In the summer of ‘71 a young boy walks an aisle at North Jacksonville Baptist Church at the north end of Pearl Street, and puts his hand in the hands of a brilliant Lawyer who over 30 years earlier left a very prominent position with Roosevelt’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation created to lift America out of the depression, to answer a call to lift the hearts of God’s people. That summer day in 1971 a young Frankie Keasler, gave his life to answer any call God would give. Moved by such a man and growing up under a father who instilled “no matter what you do, get a law degree” you can see how I heard the call. With “long weekends” during the summers of my elementary and adolescent years spent at my grandparents’ home on Panama Park which included every Sunday hearing Uncle Wilbur preach, I was surely affirmed in what my heart believed. Those “Panama Park” weekends included many a Sunday at an “after church lunch” with Uncle Wilbur and Aunt Elizabeth at the table.

I’ll never forget the day years before the summer of ‘71, where at one of those Sunday lunches, Uncle Wilbur told this man how in downtown Dallas, Texas on a sunny, clear day, God gave literally an “audible” call to him…”Wilbur go preach”. I can hear the next words from Uncle Wilbur as though spoken today, “Frankie I heard those words as you hear me right now”. I pursued a journey to be a lawyer with a commitment to a call on my life, with a fervor and bent to serve. For nearly 3 decades I answered that call as a steward bound dutifully, professionally, competently, passionately and in the Garemore matter, sacrificially, to discharge faithfully the responsibilities set before me. Whether to accomplish the benefit desired by the client in a deal of economics, business or realty, or stand in the gap to protect a client’s interests on a controversial stage, my mind, heart, soul and constitution was bent for the client. A man working and paying taxes since 13, and able for decades to make a living without agenda of personal gain, never worries over or cares about money. A man answering God’s call on his life, is not a man given to the temporal and unsatisfying gain of this world.