My Christian Testimony of Saving Grace

I wrote this account of my salvation back in 2017 to share with our church family. Here is the amazing grace of God at work in saving power, that grows truly sweeter as the years go by. Praise the LORD!

1973 l-r, Willi, Tom, Ed, Dad, Amy in front

Mark 5:1-20 My Christian Testimony of Saving Grace

Since God has done great things for me and had compassion on me like the man in this account with an unclean spirit I want to spend a little time this afternoon telling you how great things Jesus did for me in his saving power. 

I was born in 1952 in Philadelphia to a young couple who were religious and beginning their lives near the place they had grown up. My father fought in the infantry in WW2 in Europe. They were both college graduates and were members of the Society of Friends. We attended Quaker meetings at Cheltenham nearby, where my uncle and aunt and cousins, and our grandparents were all members. We prayed at mealtimes and bedtime. My mother played hymns on the piano and we sang together at Christmas. I spent my first eleven years in a neighborhood that was diverse religiously. We had Jewish and Roman Catholic neighbors, as well as one Episcopal next door, and one family that was Presbyterian. The religion of my family had an influence on me since we were pacifists, and I later volunteered to serve as a Conscientious Objector during the Vietnam War, like my Uncle Bob had in WW2. We used the older style pronouns in our home when we spoke and a distinctive calendar with numbers instead of names for months and days. We did not take oaths but let our ‘yea be yea and our nay be nay’. But we wore no distinctive clothing, and nobody looked anything like the man on the boxes of Quaker oats.

Our family grew to include two younger brothers evenly spaced by three years each. By 1962 my father was at a dead-end in his career in the telephone company in NYC, and was tired of the commute, so we moved in 1963 to Sebring so he could begin a new career as the owner of a Western Auto franchise. Our grandparents had a winter home in Sebring Hills, and my family on both sides wintered here since the early days of Sebring, close to 100 years ago.

After worshiping with the Hinshaw family in their home, we began attending First Christian Church on Eucalyptus and Poinsettia. The pastor and his wife were family friends, and we spent time in each other’s homes. Church members were family friends. I worked as a janitor as a young man, and sang in the choir. In 1966 Amy was born. Mom began to work as a case worker at the Alcoholic Rehab Center in Avon Park to supplement the family income. Her struggles with depression intensified and she sought psychological counsel. Dad bought a slot-car track about 1965 and rented the building next door. So with Sager Raceway and Western Auto to own and operate, Mom working and depressed, and four kids to raise, I entered my teen years reading everything in sight and expanding my horizons. 

During 1966-67 our pastor was convicted of inappropriate contact with boys. This, combined with my reading, set me up to reject Christianity, at least as an exclusive avenue to God. I began exploring religion and philosophy on my own at the age of 15 against my parents wishes. By 1967 their marriage fell apart, and Dad announced to us that he had to leave. It was the first time I had seen him cry. He moved down to Lake Josephine, and lived in a house owned by Lloyd Evans, who was on the board of the First Christian Church and a family friend. 

My reading of philosophy and religion gave me the distinct idea that there were many ways to God, and that the Christianity I grew up with was only one of many. I began reading more radical books that advocated the use of drugs to get in touch with God and bypass the disciplines necessary to spiritual enlightenment promised in eastern religions. 

I had a steady girlfriend, Janie Brandt, during the last years of high school, whose parents were missionaries. Janie’s father, Dick Brandt was the first director of S.I.M. retirement village. I was never confronted by them with the gospel, and have no recollection of them ever telling me about Jesus. They were Presbyterians. 

By the time I graduated my father had gone to graduate school for his masters’ degree at F.S.U. and began working for the state of Florida. Mom still worked at the Alcoholic Rehab Center and we remained close. I began drinking alcohol heavily on weekends with friends during high school, and experimented with drugs when they were available. I hung out with friends that were into that kind of thing. Although I had been a decent student and was in the advanced classes I had no direction about college. Vietnam was in full swing when I graduated in 1970 and staying home in Sebring did not appeal to me. I volunteered to serve for two years by working in Miami at Goodwill Industries in July that year. 

I moved in to the YMCA downtown. They offered free coffee and donuts Saturday mornings and shared some devotional message with us. I went because I was lonely but don’t know if I ever heard the gospel there. I worked with about 400 disabled people in the main factory. One old man from Georgia, Tom Ball, was eager to tell everybody his testimony of Christ’s saving grace. I tried to keep away from him but he caught me one evening just before quitting time and I had to listen. He had grown up in a rough situation and became a real tough man and a drunk. Through some circumstances he heard the gospel and was saved by God’s grace. He was so happy to tell me about his new life and how he had a good wife and five godly daughters all married to godly men serving God. I just wrote it off at the time. 

I kept in touch with my mother by letter writing and periodic trips back to Sebring. She remarried two times and was still unhappy and depressed. 

I became friends with several Latin American men at work and moved to an old hotel for awhile before we rented an apartment together in Coconut Grove. Miguel from Ecuador was a little older and had served in Vietnam and liked to drink and discuss philosophy. It was 1971 and drugs were plentiful. I began using regularly about that time, and got involved with a Jewish woman that lived in the apartment complex. Susan was from California, worked for Air Canada, and was very progressive. By 1972 I was reading some pretty horrible stuff and using drugs and had long hair and a beard. Most of my roommates were hippies who used drugs, too. I got involved with the psychologist at work and moved in with her. Anne was bi-polar and it was about the time I moved in with her that I finished my service obligation. By the summer of 1972 I had no need to work anymore, since Anne made good money as a Ph.D. psychologist. I used drugs and read and listened to music all the time. But her mental condition deteriorated in less than one year. 

By this time my mother started acting really strange! She was attending Bible studies and prayer groups and writing me about Jesus! I was surprised and puzzled, but figured it would pass if I just waited. After a year or so it didn’t go away at all. When Anne’s mental condition bottomed out I couldn’t live there anymore so I had to find someplace and decided to contact my mother and come back at least briefly. She had a little guest cottage out back where my brother Willi stayed. I had led him and Tom into the drug culture by then. 

It turned out that Amy was at kindergarten and had learned a song from Child Evangelism Fellowship about Jesus and had asked him to save her. When Mom heard her she didn’t think much of it, but noticed after a few weeks how she had changed. Mom’s friend, Patti Cox, was another Christian neighbor that influenced her. When Mom was saved her husband was a tough guy that had been an Army Ranger. He was not pleased and gave her an ultimatum – either Jesus or him. She chose Jesus and they were divorced. 

My intention was to go to a Buddhist temple in NY State near Woodstock. Fred Plant told me it was the most demonic place he had ever been in. God kept me from that. I came back in 1973 and rented a house on N. Franklin St. with Ross’ youngest brother Roni. We took turns working and I read and used drugs while I wasn’t working, cooking or cleaning the house. Curiosity led me to attend a meeting at my mother’s house with the Christians she worshiped with there. For the first time in my life I met people who lived all the time as if God is real. They had something I needed. I tried for awhile to clean up my life and stop using drugs. That was a failure as I started abusing alcohol. So I went back to drugs. By the beginning of 1974 I was destroying myself with drugs. My friends were even concerned for me. Terrie was my girlfriend and moved into a tiny house in the back yard where Roni and I lived. 

Finally on Feb. 11th 1974 late at night I went to my mother’s house on Belleview Ave. and told her I could not stop using drugs, and knew that psychology had no real answer, and I needed help. She called a man that knew the Bible pretty well who came over and read through and explained the gospel from Romans 1-3. For the first time the Bible made perfect sense. I understood then why Jesus died on the cross and that all of us are sinners in the sight of God, no matter how civilized and nice our outward appearance. I prayed that night at 11:30 and told God how I had ruined my life, was deeply ashamed of my sin, hurt everyone that cared for me, and gave my life to him to do whatever he wanted with me on the basis of the biblical gospel. I was baptized right there in the pool and then went home and gathered all the occult books and rock and roll albums and drugs and destroyed and burned them all. I went to Terrie’s cottage and told her what God thought of her. I was pretty brutal about it and had no grace. She was furious, but by the next day she got saved. I’ll let her fill in the details another time. 

Immediately I began to devour the Bible. I was so blessed to read and understand the Word of God and was excited to share it with all my drug friends. When they came over to get high I was reading my Bible and tried to share it with them. I wasn’t very discerning about it, but was sincere and earnest. My outward appearance was unchanged. The Christian gatherings at my mother’s house were almost a daily occurrence, so I had lots of fellowship. The man who emerged as the pastor served in that capacity until 1980. He was very dictatorial and forced us to study the Bible and attend all the meetings. The discipline was very helpful in healing my mind of the garbage I had imbibed and the mess my life had become as a hippy. God brought Terrie and I together and we were married March 23-24, 1974. God taught us to live by faith together and we have grown up here together in this church. God has blessed us with Christian brothers and sisters, and has restored my family as much as it could be. Mom went to heaven at age 83 seven years ago this week, June 7, 2010. Dad is doing well at age 90 in Blairsville, GA. He remarried Mom Helen in 1974 and they started a Lutheran Church together there. Dad is a Bible lover, and prays and professes faith in Jesus Christ. My brothers are both born again, too. God had mercy on us. He blessed Terrie and I with two healthy sons who now know God’s redeeming love, two wonderful daughters in law, who know God’s saving grace, and six grandchildren being raised up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord in Christian homes. I am so blessed! God began a good work in me 43 years ago as a lost drugged out hippy that ruined my life. I have had a wonderful career as a property appraiser for 42 years with this county. I have served as pastor here for 37 years so far. God even gave me the privilege to be Lloyd Evan’s pastor for a brief time after he was saved at the ripe age of 80. God has given me a life I could not have imagined possible after I made such a wreck of myself. When I trusted Jesus and gave my life to him everything changed. He is still faithfully teaching me to trust him day by day. It is not religion or going to church that changed me. It was and is Jesus that is my Savior, my Lord and my God! All the praise is his.

I want to close with the words of Psalm 126:1-3. May he bring many more lost sinners into his fold with rejoicing like he did for me. Praise God!

late February, 1974 Amy and I at our Mom’s Bellevue Ave. house.

Benediction: Num. 6:24-26

49 YEARS IN HIGHLANDS COUNTY PROPERTY APPRAISER'S OFFICE

 49 YEARS IN THE COUNTY PROPERTY APPRAISER’S OFFICE

January 9, 2024 marked 49 years that I have worked in the Highlands County Property Appraiser’s Office. It has been so long that it is not even the same title it had when I started on January 9, 1975. Back in those days it was the ‘Tax Assessor’s Office’. The title changed but everybody still knew we were dealing with property taxes. 

During these many years I have worked for two out of the four elected officials in the history of our county, and have known three of them. The current constitutional officer elected to the office originally in 1988 and taking office first in 1989 is C. Raymond McIntyre. He is still my boss, and a close personal friend. Prior to that was J. W. ‘Billy’ Martin. I still have his sign by my desk. 

J.W. ‘Billy’ Martin, Tax Assessor 1964-1988

When I started I was a brand new father. Our first son, Eli, was born Christmas day of 1974 and I was so glad to get a job. I had a job as a clerk in a local hardware store that was closing in January 1975. One day Joe Campbell came in and I asked him if he knew of any jobs. He told me to apply with the company that hired him to do drafting work to make maps. I was actually hired by Assessment Management Systems of Stuart, FL who were under contract to reappraise the county for the 1975 tax roll. We were trained for two weeks and sent out in pairs to the field to begin field appraisal work. Every parcel of property had to be physically inspected in a matter of less than six months! We only had old paper maps tha were very substandard and the mapping department was working hard to make mylar film maps of every square mile of the county showing ownership lines. I was paired up with Bill Benson in our field training, and neither of us realized that we would work together for the next forty years, with adjoining offices during the last part of Bill’s forty year tenure when he was Residential supervisor and I was Commercial Supervisor. 

Bill Benson and me, May 2015 when he retired.

Back then we had no computers, except a mainframe we hired from Lee County to maintain the final values and name, address and legal description information. All records were kept on paper in files. We hand calculated values and had teams of women at desks to calculate values for us. 

The 1973 tax roll had only been certified for collection on the agreement with the state that the 1974 values would all be factored up and the county would be completely reappraised in 1975. So we knocked on doors after all the values shot up radically and tax bills increased quite a bit. It was a volatile environment and quite an education in human nature. When it was time to send out preliminary notices the office filled up with concerned taxpayers. 

Mr. Martin decided to hire on more staff so they would not require hiring an outside firm again. Previously in 1966 they did the same thing with Howze and Co. out of Tampa. So Bill Benson and I along with several other people were hired on to work for the county. We had our offices then in the Courthouse Annex on the ground floor where the building department is now. 

For thirteen years I did residential field work with Bill Benson. We worked in the part of the office that had no windows! Smoking was allowed in building back then! Only in 1987 was this changed. 

In 1988 Mr. Martin decided to retire and C. Raymond McIntyre was elected. He had been an agricultural appraiser for four years at that point. Our office space expanded several years prior to that and our department went up to the second floor along with our mapping, agricultural and tangible personal property department. We also had the Supervisor of Elections, Building Department and Zoning department, and State’s Attorney offices up there. 

Raymond was only 28 years old back then, and he gave me the opportunity to take over the commercial department, and made Bill Benson the residential supervisor. My predecessor was very bright but had no organizational skills! It took me quite some time to organize and develop a system to maintain values for all the non-residential properties. We still had no computers, but Raymond saw to it that I was supplied with a 286 Micron PC! Wow! I could actually learn to use spreadsheets and begin systematically appraising the commercial, industrial and public buildings. Over the next years I built spreadsheets to perform calculations and keep up with property values.

In the early 1990’s Raymond hired a company to build us a custom computerized appraisal system, and we retained ownership rights of the software. We had an in-house I.T. director and this really changed things. We were now able to update values much more accurately and do analysis we had only dreamed of.

Wanda Whitehouse with Larry Zirbel, owner of Custom CAMA, and later GSA.

C. Raymond McIntye, Property Appraiser 1989-current

In 1998 the new County Government Center was completed and we moved into our brand new offices on the ground floor. Once again the entire office was together, except for our I.T. department that remains across the hall. We decided to move all the old paper record files to a climate controlled warehouse nearby. Since then one side of them has been scanned and can be accessed.

In 2015 Johnny Lee became our new commercial appraiser and I began training him and delegating some of my workload to him. Over the next years he has taken on most of those responsibilities and is doing fine.

Our computer system was upgraded to a new one in 2018 with a new company Larry Zirbel started named Government Software Assurance.  This opened up new opportunities to employ SQL queries to do analysis previously impossible. 

In 2021 our county turned 100 years old! It was previously part of Desoto county until 1921. 

Cyril Baldwin, Tax Assessor 1921-1937

P.G. Gearing, Tax Assessor 1938-1963

Mr. Gearing used to come visit our office. He lived to be about 98 years old, and we used to go visit him. I think he set some attendance records with the Lions Club. 

In 2020 our office manager, Wanda Whitehouse retired. She came to work part time back in 1967-68, then came back full time in 1973, a total of about 49 years. She was a very special woman and died not very long after retiring.

Wanda Whitehouse with Raymond.

Shortly afterward Raymond promoted me to chief deputy appraiser. I have subsequently delegated all the agricultural valuations I did for many years to Sam Klatt’s capable hands. Years ago I was asked to develop values for them by the ag appraiser on spreadsheets, and I started almost three decades of valuing citrus and other ag properties, and doing consultant work for two neighboring counties.

Over the years I have taught seminars, and attended many educational programs. I was certified by the State of Florida as an assessment analyst in 1980. Raymond has been extremely supportive of my work, and we have set some legal precedents in the state courts over the years that are now studied in law schools and cited in case law.

When I started in 1975 our tax roll valued the entire county at $771 million. We are now over $16 billion! 

I have been a grandfather now for twenty four years! Terrie and I have enjoyed forty nine years of marriage, and now on the threshold of our golden fiftieth! Our two sons, daughters-in-law, and eight grandchildren are a huge blessing. 

I have pedaled my bicycle to work as the sole commuter cyclist in the courthouse for all these years.

Ready to ride home!

Working here has been so rewarding. The people I work with are really special. I have grown up here with so many of them, and still thoroughly enjoy what I do. Being in an office that prioritizes customer service and has a strong commitment to excellence and accountability to the public is a great privilege.

Raymond plans to run for one more, four year term in this years’ election, so I plan to stay here, Lord willing through the duration. Who could have known that first day I walked in the courthouse with my big, black Bible in hand, that I would be here all these years and be so blessed! 

My current office - January 2016.

We now have a nice website here https://www.hcpao.org/

HIGHLANDS COUNTY PROPERTY APPRAISER TIMELINE

1966 Howze county-wide reappraisal under Tax Assessor J.W. ‘Billy’ Martin. Courts mandated 100% just value level of assessment on tax rolls. Used old Addressograph and Diebold machine to stamp name address legal data. Diebold was still in the office in 1982. There were no copiers in those days. Desk top calculators were an innovation.




1974 DOR mandated factoring tax roll prior to approval with the proviso that we reappraise in 1975.




1975 Assessment Management Systems reappraisal project.

All records calculated by hand with desk top calculators. First time we had a mapping department to draw our maps on mylar film and aerial photos for each section. I copied plat maps from originals in the basement of the courthouse on an old ammonia machine. Had our own machine to print blue-line maps, which could be sold to the public. First tax bills issued in 1975 caused a furor. At least six or eight of us waited on taxpayers all day and crowds filled our lobby and lined down the front of the Courthouse Annex to question the increased values. Several of us were hired by Billy Martin to work in the office after the reappraisal project. I was a field appraiser.

Beginning about this time we uploaded land, building and name, address and legal file data only to the mainframe system via terminals. Contracted with Lee County to use their computer. Beginning 1980-1983 used factors for land and buildings and generated color-coded computer labels to stick value totals on record cards in file. Local appraisers and attorneys and title companies needing access to our data have to wait for us to look up paper copies in our files. Wait three days became our motto in cases where the records were not in the file.

Old tax rolls have all been microfilmed and are available on microfilm rolls back to the beginning of the county in 1921. We have a microfilm reader/printer. 




1983 Conversion of data to Howze Group CAMA system.

Beginning in 1984 used computer generated property record cards (‘flimsies’) annually with year printed in bold font. These were stored in plastic jackets in file cabinets. Still online via terminals with the Lee County mainframe system. Updates were weekly so we had to wait to get all updates.

I remained a field appraiser of some variety, I or II, under Mr. Martin’s administration, along with Bill Benson and Bruce Strenth, who came in 1985.




1989 Raymond McIntyre becomes the fourth Property Appraiser in Highlands County history. I was promoted to Commercial Appraiser. Bill Benson was promoted to Residential Supervisor and I was promoted to Commercial Appraiser. Bruce Strenth became Tangible Personal Property supervisor after Pat Paterson’s retirement in 1995.




1994 Contracted with Larry Zirbel of Creative Technologies/Custom CAMA (Software Techniques) to build our customized CAMA system with in house computer equipment. Dan Edgerton was our original I.T. dept. (1989-1996) We hired Shawn Nickel in 1994 and he worked with Larry and his team to deploy our new system. We deployed our new CAMA system first in 1996. Got rid of all the large paper tax roll books in the lobby and installed computer terminals. Everyone had a computer terminal linked in to the system for the first time. Only a few of us actually had P.C.’s though. We still generated paper property record cards annually with color coded date stamps stored in plastic jackets in our files. SQL can be used to query the database and find things and do limited analysis. Result sets can be loaded in Excel spreadsheets.




1998 Moved to the new Government Center across the street. Left our paper records behind and they were in storage down the street. I.T. department has its own space across the hall on the ground floor to house our server. Everyone has desktop computers and live access to data on tax roll in house on the CAMA system. Deployed our own website this year which cut down on office traffic tremendously as well as phone calls. GIS department now has aerial photographs with very high accuracy rectified with ground points surveyed. We have access to GIS aerial photographs going back several years on our desktops for first time. The most recent version is available online on our website with an interactive map.




Larry Zirbel sold our office the original source code as part of Custom CAMA in 1996. When he sold his company to Thomson-Reuters they sued our office and him and began to gut the system, stripping out features that made it better than their other CAMA systems. We continued to operate it without them and then in 2018 Larry developed a new CAMA system, GSA (Government Software Assurance) using a web based technology that uses browsers like Chrome to access it. Much faster and fairly similar in many ways to our original system. We can still use SQL to query the database although the table names are different. Basic structure is similar, still using table driven models to calculate buildings and extra features. Online GIS is nice, and access to county permits is available online.




I was promoted to Commercial Coordinator and given senior staff status backdated to 1989.




Prior to Earl Hardy’s retirement in 2015 he scanned the front side of all the original paper record cards. We subsequently contracted with an outside firm to scan the back of all the old paper records, but there was some kind of glitch and everything is in limbo at this time (2024). All those old records were taken off-site and are not currently available.




May 2015 Residential Supervisor Bill Benson retired. Kenny Hinote took over his role and I began training Johnny Lee to do commercial appraisal and take over the department when I retire. Subsequently around 2020 he was promoted to Commercial Appraiser and department head.




I was promoted to Chief Deputy Appraiser October 2020, a position that had not existed for over thirty years, since Nelly Graham and Jack Tew had that position under Billy Martin’s administration. Wanda Whitehouse had been ‘Office Manager’ until her retirement in January 2020.