Friends express loss with passing of Paul Broadhead

Published 11:18 pm Monday, August 6, 2007

Retired Meridian attorney Dennis Goldman was at a loss for words about the recent passing of his good friend.

“I don’t know what to say,” Goldman said about Meridian businessman Paul E. Broadhead Sr., who died Sunday at Bethesda Memorial Hospital in Boynton Beach, Fla.

After a long pause, Goldman slowly began to talk about the friendship he and Broadhead shared — one that spanned several decades.

“He was a dear friend — has been since high school,” he said. “We were roommates in college for one semester.”

Goldman said he has “many, many, many” fond memories of Broadhead.

A native of Needham, Ala., Broadhead lived most of his life in Meridian. In the late 1960s, he founded a small Meridian real estate development company into what would become one of the nation’s Top 10 regional shopping mall developers.

“Paul was a very successful person and he gave an awful lot to Meridian,” said Meridian Attorney Dan Self, who did some legal work for Broadhead.

“I liked him and all my dealings with him were a pleasure. I’m truly sorry that he has departed,” Self said.

Lauderdale County Deputy Sheriff Hubert “Sarge” Rivers was friends with Broadhead since first grade. Tears welled up in his eyes when he talked about the many things his friend did around the Meridian community that no one ever knew about, including his helping to finance the local boxing club by purchasing equipment and paying for travel so young men could compete all over the country.

“His quote was, ‘I have the money but I don’t have the time,’” Rivers remembered.

Hartley Peavey, CEO and founder of Peavey Electronics said Monday that he’d lost his best friend.

“I met him in 1959 at a fraternity party and I’ve known him ever since,” Peavey said.

Peavey said Broadhead was one of the greatest men he’s ever met and one of the most unique and extremely knowledgeable.

“You couldn’t talk about anything he couldn’t talk about,” Peavey said. “When I encountered problems in my professional life and frankly in my personal life, he is who I would turn to, and I’m going to miss him.”

There was a bond of entrepreneurship Peavey shared with Broadhead as well.

“Entrepreneurs are cut from a little bit different cloth,” Peavey said. He added that his friend was not always popular locally because he called it like was.

But, he said successful people are people who are willing to do the things unsuccessful people don’t want to do, and those are the people who bring home the bacon, whether it is to their own home, throughout a community, a region, a nation or beyond.

“As human beings the best we can expect to do is help each other,” Peavey said. Paul Broadhead helped a lot of people.