The Mackinac Center has posted several eulogies to Joe Overton, who died last week in a plane crash, here. This one by frequent NRO contributor Larry Reed is very good. Here are few lines from it: “In the last few days I’ve come to understand a side of Joe in a way I didn’t fully grasp before. His was, to borrow from the title of a great and influential book, a purpose-driven life. If he sometimes seemed distracted, it was because he had his mind on bigger things. When he didn’t seem interested enough in himself to tell you what he had just done or who he had just helped, it was because he was not a self-centered guy. Joe believed that life on earth was not about acquiring fame or wealth. He worked for a salary that was half what he could have earned in another profession. He had little interest in accumulating titles and plaudits. Whenever I had doubts about my own ability to do my job, or felt concerned that credit was coming my way for things that he or others should have been recognized for, he shunned the limelight, bucked me up, and spoke of the unique working relationship we had as “magic.” Observing that magic, people outside our organization often said that Joe and I had “complementary skills” but I’ve always known the real truth: He had the skills, and I had the complementary.”