He practiced law there for 50 years

To say Bill Burnham’s roots run deep in Eufaula is an understatement.

His father and grandfather were from Eufaula.

The retired attorney was raised a block south of the courthouse.

“Now I live two blocks south of the courthouse,” Burnham, 77, said.

Although no one in his family was an attorney, it has been his passion since he was a child.

“I wanted to do it when I was a kid,” he recalled. “I read a lot of books. I saw what attorneys had done. It was just something I had always wanted to do, especially since junior high.”

Burnham – William Robert Burnham – was honored at the March 28 meeting of the McIntosh County Bar Association for his milestone 50 years as a member of the bar.

After graduating from Eufaula High School in 1964 he attended the University of Oklahoma, worked for a time in Oklahoma City, graduated from the OU School of Law in 1974 and returned to his hometown to open a practice.

He has never left. “I practiced my whole career here,” Burnham said.

He and his wife Mary, a retired teacher, raised their children, Tracy and Paul, here.

Paul celebrated his 50th birthday on the day Burnham was honored for his 50 years’ service in the legal profession.

Associate District Judge Brendon Bridges was a law partner of Burnham’s before Burnham retired and Bridges became a judge.

City Attorney Kay Wall said she belonged to the same sorority at OU as Burnham’s wife.

“She was a tall, beautiful blond, tanned and a cheerleader in my sorority,” Wall recalled. “We loved her. But then she quit, married somebody named Bill Burnham and moved.”

Burnham was in general practice throughout his career, working every kind of case imaginable from murders to torts.

One of his most memorable cases was a wrongful death lawsuit in 2002, Pennington vs. Eufaula Manor.

The nursing home was accused of negligence that resulted in the death of Richard Gordon Pennington, a physically incapacitated patient who suffocated when he became wedged between the right side of his bed rail and the wall.

Pennington’s son Gordon Pennington hired Burnham and sued the nursing home and was awarded a total of $950,000.

Burnham said he remembers a lot of the countless cases he handled during his career, though not as clearly as he used to.

Today, he spends most of his time tending to his ailing wife, and his own health.

“Doctors told me I was dying of cancer two years ago. But after I had radiation treatment, it never came back,” he said.