Count Casimir Pulaski has greeted visitors to the Pulaski County Courthouse for more than 50 years.
Longtime clerk Steve Sipes has only been working at the courthouse full time for nearly 25 years.
But the cast-bronze bust of the Polish-born hero of the American Revolution can't offer advice to perplexed citizens and lawyers about how to find and fill out the paperwork clerks use for marriages, divorces, lawsuits, land records, criminal cases and voter registration.
Affixed to a 1,500-pound marble pedestal that raises him to 7½ feet, Pulaski could never run down an escaping felon, match the fleeing man's stride, then persuade him to surrender, all without anger or aggression.
And despite being the namesake of the county, Pulaski will certainly not take the time to rescue a wounded turtle or open the courthouse doors when snow has made Little Rock's roads close to impassable.
But Sipes, 68, would and has. He's the man the courthouse -- home to the circuit/county clerk's office -- turns to when someone needs obscure records or decades-old photographs.
Patience, compassion, intellect and curiosity are attributes that Sipes' friends and co-workers say make him a monumental figure as both public servant, friend and colleague. An examination of his life shows a man who has found happiness and fulfillment by finding a good thing and sticking to it.
Sipes has held numerous positions -- among them deputy clerk and court administrator -- in the 24-plus years he's spent in the clerk's office. But his job description has stayed pretty much the same: trusted adviser, researcher, historian and a calming presence with a quick broad smile.
"He is dedicated to solving problems, and dealing with sticky problems has been his forte for many years," Circuit/County Clerk Larry Crane said recently. "When a question arises -- 'What do we do here?' -- Steve is usually the first -- and last -- place our staff goes to seek resolution. Steve loves nothing more than to research an obscure point of law or procedure."
As of Friday, Sipes became a retiree. But he won't disappear from the courthouse; he'll still work there part time as an unpaid volunteer.
"It is said that no one is irreplaceable. I do not believe that is true," Crane told an audience of Sipes fans, gathered around the Pulaski bust for his retirement celebration.
"Where will we find someone who will be here working most Sundays? Where will we find someone who will drive here in the ice and snow when we are officially closed so that a touring musician can get a marriage license to marry his sweetheart for the third time?"
Crane, who has been Sipes' boss since taking office in 2011, said Sipes has been a role model of public service.
"He is thoughtful and considerate to every person who enters this office, from judges to staff, to the most lowly, lost customer who has no idea where or how to turn in our legal system," Crane said.
"His wonderful attitude towards the people for whom we provide services has permeated through the several generations of employees of this office who have come through while he has been here.
"Steve's manner of dealing with people with respect and dignity has, in fact, become the model adopted by us for all of our actions. I get a lot of credit for the positive attitude of our staff, but most of the credit needs to go to the example set by Steve."
Crane's predecessor, Pat O'Brien, also describes Sipes as man who leads by example.
"There's so many good things I can say about him. He is just an institution in the courthouse, a great human being," O'Brien said. "He generally is a servant and wants to help people."
A business owner when he was elected, O'Brien said he placed a priority on enhancing customer service in the office through education and leadership training. Sipes "enthusiastically" embraced those goals, which encouraged other clerks to adopt the new practices, he said.
"He lived it on a daily basis," O'Brien said. "He was an excellent example for the younger employees."
O'Brien, who held the clerk position from 2005 to 2010, recalled that Sipes showed up at an office kickball game right after church one Sunday, still dressed in his suit, to cheer on his coworkers. But the team was short a man because of a rain storm. Sipes didn't hesitate to fill out the roster.
"He had a suit on, and he didn't have time to change it. He just tried really, really hard not to get muddy. But he was a team player," O'Brien said.
Sipes is the kind of man who will stop his car to check on an injured bird in the street, O'Brien said, citing an encounter witnessed by another coworker.
But when he finds the bird is beyond help, Sipes takes it in his hands and buries it in the pine needles of a nearby tree, an impromptu burial "to spare the bird the indignity of being run over," O'Brien said.
"There's a saying ... 'The way you do anything is the way you do everything,'" he said. "That's who Steve is."
Sipes is also a visionary who has left his mark on court operations statewide through his work on the Arkansas Supreme Court's case-management computer system that is now being used in 54 of the state's 75 counties, said Tim Holthoff, director of the Administrative Office of the Court's Court Information Systems Division.
He and Sipes have been friends and colleagues for close to 20 years, and Sipes has been a fantastic resource in implementing the computer change-over that will benefit the state for years to come, Holthoff said.
"I learned early on that Steve is an expert in many fields," said Holthoff. "Steve was one of the key go-to people to get this off the ground."
Sipes' expertise as a clerk and lawyer, combined with his years of court experience, were "invaluable" to implementing the Contexte and Court Connect system, he said. Each court operates independently, but Sipes was able to find a way for each court to adapt the statewide program to its needs, he said.
"He was always good at finding the common ground between courts," Holthoff said. "His calm demeanor and thoughtful responses helped us get through some heated discussions."
From the beginning, Sipes immediately saw what the computer system could do, both to improve public access to the courts and to make the courts run more efficiently, he said.
"He was one of the few people who had a vision of what could be done," Holthoff said.
There is nothing artificial about Sipes, Holthoff said.
"I've never known a more generous person. What you see is what you get," he said. "Steve is the kind of man who treats all the same."
Sipes, a lawyer who also has a University of Arkansas master's degree in business administration, was a regular at the courthouse even before going to work there as the appointed chancery clerk.
And before that, Sipes was an attorney for the state Department of Human Services for 13 years, rising to chief counsel of the agency's Division of Children and Family Services, which brought him to court to advocate for abused and neglected children.
Circuit Judge Vann Smith, who saw Sipes in that role in 1989 as the judge presided over juvenile court cases, was impressed with the depth of Sipes' concern for those children.
"He really cared for the children," Smith said.
Sipes' commitment went beyond his job, the judge said, describing Sipes' 35-year volunteer work for Soup Sunday, the main fundraising event for the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families that can earn it as much as $87,000 a year.
Sipes has been the event's kitchen manager since the all-you-can-eat event's inception.
"That's a trait [dedication] I really admired in him and still do," Smith said.
In the clerk's office, Sipes is a problem-solver with a vast and deep knowledge of courtroom procedure, rules and the law.
"He's always been the go-to person to solve any problems in the clerk's office," Smith said. "He'll do anything you ask."
Sipes said the opportunity to work with a cross-section of the community, as customers and as colleagues, has kept him coming to the courthouse. Every day brings a new challenge to meet, a different problem to solve, he said.
"Our customers, judges, attorneys and the public ... trying to balance their needs on a daily basis, I really enjoy that," he said. "There's not a single answer for everyone."
Sipes' dedication to the customer is so complete, he once walked an angry man who was threatening to have Sipes arrested to the prosecuting attorneys office so the man could swear out a complaint. No charges were ever brought.
"When I came back [to the office], I told them, 'That's what he wanted, and I facilitated that for him,'" Sipes said.
In retirement, Sipes said he'll spend more time trout fishing on the Little Red River and more time spent watching NCIS reruns. He said he's looking forward to a camping excursion with a college buddy to the Big Bend region in Texas. Travel with Gayle, his wife of 33 years, is being planned, as are more visits with the grandchildren. The couple raised three children together.
But he will also return to the courthouse as a volunteer twice a week with plans to fill in for vacationing or ill clerks.
Sipes said he also plans to return to an old hobby: stargazing with a telescope. It was an interest he shared with his older brother, Frank Sipes Jr., who kept it up as a hobby for years, developing an impressive knowledge for all things celestial. Frank Sipes died in May 2004 at age 52.
Sipes said that outside the courthouse, running has been an important part of his life since he was a young man, and described how he loves its calming and centering effect.
"It's a stress reliever and it's an excellent cardiovascular exercise," he said. "I've always ran."
He's enjoyed the sport since well before jogging came to the attention of the country in the 1970s, Sipes said.
Sipes was a marathon runner for years, competing in 26 of the endurance contests, including three times in the Boston Marathon.
When an injury forced him to pause his marathon training, Sipes said he used the opportunity to return to golf, picking up the clubs to play Saturdays with his father and his father's friends.
The game brought the father and son closer in the senior Sipes' final years. Dr. Frank Moore Sipes, a Little Rock surgeon, died in March 2007.
Steve Sipes said he still regularly hits the links with the last of his father's golf buddies, 86-year-old Bob Morgan. Sipes' mother, Pat Sipes, passed away in May at age 90. She was a nurse who met Sipes' father in Chicago while getting her degree.
Another hobby is his personal turtle rescue work, the result of a lifelong fascination with the reptiles. As a boy growing up in North Little Rock next to Fort Roots, he would catch turtles in the woods, although he would always let them go. The key was to stand still and listen for them, mimicking the sound he would hear by lightly drumming his fingers across a table.
He nurses injured turtles, many of them with shells split or gouged by cars, back to health, releasing them into the wild if he thinks they can bear it.
About 30 box turtles now reside in the backyard of the family home, fed on a diet of hand-selected night-crawler worms, fruits and vegetables as they meander around the landscaping, he said. They also eat June bugs and locusts that they forage for themselves, Sipes said.
His charges are not always appreciative of being fed by hand. They can move as fast as a striking snake, particularly in the warm weather, and will nip a finger if he's too slow, Sipes said. It is not true that turtles won't release their jaws until they hear thunder, he said, a lesson he's learned the hard way.
"They'll let go when they're good and ready," he said.
Box turtles live long lives and Mama Turtle, the first of his rescues, has been with him for 16 years. Sipes said the word appears to be circulating among them too. Just last month, Sipes said he found a turtle with a gouged shell in his driveway, apparently waiting for him.
"The turtle grapevine says, if you can get into the backyard, you've got it made," he said.
Metro on 07/04/2017