| The Daytona Beach News-Journal
DAYTONA BEACH — Whether it was legal advice, a worthy cause to uplift others in Volusia County or even skilled tips on the art of fly fishing, Pete Heebner was always ready to lend a hand.
“Anybody who needed help, Pete Heebner would reach out and do anything he could for them,” said longtime friend and professional associate Kent Sharples, president of the CEO Business Alliance. “Pete was just one of those guys.”
Heebner, an attorney and a leading force in Volusia County’s legal community for decades, died on Monday after a 7-1/2 year battle with cancer. He was 76.
Since the late 1970s, Heebner’s civic activism has included leadership roles with the Stewart-Marchman Foundation; the Daytona Beach Community College Foundation; the Civic League of the Halifax Area; and the Daytona Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, among other organizations.
He also was an appointed member of the Volusia County Charter Review Commission, the YMCA Board of Directors, and the Board of Governors of the Red Cross and The United Way.
“He was truly a community leader and a wonderful lawyer,” said another longtime friend, David Slick, owner of Command Medical Products in Ormond Beach. “I can’t speak highly enough about his character. And he was a very, very good fisherman. He taught me how to fly fish.”
Slick, 76, said Heebner was among the first people he met after moving to Volusia County from Oho in the 1980s. Heebner helped him with legal work involved in starting a business and a friendship emerged.
Together with other friends, the two men bought a small airplane, a Navajo Chieftain, to take fishing trips to the Bahamas.
“We called it our 8-passenger, 200-mph magic carpet,” Slick said. “It was our professional relationship that led to a whole lifetime of fishing adventures. We’d fish in a mud puddle if we thought there was fish in it.”
That love of travel and the outdoors also sparked the bond between Heebner and his wife, Nan. They went on their first date, a blind-date arranged by friends, to the running of the midsummer Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway in 2001.
Three years later, they were married in a New Year’s Eve ceremony aboard a boat owned by Daytona Beach restaurateur and philanthropist Gale Lemerand on the Halifax River.
“We’ve been together 20 years and it has been the best years of my life,” said Nan, 65, a public school teacher who was a single mother raising a teenage son when she met Heebner.
”He was a dream come true,” she said. “From the get-go, it was very easy, very fun. We were dating for a little while and I thought, ‘This is really the guy I’ve always dreamed of.’ He had all the qualities; he was always fun, always perfect.”
Deep roots in Volusia
Heebner was born on April 12, 1944 in Coronado, California. His father was a combat- decorated Navy pilot in World War II. After the war, the family moved to DeLand, where young Pete would establish deep roots in Volusia County.
He earned his undergraduate degree at Stetson University 1966 and a law degree from Florida State University in 1973. In between, he served nearly three years in the U.S. Army in Vietnam, where he was honored with two Bronze Stars for Valor.
Heebner initially served as an assistant state attorney before entering private practice.
The principal/partner in the Heebner, Baggett, Upchurch & Garthe law firm in Daytona Beach, Heebner has litigated hundreds of cases involving Florida construction law related to an array of large public and private construction projects in Central Florida.
In 2019, in the midst of his cancer battle, he represented developer Pacetta LLC in a lawsuit against the city of Ponce Inlet, a case that stretched more than a decade before a settlement was reached.
Also that year, Heebner was honored with the J. Saxon Lloyd Lifetime Achievement Award from the Civic League of the Halifax area.
“The world is a much worse place having lost Pete Heebner,” said Sharples, who presented that award to him. “He was a tremendous supporter of the community.”
In addition to his wife, Heebner is survived by his step-son David Adams, of Ormond Beach; daughter Kendall Heaton, of Alexandria, Va.; sister Pamela Bouton, of Edgewater; brother Stan Heebner, of DeLand; and two grandchildren.
Lohman Funeral Homes in Ormond Beach is handling arrangements, but a celebration of Heebner’s life is being postponed to a later date due to coronavirus concerns, his wife said.
Nan Heebner said that she hasn’t yet grasped the reality that her husband is gone.
“I’m pretending that he’s just on a fishing trip right now,” she said, “and he’s going to be back.”
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