On December 5, 2003, our younger son, Daniel Ryland Butt, was sworn in as a brand new lawyer in a ceremony at the University of California, Davis, School of Law. Amidst remarks both solemn and humorous, the State of California oath was administered in the King Hall Moot Court Room to about 50 recent graduates by Rebecca A. Wiseman, Associate Justice, California Court of Appeal, and the Federal Court of Appeals oath was administered by Frank C. Damrell, Jr., United States District Judge, Eastern District of California.

Daniel attended public schools in the West Contra Costa Unified School District and graduated from U.C. Davis with an undergraduate degree, majoring in history and political science. After a two-year hiatus in the winter recreational industry (ski bum), he went back to U.C. Davis for law school, graduating in June of 2003. He took the bar exam in July and received notification that he had passed in late November. He is now looking for a job and tells us that his preference would be to work as a public defender, but he is quite flexible.

Daniel perpetuates a legacy of lawyers in the Butt family going back several generations. My grandfather (Daniel’s great-grandfather), F.O. Butt, born the year of Custer’s Last Stand, was featured in Ripley’s  “Believe It or Not” for actively practicing law for 77 years until his 95^th birthday in 1970. My father, Thomas F. Butt, (Daniel’s grandfather), set a record at 50 years for the longest service by a judge in Arkansas history before his death in 2000. My brother, Jack Butt (Daniel’s uncle) has been repeatedly rated as among the top ten business lawyers in the State of Arkansas and was named Arkansas Bar Association/Arkansas Bar Foundation Outstanding Lawyer/Citizen for 1999-2000. Daniel is one of well over a dozen of F.O. Butt’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who became lawyers.