dealerships often created outrageous television commercials with colorful characters. Joe starred in a series of car commercials as “Pecos Pete” with his flying pet pig Priscilla. Despite his testy relationship with his porcine costar, Joe greatly enjoyed his Pecos role and the commercials gained local popularity. Even after retiring from television ads many people continued to affectionately call Joe “Pecos.”
Throughout this time Joe continued to be part of the Army, eventually spending over thirty years serving his country. He helped create training courses for the Arkansas National Guard and the Army Reserves before retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1992. He also briefly worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). Joe, a passionate patriot, often wore his Vietnam Veteran baseball cap and engaged in conversations with other veterans about their shared mental health struggles. During the final years of his life he slept under the Quilt of Valor presented by the local Veteran’s Hospital Auxiliary.
While Joe enjoyed various hobbies, his greatest joy came from spending time with friends and family. He liked talking on the telephone with his son Chris and Chris’ late wife Cynthia. And Joe was constantly proud of his “girls,” Valerie and Margie, and was particularly proud that Margie also loved to read, write, and edit publications.
A skilled and creative cook, Joe loved to make food for the people he cared about and sharing meals at local restaurants. Long before the age of the internet he could tell you the best pie restaurant in any town in Arkansas. Joe collaborated with friends to write several cookbooks combining local history with traditional recipes, including The Flavor of Eureka, The Flavor of Bella Vista, and The Flavor of the Ozarks. He and Valerie organized potlucks, bringing together people to encourage each other through life’s transitions.
In his final years Joe battled a disease affecting his limb movement, and eventually dementia robbed him of the joy of reading. For many years Valerie and Margie took care of him in their original home in the woods outside of Fayetteville. Despite the challenges of intense caregiving, the family found joy in creating art, sharing meals, and watching nature documentaries. Joe’s favorite nature documentary was watching the deer, racoons, and birds when they appeared outside his window.
Eventually Joe’s advancing needs led him to Meadowview Healthcare and Rehab in Huntsville. One of his favorite things about Meadowview was the frequent visits the staff arranged with animals and pets. The caring staff at Meadowview truly enjoyed Joe, who could still offer some teasing and bark out a good one-liner from time to time. Even in his final years, Joe continued to make his family and friends laugh with his well-timed wit. In the final months, when words were especially hard for Joe, he could still wink back at his wife.
Joe is survived by his wife Valerie Alsbrook; daughter Margie Alsbrook of Macon, Georgia; sonJames Christopher Alsbrook of Carbon, Indiana; brother Mike Alsbrook and his wife Debbie of Little Rock; niece Amanda Alsbrook of Irving, Texas; brother Bernie Alsbrook and his wife Christy of Greenbriar; nephews Scott and Nicholas Alsbrook and their families; sister-in-law Andrea Allen and her husband Gerry of Mountain Home; sister-in-law Lisa Tomayko Buehling of Fayetteville and her husband Clarke, nephew William, and niece Katherine; and many caring friends who are relieved he is finally at peace. The family sends gratitude to everyone who extended kindness and support to Joe during his long illness. Special thanks to Lisa Tomayko Buehling, who went above and beyond so many times over the past few years to help Valerie, Margie and Joe.
Services will be held 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, January 16, 2024 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville followed by internment at the National Cemetery in Fayetteville. The service will be live steamed at https://www.youtube.com/stpaulsfay. In lieu of sending flowers, the family respectfully requests that anyone wishing to honor Joe make a memorial gift to one of Joe’s favorite organizations: St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the Wounded Warrior Project, the National Parks Foundation, or the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
Finally, for anyone who is reading this while having a hard day or struggling through a tough period of life, please remember Joe’s advice: take everything one day at a time, and “let people love you until you learn to love yourself.”
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