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From: (pat creel)
Subject: [CREEL-MS] Joseph Creel bio
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 14:48:52 -0600 (CST)


[copied]

Posted on Sat, Feb. 28, 2004

Joe Creel, 78, helped bring Isle of Capri
By TOM WILEMON
THE SUN HERALD

BILOXI - Joe Creel, the first man to legally play a slot machine in
Mississippi, died Friday. He was 78.

"I started a trend, didn't I?" Creel once joked in an interview.

The Isle of Capri gave him the honor when it opened in 1992 because he
had helped lure the casino. As chairman of the Biloxi Port Commission,
Creel was the point man in negotiations with Steamboat Casino River
Cruises.

The venture proved to be so successful that the privately owned company
evolved into a publicly traded corporation that today bears the name of
the Biloxi casino.

Creel and other port officials had traveled to Iowa to check out the
company, which was one of several casino operators vying to set up shop
in Biloxi.

Tim Hinkley, an executive with Steamboat, had toured the group around in
a van until it was almost out of gas.

Then he looked into his wallet and discovered it was empty, too.

"Joe was sitting in the front seat," said Hinkley, who today is
president of Isle of Capri Casinos Inc. "As quietly and as politically
correct as I could, I asked, 'You wouldn't happen to have 20 bucks,
would you?'

Creel loaned him the money but never let him forget it. He would joke
that the port commission agreed to lease its waterfront property to
Hinkley's company because it was so hard up for money.

Humor was always one of Creel's calling cards, former Biloxi Mayor Danny
Guice said.

"Joe was a large man in stature," Guice said. "He was tall in many ways.
He had a very good personality, a lot of humor. He was just good in
getting people to do things that needed to be done."

Creel was the son of the late Tony Creel, who was a city commissioner
during the Guice administration.

In 1970, he was king of the Gulf Coast Carnival Association. He served
as the krewe's captain from 1973 to 1976.

He had two separate tenures on the Biloxi Port Commission, serving from
1979 to 1984, then from 1989 to 1994.

Creel was instrumental in getting the Point Cadet Marina built.

He also negotiated the relocation of the Isle of Capri and got 60 new
boat slips out of the deal.

Creel was the head of Gulf Paving Co. and later went into the real
estate business.

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