 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Prominent attorney, war hero dies at 77By CRAIG BASSE
© St. Petersburg Times, ST. PETERSBURG -- Adrian S. Bacon, a prominent attorney whose clients included the huge estate of Ed C. Wright and a series of high-profile developers, has died at 77. Mr. Bacon, a war hero who counted former President Jimmy Carter among his boyhood chums, died Sunday (June 3, 2001) at St. Anthony's Hospital. He was injured in a fall from his bicycle in front of his home on May 10 and later developed pneumonia, his wife said Monday. A resident of St. Petersburg since 1947, he practiced general law with clients that included Hernando County developer Charlie Sasser, Kansas developer B.B. Anderson and the partnership that controlled the old Vinoy Hotel in the mid 1980s. He also worked for Bayway Isles Development Corp. and South Pasadena Development Corp. Perhaps his best-known clients in his long legal career were the Wright estate and Ruth Kirby, Wright's longtime secretary and manager of his vast estate, including all of what is known today as the Gateway area, plus Sand Key and Weedon Island. She died in 1989; Wright, in 1969. Like former President Carter, Adrian Sidney Bacon grew up in Plains, Ga., although he was born in another little town, Edison, Ga. In Plains, the two boys debated and played basketball together and graduated from Plains High School. The two stayed in touch. Carter's 1977 inaugural address had special meaning to the St. Petersburg lawyer. When the president quoted his favorite high school teacher, Julia Coleman, the words were taken from a Christmas letter that Miss Coleman wrote to Mr. Bacon in 1966. "We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles," she wrote to Mr. Bacon. Impressed by the letter, Mr. Bacon saved it and sent a copy to Carter during the 1976 campaign. A month later, Carter sent Mr. Bacon a letter of thanks and told him that he used the quote in a speech to the American Bar Association. In World War II, he flew 25 missions as a gunner in heavy bombers for the 8th Air Force in England. Shot down in one mission and wounded on his final flight, he received the Air Medal with five Oak Leaf clusters, a European Theater of Operations ribbon with seven battle stars and a Purple Heart medal. Mr. Bacon attended Georgia Southwestern College and graduated from the University of Georgia and received a law degree from Stetson University in DeLand in 1947. Before opening his private practice in 1954, he served for about a half-dozen years in the city attorney's office, frequently acting as the assistant city prosecutor. Mr. Bacon was a past president of the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce and a former member of the Mean High Water Line Study Committee of the Trustees of the state Internal Improvement Fund. Over the years he served on the boards of Mound Park and St. Anthony's hospitals and the city's Pension Board and Tampa Bay Board of Pilot Commissioners. Survivors include his wife of 50 years, Charlotte; a son, David A., St. Petersburg; two daughters, Linda Bacon-Nall, Orlando, and Cynthia B. Allison, St. Petersburg; and two granddaughters. Friends may call from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at Anderson-McQueen Funeral Homes & Cremation Tribute Center-Ninth Street Chapel, 2201 Dr. M.L. King (Ninth) St. N. A service will be at 10 a.m. Thursday at St. Peter's Episcopal Cathedral, 140 Fourth St. N, where he had been a senior warden and vestryman. The family suggests memorial contributions to the American Diabetes Association, 1101 N Lake Destiny Rd., No. 415, Maitland, FL 32751. - Information from Times files was used in this obituary.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
|
