Jack Pate, a longtime member of the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office and later a respected Kissimmee car salesman, was memorialized Wednesday at Lakefront Park following his passing on Aug. 27 of a COVID-19 related illness.
Pate, 66, reached the equivalent rank of Chief Deputy with the Sheriff’s Office in the 1980s, and he and his family became part of the fabric of Kissimmee, as six of his siblings grew up and had families here.
“I have so many cousins I can’t name them all,” said Chrystie Pate Schenk, Pate’s daughter. “He loved it here. We’re a core family in a town that’s grown so much. We all go back to a time when this was ‘Kowtown with a K’ and it’s because of him.”
Jack was the founding and current Pastor of New Day Baptist Church.
Pate was born Sept. 20, 1954 in the small south Georgia town of Pelham, near Thomasville, moved to Kissimmee in 1968 and graduated from Osceola High School. He joined the Sheriff’s Office in 1976 as a jail guard and worked his way up to become head of the Corrections department, and was the Public Information Officer for four years. Per his family, he oversaw the planning and construction of the current Osceola County Jail on Simpson Road, and was integral in moving the Corrections Department’s operations from the old courthouse building in downtown Kissimmee east to the new facility.
In 1989 he retired from the agency as a commander and went into the automobile sales industry, working with Allen Startling Chevrolet, Coggin Chevrolet and Kisselback Ford in St. Cloud. But Schenk, a Osceola County dispatcher, and other members of her family work in the Sheriff’s Office, continuing the “family business”.
“Everybody (at Starling) was ex-cops, it’s where you went to retire,” Schenk said of her dad’s career change. “People came looking for him, he didn’t have to call out for customers. But even after his law enforcement career he was just as involved. He never missed a retirement or a ceremony I’ve been involved in.”
Jack met his loving wife of 45 years, Brenda McCoy Pate, at Beaumont Middle School, and later attended Osceola High and Valencia College after joining the Sheriff's Office.
“He loved our mom first and foremost,” Schenk said. “Everyone knew that everything he did and every choice he made was for her.”
Pate was also survived by his daughters Schenk (Benjamin) and Misty Pate Armstrong (Trent) of Columbus, Miss., son Scott Warren Pate (Abigail) of Kissimmee, grandchildren Kauhlin Pate and Madison Ann Schenk, great grandson Levi Alexander Pate, sister Leslie Sanders, brothers John Pate III (Brigitte), Michael Pate (Tonya), Tommy Pate (Holly), Tracy Pate (Lorrie) and William Pate (Dawn).
It was Levi, Jack’s great grandson, that had his eye and heart, Schenk said.
“He and my mom did what they could so he didn’t have to go to day care,” she said.
Pate coached the county’s first youth traveling baseball and soccer teams. He was a loyal Georgia Bulldogs loyalists – in a family full of Florida Gator fans.
At Wednesday’s ceremony, longtime Sheriff’s Office Chaplain Pastor Kee Lollis officiated. Maj. Dan Weis presented colors to the family. To foster a Pate’s legacy, the family asks the public thank a First Responder for their service in helping those in need in the community.
