Ronald S. Reed, Jr.

Ronald S. Reed Jr. died November 19, 2010. He was born September 11, 1932, to Ronald S. Reed and Sally Juden Reed, both deceased. He married Nancy Jane Jones of Kansas City on December 7, 1963. She survives of the home. A native of St. Joseph, Mr. Reed attended Edison Grade School, Central High School, and the University of Missouri College of Arts and Science and School of Law. While at the university, he was selected for "Who's Who" in American Colleges and Universities and elected to Omicron Delta Kappa, scholastic honorary. He received his law degree in 1958. Mr. Reed commenced practice in 1958 as assistant prosecuting attorney under later Judge Frank D. Connett, Jr.; he then practiced with his father, Ronald S. Reed under the firm name of Reed & Reed. In 1969, they merged with Morton and Morton to create the firm of Morton, Reed and Counts. He served from 1965 to 1970 in the Missouri legislature. He was a sponsor of the original bill establishing Missouri Western State College (now University) and in 1967 he received the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce "Good Government Award" for his work in securing passage of that legislation. In 1967 and 1969, he sponsored and passed the bills that transferred the former St. Joseph State Hospital property to Missouri Western, now the site of its present campus. He later published a monograph "Reflections on the Founding of Missouri Western State University." In 2008, the Missouri Western Board of Governors voted to name the main entrance drive of Missouri Western "Ronald S. Reed, Jr. Way." In the legislature, he was chairman of the Committee on Banks and Financial Institutions. He also sponsored the appropriation which established the Helen M. Davis State School, handled the bill which created the Missouri Administrative Hearing Commission, the first of its kind in the United States, and sponsored the first legislation creating a medical examiner system in Missouri. A fiscal conservative, he was often successful in eliminating unnecessary spending in state appropriations. In his practice, he was an active trial lawyer. During the 1970s he also acted as legal advisor to the Buchanan County Commission. In 1975 he was special counsel to the St. Joseph City Personnel Board in proceedings involving the discharge of 14 policemen for sexual misconduct. In 1977, on the recommendation of U.S. Senator Thomas Eagleton, he was appointed United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri by President Jimmy Carter. He was the first attorney from Northwest Missouri appointed to that position and served until 1981. He specialized in the prosecution of white collar crime and personally tried numerous such cases. When he resigned to return to private practice, the Kansas City Star wrote that he had "instilled aggressiveness in an office weakened by dissension and indecision with his firm approach to administrative matters and with his personal leadership in the courtrooms." He was appointed as special prosecuting attorney on several occasions involving misconduct by public officials, including the impeachment of Judge John Hassler of St. Louis County, one of two judges to be impeached in Missouri history, and the ouster of former Sheriff H.C. "Sonny" Meyers of Buchanan County. Active in Democratic politics, he was a member of the Missouri State Democratic Central Committee and a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1960, which nominated President John F. Kennedy, and to the one in 1976, which nominated President Jimmy Carter. He served with the United States Army in Korea as an artillery lieutenant and was formerly a member of Pony Express Post No. 359 of the American Legion. While a college student, he traveled with carnivals throughout the Midwest, working as a concessionaire and barker, which he described as "good training for law and politics." In later years, he traveled extensively with his wife, on trips she planned, visiting more than 80 countries. He served on the boards of the Missouri Mental Health Association, the Family Guidance Center, the St. Joseph Tennis Foundation, the Buchanan County Welfare Board, the Mount Mora Cemetery Association and the Calla E. Varner Educational Foundation, of which he was president for 19 years. He was a member of the American, Missouri, Kansas City, and St. Joseph (President and Treasurer) Bar Associations. Survivors: one brother, Dr. L. Juden Reed of New York City; a son, Houck S. Reed and wife, Laura, of Raleigh, N.C.; a daughter, Katherine Reed Finberg and husband, Max, of Takoma Park, Md.; grandchildren, Alexander Reed, McKinley Reed, Samantha Reed, Hadley Reed, Eliana Finberg, and Matthias Finberg A celebration of Ron's life will be held at a later date. Care was provided by Meierhoffer Funeral Home and Crematory.