For Chattanooga auto dealer Tim Kelly, hearing the name "Neil Gorsuch" was a definite blast from the past.
Years ago and miles away, the two were Columbia University classmates and "budding journalists," writing for the Columbia Daily Spectator.
They were acquaintances, not close friends. Then Gorsuch graduated a year early, in 1988.
"I had lost track of him - I thought he was a journalist. I didn't even know he was a lawyer, much less a Supreme Court nominee," said Kelly, who completed his education and came back to join the family's extensive motor vehicle sales business here.
But Kelly's not too surprised his former classmate is likely to be seated on the United States Supreme Court.
"Even in college, he knew the Federalist Papers backward and forward, was very much a student of the Constitution," Kelly said Thursday.
The Federalist Papers is a series of essays written in 1787-88 by some Founding Fathers to explain the proposed new government and persuade New Yorkers to ratify the Constitution. Even today they are key documents explaining the intent of the nation's founders.
Gorsuch revered them so much he borrowed the name when he and two other students founded their own satrical newspaper in 1986. It's now known as The Fed, and the headline of the latest edition states: "Columbia's only newspaper founded by a Supreme Court nominee. Seriously."
Kelly remembers Gorsuch as "one of those guys who was alarmingly together for college."
"I was not a conservative at the time but he was always a very conservative guy, in dress and appearance, more of an old-school libertarian conservative rather than country-club conservative."
Having read up on his old classmate's more recent career, Kelly believes Gorsuch would embrace Jeffersonian justice, judging best by judging least.
"He has a very fine mind, he's a very good writer and will make a fine justice," he said.
"He's widely considered to be a judge's judge and a very fine, reasoned scholar of the Constitution," Kelly said. "There are activist judges on the left and the right, and he'd be the exact opposite of that."
Contact staff writer Judy Walton at jwalton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6416.