Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 1, 1992 TAG: 9202010330
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Medium
DANIEL BIRD JR. IS NEWEST JUDGE
Daniel Bird Jr. became a General District Court judge Friday after being sworn in by one of his former law partners.Circuit Judge Willis Woods administered the oath, and Bird was robed by three other lawyers - James Gleaves, James Boyd and Frank Slavin - with whom he had been a partner during his 25 years in the legal profession.
Bird served for 16 years in the state Senate but did not seek re-election last year.
He was accompanied at the ceremony by his wife, Barbara, and three children, Ginny, Woody and Benjy, who wore his uniform from Virginia Military Institute where he is a student.
His father, a Virginia Tech graduate before attending Washington and Lee University Law School, read a tongue-in-cheek poem sent to him from the VMI public relations office about his assuming the judgeship. "I want to hear Virginia Tech's response to that," he said.
"I've been taught a lot of lessons in the courtrooms of Virginia by the judges and the lawyers that you see here," Bird told the overflow crowd in the Wythe County Circuit Court room. "I've enjoyed my law practice immensely in Wytheville over the past 25 years. . . . I realize that I have huge shoes to fill."
His predecessor, James Joines of Independence, was unable to sit for his last day as a judge in Wytheville on Friday because of strep throat. But he had told Bird that he would be inheriting "the best court personnel in the whole commonwealth." Joines will continue to serve as a substitute judge.
Circuit Judge T.D. Frith Jr. presided at the ceremony. Retired Circuit Judge R. William Arthur of Wytheville gave the invocation and Pulaski lawyer Phil Sadler spoke on behalf of the lawyers of the 27th Judicial Circuit.
"It's a sign of weakness for any lawyer to agree with another on anything," Sadler said, but he felt those in the judicial circuit all agreed on Bird's qualifications for the job.
Bird will be one of two judges for general district courts in Bland, Carroll, Floyd, Grayson, Montgomery, Pulaski and Wythe counties and the cities of Radford and Galax.
The other judge, George B. Cooley of Hillsville, will join Joines in retirement at the end of February. Cooley will be succeeded by Edward M. Turner III of Hillsville, who was confirmed along with Bird by the General Assembly this week.
Turner attended the University of Virginia and, in 1975, graduated from the T.C. Williams School of Law. He returned to Hillsville, where he grew up, and established a law practice. He has been in partnership with J.L. Tompkins there since 1981.