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Former Bay Lawman Coram Dies: Panama City Native Co-Founded Local Restaurant Chain, Earned Honor for Helping End ?80s Drug Store Hostage Standoff

Posted on: Tuesday, 10 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By Faith Ford, The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.

Jan. 10--Joe Coram, 62, died Saturday at his Panama City home after a four-year battle with melanoma.

The Panama City native, a longtime law enforcement officer and a cofounder of Coram's Steak and Eggs restaurants, was described by friends and family as a valiant and honest man.

Coram earned Florida Law Enforcement Officer of the Year honors in 1983 after he traded himself for hostages who had been taken in a drug store robbery on Harrison Avenue.

As current Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen recalled, Coram convinced the two robbers to release hostages, then managed to wrangle a gun away from the offenders while the male was shooting stolen drugs into his girlfriend's neck.

"There were a lot of close calls," McKeithen said. "This guy was waving the gun, and he was on drugs. He could have killed someone, especially Joe."

McKeithen called Coram one of his best friends and said Coram, who was his senior by nine years, had been the most influential person in his law enforcement career. Coram made a run for sheriff in 1988 but was defeated in the Democratic primary by Guy Tunnell, who later won the race.

"Joe had a style of his own," said McKeithen, who first worked with the Bay County Sheriff's Office in 1975. "I've never seen anything prior to it or afterwards. Joe, he would just ... he had an effect on the people he investigated. He had an effect on the people that worked with him. He had an effect that everybody just thought that if you were with Joe, everything was going to be OK.

"I can remember several dangerous situations where as long as Joe was there, I was not afraid. It's just that effect Joe had on people. He was a true hero."

Coram joined the U.S. Marine Corps after high school and served in Vietnam. He earned a law enforcement degree from Gulf Coast Community College and followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather who also worked in law enforcement.

Coram's son, Derrick Coram, recently took a position with the Sheriff's Office, becoming the fourth generation in the career field.

Joe Coram was a patrolman with the Panama City Police Department from 1966 to 1970 and took a job with the Sheriff's Office in 1970, rising to the chief investigator position before he retired in 1986. He worked as an investigator for the State Attorney's Office from 1986 through 1998, when he retired.

Coram's wife, Kay Jo Coram, said they met the weekend after Joe Coram returned from Vietnam and were married a year later.

He enjoyed fishing, was addicted to golf and liked to camp, especially at St. Andrews State Park, Kay Jo Coram said. After his retirement, Kay Jo Coram said, he took up projects around the house, helping her with the chores that she did not like doing. He also was a counselor at the Benevolence Center at St. Andrew Baptist Church.

Joe Coram and his three brothers founded Coram's Steak and Eggs restaurants, but he sold his shares in the familyrun business more than a decade ago, Kay Jo Coram said, explaining that he did not have time for the venture and a fulltime job.

"The brothers, they always liked to go to breakfast together and eat," Kay Jo Coram recalled. "They had a friend that had a little omelet house. They just decided they wanted to do that."

Family friend Jeanie Powell described Joe Coram as jovial and strong.

"He was somewhat quiet, but not quiet concerning any principle that he felt or when he felt like there was something that he did not agree with as far as his standards," she said.

Kay Jo Coram said her husband's condition "caught up with him" in May. He was under hospice care, and his wife said she stayed beside him in their home during his last 30 hours.

"We knew it was close, and I would not leave him," she said. "I wanted to be there with him."

Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. today in the Wilson Funeral Home Chapel with interment following at Evergreen Memorial Gardens. For more information, see the obituary on page 2B.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The News Herald

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