"Bob Federspiel may not have been a familiar personality to the public at large, but his wisdom and influence has and will continue to touch all of Delray Beach for many years to come," Mayor Jeff Perlman wrote in his column on the city's Web site.

Mr. Federspiel's car was traveling south on U.S. Highway 23/441 near Otto, N.C., just north of Dillard, Ga., at about 5:30 a.m. when it slammed into a horse, which smashed through the windshield and trapped him, according to the North Carolina Highway Patrol. The car clipped another car in the adjoining lane and ran off the road, then back on, before veering into an embankment, a report said. The second driver was not hurt. Mr. Federspiel was taken to a nearby hospital, then transferred to Mission Hospitals in Asheville, N.C., where he died Saturday morning.

A car struck a second horse and its colt about 10 minutes later about 10 miles away. That driver was not hurt. The three horses had been kept in a paddock about 600 yards from the road, the owner's lawyer said.

Mr. Federspiel owned a home in nearby Cullowhee, where he and lifelong friend Tim Tyson attended summer camp as youths, Tyson said. Mr. Federspiel and his wife, Cindy, were staying at the home and he was driving to Atlanta to fly back to South Florida for a business meeting, Tyson said.

The West Palm Beach native graduated from Florida Atlantic University in 1972 and received his law degree from the University of Florida in 1974. He worked with Delray Beach lawyer Ernest Simon until 1983, when he became a partner in Spinner, Dittman, Federspiel and Dowling, also in Delray Beach, partner Robert Dittman said.

"As dedicated as he was in serving his clients, he never lost sight of the value of making time to be with family and friends," Dittman said

Mr. Federspiel became the CRA's lawyer when the agency formed in 1985. "Bob was behind the scenes in so many of the innovative things this agency has done," Executive Director Diane Colonna said. "I would give him a lot of credit for Delray's renaissance."

Mr. Federspiel was the lawyer for the Delray Beach Housing Authority for at least 27 years. He also had been the attorney for the South Central Regional Wastewater Treatment and Disposal Board since its founding in 1974.

Mr. Federspiel's grandmother and grandfather, Robert and Margaret Millner, owned Rosella's bakery, a mainstay for decades on Atlantic Avenue near the Intracoastal Waterway in Delray Beach. His late parents, Jan and Jack Federspiel, later moved the bakery to Northeast Eighth Street, now George Bush Boulevard. The bakery closed in 1989.

Besides his wife, Mr. Federspiel is survived by a son, Brad, of Orlando, and daughter, Becky, a student at the University of Florida.; sisters Jana Riherd of Blue Ridge, Ga., and Laurie Vassalotti of Naples; three uncles; and several nieces and nephews.

Services will be at 2 p.m. Oct. 28 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Delray Beach.

The family has asked that, instead of flowers, people send donations to the Robert Federspiel Organ Transplant Fund at the University of Florida's Shands Hospital, in care of HSC Development, attention Linda, Box 103560, Gainesville, Fla., 32610.