Higher Calling Supplants SCOTUS Dreams

Patrick Behling had mapped out a pretty clear plan for his life. By junior year of high school, he seemed well on his way to make it happen.

The Whitefish Bay native’s grandmother was close friends with a Shorewood native, the late William Rehnquist, chief justice of the United States, 1986-2005, and Deacon Behling saw his life leading him in the same direction, eventually to a position on the highest court in the land.

By junior year at Whitefish Bay High School, he was well on his way to that goal, having already spent two summers in Washington, D.C. as an intern for then-Senator Herb Kohl.

College and law school were part of the plan for the young man who was a voracious reader, part of the high school forensics team, editor of the school newspaper, a volleyball player and cellist in the school orchestra as well as with the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra.

“I had a whole plan for my life charted out,” he told the Catholic Herald in an interview in early April. “I would go to college, law school, become an attorney, clerk for a federal judge, become a federal judge myself and eventually be named to the Supreme Court.”

continue at MkeCH