NCHA PROFILE Lew Hall rode his stallion, Sir Long Legs, to “The 41” any-age $50,000 Amateur championship at the 2020 Augusta Futurity. Trainer Austin Shepard won “The 41” Open division on the horse.
A Servant’s Heart
Directing funeral homes can be a tough job requiring a service-oriented mindset. For Non-Pro rider Lew Hall, cutting horses help him get away and leave stress behind. BY KRISTIN PITZER
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hen he was a kid living on his parents’ farm in Louisville, Kentucky, Lew Hall Jr. thought he might want to be a farmer when he grew up. His parents, Lew Sr. and Vera, owned 300 acres, and Hall competed regularly in 4-H. His dad, who was in the insurance business, was quick to discourage him, though. “He said, ‘Son, this is for play. This is not the way you make a living,’” Hall
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CUTTING HORSE CHATTER • APRIL 2021
reminisced with a laugh. “I thought, well, 300 acres, I got a good start! But Dad wasn’t interested in that.” Rather than pursuing the farming route, Hall eventually would become a funeral home owner, purchasing homes from Service Corporation International, the largest funeral industry in the country. But the National Cutting Horse Association member and earner of $41,000-plus never strayed far from his passion for horses.
SUZANNE SYLVESTER
ALL ABOUT SERVICE Hall attended the Kentucky School of Mortuary Science, graduating in 1978. Lew Sr. was involved in the insurance business for about 20 years in Louisville, but he wanted to enter the funeral business with his son. Several extended family members were ministers, but Lew Sr. wanted to be of service to people in a different way. “My dad said, ‘I never felt called to the ministry, but I felt like when someone had needed someone more than any other time, it was the funeral industry [that stepped in],”’ Hall recalled. He and his dad tried to purchase a funeral home in Florida, but the deal fell apart, so they went back to insurance, remaining in that industry another 20 years. Then in 1999, Lew Sr. passed away unexpectedly at the age of 60. In 2001, Hall approached Houston, Texas-based SCI, and purchased three funeral homes in Lakeland, Florida, located between Tampa and Orlando. He added another funeral home and a cemetery to that a few years later. Today, Hall owns Gentry-Morrison Funeral Homes. He is a past president for the Florida Funeral Directors Association and currently serves on the Board of Funeral, Cemetery and Consumer Services for the State of Florida. His son, Trey, who is the immediate past president of the Florida Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association, has worked for him since 2001. “When people come in and think they want this as a career, a lot of times they’re enamored by it and curious by it, but they don’t really have any idea what it’s all about,” Hall said. “They see the funerals, they see the big cars and all that. They don’t see the backroom work and the other things you deal with.” You have to want to help people, Hall added, if you’re going to be of benefit to the families that come through. In that moment, the funeral director might be one of the most important people to the family of the deceased.