Evone Morris is the embodiment workplace longevity and she is celebrating 50 years at The Floyd Law Firm

SURFSIDE BEACH, SC, UNITED STATES, July 11, 2017 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In today’s transitory employment market, it has become commonplace for people to hop from job to job – picking up opportunities as they go and transitioning when it seems convenient. It’s not unusual to see sprawling resumes with stunningly low periods of time spent in just one place.

These days, job turnover is enough to make a HR professional’s head spin – and qualities like loyalty and persistence can seem like things of the past.

But at The Floyd Law Firm, one woman has proven that workplace longevity is very much alive.

Legal Assistant, Evone Morris, is the embodiment of such workplace longevity and is celebrating 50 years as the right-hand woman in Lake City to founding attorney Dalton B. Floyd, Jr.

The Floyd Law Firm has offices in Surfside Beach and Lake City.

Morris, 75, was born and raised on her father’s farm in Hannah, S.C., which is also the home of country recording artist Josh Turner. When she graduated from high school in 1959, she told her father that she wanted to get a job unrelated to farm work.

“Back then, you made three dollars a day stringing tobacco,” she said, adding that she went to work for a time as a buttonhole worker at the Wentworth Manufacturing Company until a layoff put her back in the job market.

A couple of cousins told her that a law firm in nearby Lake City, Nettles & Thomy, was hiring because an employee was leaving. Morris applied for the position, explaining to attorney George Thomy that she was right out of high school and could only bring typing and shorthand skills to the table.

She got the job, and attorneys George Thomy and Roy Nettles told her that they would train her along the way.

Her trial-by-fire came quickly when she was sent to take a testimony at a divorce proceeding in Florence. “My shorthand was better then, but I was scared. I had never been in a courtroom before, but I took the testimony, came back and transcribed it – then sent it to the judge to sign it – and it was all over,” she said, adding that she took her own car so that she could rush back to the office in Lake City and complete the transcript before it got cold.

Morris married in 1961 and remained on post at Nettles & Thomy until the birth of her first child in 1962. She had her second son in 1964, and returned to the firm in 1966.

The dynamic had changed when she came back, and the difference was the addition of a fresh-faced attorney, Dalton B. Floyd, Jr., who had recently finished a three-year stint in Ankara, Turkey as a U.S. Air Force Captain in the Judge Advocate General’s office [JAG] directly after graduating from law school at the University of South Carolina.

Floyd and Morris quickly developed a good working relationship, and when Floyd eventually left Nettles & Thomy to hang out his own shingle, Morris went with him. Floyd recalls those early days:

“When I came back from Turkey, I reckon I still looked kind of young at 24 years old,” he said. “I knew all of the business owners, professionals and bankers, and I thought I wouldn’t have any trouble. Well, they thought I was too young.” Undeterred, Floyd set out to do everything he could to secure clients, taking on things like bankruptcies and civil litigation to DUI cases and criminal work.

“We even did tax returns for farmers. I had to make a living,” he said.

Morris was right there in the trenches with him.

“Evone did everything. We had cases in State and Federal Courts, did real estate closings and checked our own titles. Lake City is in Florence County, but it is real close to Williamsburg County and Clarendon County – so we ended up having a lot of legal work in all of those counties,” he said.

The Floyd Law Firm has grown by leaps and bounds, currently boasting six attorneys, including Floyd and his son, Bradley A. Floyd and covering a breadth of specialties from personal injury, Trusts and Estates, estate planning, real estate, immigration and business/corporate law to criminal defense, family law, probate law and more. Floyd himself represented the PGA in North and South Carolina for 25 years, but has since passed the mantle to attorney Collin R. Jewell, who now represents the Carolina Section of the PGA and with Dalton B. Floyd handles all golf law through the practice.

Along the way, Floyd began to count on Morris for things well outside the scope of the practice, including taking care of his mother in Lake City. By this time, Floyd lived on the Grand Strand and worked primarily out of the Surfside office.

“Her health started deteriorating, and I think she had a little dementia,” said Floyd. “If her cable went out, she would call Evone. I don’t care if it was 11 o’clock at night. Evone was just like a member of the family. My mother knew I was at the beach, so she would call Evone. I could not have taken care of my mother in Lake City without her.”

50 years on, Floyd said that he and Morris are joined at the hip. And don’t get him started on the word “retirement” for either one of them. Even if the office in Lake City were to close at some point, Morris still runs a 138-unit mini-warehouse complex for Floyd.

“I’m not going to let her go totally. She is going to have to help,” Floyd said with a smile.

Dee J. Young, receptionist at the Surfside office, said she has spoken with Morris numerous times by telephone since starting in January.

“She is a very sweet, very kind and down-to-earth

Chris King
Kingfish Communications
8436851364
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