Sarasota Herald-Tribune, FL
June 14 2008
Former lawmaker was not afraid to buck the system
By Mark Zaloudek
Published Saturday, June 14, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.
Last updated Saturday, June 14, 2008 at 8:59 a.m.
Sarasota – Ned Parsekian, a former senator in New Jersey who also held
other state posts, savored his reputation for challenging business as
usual in government.
The lawyer and outspoken Democrat, who later retired to Sarasota and
became a leader in the St. Armands Residents Association, died of
heart failure Monday at his home. He was 86.
He served in the New Jersey Senate from 1965 to 1967 and ran
unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor of the state
in 1969.
He was often at odds with the "back-scratching system" he encountered
there in the 1950s and 1960s, said his son, Tom Parsekian of Laguna
Niguel, Calif.
As head of New Jersey’s Division of Motor Vehicles in the early 1960s,
Parsekian tried to put an end to the practice of ticket-fixing by
government officials. As a state senator, he called for a probe into
organized crime.
"He was considered a maverick because he was willing to take on a
system that had been in place for so many years," his son said.
Challenging the status quo was not easy, and those who had a vested
interest in maintaining it may have contributed to his unsuccessful
bid for re-election to the state Senate in 1967 and subsequent
election defeats, including a congressional bid in 1974, his son said.
Parsekian’s moral compass came from his hard-working immigrant
parents, who fled Armenia during a 1915 massacre, Tom Parsekian said.
The elder Parsekian’s father, a tailor, died in the early 1930s,
leaving Parsekian’s mother, a seamstress, to raise her three sons
during the Depression.
"They were raised with this great sense of decency, integrity and
grace," Tom Parsekian said.
After serving as a pilot and bombardier in the Army Air Forces during
World War II, Ned Parsekian graduated from Columbia University and
Columbia Law School on the GI Bill. He worked as a federal law clerk
and as a lawyer in private practice before accepting a post in the New
Jersey attorney general’s office in the mid-1950s. He returned to
private practice after several years as a public servant.
In addition to his son, he is survived by his wife of 57 years,
Corinne; two daughters, Donna Lynn of Maywood, N.J., and Sandy
Parsekian-Martorell of Barcelona, Spain; a brother, Ara of Ocean
Grove, N.J.; seven grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Another
daughter, Nancy Parsekian Hamilton of Bradenton, died in April at 53
of cancer.
A memorial service for Parsekian will be held Aug. 29 in Ridgewood,
N.J.
Memorial donations may be made to the Armenian General Benevolent
Union, 55 E. 59th St., Seventh Floor, New York City, NY 10022, for
worldwide educational, cultural and humanitarian programs.