Schmidt fondly remembered by court staff

Earl Schmidt, who served as district attorney, state representative and judge for Shawano and Menominee counties died July 14. He was 88.

When staff at the Shawano County Sheriff’s Department and Shawano County Clerk of Courts office recalled working with Schmidt over the years, his guitar playing was brought up most often.

“He’d walk around the courthouse, and just all of a sudden, he’d play guitar,” said Ty Raddant, chief deputy at the sheriff’s department.

“He’d always come in and sing sometimes, too, added Cindy Bucher, office specialist in the clerk of courts office.

In his retirement, Schmidt wrote several songs and shared them with his family, friends, neighbors and community.

“I know people loved requesting, when they had a judge do their wedding, a lot of times they would request Judge Schmidt,” Sheriff George Lenzner said. “They knew that he’d play guitar for their wedding. After he’d marry them, he would play a song.”

Lenzner and Jennifer Hoffman, deputy clerk of courts, also recalled Schmidt’s glasses, which were often perched on the end of his nose and he looked at you over the top of them.

“When I first started here, I was afraid of him,” Hoffman said. “He didn’t seem to smile much, and he’d put his glasses down and look at you. He would say things that we probably wouldn’t consider politically correct, but they needed to be said.”

Any fear Hoffman had quickly disappeared.

“When I first started here, I was the fiscal clerk, so I issued warrants for failure to pay fines,” she said. “I’d always have to take the stack down to him for his signature. When we started with our software system … because I was responsible, he gave me the title of NAG, which was for network administrative guru.”

Schmidt was also known for his logging. In his obituary, he is said to have referred to himself as a tree farmer and a hobby judge. Hoffman said Schmidt used to take his wood to a sawmill in Tilleda. He discovered the sawmill was operated by Hoffman’s father and his brothers.

“Then we were best buddies,” she said.

Once at the sawmill, a worker who unloaded Schmidt’s logs said he had to decide if he was judge or logger.

“He told him to be quiet, because this was his therapy,” Hoffman said.

Schmidt’s personality made him likable to everyone.

“I remember one time he called over here (the sheriff’s department), because he had a prescription that he needed, and he didn’t have a way to get to the drugstore to get it,” Raddant said. “So, I went and picked up his prescription and took it him. About two weeks later, he said, ‘You paid for that?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ And he reached in his wallet and gave me the money.”

The pharmacy was not just down the street, either; it was in Wittenberg.

Hoffman also helped Schmidt with his annual Christmas card. She would take home his rough draft, create it and print it for him.

“His stories and Christmas cards were interesting, especially about his pet grouse,” she said.

And then there was the more serious side of Schmidt.

“I don’t know of anybody that he didn’t get along with over here (clerk of courts office),” Lenzner said. “Everybody liked him. He got along with everybody. Joking around a lot, but when in court, when it was time to be serious, he was very serious.

“He was a very, very fair judge. I just liked how he was old school. He would take to people after they were done. It wasn’t just, ‘You’re sentenced.’ He would try to give them advice and stuff.”

Whether those people would follow his advice or not was up to them.

“It was nice when judges would do that years ago,” Lenzner said. “The older judges used to do that. They’ve give them a lesson or tell a story of somebody similar to them and what happened if they kept going down this path. They care about these people, too. They don’t want to see them every week.”

Schmidt was a Birnamwood resident most of his life. He was valedictorian of the Birnamwood Orioles’ class of 1953.

He received multiple degrees from UW-Madison in agriculture, economics and public administration.

From June 1964 through July 1969, he was employed in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Brazil, principally with ACCION International, which specialized in the urban development of South America.

Upon returning home, he was back at the UW-Madison campus to earn his law degree.

His legal career included district attorney for Shawano and Menominee counties from 1972-74, state representative to the Wisconsin Assembly from 1974-82 and circuit judge for Menominee and Shawano counties from 1983 to his retirement in 2002.

He and the former Judy Eckardt raised four children.

A lifelong member of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Birnamwood, he was also a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin, Rotary Club of Shawano, the Farm Bureau and the Elks Club of Antigo Lodge 662.

A funeral service was held July 20.

kpasson@newmedia-wi.com