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ESPN’s The Home Depot College Football Awards Show, College Football Hall of Fame, December 10, 2015. Eddie Griffin, head of the Jim Thorpe Award and Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame, Oklahoma Governor and Thorpe Award presenter Mary Fallin, and Biletnikoff Award Founding Trustee and Thorpe Award voter Walter Manley II.

Walter (FAA rated in power planes, hot air balloons, and sailplanes (gliders)) in his hot air balloon Big Sky, just before lifting off with American Bar Association president Wallace D. Riley and his son, who visited the Lakeland (Florida) Bar Association in 1984 while Walter was president. Under Walter’s leadership that year, the LBA became the most honored bar association in Florida Bar history with 4 first-place and 1 second-place awards in the Florida Bar’s five categories of competition for excellence. Moreover the American Bar Association accorded the LBA its first place award for most outstanding Law Day (Law Week) activities in America. Topping it off, Walter’s close Duke Law School friend and District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals judge (later Solicitor General) Kenneth Starr won the first place award from the ABA for the outstanding Law Day speech in America given as part of the LBA’s Law Day activities. Ken later was heralded as the finest appellate lawyer in America and served ably as Baylor’s president.

Walter W. Manley II, as a junior at Duke Law School

Walter at Duke Law graduation in 1972, shortly before joining the superb law firm Blackwell, Walker & Gray (then the largest in Florida) and a year before entering Harvard Business School after flipping a coin to decide whether he would enter Stanford B School or Harvard B School, having miraculously been accepted by both. He had learned he was accepted to Stanford from the dynamic Stanford Dean Bob Williams, who had completed Walter’s application the Saturday morning of the latter’s Stanford visit. Following a discussion with a kind associate dean, Walter was asked to stop by to say hello to Dean Williams, who concluded the chat by relating, “Oh, incidentally, you have just been accepted to Stanford!” As it was the third time Walter had been accepted to Stanford (undergrad & law, prior), he was on the fence between those two fine schools, whose cultures could not have been more divergent.

Many-years’ Chairman of the Great Floridians Nominating Committee Walter Manley II congratulating newly-selected Great Floridian Senator Connie Mack III.

Walter being presented the “Proclamation in Praise and Appreciation of Walter W. Manley II” by the Supreme Court of Florida—the only proclamation in the history of the Supreme Court of Florida, presented by the distinguished Chief Justice Major Harding. Pictured on the left is former Florida Bar president Mark Hulsey and on the right former Florida Bar president Bob Ervin, both distinguished lawyers and bar leaders, both good friends of Walter’s father at the University of Florida School of Law. Both the late Hulsey and the late Ervin served as outstanding presidents of the Florida Supreme Court Historical Society.

Chief Justice Major Harding presents Walter in 1999 with the only proclamation in the history of the Supreme Court of Florida, titled “A Proclamation In Praise And Appreciation Of Walter W. Manley II.”

Walter with former Florida Supreme Court chief justices Dick Ervin and Steve O’Connell, who both wrote forewords for the 1st volume of the Florida Supreme Court history, praised in reviews as the finest state supreme court history ever written.

The only proclamation ever issued by the Supreme Court of Florida: “A Proclamation In Praise And Appreciation Of Walter W. Manley II”

Founding Trustee & Past Chairman Walter with 2020 Biletnikoff Award and Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith at the 27th annual Biletnikoff Award Banquet on March 6, 2021.

A Visiting Professor & Visiting Scholar, Walter’s Cambridge and Oxford colleges and faculties (1988-1992) are displayed above.

Checking interior design and electrical plans for a very large Jacksonville project. One of Florida’s leading interior designers, Linda (University of Oklahoma College of Architecture graduate; ASID and LEED AP rated) has won four Historic Preservation awards and one Platinum Green Building Council award in Jacksonville.

Ben Manley: Duke student, summa cum laude graduate of Leon High School (academically ranked in top 4 of class), exceptional, recruited tennis player and golfer, and member of the Professional Ski Instructors of America, after earning all 121 merit badges, 15 palms, and the National Hornaday Conservation Award, while becoming an Eagle Scout at 12, youngest in Florida history, and being designated as the most accomplished scout in Florida history (3.5 million Florida scouts). A summa cum laude graduate in political science, Ben is completing his graduate studies and thesis at Johns Hopkins (Government) and has completed his studies at Harvard (International Relations, 4.0 GPA).

Marjorie on her special day!

Eagle Scout Ben Manley at 12, soon to earn all 121 merit badges, 15 palms, and the Hornaday Award for Conservation, becoming the most highly decorated scout in Florida history and one of the most decorated scouts in American scouting history.

Walter’s mother Marjorie Manley upon entering the post war University of Florida School of Law, where she was a student with her husband Walter and her sister-in-law Marie Fuller Christie.

Uncle Ben Watkins, an ace awarded 3 DFCs, here in his P-47 with a freshly painted 5th swastika indicating his 5th air kill, thereby gaining him ace status; a gentle man, he was a warrior defending his country.

Ivan, Madeline, Cameron, and Marjorie.

Linda masterfully finished the 6,100 square foot (Architect Nick Fullerton, who had a designed home which appeared in Architectural Digest in 2014) Montana house in 2014: five completely new bathrooms with marble floors and countertops, new hardwood and stone flooring for most of other floors, 5 large area rugs she designed, black ebony kitchen and buffet countertops from Zimbabwe to complement the cherry cabinetry, wall color changes, and several total room conversions.

Interior design 2017.

Founding Trustee & then Chairman Walter W. Manley II presented the Biletnikoff Award trophy to Wyoming AP 1st-team All-America receiver (1996) Marcus Harris at ESPN’s The Home Depot College Football Awards show.