Judge Robert Summitt is re-entering private practice as an attorney and mediation judge.Two former public servants, whose combined 75 years of giving back to Chattanooga and Hamilton County included stints as deputy governor, county mayor, sheriff, state legislator, Circuit County judge, assessor of property, county commissioner, county attorney, county coroner and school board attorney, have died.
One a Republican, Claude Ramsey, 75, made his most significant contributions as county mayor between 1994 and 2011. One a Democrat, Bob Summitt, 94, made his biggest impact as Circuit Court judge from 1968 to 1998.
Though divided in party, together they exemplified humble but strong and effective leadership.
One, Summitt, made his career in the law, as he intended. The other, Ramsey, started out as a third-generation strawberry farmer.
Both found time beyond their careers and public service to give back to their communities.
Summitt, a World War II veteran, served in the Air Force Reserve, on numerous legal bodies, and on many community boards and committees, including the Cherokee Area Council of Boy Scouts, the Salvation Army, the American Legion, and the Downtown Rotary Club.
Ramsey served on the state's last constitutional convention, the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Hospital Authority, the County Officials Association of Tennessee and the State Board of Equalization.
Both coincidentally were honored in different years by various bodies of Jaycees, Summitt as Young Man of the Year and Ramsey as Outstanding Man of the Year.
Ramsey is likely to be remembered as the county mayor who assisted the county to acquire the former Volunteer Army Ammunition Plant for redevelopment and then to lure Volkswagen to locate its American manufacturing plant there. Among other things, he also helped develop the Chattanooga Riverpark.
Summitt, while on the bench, served as president of the Tennessee Judicial Conference, chairman of the National Conference of State Trial Judges, a member of the American Bar Association House of Delegates and was appointed by the Tennessee Supreme Court to an eight-year term on the Court of Judiciary.
Both men saw not glory for themselves in their work but how they might help their fellow man in Hamilton County, Tennessee and the country. All three are better for the two men having been in our midst.