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Thursday, Feb. 9, the blue tarp that has shaded the stone monument in front of the Jefferson county Courthouse will be removed during a ceremony to unveil the carved busts of legal legends to be added to the courtyard of the county courthouse.
According to an announcement of the local 100 Club, a nonprofit that supports the surviving families of first responders killed in the line of duty, two of the organization’s founding members are among the attorneys whose likenesses are set in stone to adorn the building where they served the Southeast Texas community.
Three local attorneys – Wayne A. Reaud, Gilbert “Buddy” Low, and Walter Umphrey – will be honored with the monumental unveiling at 11 a.m. at the front of the Jefferson County Courthouse.
The new bust monument will reside with two others.
One bust is erected to honor legal legends Elmo R. Willard III and Theodore R. Johns Sr., pioneering Civil Rights attorneys who practiced in Jefferson County at a time when Black and White were separated at water fountains, in restaurants and behind the bar where all-white judges ruled over cases the Black attorneys presented. The busts of Willard and Johns was welcomed by than 300 attorneys, government officials, business leaders and all manner of thankful Southeast Texans at a 2008 unveiling. Among those thankful Southeast Texans were three attorneys, Wayne A. Reaud, Gilbert I. “Buddy” Low and Michael Jamail, who commissioned the work of art.
Also in the quad is a quadruple bust – “Four Friends – Colleagues in Life” – created by sculptor Marsha English Elmore, depicting Robert Q. Keith, John L. Bell, James L. Weber and John D. Rienstra Jr. – donated by the Jefferson County Bar Association.