This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

Adolph ?Dolph?Kellar
County pioneer is dead
BY ED LEPOMA
People who served in public office with him and the common man in the street reacted to news yesterday that longtime public servant of Hancock County, Adolph ?Dolph? Kellar had died. He was 78.
?He was a good and honorable man,? said Wilmer ?Wimpy? Seymour, who served side by side with Kellar during his last term in office, ending in 1995.
?He was very knowledgeable of county government and how it worked. We all learned from him,? said Seymour.
Mary Woodson, co-owner of
Carole?s Old Town restaurant in downtown Bay St. Louis, recalled, ?Mr. Dolph frequently came here to eat with other supervisors. He was a really nice man, a sweet man. He always asked what the county could do for us. He always asked about Hope Haven,? (the county?s home for abandoned and abused children.)
Kellar?s stellar rise to prominence began slowly and unheralded in 1950 when he sought and won a position on the Hancock County School Board. He served that board faithfully for 13 years before deciding in 1963 to run for Supervisor, representing Beat 2, which was part of his hometown Flat Top Community.
aav uciu uiai pusitiuu Ulltll
August of 1987, and saw Hancock County grow from a backwater community to an industrial center that included NASA?s giant Stennis Space Center and Port Bienville Industrial Park.
Kellar stayed out of public life for only one four-year stretch until 1991, when he again ran to reclaim his District
2	seat, and served Hancock County until 1995. He was active in other communities affairs: a lifetime member of Moses Cook Masonic Lodge, a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Disabled American Veterans and the American Legion.
Kellar served a total 28 years on the Board of Supervisors, but his public service extended 41 years. In 1994, the Mississippi Senate and House of Representatives passed concurring resolutions recognizing the fact that his tenure was probably the longest service anyone had contributed to county government.
Kellar was a lifelong resident of Hancock County, and like all young men of draft age, he joined the U.S. Army during World War II. He earned two Purple Hearts for valor in the
Phillipines and in New Guiena.
He returned home in 1947 and married the former Beulah Frierson. The Kellars celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last March.
Dolph Kellar was confidant and advisor to his son, Tim, when the 38-year-old political novice decided to first run for public office in 1995.
Kellar told the Echo in a later interview that he weighed whether to wage a countywide race for Chancery Court Clerk or take the easier route and try to capture his father?s District 2 seat.
His father encouraged him to go with his gut feeling, and Kellar decided he felt more comfortable going after the Chancery Court slot. Kellar admitted, afterwards, that the reputation built by his father over the years got him into doors when he was campaigning and helped him to defeat six Democratic challengers, then later a popular Republican candidate.
jjoipn was among ms sun a proud family and supporters gathered in the Hancock County courtroom for the nail-biting task of counting the ballots in the primary and runoff elections. He was the first to hug his son when Kellar emerged a 13-vote winner in the Democratic runoff, then the victor in the general election.
He beamed proudly in that same courtroom when Kellar was sworn into office in January of 1996 as the county?s new Chancery Court Clerk.
Gerald Gex served as county attorney first with Kellar in 1986 and 1988, then again from 1991 until 1995.
?He, in my opinion, did more for Hancock County than anybody I know,? said Gex.
He said when Kellar first took office the county was not economically sound.
?But, in 1993, the county
bonds received their first A rating, and it was chiefly becausc of him,? Gex said.
Gex said Kellar was a wise counsel to him and other supervisors during his tenures.
?He knew the law. Like E.F. Hutton, when Mr. Dolph talked, everybody shut up and listened,? said Gex.
Former Chancery Court Clerk Mike Necaise knew Kellar all his life and worked closely with him for 12 years. He said he and Seymour visited with Kellar just last Thursday.
?He was a tremendous man and had a tremendous mind,? said Necaise.
?He probably knew more about county government than anyone in the state ?
Necaise said he would often half-jokingly challenge Kellar about a particular law or ordinance, ?And, right off, he would tell me the date that certain legislation was passed. And, nine times out of 10, he was right,? said Necaise.
Necaise said Kellar ?probably set a record for the times he was re-elected in Hancock County, for the time he served county government.
?I enjoyed working with him. We always stayed very close.?
Robert Peterson, who served as a supervisor with Kellar during his last term, was saddened by Kellar?s passing.