But he has another side to his personality the public rarely sees.

Smith generally walks into the clerk’s office in the courthouse every day and engages in friendly banter with the lady clerks who take care of the court paperwork for him and the other judges.

He eats lunch with the clerks. He aggravates them in a friendly way. They aggravate him. He leaves to become a judge again.

The clerks are like family. They think of him as a brother. It’s part of his style. He is the judge. But he likes people, and people enjoy his company. He has never lost the common touch.

When he is not on the bench, Smith is a lay pastor with Evinston United Methodist Church near Micanopy. He is not shy, as his friends can attest, about publicly trumpeting his devotion to the Florida Seminoles. He considers himself a people person.

Smith will retire on Dec. 31 after 16 years as county judge. The governor will appoint his replacement, but people at the courthouse say there won’t be another like him.

"He’s very good hearted," said Clerk Kay Hallman who has worked with him for 33 years. "He’s a good Christian person. He’s like family. We have cried together. We have laughed together. He’s going to be highly missed. We tease him about stirring the pot over here. He gets something going and he leaves."

Hallman’s stepson, David Hallman, along with the late attorney Peter Langley, and Smith were the three finalists for the county judgeship in 1993. Smith was selected by the governor to take the place of the late W.O. Beauchamp, Jr., who became a circuit judge.

Gilchrist County Judge Ed Philman said it has been a pleasure and an honor to work with Smith.

"He is a man of the highest integrity. He is knowledgeable about the law and uses a common sense approach in dispensing justice," Philman said. "We have had the greatest of working relationships. He is a true friend. It’s just been a true pleasure working with Judge Smith."

"He’s as good as they come," Philman added. "They don’t come better."

The 67-year-old Smith, whom his close friends still call Joe, has been a Levy County attorney for 40 years. Smith has applied to become a senior judge in the Eighth Judicial Circuit. It would be a part-time position. He will take the place of judges on leave. It means he would be on-call as needed. Senior judges often stay busy.

His replacement will be appointed by the governor.

Smith will continue to serve as a lay pastor at Evinston United Methodist Church south of Micanopy in Alachua County, a position he has held for eight years. Like other members of the clergy, he prepares and delivers a sermon every Sunday, and presides over funerals and weddings.

"They call me Pastor Judge," he said affectionately.

Smith is sometimes asked to speak at funerals and weddings in his beloved hometown of Williston, the place where he was born and raised. His roots go deep in the soils of Williston. His father, Harry Smith, operated a mobile feed grinding machine and his mother, Vera, was a secretary at Williston High School.

His grandmother was one of the first three graduates of WHS. Dottie Guess graduated with two other girls. Smith and his parents graduated from WHS as did his children, Scott, an ordained Methodist minister and Garnet, who is named for one of the colors of Smith’s favorite college team, the Seminoles.

Smith attended the University of Florida in his freshman year, a little known fact, but left UF to attend FSU. He graduated from FSU with a degree in criminology and corrections. He later graduated from the University of Florida law school. He actually spent more years at UF than FSU.

But that by no means makes him a Gator fan.

"I actually went to UF my first year of college," he said. "I saw the light and went to FSU."

Smith always wanted to be an attorney. He never wavered from that goal. He saw it as a prestigious profession and one where he could make a good living.

His first job interview after law school was in Port St. Joe. He realized right away he was in the wrong place. The Port St. Joe paper mill smelled bad and the people spoke with a different type of drawl than in Levy County.

"It was more of a southern drawl," he said. "I told Bobbi (his wife) ‘Get me back to Levy County’."

He met Bobbi when she was a freshman at FSU. He was a sophomore. She was from Umatilla in central Florida. They met in a government class.

When he was invested by the late Levy County Judge and Circuit Judge W.O. Beauchamp, Jr., Smith said, he spoke of his great love for Levy County. Everything that was good, decent and had any value in his life was in Levy County.

Smith told his fellow judges as sort of a joke one day that he was tired of Levy County being called an "outlying county" in the Eighth Judicial Circuit. He said he personally saw Alachua County as an "outlying county." They now refer to Levy County as a regional county.

Smith got his first job out of law school with the firm of Clayton, Duncan, Johnson, Clayton, Quincey, Ireland and Felder. The firm had bought the practice of Jeb Dobson. Smith managed the Bronson office. He had graduated from law school in 1969 and passed his bar exam that year.

He stayed with the firm one year before forming a local partnership with Chiefland attorney Luther Beauchamp. The new partnership was called Beauchamp and Smith. They operated out of the Buron Brice building. They bought in the building in 1971-72.

In 1976 they parted as friends and Beauchamp went to work in his beloved hometown of Chiefland.

"We’re close friends and have maintained a close friendship all these years," Smith said.

In those early years before computers, Smith’s secretary used a manual typewriter and carbon copies. In the modern era, Smith presides over the first appearance of criminal suspects at the county jail from the historic courtroom in the courthouse. The suspects appear on his computer screen at the judge’s bench via an Internet connection.

Smith was appointed assistant state attorney in 1974. He was allowed to keep his private practice, something that isn’t allowed today. He was appointed county judge in 1993 when the man he replaced, County Judge W.O. Beauchamp, Jr., became a circuit judge.

"He was someone I practiced before. I admired him. He was just a good Christian man. I appreciated what he did as a judge. I asked him to welcome me in the investiture ceremony," Smith said.

Smith found his role of judge to be somewhat isolating in the early years when he was the only judge in the courthouse most of the time. Today there is generally at least one circuit judge in the courthouse at all times. But in the early days it was him alone.

He also had to acclimate to the idea of being called judge. Nearly everyone had called him by his first name, Joe, for many years. His close friends still do. He could no longer ride with law enforcement. Wearing the title of judge meant he had greater responsibilities. It wasn’t long before people began addressing him with his new title of Judge.

Smith sees no conflict between his job as a judge and being a lay pastor at a Methodist Church. He said a couple of his fellow judges have attended church services to hear him preach at Evinston United Methodist Church. He doesn’t wear a pastor’s robe. He wears a sport coat. No tie.

The church has built a $350,000 fellowship hall during his tenure as a lay pastor. Some of the children at the church call him Pastor Judge. Some call him Mr. Joe. His wife Bobbi is now a member of the church. He thoroughly enjoys being both a pastor and a judge and believes the two roles are compatible.

"I really see no conflict between my Christian principles and the administration of the law," he said.

Smith was invited by the district superintendent of the Methodist faith to become the lay pastor. His one condition was that he would not take any seminary courses. The church agreed and welcomed him as their lay pastor. He has been there ever since.

"It’s one of God’s richest blessings in my life," Smith said.