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Daniel Low participated in a ceremony today to honor the distinguished service of The Honorable Deanell_Reece_Tacha, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Judge Tacha was honored with the 26th Annual Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award, which honors Article III judges whose careers have been exemplary. Judge Tacha has been a judge on the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals since 1985, served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, chaired the Judicial Division of the ABA, chaired the U.S. Judicial Conference Committee on the Judicial Brach, was President of the American Inns of Court, chaired the Appellate Judges Conference, was a member of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, was president of the Kansas University Alumni Association, and is active in numerous professional and civic organizations.

Speakers at the award ceremony included Kansas Governor Kathleen_Sebelius, Supreme Court Justice Samuel_Alito, Judge Carolyn_King of the Fifth Circuit, Chief Judge Robert_Henry of the Tenth Circuit, Judge John Lungstrum of the District of Kansas, Judge Sarah Barker of the Southern District of Indiana, John Tacha, and Daniel Low of Kotchen & Low LLP.

During the ceremony, Daniel Low praised Judge Tacha – who he previously clerked for – and read a poem written in honor of the occasion by Kansas_Poet_Laureate Denise_Low:
For a Kansas Judge 
For The Honorable Deanell Tacha

Central Plains wind stops for no woman nor beast– not the cattle nor the sparrows. Sometimes it  carries  straight – line rain  and sometimes glistening prisms of mist. Pawnees and Spanish fought in the winds and Cheyennes and American soldiers.

West winds blew   through council fires  and brick court houses on town squares. Gravity tugs the wind into whorls, never easing its grip. These laws do not vary.

Each community learns the same lessons: how sun returns after winter, how kindness fosters survival,   how the stories circle, how law holds even the sky in order.