John Robert
My opening prayer and eulogy at this afternoon's service for John Robert Middlemas, an extraordinary man. TW+ Thursday, August 7, 2025
OPENING PRAYER
God of Assurance, be present with us this hour as we remember, and honor, and share good words about John Robert. We were blessed by his life among us, and we know that our love was a blessing to him. In your compassion, console all who mourn his death. Strengthen our faith to continue life on Earth confident that you do better things for us than we can desire or pray for. Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of Creation, for you give us life, and you sustain us, and you have brought us to this Time together. Amen.
EULOGY
Acts 20:35, Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. You may be seated!
Mary Middlemas asked me give the eulogy today. A eulogy is not a sermon or homily. “EULOGY” is Greek, it means “good words,” and I hope my sharing, along with Ben’s good words remembering John Robert, will stir your own memories of this remarkable, larger than life man.
John Robert was so capable and accomplished in everything, that I was in awe of him all our lives together; which went back, now, close to ninety years, and it never occurred to me that he would die before me. I am Thomas Carroll Weller, Jr, most people call me Tom (or Fr Tom at Holy Nativity Church and School). John Robert was one of a few people still in my life who call me Carroll, my middle name that my parents had me go by my years at Cove School and Bay High.
John Robert started first grade at Cove School in September 1942. I remember: Warren and I had been friends and playmates the year before in first grade, at school and at each other's homes, a connection because my mother worked at Black Insurance on Harrison Avenue with Mr Black and Warren Middlemas, their father. When John Robert started first grade my mother warned me that Warren would have his brother at school now, and I should not expect our friendship to be so close any more.
And that’s the way it was, though our years at Cove School, Warren and I always tried to sit in the same group when desks were rearranged, so we could play the class fools for the teacher! Our teachers, especially Miss Virginia Parker in 8th grade, saw through this and often let us get away with it.
John Robert and Warren were brilliant students at Cove School our years there through the 1940s. Martha told me that their Christmas and birthday gifts were books, which certainly honed their astonishing intellects that we knew from the beginning.
And then in the early 1950s, John Robert was a star basketball player our years at Bay High. When John Robert came to Bay High in 10th grade after 9th grade at Jinks Junior High, our football coach Lee McKinney saw what a strong athlete he was, and tried everything he could to recruit him to football. McKinney’s promises to John Robert were desperate and almost comic, but Warren told me John Robert never fell for the coach’s pleading.
Another memory from high school years. Their mother, Cecilia Middlemas, was Roman Catholic, and she raised her children Catholic. By the Time we were seniors at Bay High, she was sending the boys to Sunday Mass on their own. I am not sure Ann always went with them, but the boys went to St John Catholic Church on 11th Street. I went to St Andrew’s Episcopal Church a few blocks away, and one Sunday morning a friend and I ducked out of church and went for a drive instead. Teenage boys with a car will do that. We headed up to St John Catholic, where we spotted the Middlemas’ Ford car. Their mother had sent them to Mass, and Mass was going on, we could hear it because the door and windows were open in those days before air conditioning. John Robert and Warren were attending Mass outside in the car smoking cigarettes. If Ann was with them, she must have been inside catching the homily in case their mother asked what Father had preached about.
After high school we went off to different universities and drifted apart, though Linda and I saw Warren & Martha, or John Robert & Kendall, with Eleanor Ann Sale & Mandeville Smith once or twice in our twenties. Then one day thirty-five or so years ago, when I was the Episcopal priest in Apalachicola, there was a knock on our parsonage door. I’ll never forget opening the door, seeing them standing there with huge grins, and shouting "Linda! John Robert and Kendall are here!!!" And they came in for a visit to catch up on the years.
Another Time, a Sunday morning, John Robert and Kendall brought Governor, then Senator Bob Graham and Adele to Trinity Church in Apalachicola. My parishioners were astonished at the dignitaries.
When John Robert was in the Florida State Legislature we were away in the Navy, so voted for him by absentee ballot. I remember telling Linda he’d be governor one day, and he could have been, but they came home to Panama City to stay, a blessing for everyone here today!
Years later we were delighted getting to know Kay, and seeing the love Kay brought into John Robert's life; and I wish we had seen each other more than occasionally at neighborhood parties, and funerals, and church wild game suppers, but that’s the way life is when we think there's plenty of Time, and let life get away from us.
In my experience, neither John Robert nor Warren were overly enthusiastic about religion. I’m a retired Episcopal priest, and twenty-seven years ago, after I retired from parish ministry, I was invited to fill in here and there at local Episcopal and Presbyterian churches when pastors were away -> twice - - twice I filled in at St Andrew Presbyterian, where Kendall and John Robert were members at the Time. I’m telling stories out of school - - the first Sunday I was there, John Robert saw how surprised I was that he was involved in church leadership, so he made it clear, “Carroll, I do not believe all The Stuff - - I do this because it's important to Kendall and I love her.”
Christianity and Judaism have many wonderful stories, scholars call them Heilsgeschichte, holy stories assuring us of God's love for us. But organized, institutional religion also has lots of “Stuff” that can challenge belief (!). The heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, though, is not believing Stuff so you can get yourself into heaven; the heart of the Gospel is love God, love Neighbor, and John Robert loved, and was loved, and is loved. And "love is all you need." - -. So, eulogy: good words - - Greek, agape' - - Hebrew chesed, lovingkindness. That's what Jesus came to show and tell us.
I knew the Middlemas family, Warren and John Robert, all our lives. I told you: I was in awe of John Robert. He was impressive. He was extraordinary all his life. A leader, an achiever who got things done, including for all of us. Raised in a family of honor and integrity, John Robert was a man of honor and integrity - - and determination. He was a man who knew what was right and good, and he deliberately lived his life that way.
When Mary called me Sunday afternoon she told me about a prayer John Robert wrote: I’m closing now with that prayer. Listen, because it tells a lot about the life and values of a man who would never have described himself as "holy" or “godly” - but listen as we pray together. In prayer: LISTEN
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Lord, let us come to know that when you told us in Acts that “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” you were thinking not only of blessings to come after our time on Earth is done, but also of blessings for this time.
Let us realize that the accumulation of wealth, and the power over others that comes with it, cannot provide the satisfaction that we all seek in this life. Help us to see that each of us, when his life draws near the end, will ask himself what difference his living has made, what good he has done. Show us now that little solace will come from the riches we have gathered to ourselves, but great peace will come from having quietly, anonymously given for those in need.
For our own sake, please let us see this truth.
We ask this in Jesus’s name. Amen.
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John Robert Middlemas
Photo
July 4, 1936 – August 1, 2025
Service
Prelude “Sweet Hour of Prayer”
Pianist, Pat McCormick
Welcome Scott Clemons
Prayer The Rev. Tom Weller
Hymn “Blessed Assurance”
Memories of John Robert Ben Redding
“The Barefoot Boy” Jeffrey Portnoy
John Greenleaf Whittier
Hymn “Come, Thou Fount”
Eulogy and Prayer The Rev. Tom Weller
Closing Scott Clemons
Obituary
John Robert Middlemas, a lifelong resident of Panama City, died on August 1, 2025. He was 89.
John Robert attended Cove Elementary, Jinks Junior High, and Bay High School, where his mother once taught and where he played on the varsity basketball team. He never lost his Tornado pride and was delighted to watch his four children and one of his granddaughters follow in his footsteps and earn their diplomas from Bay High.
After graduating from Emory University in 1957, he returned to Panama City to join his father’s insurance agency, Black Insurance, which he and his brother Warren operated until its sale in 2000.
As a child, John Robert spent many of his days in and along the shoreline of his beloved St. Andrew Bay, and he once swam across the bay from the Cove to Redfish Point—an adventure that he recounted fondly and often. His early love for the bay was the foundation of a lifetime of environmental advocacy.
As a two-term member of the Florida House of Representatives, John Robert helped to enact dozens of bills establishing clean air and water regulations and earmarking money to create state parks. After leaving the Legislature, John Robert was appointed by then-Governor Reubin Askew to the Florida Pollution Control Board, the precursor to the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation. He later served on the boards of the Florida chapter of the Nature Conservancy, the Florida Audubon Society, and the Apalachicola Riverkeeper. He volunteered for the St. Andrew Bay Resource Management Association, collecting monthly water samples from the bay to promote and ensure its continued health. In the mid-1990s, John Robert led the fight to prevent expansion of the Panama City Airport into the wetlands of North Bay. When the Airport Authority abandoned those plans in favor of relocating the airport, John Robert worked with fellow environmentalists, the St. Joe Company, and the Bay County Commission to establish the West Bay Sector Plan to guide future development of 70,000 acres, with more than 40,000 acres of that area set aside for preservation. Due in large part to his efforts, the shoreline of West Bay enjoys enduring protection.
An unabashed liberal, John Robert was active in Democratic Party politics throughout his life and served as informal counsel to countless elected officials.
He was a voracious reader, a lover of history, and a loyal but oft-disappointed Boston Red Sox fan.
He will be remembered for his quick wit, his integrity, his fierce adherence to his principles, and his unwavering championship of the underdog.
John Robert was preceded in death by his parents, his brother Warren, his sister Ann Middlemas Johnson, and his first love and first wife, Kendall Hood Middlemas.
He is survived by his wife Kay, who brought him joy, love, and comfort for 17 years; his children: Rob Middlemas; Mary Middlemas and her husband, Jeff Portnoy; Davis Middlemas and his wife, Meg; Kendall Middlemas Henley and her husband, Steve; and Linda Macbeth; his grandchildren: Davis and Marguerite Middlemas, Addie Henley, and Haden Macbeth; his sister-in-law, Martha Middlemas Bryant and her husband, Hallman Bryant; and niece and nephews Holly Middlemas Carter, Warren Middlemas III, and Carter Middlemas.
A memorial service will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 7, 2025, at the Wilson Funeral Home Chapel, 214 Airport Road, Panama City, Florida 32405. Honorary pallbearers will be Hallman Bryant, Gerry Clemons, Scott Clemons, Olivia Cooley, Sidney Daffin, Charley Gramling, Joe Harbison, William Harrison, Cliff Higby, Rayford Lloyd, Ben Redding, and Mandeville Smith, Jr.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Apalachicola Riverkeeper or to the Panama City After School Assistance Program (ASAP).
The family is grateful to the caregivers of All Ways Caring, the nurses of VITAS Healthcare, and to John Robert’s lifelong friend and longtime doctor, Sidney Daffin.