Long Beach : Civic Leader Brooks Dies
A service will be conducted Saturday for Joseph T. Brooks, a civic leader whose long list of involvements included chairmanship of the Board of Directors of Long Beach Transit and presidency of the Public Corp. for the Arts.
Brooks, 64, died after an apparent heart attack last Saturday as he drove on the freeway en route to Los Angeles. Found slumped over the steering wheel of his car, he was pronounced dead at White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles. His wife, Beryl, did not learn of his death until Monday morning.
Retired as a regional director of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Brooks recently was named vice president of the American Public Transit Assn., an industry group for mass transit agencies.
He was vice chairman of Enterprise Savings & Loan Assn., a member of the YMCA Board of Directors, vice president of the Long Beach/Harbor/Southeast unit of the American Cancer Society, vice president of the Board of Trustees of the Harbor Area Foundation for the Developmentally Disabled and a member of the governing board of Dominguez Medical Center.
He also was a member of the Long Beach Centennial Celebration Committee and a past vice chairman of the city Planning Commission and president of the local chapter of the NAACP.
The funeral will be conducted at 10 a.m. Saturday at the First Congregational Church, 3rd Street and Cedar Avenue.
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