Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 12 at Badger Funeral Home Chapel by the Rev. Jim Francis with burial in Ashelawn Memorial Gardens. The family will receive friends Thursday evening, 6-8 p.m., at Badger Funeral Home.
Born in Ashe County two days before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, on Dec. 5, 1941, Ring is survived by three daughters, a son, five grandchildren, one great grandson and his caregiver and special friend.
Flowers will be appreciated or memorials may be made to a charity of the donor’s choice.
Ring had served as mayor of Lansing since March 2004. He was an alderman and mayor pro tem when former Mayor Dayna Brown resigned, and took on the mayor’s job until the election in 2005 when he ran for the two-year unexpired term. He was re-elected in 2007 for a four-year term that ends in 2011.
Since Ring’s illness has prevented him from attending to the duties of mayor, Alderman Bill Cline, appointed as mayor pro tem, has been fulfilling those duties.
Ring worked as a barber in Lansing for decades, and also operated the Lansing Mattress Shop and Lansing Fly Shop and was a longtime member of the Lansing Fire Department.
“We’re all kind of shocked,” said Lansing Town Clerk Bernice Prestwood. “It’s just hard to believe.”
Alderman George Rembert was also shocked, he said, at the suddenness of Ring’s passing.
“I’ve known him all my life,” Rembert said. “I was scared to death of him in high school because he was always wanting to cut my long hair. He was barbering back in the 70s. I know a lot of people at AEV who have gotten every haircut all their lives from Jason Ring.”
Rembert said that Ring loved Lansing and always had the town’s best interests at heart.
“It’s a terrible loss for the town,” he said. “He’s been a proponent and supporter of Lansing all his life. He and I didn’t always see eye to eye, but we could talk about it. He was opened minded, and cared deeply for the town.”
Alderman Mauvine Shepherd said she grew up with Jason as well. “I just can’t imagine Lansing without the barber, Jason Ring,” she said.
Shepherd said she and the mayor would often have disagreements, but he would listen to her ideas and get behind something if he thought it was going to help the town. She added that Ring was kind to people and tried to hide his kind-heartedness beneath a gruff exterior. She said if someone was sick, Jason would take his barber tools to their home and cut their hair.
Since he got sick and had to close his barber shop, there have been many older men asking when Jason would be back at work, Shepherd said, because they’d never had their hair cut by anyone else. Children remember him cutting their hair, and many adults had never had another barber. Jason made an impact on many people’s lives, she said.
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