AUSTIN, TEXAS - Retired Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Jack Pope, a longtime member of the University Avenue Church of Christ in Austin, celebrated his recent 100th birthday in style.

State officials — led by state Rep. Dan Branch, an elder of the Preston Road Church of Christ in Dallas — honored Pope in a ceremony on the House floor.

“His profound reputation for judicial integrity and principled decision-making prompted former Supreme Court colleague Thomas M. Reavley to call Chief Justice Pope the greatest jurist with whom he has served,” Branch, who served as a law clerk for Pope, said in a concurrent resolution read during the April 18 ceremony.

Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson said: “This occasion is a milestone, for Chief Justice Pope and for Texas. But this is more than a birthday celebration. This is an event to honor one of the country’s great legal legends.”