Retired Chaplain Bob West Set Politics Aside When Counseling in the Capitol

Bipartisan Spirit

If it is not the indoor record for Florida Capitol volunteer work, it has to be close.

Bob West served the state House of Representatives as its chaplain from 1977 until his retirement this past December. We’ll do the math for you. That’s 37 years of counsel and comfort, solace and serenity, faith in and fidelity to God.

For this, West earned not a dime in financial compensation. Instead, he earned the abiding admiration and — let’s just go ahead and say it — the profound love of virtually everyone whose path he joined.

“He was a man of faith who brought us together to share our beliefs, our concerns and to pray,” said Rep. Matt Hudson, R-Naples, co-chair of the bicameral Prayer Caucus that West created. “He had a gentle and guiding hand.”

Said Sen. Dwight Bullard, D-Cutler Bay, whose mother, former state Sen. Larcenia Bullard, died in March 2013: “My mom considered him a confidant and a spiritual adviser. He was always known as that rock for everyone. What he talks about is nothing political. He’s dealing with the person.”

Mary Pankowski, a community leader and retired educator, university administrator and assistant state attorney, agreed. “He is a special guy. He’s one of the people who gets all of us more involved in the community.”

As of this year, Room 514 in the House office building, the chaplain’s office, is known as the Bob West Conference Room. And during a special ceremony in March, the House issued a proclamation recognizing West for his “outstanding professionalism and public service” and “his years of invaluable service to Florida’s Capitol and the House of Representatives.”

Pulling back a bit after a lifetime of service West, 85, now focuses mostly on his family. He and wife Naomi have five children, 12 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, with No. 8 on the way.

A lay chaplain who is not ordained, West describes his religious affiliation this way: “First of all, I’m a follower of Jesus Christ. Secondly, I’m a Presbyterian. In that order. The denomination is not important.”

It would be fair to say that he lives by those words.

The Wests reside in a comfortable, but not showy, house in the active-senior community Westminster Oaks. When they moved into their new house about 16 years ago West swiftly attached to the doorpost a mezuzah, the tiny prayer scroll often displayed by Jewish people to express their oneness with God.

The Wests are influential members of Christians United for Israel, which represents more than one million members and calls itself one of the largest pro-Israel organizations in the United States. “We have some very dear Jewish friends, and we have a lot in common with them,” West said. “Very few Christians celebrate the (Jewish Passover) seder, either, but we do.”

It is this magnitude of inclusion and compassion that defines West, characteristics he inherited from his hardworking parents during a Depression-era upbringing in upstate New York. 

His was a path not uncommon for the time: high school graduation, U.S. Army, honorable discharge, a business education through the good graces of the G.I. Bill and eventually a relocation to Florida to pursue business interests. In West’s case, that meant the moving and storage business he had learned from the ground up.

The path led 40 years ago to Tallahassee, where he bought, developed and ran Capital City Moving and Storage. And here he and Naomi stayed, raising their family, building the business and embedding themselves in the civic and governmental affairs of Tallahassee and the state it serves.

A sampling of his roles and associations includes: board member of Associated Industries of Florida and chairman of the Associated Industries Insurance Co.; chairman of the Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce; founding member of the James Madison Institute; manager of the Southeastern Warehouse Association; a divisional director of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation; founder of the Florida Movers and Warehousemen’s Association; national chairman of the Christian Business Men’s Committee; a founding member of Fellowship Presbyterian Church.

“The thing that sets Bob apart is his deep faith, but it’s more than that,” said John Rogers, a longtime friend and senior vice president of the Florida Retail Federation. One of West’s children, Sally West, worked for years as the retail federation’s director of government affairs and now serves as regional director of state government relations for Walgreens.

“Bob not only lives his faith,” Rogers said. “He influences others to live theirs as well. In addition, he is a source of wisdom and a good role model.”

West’s faith, his growing prominence in the community and his compassion all played a role in the lay ministry he developed — almost by accident — in the state Capitol.

It began in 1977, as Florida legislators debated the still-controversial Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The state House voted four times between 1972 and 1982 to ratify the amendment, but the state Senate repeatedly balked. In 1977, states Sen. Alan Trask, D-Winter Haven, an opponent of the ERA, found himself under intense pressure from women’s groups, elements of the media and others.

“I don’t think he had a friend in the building at that time,” said Tim Perrier, who worked with West as the House’s associate chaplain and now has succeeded West as House chaplain. “But Bob came to the Capitol and went to Alan’s office and told him he only wanted to pray with him.”

Let’s allow West to tell the full story, which is crucial to understanding how he works and what followed during the next 37 years:

“The media were just relentless,” West said. “I felt so bad about this guy. I heard that he was a Christian and I couldn’t get him off my mind, as if I had a mission. I kept saying, ‘Lord, I think you have the wrong guy here.’ I rejected it for a while, but I just couldn’t get him off my mind.

“So, I finally made an appointment, and I walked in and I said, ‘Senator, you don’t know me from Adam’s house cat, but I don’t want anything from you. If, though, you want a brother to walk with you this year, I’m here to volunteer.’

“You wouldn’t believe his reaction. He just began to sob uncontrollably, and he pointed at his door and he could hardly get the words out. He said, ‘You are the first person who ever walked through that door who didn’t want something from me.’”

And so it began. They began meeting and praying together, generally on Wednesday mornings. Soon, another member joined. Then another. And the legislative Prayer Caucus was created.

West said he drew several lasting conclusions from the Trask encounter.

“What I learned was that it’s easy to judge somebody and criticize them without knowing the person,” he said. “I locked that away. I also made it clear that I never wanted anything from any of the people I worked with in the Capitol. I never injected myself in politics.”

In 2000, then-House Speaker John Thrasher made West the chamber’s official chaplain and offered him a small room in the Capitol.

The chaplain’s office is responsible for coordinating the House’s daily opening prayer, but West and Perrier do much more than that. They comfort legislators, staffers and others in the Capitol, in hospitals or elsewhere during times of illness, loss, other setbacks and stresses.

“In the context of loving people, what has been very satisfying for me has been to get calls to become their pastor, so to speak, at their funerals and so on,” West said. “It is a privilege, and I thank the Lord for it.”

West recalls several special situations:

In 2005, as the long, solemn legal and legislative struggle over terminating life support for comatose patient Terri Schiavo approached a climax in Pinellas Park, a reporter sought West’s opinion of the case. 

“I said I don’t have a position,” West said. “I don’t push a [voting] button down in the chamber.

“We chatted for a few moments and she said, ‘Can I ask you something? My daughter’s in jail on drug charges.’ And she started crying and I said to her, ‘That’s why you came in to see me, isn’t it?’ And we talked, and I prayed with her and tried to encourage her the best I could.”

Rep. Marti Coley, R-Marianna, recalled that West quickly appeared at her side after her husband, David Coley, died of cancer in 2005. She took her husband’s legislative seat, was elected on her own and quickly earned respect on the chamber floor.

“The first couple of years were tough on the floor, but I knew he was there for support and encouragement,” said Coley, who has three children.

Coley currently serves as speaker pro tempore, which requires that she take the reins of House sessions during some of its most contentious moments. “The support he gave me was something I needed, because I had a lot to learn,” she said. 

Now, it is time for Bob West to kick back, if he can, and just relax with Naomi and the rest of the family and a universe of devoted friends.

“Retirement beckoned, and I responded in the affirmative,” he said with a laugh.