KINGWOOD — Edwin C. Runner was among the last of the attorneys of his generation, who devoted decades of service to the people of Preston County, his friends and associates said.
Runner, 93, died Monday after practicing law for 68 years in his native Preston County and will be buried today. But those who knew him best said he practiced much more.
“He was a very hard worker and zealously represented his clients, many times pro bono. He was kind, sympathetic and good at relating to other people,” Senior Status Judge Lawrance Miller Jr. said.
He and others said Runner would often handwrite lengthy, well-thought-out letters, using an old fashioned fountain pen, to people who lost loved ones. He also wrote letters of encouragement.
Preston Courthouse workers recalled he always had time for a kind word and a story or to share a bit of history, which he loved.
Runner also loved to travel and visited 14 countries. “We enjoyed his stories of his trips to Japan, Egypt and especially Charlie the Camel,” Miller said.
But, his colleagues agreed with Miller, “most of all he loved the law and the fair administration of the law.”
“I cannot imagine practicing law without a computer,” Preston Circuit Judge Steve Shaffer said. “Ed Runner was the last great penman of Preston County.”
Imagine, he said, drafting a 25-page brief by hand. Now people text abbreviations instead of writing.
Runner was among those in the Preston prosecutor’s office when Shaffer started practicing law. “And I learned so much.”
Now, looking at the 1954 Preston Bar photo at the courthouse, only Senior Status Judge Robert C. Halbritter is left.
“He was extremely smart, and, if he read anything he could recall it,” attorney Sheila K. Williams said. She remembered working with him on a case when Runner said he recalled case law that applied. He was right, she said, and the case was 40 or 50 years old and had never been overturned.
“He also was a character,” Williams said. “You never knew quite what he would say.” For example, when her hair was curly in the 1970s, and she had a dog named Sandy, he referred to her as Little Orphan Annie before a jury.
But Runner also allowed her to use his extensive private law library during her studies in law school.
“I just think we’re losing a group. This last generation, Neil Reed and Bob Halbritter, that’s all we have left of a great era of men,” Shaffer said.
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