Rex Lee Parker, a longtime Standardbred owner and Ohio teacher and athletics coach, and also the uncle of Horseman And Fair World editor Kathy Parker, died Friday afternoon (Oct. 10) at his home in Morrow, Ohio, after a brief battle with cancer. He was 76.
A native of Morrow, Mr. Parker was the son of the late Mildred Parker Reed and Karl Parker. He graduated from Morrow High School, where he competed in baseball, basketball and track, which in later years led to his interest in coaching. He received a bachelor's degree in education at Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio, where he continued to play baseball and basketball, and a master's degree from Xavier University in Cincinnati.
He began a career as a school teacher at Little Miami High School in Morrow and then took a position at Norwood High School in suburban Cincinnati before settling into a 39-year tenure at Wyoming High School, also in the suburban Cincinnati area. There he became one of the school's most popular and highly regarded teachers of advanced mathematics. Several of his classes received Ohio Test of Scholastic Achievement recognition.
Mr. Parker also coached varsity basketball, baseball, football, and track and field. He was hired as the head boys basketball coach at Wyoming in 1970. He became known in the Cincinnati leagues as a tough rival with a no-nonsense approach to coaching.
With more than 100 coaching wins, in 1995 he was recognized with the Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame award. His teams won two Cincinnati league championships and one district title in the 1970s. After a break from coaching, he returned in 1996 as the head coach of the Wyoming boys basketball team. He retired from teaching at Wyoming in 1999.
As a youth Mr. Parker was involved in raising cattle through 4-H and showed his livestock at the Warren County Fair in Lebanon, where he also saw harness horses train. When his older brother, Dwane, began training horses, Rex bought a horse and spent many summers visiting his brother and helping jog and train horses in the Parker Stable.
Mr. Parker owned 50 racehorses, with one of the first the pacing mare Sparda, who won many races at The Meadows. He later bred Sparda and campaigned her offspring, which included the mare Chipsy Spar p, 1:57.1 ($208,209).
After he retired from teaching, Mr. Parker purchased two yearlings at the 2000 Tattersalls sale, which gave him many victories and enjoyment: Giant Winner Vita 2, 1:57.3f ($371,222), a winner of six of 10 starts as a two-year-old, among them Pennsylvania stakes races, and became one of Mr. Parker's favourites, and Dance Team 3, 1:59.2f ($69,279), winner of a PA All Stars division.
In more recent years he campaigned the stakes-winning pacing filly Musette Mindale p,3, 1:52f($148,923), who competed in the Jugette; Baritone 4, 1:58.3f ($62,441); and this year's Pennsylvania Sires Stakes-placed two-year-old trotter Chef Lee. All of those horses were trained by Mr. Parker's brother Dwane and his nephew, Dwane's son Norm.
Mr. Parker often traveled to tracks to watch his horses race and he enjoyed being a part of the team shipping with the horses. He also frequently attended racing programs at Lebanon Raceway, Scioto Downs, The Meadows and The Red Mile.
Mr. Parker is survived by two daughters, Kelly Hill of Lawton, Okla., and Kim Kellerman (Fred) of Cincinnati; two granddaughters, Jill Herrmann and Maggie Anton; two great-grandchildren; his brother, Dwane (Bobbie) of Washington, Pa.; two sisters, Karla Thorndell (Ed) of Cincinnati and Karen Warsaw of Roanoke, Va.; several nieces and nephews, including Norm Parker (Paulette) of Houston, Pa., Kathy Parker (Daniel Coon), editor of The Horseman And Fair World magazine, and Sally Bolon (Rodney); great-nieces and nephews, including horseman Kyle Bolon; aunts Mabel Brown, Ruth Justison, Ruth Emma Hofer and Elizabeth Conden; an uncle, Robert Hofer; and several cousins.
In addition to his parents,he was predeceased by a brother-in-law, Charles Warsaw, and a niece, Deborah.
A memorial service will beheld Saturday, Oct. 18, at 10 a.m. at Vale-Hoskins Funeral Home, 513 W. Pike St., Morrow, Ohio.
Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Rex Parker.
(harnessracing.com)