by Victoria E. Lewkow

For John Keith, the title line to the old song, "Go Tell it on the Mountain," should strike a sentimental cord. Twenty-seven years ago, while on a camping trip in the Colorado Rockies, Keith learned of his acceptance to UVA law school from a stranger in a dusty jeep shouting out the message, "John Keith has been accepted to the University of Virginia Law School" to anyone within earshot of the tiny mountain hamlet of Tin Cup, Colorado.

Beyond the obvious, for Keith, the message was charged with additional meaning. After some years of deliberating about his future career path, he would at last be a part of a profession to which his family claims a rich legacy. Ultimately, it was all about fulfilling a family tradition.

Keith's story begins in Fairfax, a town with another series of family ties that are so strong that he jokingly attributes his birth in D.C. to pure necessity. "There were simply no hospitals in Fairfax at the time." He and his sister Maria grew up in a Georgian style frame house on 3 acres in the middle of town, where Keith and his own family still live. Keith's mother had been born on a farm near Hopewell. Despite her limited years of formal education (3 years), she was, as Keith describes, extremely well read, with a love for literature in general and for poetry in particular. She wrote volumes, in fact, which the family eventually had privately published. His father, James Keith, was born and raised in Warrenton. Because of his own father's untimely death in early middle age, the senior Keith attended VMI on scholarship and then went on to Harvard Law School, graduating in 1935 and moving to Fairfax to join his uncle's law firm. Like many Harvard graduates during World War II, the senior Keith was assigned to the U.S. Intelligence Service and then returned to his legal practice after the war. In the 1960s, Mr. Keith became a judge of the Fairfax Circuit Court, where he presided until his retirement in 1979.

John Keith attended public school in Fairfax through sixth grade and then transferred to St. Stephen's for reasons, he says, he prefers not to discuss. "Actually," he smiles, "I was spending a little too much time in the principals office." For senior high, he attended Episcopal High School, a boarding school in Alexandria. It was while there that Keith's father attempted to introduce his son to a few family traditions. "Dad was always very subtle about giving guidance. One day he put a VMI logo chair in my bedroom. Some time later, he took me down to VMI for finals. When it came time to decide on a college, I did not apply to VMI. Dad never said a word, but one day I came back to my room and the chair was gone." It was the same with the law. Although his father never told his son that he wanted him to become a lawyer, he had him work at his law office during summers. But for Keith at the time, the impression that lingered most was what he describes as the "sensual aroma of cigar smoke" rather than any particular desire to serve as someone's advocate.

Instead, Keith's passion was for mathematics, which he considered majoring in when he got to UVA. "I absolutely loved math. I loved everything about it. Things were either right or wrong-no essay questions, no subjectivity. If you were prepared, you could get 100%." The honeymoon lasted right through his first college calculus class, which hit him like a ton of bricks. Four years later, in 1968, Keith graduated as an English major.

Did he consider law school at this point? Not yet. As it turned out, the Vietnam conflict was escalating, and Keith knew he was ripe for the draft. Moreover, as he says, he wasn't ready for much of anything else. Rather than be drafted to just any arm of the service, he applied to the U.S. Navy's Officers Candidate School. It was, according to Keith, one of the best decisions he ever made. "It was a great experience and it certainly gave me some time to grow up. I enjoyed the competitive atmosphere and being with such a talented group of people." Among his assignments, he served as a combat information officer on a destroyer stationed off the east coast.

Three years later, with the Navy behind him and with his new bride, the former Ann Elmore, whom he had dated throughout high school and college, Keith finally decided he was ready to carry on the family tradition and apply to law school. Was there, at last, some defining moment that lead him to his decision? "Not really," says Keith. "There was no sudden epiphany. Rather, it was a gradual move toward a profession I was very familiar with."

Accepted outright at Tulane, and wait-listed at UVA, his first choice, Keith and his wife packed up, moved their belongings to New Orleans, and left for a camping trip in a remote part of the Colorado Rockies, some 10 miles from a general store with the nearest phone. Some time during the trip, a family member called the general store and asked the clerk to deliver the message to Keith that he had been accepted to UVA. Rather than locate Keith and personally deliver the message, the overzealous clerk jumped into his jeep, raced down the mountain road to the spot near the old miner's cabin where the Keiths were staying, and bellowed out at the top of his lungs, "John Keith has been accepted to law school at the University of Virginia." It was Friday, August 13, 1971. By August 30, Ann had collected those freshly unpacked belongings from their New Orleans apartment and found the couple a place in Charlottesville.

After graduating from law school, Keith clerked for United States District Judge Albert V. Bryan, Jr. of the Eastern District of Virginia, which he describes as a tremendous learning experience, and then got a job in a D.C. law firm. Without much opportunity to practice in Virginia, however, he began searching for a way to practice in Fairfax, since his father had recently retired from his judgeship there. It was an initially frustrating experience until the day that a call came from Hugo Blankingship, whom Keith had met while interning at a law firm during law school. "At first I thought that Hugo was calling to console me in my frustration. But when I met him for lunch a few days later, he asked me if I would be interested in joining him to open a new practice. I immediately said, 'sold' and the rest is history." They opened the firm Blackingship and Keith in downtown Fairfax on July 1, 1979, and have been practicing together there ever since. Blankingship describes Keith as "a good lawyer, a smart guy, and someone who never fusses at you."

Watching John Keith in his law office today, you wonder why he had ever entertained thoughts about being anything but a lawyer. He spends his working days in his office surrounded by images of his own rich legal heritage-from the framed photograph of his great-grandfather, a former attorney general of Virginia, that hangs on his wall; to the view of the turn-of-the-century red brick building that once housed his dad's law firm just outside his office window; to the federal period house a few short blocks away that belonged to his great-uncle, another Keith family lawyer.

Of the practice of law, Keith says the downside is controlling one's practice-the amount of business and number of clients. The upside is about solving and resolving problems. "I especially like the last minute trial preparations. They're very exciting and drive me crazy, but to me it's just like walking in to that math test."

Will any of the Keith children continue the tradition of law? Too soon to tell. The eldest daughter, Sally, has recently been accepted to the prestigious graduate writing program at the University of Iowa-for poetry no less-just like grandma. The second daughter, Maria, a recent graduate of UVA, says definitely not. But the younger two children, Hannah and Jimmy, have still to make up their minds. And if one of them does end up applying to law school? Well, who knows? Maybe this time the family can try skywriting the acceptance.

Seated from left: Ann, John and Sally. Standing from left: Hannah, Jimmy and Maria.

John Keith Fact Sheet Law Firm: Blankingship & Keith, P.C. Fairfax   Education: B.A. University of Virginia, 1968 J.D. University of Virginia, 1974   Bar Service: Member, 10th District Grievance Committee, 1983-1986 Chair, 10th District Grievance Committee, 1986 Member, Virginia State Bar Council, 1991- Member, Executive Committee, 1993- Member, Standing Committee on Legal Ethics, 1991- Faculty, Mandatory Professionalism Course, 1990-94   Plans for 1998-99 bar year: "I plan to continue Ed Lowry's initiative of improving the image of lawyers in the community as well as Bob Altizer's initiative on the LOMAP program. We're also working on the Model Rules and the pro bono circuit-based committees. Given the scope of these projects, plus routine bar business, we have plenty to keep all of us busy."