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Father, daughter pass the legal test
By ROBERT KING, Times Staff Writer
As in any good father-daughter relationship, Randy Cramer and his daughter Kelley have memories of shared experiences that will last a lifetime. There was the first day of kindergarten, when Kelley refused to get on the school bus. She ran back into the house and left her dad locked out until he promised she didn't have to go. Eventually, Randy gave up and took her fishing. Mom was not amused. There was the time -- some years after Kelley got over the school thing -- when she needed help with a science project. She needed samples for a soil experiment. By the time they were done, the Cramer duo had dug small holes all over Hernando County. And then there was that little ceremony last month in Tallahassee, in front of the Florida Supreme Court, when Randy and Kelley were sworn in together -- as new lawyers. Now Randy, a former law enforcement officer who now works as a prosecutor in Citrus County, and Kelley, a 1997 graduate of Springstead High School, have an experience few other father-daughter combos can boast. "It's a personal thing for us," said Randy, who considers raising daughters -- he has four -- one of the great joys of his life. "As you get a little bit older, things get a little bit sweeter in your eyes." Kelley, 23, has angled for a law career since she was 5. "It was either a doctor or a lawyer," she said. "And I didn't like blood." Randy, 51, has thought about it for more than 20 years. But raising a family and paying the bills kept law school just out of reach. When the Cramers moved to Hernando County from Illinois in 1984, there simply weren't any law schools nearby. That changed when Barry University opened a law school in Orlando. It was near enough that Randy could take classes part time while working at the Hernando County Sheriff's Office. Kelley, meanwhile, finished Springstead with two years of college dual enrollment credits and headed to Stetson University, where she earned an undergraduate degree and a law degree. Randy graduated in February. Kelley finished in May. Together, they took the bar exam in Tampa this summer -- one seated in front of the other. Yet the night before the big exam, this lovely father-daughter story almost took a nasty turn. Randy and Shelley booked a hotel room together, but Shelley forgot that her dad snores "like a chain saw," as she puts it. A light sleeper, Kelley couldn't overcome the noise by conventional means. She wound up bedding down in the bathtub -- with earplugs. Despite a restless night, she passed the test. So did Dad. "He seems to think it's really funny," Kelley said of the snoring episode. "I didn't think it was funny at the time." Randy, who used to earn a living catching criminals, is now working to put them behind bars as an assistant state attorney in Inverness. Kelley, whose fast pace through college and law school makes her one of the youngest lawyers on the block, is an attorney for the Florida Department of Revenue in Tallahassee. Dad holds out hope the two will some day work together in their own law firm. He even is hopeful one of Kelley's younger sisters, Suzanne, an undergraduate at the University of Florida with her own eyes on a legal career, might be part of the team, too. "It may never come to fruition. It is something I have dreamed of," Randy said. "And it would be very nice." One of the few Cramers with no aspirations for a law career is Kay Cramer -- wife of Randy, mother of Kelley. An English teacher at Pasco-Hernando Community College, she is proud of Randy and Kelley's achievements. But whether they practice law together is of secondary concern to her. "I just hope they make enough money in the next few years to pay off the school loans," she said.
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