Few reporters have noted what is perhaps the most lasting legacy of Sen. Strom Thurmond (D-S.C.), now retired: the unusually large number of family members, former aides, and even neighbors he's managed to appoint to federal judicial offices during the past two decades. (Who's Who).

Few reporters have noted what is perhaps the most lasting legacy of Sen. Strom Thurmond (D-S.C.), now retired: The unusually large number of family members, former aides, and even neighbors he's managed to appoint to federal judicial offices during the past two decades. Four members of the South Carolina District Court owe their jobs to Thurmond, including former aides Terry Wooten, Henry Herlong, and Dennis Shedd--recently promoted to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals--as well as Joseph Anderson, who hails from Strom's hometown of Edgefield. Shedd has some company: He joins two other former Thurmond aides now sitting on the Fourth Circuit, William Wilkins and Emory Sneeden, plus one Clyde Hamilton, another Edgefield native and, like Shedd, a former judge on the South Carolina District Court. Robert Carr and Bristow Marchant are both former Thurmond aides; both also serve today as U.S. magistrates for South Carolina. (The state's magistrates are selected by none other than the judges of the South Carolina District Court.) Thurmond's nephew, William Bishop, is chief judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in South Carolina, the judges for which are selected by--you guessed it--the judges of the Fourth Circuit. Finally there's Thurmond's son, 30-year-old Strom Jr., today the youngest and least experienced U.S. attorney in the country.