Purpose, Impact, & The Stories That Define Us

T. Bradley McRae

Alumnus

Class of 1996

Walter F. George School of Law provided me a great legal foundation to practice civil litigation trial law for over 25 years. I’ve met numerous lawyers and judges in Florida who also attended Mercer and they were all top notch. Just recently, Judge W. John Peach passed away. I think sharing his obituary sums up the type of lawyer and person that Mercer helped to produce. I’ve been before 100 or more judges, but Judge Peach was one of the kindest, most humble, and fairest of any I’ve encountered.

“John Weston Peach, retired Circuit Court Judge of the Third Judicial Circuit, passed away peacefully on February 8, 2023, in Gainesville, Florida at the age of 84. John was born in Alachua General Hospital in Gainesville, Florida on February 15, 1938, to the late Reid and Weston Peach. He was brought home to Cross City, Florida, and it was there that he began learning all the lessons of life in Dixie County. As a child he had a paper route for the Tampa Tribune for three years and even won a trip to Washington, D.C. for selling the most subscriptions. As he grew up, he worked for his father’s grocery store in Cross City (Peach’s Cash Store) and enjoyed a great home life with his family and the people of Dixie County, while playing all sports (football, basketball and baseball) at Dixie County High School, graduating in 1956. After his high school graduation, he enrolled at the University of Florida and received his Associate of Arts degree in 1958. He then enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves (serving at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina and at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas), and after getting out of active duty completed his Bachelor’s degree at Jacksonville University in 1962. In the fall of that year, he enrolled in law school at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and it was during this time that he met his future wife, his sweet Lorena. John was elected and served as the President of the Student Bar Association while at Mercer University and graduated with his LL.B. (Bachelor of Laws) in 1965. He and Lorena (Williams) were married on June 11, 1967, in Forsyth, Georgia, and they soon moved to Jasper, Florida to start his legal career and raise a family. There they had two children, Patti and John, Jr., of whom they were very proud. John was elected County Judge in Jasper (Hamilton County) and served in this position from 1973 to 1978. Later in 1978, Florida Governor Reubin Askew appointed him Circuit Judge of the Third Judicial Circuit (Columbia, Dixie, Hamilton, Lafayette, Madison, Suwannee and Taylor counties). He served in this position until his retirement in 2009. During his lifetime John developed true friendships and bonds with the people of all these communities, and he treasured each and every friendship ever made. It was said that even people he sent to jail thanked him for setting them on the right road and still considered him a friend after release. John served as a member and chairman of the North Florida Junior College Board of Trustees and served the community for many years as a member and past chairman of the Suwannee Valley Nursing Center Board of Trustees. He was of the Methodist faith and worshipped at the First United Methodist Churches of Cross City and Jasper, Florida.”