Photo above, from left: McCleskey attorneys Will Griffis, Ann Stegall and John Shanklin, with Jerry Kolander, the firm’s managing partner.
John Shanklin put on a Dodger baseball jersey.
But it wasn’t easy.
Shanklin, a passionate Houston Astros fan, wore the jersey for Jerry Kolander’s Dodger-themed 80th birthday party luncheon this month – attended by their fellow McCleskey Law Firm attorneys, staff, Kolander’s family and friends.
“I was happy to wear it to show my respect to Jerry, but as soon as the party was over, I couldn’t wait to get it off,” Shanklin said.
Kolander was flanked by his son Geoff and daughter Angie as guests enjoyed barbecue and birthday cake, celebrating’s Kolander’s:
- 80 years
- 960 months
- 4,171 weeks
- 29,200 days
He was given a statue of a baseball pitcher with the inscription, “Jerry Kolander, 29,200 at bats. No outs.”
Kolander became a Dodger fan in the 1950s growing up in Amarillo. He went on to play baseball for Texas Tech in the 1960s before graduating in the Texas Tech University School of Law’s second graduating class.
Tech law classmate Craig Brummett also attended the celebration.
After Kolander blew out the candles on his cake and it was served, he talked about three major moments in his life … being in the right place at the right time.
“The first was when I was at a high school dance,” he said, held at the Amarillo Country Club.
“I was a senior and I looked over the wall, and we’re, of course, checking out the girls,” Kolander said.
One young lady caught his eye. He asked someone who she was and the answer was Gail Vineyard. Kolander asked how he knew who she was and he responded he was dating her cousin.
“So I thought that was a pretty good break,” figuring the guy or the girl he was dating could introduce him to Gail.
They were married for 52 years before she passed away in 2021.
The second moment was after his junior year in college, working on crew constructing Interstate 40 in Amarillo. The superintendent wanted Kolander and a guy named Bill to go 30 miles away and string some pipeline together to move some water a farmer said could be used.
“One of you has to lift the pipeline and shake it to make sure rodents, rabbits, skunks that crawled in there overnight run out … then hook it to the next piece of pipeline,” Kolander recalled the supervisor telling them.
Bill got tired of lifting the pipeline pieces and asked Kolander to do that.
He lifted a piece into a power line he had not seen.
“It knocked me for a loop to the point I was probably half dead and it started a little grass fire,” Kolander said.
Bill’s dad was a doctor and moved Kolander’s arms like people do with drowning victims before flipping him over and doing CPR.
“He saved my life,” Kolander said.
The superintendent saw the smoke from the grass fire and came back.
“Bill told him what (happened) and I was just sitting there not even half groggy, more groggy,” Kolander said.
The superintendent got them in his pickup truck – back when they only had one seat – and headed 30 miles to Amarillo.
The superintendent saw someone working on a phone line, told him he had an injured worker and asked him to call ahead to tell people they’d be speeding but not to stop them.
“Before you know it, we’ve got a police escort. When we got to the city limit there’s more policemen out there, all the way to the hospital and there are news people out there,” Kolander said.
His mom heard about it on TV but didn’t know it was her son before she was notified.
“It wasn’t necessarily me being in the right place, but Bill Patton was in the right place,” he said.
The last “right place, right time” was at Tech’s law school.
“I’m walking down the hall with these other two guys and and the dean of the law school walks by us, stops and comes back. ‘Any of you guys interested in staying in Lubbock?’ I said, Well, yeah, I’m interested in staying in Lubbock. The other two didn’t,” Kolander said.
Two or three days later, he saw a note on the bulletin board, asking Mr. Kolander to call Harold Harriger at what was then called Nelson, McCleskey, Harriger & Brazill.
Harriger invited him to an interview.
“So I go into the interview. There’s Harriger, Hobert Nelson, George McCleskey, Johnny Phillips, Don Graf, Clancy Brazill – they’re all there and me. They hired me. That’s how I got to be a member of this law firm, another time when I was in the right place at the right time, when the dean just happened to be walking by,” he said.
“I look upon those three and many, many more. You can look back on your lives and you can see how important those things can be. So I wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t seen Gail Vineyard and these two kids wouldn’t be here either,” Kolander said, gesturing to Angie and Geoff.
“I wouldn’t be here if that guy hadn’t saved me and I wouldn’t be here if the dean of the law school hadn’t stopped us walking down the hall. So I’m here because the good Lord Jesus Christ says this is where you need to be and this is where I’ve been for 55 years and I’m blessed,” he said.
