T. Terrell Sessums
Public Servant, Champion of Education
Early Life
Thomas Terrell Sessums was born June 11, 1930, in Daytona Beach, Florida. Growing up in Jacksonville, Sessums's family engaged in community outreach and volunteerism through his father's membership in the Kiwanis Club and the Methodist Church. Sessums showed an early interest in politics when he won first place in his high school public speaking contest on the theme "I speak for Democracy." Sessums relocated to Tampa in 1949 and attended the University of Florida after marrying his high school sweetheart, Neva. Neva also attended UF, and became a teacher when the couple returned to Tampa where the couple became active in the community.
After earning his bachelor’s degree in Political Science in 1953, Sessums served in the U.S. Air Force (1952, 1954-56), earning the rank of 1st Lieutenant before returning to UF to earn a Juris Doctorate in 1958. Sessums continued to serve in the Air Force Reserve, and obtained the rank of Captain.
He first practiced at the Tampa law firm Hardee and Ott (1958-60), then began a law practice as a partner with Albritton, Sessums, Gordon and Ryder in Tampa (1961 to 1984). He served as a shareholder and managing partner with Macfarlane, Ferguson and McMullen (1984 to 1997) and partner with Salem Law Group P.A., in Tampa, Florida beginning in 1998.
Sessums’s interest in public service was evident when he was elected student body president at the University of Florida (1952-53):
I decided that that would be as good a training ground as any. I served as student body president and was active in the Debate Society and Florida Blue Key. Later, when I became a member of the Legislature, many members of the Legislature were friends of mine or acquaintances of mine from college days. I knew legislators around the state primarily because of my college experience. Today there are more state universities than then, so that experience is not quite as apt to be replicated. But I thought that I was very well-prepared as an undergraduate for participation in public life in Florida.
Public Servant
Sessums worked for state senator Sam Gibbons as a legal aid (1959-61) before deciding to enter politics himself. He was elected to the Florida House of Representatives (1963-74) and served as Speaker of the House (1972-74).
In 1968, Sessums had a hand in reforming Florida’s state constitution, which was woefully out of date, in part due to the political structures in place. Regarding the major players in Tallahassee, known as the “Pork Chop Gang,” Sessums reflected:
I had studied political science and history as a student, but I really was not acquainted with how state government actually worked. That's when I discovered how the pork chop gang really dominated our state government. If you weren't a member of that group you were treated politely but you were really outside the loop. Your vote hardly counted for anything, because they had it all narrowly scripted.
USF Photograph collection, Special Collections, University of South Florida Libraries, Tampa
This narrow script needed to change to better support central and south Florida. To break through that network, he needed to understand how it worked. Discussing the structure of the Pork Chop Gang, he remembered:
It was a political network of legislators primarily in the northern part of Florida. At that time, because of the development of population in central and south Florida, fewer and fewer people in Florida were able to elect a controlling majority of the legislature. I think the former editorial editor of the Tampa Tribune, Mr. James Clendenin penned the name “Pork Chop Gang." It was an appropriate name because, although many capable legislators were in that group, they took good care of their own districts and gave sort of second priority to other districts in the more populated areas of the state. Probably only about 12 to 15 percent of the population of Florida in those small north Florida counties elected a majority of both the Florida Senate and the Florida House and that was a real problem for people in the growing areas of Florida primarily in central and southern Florida. The Florida Constitution required that the Legislature be reapportioned every ten years. What the "pork chop gang" had been failing to do had been to fairly reapportion.
Through his persistence and keen understanding of politics, Sessums forged a voice for Hillsborough County at the state level. One of his lesser-known passions was environmental protection. Before the 1970s, there were few environmental regulations and the state's ecology suffered badly as a result. Tampa Bay had become inundated with pollutants and solid waste. Some of Tampa's wealthiest citizens, who often lived along Bayshore Boulevard, complained that the malodorous air coming off the bay from rotting algae was tarnishing family silver and the paint of their cars. Sessums and the legislature compensated by creating the Department of Environmental Protection. Merged with the Department of Natural Resources, they comprise the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
Sessums used his positions at the state level to promote the Democratic platform, and is best remembered for his work promoting a stronger education system for the state of Florida.
Champion of Education
As part of his public service, Sessums championed education his entire life. He served as chairman of the House Education Committee from 1970 to 1972 and was active in pressing for more equitable allocation of education funds.
On increasing low education funding in the 1960s:
We did approve a one-cent increase in the State Sales Tax. However, leaders in Florida public education were still very unhappy and felt that they had been shortchanged, so we had a state-wide teachers strike in 1968. I was very concerned that many of my friends and constituents here in Hillsborough County were public school teachers. My wife had been a public school teacher, other members of my family were. I tried hard to understand what the problem was, and I became quite interested in public education. I found then that the problem was not only that the state was not necessarily appropriating enough money but that the money was not being equitably allocated among the different Florida school districts. So, almost no matter how much money we appropriated, a large school district such as Hillsborough still got short-changed on its allocation of state funds. From then really until I became speaker in 1972 my main focus was on public education. We're a lot better off than we used to be. Education funds are more equitably allocated among Florida districts. We're not perfect, but we're among one of the better states. We still have not reached the millennium in providing for public education in my opinion.
Sessums used those positive funds to promote the comprehensive education reform plans, including the draft in the gallery below. This passion for education resurfaced in Sessums's life over and over.
T. Terrell Sessums collection, Special Collections, University of South Florida Libraries, Tampa
Sessums believed in the need to reinforce and expand the state's commitment to education every year. Below is an except from a 1973 speech to the Palm Beach County Democratic Committee that shows how he persisted in his message. His top commitments remained rooted in education and protecting the environment, which he had championed for years.
Speech at Palm Beach County Democratic Committee, March 1, 1973, T. Terrell Sessums collection, Special Collections, University of South Florida Libraries, Tampa
A Friend of USF
His strong advocacy of the University of South Florida was crucial when it was still the upstart of the state university system. Sessums played a major role in establishing the University of South Florida’s colleges of Medicine and Nursing as well as new programs in Business and Architecture.
On the early days of USF:
The University had already been authorized and work had I think started, but during one of those sessions I remember USF appropriations almost got lost on a curve. The old Pork Chop Gang that used to dominate the Florida Legislature was not really carried away with the idea of this new university. They didn't miss too many opportunities to try to slow it down and they almost did by putting its appropriations in a category of the budget that was not going to be funded. But then Governor Farris Bryant vetoed the provision that made that distinction and he and the other members of the Florida Cabinet saw that the necessary funds were allocated so that construction proceeded.
He served on (and chaired) the Florida Board of Regents (1975-88) and numerous university boards, including as a Trustee for the University of South Florida Foundation. He served as the Tampa Port Authority’s general counsel (1974-89) and as president of both the Tampa and Florida Chambers of Commerce.
USF Photograph collection, Special Collections, University of South Florida Libraries, Tampa
The University of South Florida first honored Sessums with a Distinguished Citizen Award in 1975 and an honorary degree of humane letters in 1995. The Terrell Sessums Mall was dedicated at USF in 1999, and Sessums Elementary School was named in his honor in 2004.
In addition to his public service, Sessums leaves behind an honorable legacy with a USF Honors College scholarship he established with his late wife. He looked back on the “tremendous changes” he witnessed and influenced when interviewed by Harris Mullen for the USF Libraries Oral History Program in 1996.
The population of Tampa has almost tripled since I came here as a young lawyer. I remember on one of my first weekends driving out to see where they're going to put this new University of South Florida, which wasn't here then. Now it is one of the largest state universities in the country and a very good one. It has been gratifying to see all of this development, the improvement of our airport, the improvement of our port, the development of sports facilities, the development of our Community College System. As a legislator one of my privileges was to secure the enactment of legislation to establish Hillsborough Community College which was one of the last ones established. I've worked with our port on its harbor deepening project to its development as one of America’s major deep-water ports. I've traveled around the world and although we still have many problems in Tampa, many challenges, it's one of the finest places in the world and a great place to live.
Soft-spoken and humble in private, Sessums was vocal and effective as a public figure in and out of elected office, which has earned him recognition worldwide (see his entries in several “Who’s Who” volumes). When USF praised his efforts recently, he responded,
I am honored by the description of ‘champion of education’ because underneath it all that is who I am. My hope is that students will take full advantage of all the opportunities offered by USF, including scholarships. Then later in life they can have the same privilege we have had of paying it forward for others.
T. Terrell Sessums passed away on June 6, 2020. Preceded in death by his wife Neva, he is survived by three children and five grandchildren.
T. Terrell Sessums, 1930-2020
Resources
In Memory photo courtesy of University of South Florida Foundation.
Other documents and images from the T. Terrell Sessions Collection and the USF Photography Collection at the University of South Florida Libraries, Special Collections, Tampa, FL.
