FORMER WYTHEVILLE STATE SENATOR TO BECOME DISTRICT COURT JUDGE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 28, 1992                   TAG: 9201280108
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-10   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Southwest bureau
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE                                LENGTH: Short
FORMER WYTHEVILLE STATE SENATOR TO BECOME DISTRICT COURT JUDGE
Daniel Bird Jr., a Wytheville lawyer and former state senator, is scheduled to be sworn in Friday as a judge of the 27th District for the region that includes Pulaski, Montgomery and Floyd counties and the city of Radford.
Bird is unopposed for the general district judgeship to succeed James Joines of Independence, who is retiring at the end of Friday's docket after 38 years on the bench.
Bird will join the other judge, George Cooley of Hillsville, in a district that also covers Bland, Carroll, Grayson and Wythe counties and the city of Galax.
The oath is to be administered by Circuit Judge Willis Woods at a 4 p.m. ceremony in the Wythe County Circuit Court room.
A reception will follow at the Wytheville Golf Club.
Bird served for 16 years in the Virginia Senate and did not seek re-election last year.
A Bland County native, Bird graduated from Virginia Tech in 1960 with a degree in agriculture. He received his law degree from Washington and Lee University.
Bird crossed the state in 1989 seeking support for the Democratic gubernatorial candidacy but later withdrew.
He and his wife, Barbara, have three children.
Joines, who got a law degree from the College of William and Mary, became a trial justice judge in 1954 and a district judge when the courts system was revamped in the 1970s.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB