Lakeland Attorney John Shannon who was killed in a Christmas Eve plane crash in Bartow will be laid to rest Saturday. 

Shannon was piloting the small plane. 

Also killed in the crash were his daughters Olivia Shannon and Victoria Shannon Worthington, son in law Peter Worthington and family friend Krista Clayton. 

Shannon was a hard-nosed personal injury lawyer at work but he had a much softer side. He was known as “The Cookie Man” at St. Paul Lutheran Church and School. 

He would bring in cookies he had baked to the school several times a week. The cookies were for small children in the early learning center. 

 “I really liked his Snickerdoodle cookies,” said early learning center director Dr. Kelly Oglialoro. “But they could be snikerdoodles, chocolate chip or macadamia nut.”

Shannon took a special interest in the school because his two daughters killed in the crash started there while they were very small. He was raising them as a single parent. 

Shannon told people it was harder for a child to cry if they had a cookie in their hand. “So he told me privately that he liked to bring the cookies because it’s hard enough for babies to be dropped off by their parents,” said Oglialoro. “He felt this would be a way to bringing some joy to them.”

Senior pastor Ron Pennecamp said Shannon would also bring in home baked treats for the staff.  "He would get up early in the morning and say 'hey I couldn’t sleep so I got up to bake.' " 

Shannon would sometimes secretly pay the school bills of struggling families and helped out with church “Feed the Need” food drives for needy people. “His M.O. was I love God, I love people. He just did it, blessed people,” said Pennecamp.

Cookies will be a theme of Shannon’s funeral at the church.

The NTSB is still investigating the cause of the crash.