Judge Hayward.

Jan Pudlow's interesting article on lawyers with disabilities in the August 1 News brought to mind a local attorney and county judge, active in Dade City a half century ago, who had been born without arms.

Andrew Jackson Hayward, generally known as "Sambo," was born in Dade City in 1920, a diminutive hunchback with no arms. As a child, he attended the public schools, learning to write by holding the pen or pencil with his feet. He could also shoot marbles with his feet. In a newspaper interview in the early 1950s, a childhood friend recalled an incident when "Sambo" was chased by a playground bully, made a sudden turn, and knocked the boy down with a swift kick. The bully ran away before Hayward's friends could come to his rescue. The same interview quoted Hayward, saying of his childhood contemporaries, "They never acted as though I was different."

As a freshman at Pasco High School, where it was no longer socially acceptable to go barefoot, he learned to hold pen and pencil with his teeth and also to type. He organized a baseball team for young boys and acted as manager for the high school baseball and football teams. He was also sportswriter for the local newspaper. He graduated with honors from Pasco High in 1938.

Although offered jobs as sports announcer for radio stations, he was determined to become a lawyer. He attended undergraduate school at Stetson University, with some financial aid from a state vocational service. In 1944, he graduated from Stetson and entered law school at the University of Florida.

Admitted to the Bar in 1947, he practiced for a while in Miami, but kept his connections with the Tampa Bay area. He married Betty Brandon of Tampa in 1948 and they had one son: A.J. Hayward III.

In 1951, he relocated his practice to Dade City and shortly afterward was appointed county judge by Gov. Fuller Warren to replace Judge O.L. Dayton, Jr., who had been appointed to the circuit bench. He was reelected county judge without opposition in 1952. His service as county judge is remembered for his fairness and his concern for juveniles. County courts had juvenile jurisdiction in those days, and he instituted several local reforms in the administration of juvenile justice.

In the early 1950s, he received an award called "Who's Crippled?" as the most outstanding disabled person in the United States.

I can personally recall meeting him as a child when he visited with my parents and grandparents. Like other children in Dade City in...