He calls it the “Foundation Room” across the narrow hallway from his office on Kercheval Street in Grosse Pointe Park.

Photographs, plaques, awards and all sorts of memorabilia cover the walls. It’s a veritable shrine, a tribute to clients and friends that S. Gary Spicer Sr. has served and counseled as an attorney for major corporations and some of the biggest names in entertainment and sports, among them Conway Twitty, the Oak Ridge Boys, legendary Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell, and heroes of the Detroit Tigers’ 1984 World Series champions, Kirk Gibson and Alan Trammell.

As we were conversing, his eyes flicked now and then to something on the wall over my right shoulder. He pointed out one of the larger photographs, a black-and-white image of a small, weather-beaten farm house.

“That’s where I was born, in Dickson, Tennessee (40 miles east of Nashville). It only had about a room-and-a-half,” Spicer says. “I feel so blessed for the opportunities I have had, coming from where I came from.”

When Spicer was seven months old, his father moved with his wife and son to Detroit to work at Ford. They settled in Lincoln Park. His parents divorced when he was nine. “Eight days after I graduated from high school, I turned 18, and I left home.”

At Lincoln Park High, Spicer captained both the basketball and baseball teams, and continued playing baseball at Adrian College. He’s been inducted into both schools’ halls of fame.

He worked in a factory and in the college kitchen to pay for his education at Adrian, in an automobile factory to get an MBA at Wayne State, and at a local bank so he could attend night classes for his law degree from Michigan State.

Spicer, who served four years in the Army, and his late wife Kathy had six children, four of whom served in the Marine Corps for a combined 11 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

All of this serves as introduction, as brief and disjointed as it is, to the crux of this essay, namely, that Spicer was honored six weeks ago as the “Person of the Year” at the Catholic High School League’s annual Hall of Fame induction banquet.

“His support of many initiatives has transformed Catholic schools and Catholic education on all levels – grade school, high school and university,” league director Vic Michaels said.

Spicer has directed millions of dollars – he shied from revealing specific numbers – in southeast Michigan through the Doris J. and Donald L. Duchene Sr. Foundation since 1997.

He had been a longtime friend and counselor for the Duchenes, who were generous benefactors to many worthy organizations, Catholic parishes and schools. Donald died in 2015. Doris, who passed away in 2001, was the daughter of Ernest Nicolay, co-founder of the New Era Potato Chip Company, which eventually merged with Frito Lay, and then merged with Pepsi Co.

Spicer’s support is two-pronged. Since 1995, he has given $2,000 to each high school in the CHSL (this year, a total of $56,000 to 28 schools) to be distributed $1,000 each to a graduating boy and girl to help with college-related expenses.

On a broader scale, in the Archdiocese of Detroit, Spicer has donated what he calls “seed money” to give schools, churches, parishes and social agencies a head start in building an endowment fund for future scholarships or facility growth.

A Presbyterian, Spicer applauds Catholic schools because “spirituality is part of the curriculum. Starting the day with prayer creates an ambiance of civility and respect.” Both are critical building blocks for students’ character, growth and success, Spicer adds, which are “even more necessary in today’s society.”

This is just a peek into Spicer’s behind-the-scenes philanthropic work. There is so much more he continues to accomplish in the community-at-large as legal counsel and/or trustee of a dozen foundations.

During the 90 minutes he generously allowed for this interview, I sensed a reluctance on his part to talk about all of this. One of his favorite passages from Scripture, he says, is “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”

Someone, someday, has to write the story of S. Gary Spicer and what his hands of charity are doing for the betterment of life in this part of the world. It is the essence of Christian almsgiving.

I’m going to steal Vic Michaels’ closing remark at the banquet, a quote of Fr. Gabriel Richard, a civic pioneer in Detroit and founder of the University of Michigan: “I do not know what your destiny will be, but I know that you will never truly be happy until you have sought and found how to serve.”

Gary Spicer is one of the happiest people I know.

Contact Don Horkey at [email protected].