The most illustrious 20^th century American Kirkman was Army Colonel H. (Henry) Neil Kirkman, (1892-1973) founder and longtime director of the Florida State Highway Patrol who admiringly was nicknamed "The J. Edgar Hoover of Florida."

The Colonel, as he was known in later years, was an inspiring leader with a reputation for skillful organization and Southern charm and courtesy. Tall (6 foot 1) and well proportioned (185 pounds), the Colonel had a commanding presence and a first class mind.

Born on a farm south of Greensboro, NC on Feb. 11, 1892, Neil was the second of three sons of Henry Taylor Kirkman and a great-grandson of the old Valley Forge militiaman George Kirkman, Jr.

When he was a young man, Neil joined the Lutton Bridge Co. of New York and was sent to Palatka, northern Florida, where he became an outstanding highway and bridge building engineer. While constructing a bridge in Danville, VA Neil met and married Louise Pruitt. They had one son, Henry N. Kirkman.

Neil joined the Army Corps of Engineers after the United States declared war on Germany in 1917. He began the war as a private, but the Army recognized his leadership skills and promoted him to 1^st lieutenant. His son says his father participated in several World War I battles on France’s Western Front.

After the war, Neil remained in the Army Reserve, was a charter member of the American Legion and state commander of Florida’s Legion in 1923-24. By the mid-1930s, he was renowned for his engineering expertise and an Army Reserve major.

In 1936, Major Kirkman was appointed chief of the Florida Road Department’s Highway Division and in 1939 organized and became the first commander of Florida’s new State Highway Patrol.

With American involvement in World War II approaching, Major Kirkman was recalled to active duty in the Army Corps of Engineers. He was sent to England in 1942 and directed the construction of several Army bomber bases for the 8^th and 9^th Air Forces, the commands whose daylight bombing raids wreaked havoc on Nazi Germany.

Ironically, the Colonel spent part of his time in Bedfordshire, England, northwest of London, an area that had a number of Kirkmans.

In 1944, Colonel Kirkman was almost killed by a German V-1 buzz bomb which demolished a building that he had just left. In recognition of the colonel’s outstanding leadership, he was awarded the Legion of Merit, a top non-combat decoration.

Near the end of the war, the colonel commanded a German P.O.W. camp at Ft. Meade, MD. Overall, the colonel spent 39 months overseas during World Wars I and II.

After his WWII discharge, the Colonel resumed command of the Florida State Highway Patrol and remained its guiding light for 25 years. Then, in 1969 he was appointed the first director of Florida’s Department of Public Safety. He finally ended his magnificent career by retiring on his 78^th birthday in February 1970 and was eulogized in the Congressional Record of March 2, 1970.

Along the way, the Colonel was a member of the National Safety Council, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and president of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. He also was a 32^nd degree mason, a Shriner, and a member of the Elks.

To memorialize the Colonel’s career, in 1974 Florida officials named the state’s Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles headquarters in Tallahassee the Neil Kirkman Building. It houses the Neil Kirkman Computer Center. And the city of Orlando named its major downtown artery Kirkman Rd..

One of the Colonel’s most memorable remarks epitomizes his philosophy. He told his highway patrolmen to "keep your head cool, your feet warm, and your mouth shut." He’s also remembered for ordering his patrolmen to always be courteous. Those who weren’t, he fired.

The Colonel succumbed to a stroke in a Chapel Hill, NC nursing home on Nov. 15, 1973 (age 81) and was buried alongside his wife Louise in Danville.

The Colonel’s son, Dr. Henry N. Kirkman, was born in Jacksonville, FL on Sept. 14, 1927 and also has had a distinguished career.

After attaining his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Georgia Tech, a masters in physics at Emory University, and his MD at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Kirkman served two years as an Air Force physician. After his discharge, he completed his pediatric residency at Vanderbilt University hospital, then was a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma and University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He has been a UNC professor of pediatrics for 33 years.

Dr. Kirkman is married to the former Margaret Yancey of Atlanta, GA who has a master’s degree in classics. They have four children: Alice Louise Kirkman of Silver Spring, MD, an attorney with the public relations office of the American Academy of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Washington, DC; David Neil Kirkman, an Assistant Attorney General of the state of North Carolina; Dr. Marian Sue Kirkman, a specialist in internal medicine and endocrinology at Indiana University’s School of Medicine in Indianapolis, and Dr. Celia Kirkman, a PhD microbiologist and nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

One of the family’s most eminent late 20^th century personalities is David N. Kirkman of Chapel Hill, NC, a North Carolina Assistant Attorney General who is the scourge of con artists, swindlers and tricksters. He’s the Tarheel State’s "Mr. Consumer Fraud."

David’s forte is tracking down and prosecuting scammers, home repair cheats and hustlers who prey on the poor, elderly and disadvantaged.

David is the only son of Dr. Henry N. and Margaret Kirkman, and a sixth generation great-great-great-grandson of Valley Forger George Kirkman, Jr. Born Dec. 31, 1953 at David Air Force Base, Greenville, SC, David is a 1976 cum laude graduate of Davidson College (NC) and a 1979 graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Law.

David has spent most of his legal career serving the public. After stints as an attorney for low income residents of Charlotte, NC and a legal advisor for UNC students, he was appointed a North Carolina A.G. in 1987.

During the past 12 years, he has become North Carolina’s foremost expert on consumer racketeering. He’s best known for coordinating a task force of 36 law enforcement agencies that smashed a multi-million, Maryland-to-Florida home repair scheme which mostly preyed on the elderly. Sixty con men were indicted and all but one convicted. He then drafted North Carolina’s 1997 telemarketing law which many states are emulating..

David frequently appears on a TV consumer call-in show that airs on Durham, NC’s Channel 11 (WTVD).

However, most of his professional life is spent investigating consumer complaints submitted to the attorney general’s Consumer Protection Section. He’s licensed to practice law before North Carolina state and federal courts and the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He’s also a member of the North Carolina Bar Association sections which recommend laws that protect the elderly and propose trade and anti-trust statutes.

David married the former Debra Skinner of Marshfield, MO, after an unusual courtship. Debra, a PhD candidate at UNC, was involved in a three-car accident in Chapel Hill and the two drivers who mangled her car refused to pay damages. David sued in Debra’s behalf, won the suit, and shared a victory dinner with her which blossomed into romance.

David credits Debra with getting him involved in his astonishing avocation: mountain hiking. That happened when they journeyed to Nepal where Debra used a Fulbright Scholarship to research the Himalayan nation’s culture and child development, and David practiced law in Katmandu, Nepal’s capitol. He became the fourth American permitted to practice law before the Kingdom’s Supreme Court. At Debra’s urging, he hiked to the 19,000 foot level of Nepal’s "Roof of the World" Himalayas.

In the fall of 1998, David and Debra mountain hiked in Peru’s Andes and visited Machu Picchu, the fabled capitol of the Incas.

Debra also has a UNC PhD in anthropology and currently is a member of the university’s Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center.

Another of the family’s distinguished 20^th century Tarheels in Clay Macy Kirkman, Jr. of Kitty Hawk, NC, a retired senior vice president of Wachovia Bank whose Outer Banks beachfront home is a clamshell toss from the Atlantic Ocean and five miles from the sand dunes where the Wright Brothers made their historic first flights in 1903.

Tall, soft spoken and genial, Clay is another great-great-grandson of Valley Forger George Kirkman, Jr. and a son of Clay Graydon Macy Kirkman of Madison, NC.

He’s a member of the remarkable family group that includes his uncle Col. H. Neil Kirkman of Florida; his brother, Wake Forest University cardiologist Dr. Paul M. Kirkman, and his cousins: University of North Carolina pediatrician Dr. Henry N. Kirkman, and North Carolina Assistant Attorney General David Kirkman.

Clay was born March 21, 1928 in Madison, raised there, and attemded Elon (NC) College. He spent most of his 40-year banking career banking career in Williamston, NC and the Outer Banks where he established several Wachovia branches.

During the 1950s Clay served in the North Carolina National Guard’s 30^th "Old Hickory" Infantry division and finished a six-year enlistment as a sergeant first class.

A lifelong civic leader, Clay has been an officer or member of a slew of historic, business and social organizations. He has served on the board of directors of the Roanoke Island Historical Association and the North Carolina Seafood Park Authority; was vice president of the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce, and an elder of the Outer Banks Presbyterian Church.

Clay also has been a leader of Red Cross, United Way, Heart Fund and Salvation Army chapters, was president of Kiwanis Clubs in Williamston and Kill Devil Hills and was a Jaycees Outstanding Young Man of 1962.

Clay is married to the former Eunice Inman of Reidsville, NC and has a son Clay III of Kitty Hawk, and a daughter Mrs. Karal Kirkman Googe of Winston-Salem, NC