Jane Vaughn Floyd

Funeral services will be at 2:30 p.m. today at First United Methodist Church of Gadsden for Jane Vaughn Floyd, 77, Gadsden, who passed away Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. The Revs. Harvey Beck and Rev. Vicki Mann will officiate. Burial will be at Forrest Cemetery. The family will receive friends from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the parlor at the church before the service. Collier-Butler Funeral and Cremation Services is directing.Jane Vaughn Floyd lived by the Scripture that teaches us "to whom much is given much is expected." Jane Floyd was given talents and she used them for good. She was a girl of God; a great educator, teacher and lawyer.She was always loyal to her Methodist Church; to her country; to her family, her husband, children, in-laws, grandchildren; her friends and particular those in the legal profession and those who worked at the Courthouse. She, in turn, was loved by them. For the Department of Human Resources, she prosecuted "dead-beat dads" who paid no child support. She loved that part of her job and the people working in it. She was a woman of honor and integrity. She lived to give people hope.Her life was forged in adversity. Her mother died while she was in high school. Her father died a short time later. She lived with a grandmother. To help support herself, she went to high school in the morning and worked in the office of attorney Ed Miller in the afternoon. After high school graduation, law became a full-time job for her. She sent herself to college at night and earned her undergraduate degree in education. She then began teaching at Disque Middle School (now Gadsden Middle School), where she taught for the next thirty-two years while birthing two sons and caring for her children. She was a fierce defender of her family.Again she went to college in 1975 and earned her Master's Degree from the University of Alabama in 1982. While raising a family of two sons she went back to school and earned her AA Certificate in education.She did not stop there. Later she wanted a law career. She enrolled in night law school in the Birmingham School of Law, where she and five others rode to Birmingham five nights a week for four years to complete law school. All five of them gave Jane credit for making them go each of those five nights, even when they did not want to go. All six of them graduated together, Clark Hall, Tammy Parris, Evan Smith, Kim Thomas and the Rev. Ron Shultz, minister in the North Alabama Conference of the Methodist Church. All of them but one took the bar exam, passed it and were admitted to the Alabama State Bar as practicing attorneys. So she then left teaching after thirty-two years and began practicing law, where she served in that capacity for more than twenty years.There was an article in The Gadsden Times about her second career, a law degree. In that article Jane said, "I tell kids that you can do whatever you want to do. The opportunities are there if you want to work for them." She was a living example. She practiced what she preached. She said, "It's not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived."Mrs. Floyd is survived by her husband, Jack Floyd; son, John David Floyd and daughter-in-law, Denise Wiggins Floyd; son, George Waits Floyd and daughter-in-law, Angel Smith Floyd; grandchildren, Erica Floyd (Clay) Shumate, Elyse Floyd; Sara Catherine Floyd, Susan Floyd and Zachary Floyd; and brothers, Arthur Russell (Lou) Vaughn and Charles (Jane) Vaughn; and numerous nieces and nephews.Pallbearers will be Jerry Frazier, Tom King, David Kimberley, Robert Vaughn, Richard Vaughn, Clay Shumate, William Ogletree and Russ Vaughn.Honorary pallbearers are Circuit Judges William Allen Millican and William H. Rhea; District Judges Willis Clay, Joe Nabors; and Probate Judge Bobby Junkins; District Attorney Jody Willoughby; Department of Human Resources Child Support Workers; and Morris Friendship Sunday School class.The family requests no flowers. Memorial contributions may be made to the charities of First United Methodist Church.Online condolences may be made at www.collier-butler.com.