GREENVILLE, Mo. -- After serving as Wayne County's associate circuit judge for more than 27 years, Randy Schuller will soon hang up his robe for the last time as he prepares to take a position in the collegiate sector.
"I fully expected to serve my whole career until retirement, but this opportunity came along," explained Schuller, whose last day is July 2.
Thirteen days after that, Schuller will become the vice president of institutional policy and administrative law at Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine in Blacksburg, Va.
The college was established to provide medical services to Appalachia and other underserved rural areas, said Schuller. Former Piedmont resident Dixie Tooke-Rawlins is the college's founding dean. Tooke-Rawlins, now serving as president and provost, has tried to recruit Schuller for some time.
The timing is right for that now, said Schuller, who initially filed for re-election. He has since withdrawn from the race, leaving Piedmont attorney Christina Kime as the lone candidate for associate circuit judge.
In his new position, Schuller said, he will review contracts, termination letters and communication that goes out to the staff.
"I'll make sure all the handbooks and policies are up to date and right ... things like that," said Schuller.
Most of the work, he said, can be done by Polycom and computer.
"I'm not moving," said Schuller.
There will be some travel to the various campuses to meet the deans and other staff, perhaps one week a month right now, said Schuller, who has been accepted into the Virginia bar. He still has to be sworn in by the Supreme Court there before he can practice in Virginia.
Up to now, Schuller's legal career has included work in private practice, as well as prosecuting attorney and judge.
Schuller took the bench on Jan. 1, 1991, after working 10 years with L. Dwayne Hackworth, who he described as the "hardest working man I've ever seen."
While working with Hackworth, Schuller served as the county's prosecutor from 1983 to 1986.
"That was the first time the job went four years; it had previously been a two-year term," said Schuller, who opted to run for judge and not seek re-election as prosecutor.
"I thought I could do the job and have better control of my time," he said. "I had a new family."
He was spending a lot of hours working, including at home. Being judge, he said, gave him better control and meant not bringing as much work home.
As prosecutor Schuller had to be available 24-7.
"Our job is like that too; you're on call all the time," but "it's usually, here's a search warrant, and then you're done with it," Schuller said.
It allowed time to attend his children's ball games.
Schuller said he has thoroughly enjoyed being judge, and wouldn't change any of it.
Time has changed many aspects of how he works.
He used an old IBM Selective typewriter in the beginning, and the introduction of computers cost the judge an old-school chief clerk. She didn't want to learn the new technology.
"I'm not real tech savvy, but I can learn how to do it," he said.
Before court consolidation, Schuller said, the office of associate circuit judge was separate from the circuit clerk's office.
"They wanted to bring everyone into one system," said Schuller, who no longer had to worry about such things as budgeting for his office.
Circuit Clerk Darren Garrison takes care of all those things now and has for a long time.
"Darren will talk to me about personnel problems, but at the end of the day, it's in his hands," Schuller said. "We've got a good staff; it's worked out well for us."
Along with the consolidation has come the electronic filing of cases, which "still scares me to death, that there is no paper backup anywhere," Schuller said. "If they can hack into the Pentagon, they can hack into our court system."
Efforts, he said, are being made to get the prosecutor's office into the system.
Some things still are paper, including search warrants, Schuller said. Those, he said, are easier now because they can be scanned and emailed to him.
"I can do a search warrant anywhere there's internet on my iPad or my phone even, which has sped things up," as compared to "hunting for a judge and a fax machine," Schuller said.
During his tenure, Schuller said, the court's case load has changed, especially on the criminal side.
"When I was prosecuting attorney, there was no meth problem ... marijuana and once in a while some LSD and cocaine," he said.
Meth is so prevalent now, he said, it takes up almost all of the court's criminal docket.
According to Schuller, Wayne County instituted the 42nd Circuit's first drug court in July 2004.
Schuller later became the administrative drug court judge for continuity.
"Everybody in drug court in the five counties, as soon as they got to drug court, their case comes to me," Schuller explained. "I become the judge on their case. As long as they are in drug court, they're mine."
If the person graduates, he or she is discharged, "and they're done," Schuller said. "If they wash and get terminated from drug court, they go back to their original sentencing judge."
In addition to his other duties, Schuller also has served as city judge for Piedmont, Williamsville and Greenville, as well as traveled to numerous other circuits to hear assigned cases.
For a time, he said, Wayne County partnered with Branson, and "we would go a week at a time and hear cases over there."
In the '90s, Schuller said, "country judges," such as himself, were sent to St. Louis County to "help them move their massive dockets." He also was sent to Jefferson County, back when its population exploded, to move cases through as fast as he could.
He was hearing uncontested divorce cases in the courtroom as one of the local judges was "in the back trying to settle them. They would get them settled ... send them out, and I would run through the case," Schuller said.
As he prepares for retirement, Schuller is going to miss the court personnel, not only is Wayne County, but in the 20 other counties where he has heard cases.
What he is not going to miss is hearing the criminal cases, particularly the violent crimes.
There are quite of few defendants in their jail for murder and sex offenses, he said.
"Those are hard cases to hear, and it's hard on the witnesses and victims to get through those," Schuller said.
Some notorious cases, he said, have happened in Wayne County, including the 1996 murder at the Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy at Patterson.
"Unfortunately, they're gruesome cases, and it's sad it happened here," he said.
In comparison, there also are pleasant times too, such as when adoptions are finalized. He recalled how one family filled a corner of his courtroom as they adopted their eighth and ninth foster children.
Schuller also has presided over about 640 weddings during his career.
One couple, he said, wanted to be married on horseback.
Schuller's response was: "Give me a horse, too, so I don't have to look up at you."
Other couples, he said, have married in costume on Halloween or at the lake.
"Some, I've married and then I've divorced them," he said.