Federal judge, 104, mourned in Kansas

WICHITA, Kan. — Some 400 mourners gathered Saturday to honor a judge whose sheer stamina and devotion to justice kept him on the federal bench in Wichita up to his death last month at age 104.

U.S. District Judge Wesley Brown was the nation's oldest working federal judge in history, but colleagues at his memorial service said that while he was widely known for his age, he seldom gave it any thought.

"He was truly a first among equals — an icon of all that is good and faithful and true, both as a person and as a judge," said U.S. District Judge Katherine Vratil, now the chief judge for the federal district in Kansas.

Mike Lahey, Brown's law clerk for the past 24 years, said the judge's life was governed by two oaths: one that he took to be a district judge in 1962 and the other when he became a Boy Scout in 1920.

Lahey said the judge often would recite the oath to him from memory: "On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight."

"To Judge Brown, those words were never a simple rite of passage," Lahey said. "To him, they were the aspiration of what a man should be, and he adopted them as a guide for the rest of his life."

To the end, Brown lived life on his own terms — even planning his own memorial service, which included the congregation singing the hymn, "Morning Has Broken."