Verle A. Pope

Verle Allyn Pope (December 12, 1903 – July 18, 1973), nicknamed The Lion of St. Johns, was a prominent Florida legislator, serving for 24 years in the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate.

Born in Jacksonville to deaf parents, he attended high school, and was prominent in athletics and speech. He enlisted in the Air Corps in 1928 but was forced out of service due to a previously sustained knee injury. Seeking political office in 1934, he became county commissioner of St. Johns County. Eight years later, he successfully ran for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives, but later resigned due to acceptance into the U.S. Army. Shortly upon his return from oversees that saw him win awards for his service, in 1948, he ran, again successfully, as a senator for St. Augustine in the Florida Senate. Among the 24 years he served, he was involved in many important issues and held positions like President pro tempore and President of the Senate. He was forced into retirement in 1972 by bone cancer and died of it the year after.

Early life Pope was born at Jacksonville in 1903 to two deaf parents, Artemus and Cora Carlton Pope, who were in the first graduating class of the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine. As a child, Pope and his family moved multiple times around the state of Florida before settling in St. Augustine. He learned sign language to communicate with his parents and did not start speaking until he was seven years of age. Upon finishing high school, he enrolled in the University of Florida where he hoped to have a prosperous football career. However, he suffered a torn cartilage in his knee shortly thereafter from football that forced him out of the university altogether and back home. During his years of service, which ended in December 1945, he won an Air Medal and Croix de Guerre while serving in Europe. and did not seek re-election to the senate that year, returning to a private insurance business.

Personal life and death In his spare time, he enjoyed hunting, fishing and golfing. His funeral of over 500 people was attended by many prominent Floridian politicians, including former governors Fuller Warren, Farris Bryant, Haydon Burns, Charley Johns, LeRoy Collins along with senator Lawton Chiles and then-governor Reubin Askew. He was later interred at Evergreen Cemetery in St. Augustine alongside his wife. Pope is known mostly for breaking the "rural hold" on the state legislature. The school that his parents graduated from was also renamed "The Verle Allyn Pope School for the Deaf and Blind" in a unanimous resolution that same year.