[1/9/03]An easy-going former Vicksburg chief of police who doubled as a musician, Herman Redick died Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2003, at River Region Medical Center. He was 75.

Redick, one of Vicksburg’s first black officers, joined the police department in 1966.

He worked his way to the deputy chief’s post in 1976 and filled in as interim chief after former Chief Jimmy Brooks retired in 1992.

As brother-in-law to then-Mayor Robert Walker, state law kept him from serving in the top post then, but in July 1993 when the administration of former-Mayor Joe Loviza began, Redick was appointed chief. He retired two years later.

Vicksburg Police Capt. Mark Culbertson, who had worked with Redick since 1977, said he will remember Redick as someone who really cared about his officers.

“You just remember always seeing him around town and you’d say, Hi, Chief Redick,’ and that’s the way I remember him,” Culbertson said.

Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace, who was an intern under Redick at the police department in 1979, said Redick was always a very professional officer.

“I always admired him and looked up to him,” Pace said.

Redick had also been the director of security at the former Kuhn Memorial Hospital for a time and was a veteran of War World II and the Korean War.

He was a member of Locust Grove M.B. Church and a member of the Tyner-Ford Post 213 American Legion and Southern Operators C.B. Club.

“I’ve known Chief Redick for a very, long time, since we were little boys, and he’s always been a very kind and compassionate man, not just as a Vicksburg police officer, but as a human being,” said Walker, now on the faculty at Jackson State University.

Redick, whose nickname was “Billy,” was the organist at his church and had occasionally played with local groups including the Corvettes and the Red Tops.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Prince and Elizabeth Redick; a brother, Sheffield Redick, and a sister, Artimease Redick.

He is survived by his wife, Eunice Redick; two sons, Ozell Stewart of Fort Wayne, Ind., and Mark Winters of Vicksburg; six daughters, Elizabeth Tennessee of Chicago, Celestine Jackson of Memphis, Delvia Dunning, Zandra Mendoza of Fort Wayne and Sandra Boyd and Angela Moore of Vicksburg; one sister, Dorothy Carr of Lansing, Mich.; 16 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

Services will be at 1 p.m. Sunday at City Auditorium. Burial will follow at Cedar Hill Cemetery under the direction of W.H. Jefferson Funeral Home.