Judge Beam remembered for important rulings, ideal judicial temperament

The scales of justice. (Getty Images)

LINCOLN — In 1981, then-Nebraska Gov. Charlie Thone was asked to submit three nominees to fill a vacancy on the state’s slice of the U.S. District Court.

His three nominees were “Arlen Beam, C.A. Beam and Clarence Arlen Beam.”

“He was my unanimous choice,” he told an interviewer later.

Beam ended up serving 38 years on the federal bench, eventually joining the prestigious U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit.

The judge died Oct. 31 at the age of 95.

Beam is remembered as having an ideal temperament for a judge who never forgot his small town upbringing in the Sandhills ranching town of Stapleton.

His pathway to the bench was unconventional. After graduating from the University of Nebraska in 1951 with an ROTC commission, he was called to se