[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 83 (Friday, May 17, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E619]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  TRIBUTE TO SYDNEY STROTHER SMITH III

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. H. MORGAN GRIFFITH

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                          Friday, May 17, 2019

  Mr. GRIFFITH. Madam Speaker, I pay tribute to Sydney Strother Smith 
III of Abingdon, Virginia, a faithful servant of his God and country.
  Strother was born on August 1, 1941, to Strother and Betsy Smith. His 
father was one of the Army's last commissioned cavalry officers, and 
during young Strother's baptism at Fort Knox on December 7, 1941, news 
from Pearl Harbor interrupted the service. As his father fought in 
World War II as a tank commander, Strother lived in Richmond with his 
mother and grandfather. They remained there after his father returned 
from the war.
  Hoping to follow in his father's footsteps by joining the military, 
Strother enrolled at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. A 
fall from cliffs broke his back, however, and ended hopes of a military 
career. Among his roommates at VMI, he was the only one not to die in 
Vietnam, convincing him that God had a different purpose for his life.
  Strother is known as a dedicated and effective organizer of the 
Republican Party in Virginia. He was the founding president of the 
Young Republicans Club at the University of Richmond and served as vice 
president of the statewide Young Republicans Federation, where he 
helped expand the number of clubs statewide and met his future wife 
Barbara. He managed his father's successful campaign for the Virginia 
House of Delegates as a Republican at a time when Virginia was still 
largely controlled by the Democratic Party and went on to manage other 
campaigns for the House of Delegates, United States Senate, and House 
of Representatives. After moving to Washington County to practice law, 
he became an active member of the county party and instilled it with 
new blood. He served as chairman of the county party from 1974 to 1980 
and, along with Professor Ray Hancock, organized the College 
Republicans at Emory and Henry College, my alma mater.
  Strother also achieved distinction in his legal career. He became one 
of the youngest attorneys to argue in front of the United States 
Supreme Court and would return several times, as well as appear before 
the Virginia Supreme Court. He was drawn toward cases in which he 
championed the underdog. One example unfolded over 25 years as he 
represented an elderly Kentucky mountain man, John Johnson, and 
eventually Mr. Johnson's heirs against the industrial giant Bethlehem 
Minerals. Mr. Johnson claimed rights over the coal on his property, and 
Strother argued his case up to the Kentucky Supreme Court, then to the 
U.S. Supreme Court, and back to Kentucky. When the case was finally 
resolved, Mr. Johnson's heirs and co-litigants were awarded $37 million 
in damages, and willful trespassing became part of mineral rights law. 
Strother relished such cases and often engaged in them on a pro bono 
basis, about which his wife sometimes noted that his family had bills 
to pay, too.
  Strother was an active member of the Anglican Church. He was a 
chancellor, canon lawyer, and a priest ordained in 1987, and he helped 
to found and rector six parishes. He also belonged to numerous civic 
organizations. He was an Eagle Scout as a boy and a scout leader as an 
adult, a member of the Sons of the Revolution, and a reenactor with the 
Mountain Men of Revolutionary War fame. An amateur pilot, a published 
poet, a joke collector and storyteller, he is a man of seemingly 
endless talents but one: punctuality. His nickname, the ``Late Great 
Strother Smith,'' reflects his habit of being late to just about 
everything, including his wedding. The one exception: voting, which he 
would always be in line for by 6 am.
  Strother's family includes his wife of 53 years, Barbara Ann Smith; 
daughters Ambler Dumler and her husband John, Sydney Smith and her 
husband Tim Gilhool, and Beth and her husband Andy Stockner; brother, 
Richard Smith and his wife Sarah of Alexandria, VA; sister Rev. 
Caroline Parkinson of Nashville, TN; and grandchildren Josef, Marshall, 
and Aidan Dumler, Jimmy and Molly Gilhool, and Virginia, Josie, and 
Cora Stockner.

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