Maxie Randall Mintz, one of the last true Renaissance men, died Saturday, Aug. 20, 2011, in Fayetteville after a massive stroke. He was 85. Funeral services will be conducted Friday, Aug. 26, 2011, at 2 p.m. in Jernigan-Warren Funeral Home chapel in Fayetteville with the Rev. Jean Hale officiating. Burial will follow in Lafayette Memorial Park on Ramsey Street. The family will receive friends from 1 to 2 p.m. prior to the service at the funeral home. Born and raised in Fayetteville, Maxie grew up on the family farm during the Great Depression. Although he had planned to attend Wake Forest College upon graduating from high school, he instead enlisted in the Navy as soon as he turned 18. Because of Maxie's expertise in swimming and boxing, the Navy put him to work teaching these skills to new recruits. Maxie also entered the ring and boxed for the Navy on numerous occasions. After World War II ended and he'd returned to civilian life, Maxie boxed professionally for a brief period until American Home Builders hired him to manage home construction across the southeastern United States. During the same period, Maxie and his brother, John, sold Electrolux vacuum cleaners. They did so well in the Fayetteville region that they won all-expense paid trips for themselves and their spouses to New York City. In 1948, Maxie, his wife, Frances Pelt, and their 2-year-old son, Dale, moved to Wake Forest so he could attend college. The very next year, Maxie and Frances added a new baby girl, Maxine Elizabeth, to the family. In 1952, Maxie graduated from Wake Forest College with a bachelor of arts degree, earning high honors. Three years later, daughter Bridget Suzanne arrived. Three years after that, Maxie received his master's of education degree from the University of North Carolina. In the 1970s, he did additional doctoral-level graduate work in educational psychology. In his career, Maxie was, above all else, an educator. He worked in the Fort Bragg schools in the 1950s and 1960s as a teacher and principal. Later, in Sampson and Hoke counties, he helped children with severe behavioral disorders by working with principals, teachers and even bus drivers - any person in those county school systems who had regular contact with a child. Maxie provided the plan of treatment, but he had the adults with whom the children interacted daily implement it. Maxie taught psychology at Fayetteville Technical Community College, and he taught educational psychology at Fayetteville State University and the Fayetteville branch of the University of North Carolina. In the 1960s, Maxie and his brothers, Kenneth, John and Dennis, inherited their father's farm off of Pamalee Drive in Fayetteville and created Mintz Pond Estates. Most of that neighborhood later became Green Valley Estates, although a portion is still known as Mintz Pond Estates. Maxie was an accomplished musician. He sang tenor and played blues, jazz and other types of music on the guitar, ukulele, mandolin and harmonica. Some parents read bedtime stories to their children, for his children's bedtimes, Maxie played the guitar and sang. In later life, Maxie bought a small farm in Sampson County. He raised a variety of foodstuffs, but concentrated on melons. For years, he worked diligently to develop a new breed of super-tasty, sweet melon that would be disease-resistant, but that effort ceased when he had his first stroke in 2004. If he'd succeeded in developing the melon, he would have named it the \\"Round Congo.\\" Despite his many accomplishments, family meant more to Maxie than anything else. He loved the many roles he lived - son, brother, husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather. He valued hard work, loyalty and integrity, and whenever his family or anyone else needed him, Maxie was there. He never begrudged lending a helping hand to anyone, and he faced life with optimism and determination. He deeply loved his family, and they loved him deeply in return. The two great tragedies of his life were the premature death of his son, Dale, in 1979, killed by a drunk driver at the age of 33, and the death of his wife from cancer in 1998. Maxie Randall Mintz will be greatly missed by those he left behind, his two daughters, Maxine Mintz McGuire and Bridget Mintz Testa; his three grandchildren, Shannon McGuire Groom, Bryan Randall Register and John Ryan McGuire; and his three great-grandchildren, James Gavin Groom, Isabelle Claire Groom and Eilonwy Kenna Register. Services entrusted to Jernigan-Warren Funeral Home of Fayetteville.