Guest Commentary
Alton Booker, Vir Gravitatis
Mack Hall

To hear of Alton's death was like hearing that Gibraltar had disappeared into the sea, or that Mount Rushmore had crumbled into the valley. Alton was a rock in our world, a strong man of quiet dignity and authority who led by example, not by microphone.

Alton was the perfect American, a gentleman farmer and rancher who restored and nurtured his ancestral acres, a citizen-soldier, scholar, scientist, businessman, and elected leader. He would have made a good Benedictine; as a man of faith he worked with his hands and his mind in the soil, in the laboratory, and in the wisdom of the ages.

As a man of gravitas he never needed to raise his voice; his wisdom and his authority were understood by all who were blessed in knowing him. Like Thomas More he accepted his elected office as a duty, not an opportunity for selfaggrandizement, and labored long, hard, anonymous hours for many years for the rest of us. His one reward was his satisfaction in a job of service well done.

Alton was a paterfamilias, dutiful to the generations of his family and to the generations of Mount Union, and like Abraham at the Terebinth of Mamre or like Chaucer's Franklin his generosity was famous.

And now, like Thomas Gray's village- Hampden, Alton lies in a country churchyard among his ancestors, in the heart of the America he helped make great.

We did not deserve Alton Booker. He was a blessing, a free gift from God. We mourn our loss, and know that we must now stand up as he did, stand strong for all that is good.

"A man can stand up," wrote Ford Madox Ford. Alton Booker stood up.

Mack Hall is a resident of Kirbyville