ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 26, 1997 TAG: 9704280033
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA THE ROANOKE TIMES
Bob Viar becomes the 27th Judicial District's newest juvenile and domestic relations judge.
When Bob Viar read a newspaper article that announced his appointment as the New River Valley's newest juvenile and domestic relations judge, he dismissed it immediately.
Viar, who grew up in Roanoke, said a delegate called him on the last day of the General Assembly's session to tell him several nominations had been held up in the Senate. Unless a dispute over a Supreme Court appointment was hashed out, Viar said, the other nominations would not be resolved either.
"So I watched the news at 11 and decided they were nowhere close ... and decided 'well, that's that'," he said. "I woke up the next morning and there was the newspaper saying I had been confirmed and I said, 'well, there's another misprint' ... so I didn't even believe it."
It took a call from Del. Tommy Baker, R-Pulaski County, to convince Viar, a Christiansburg lawyer, that he had earned the title of "your honor."
"I was pretty numb to it at that point, I certainly was glad to have the news," Viar said.
On Friday, in front of a crowd of about 150 friends, colleagues and family, Viar took his oath and donned his robe, cementing his stature in the legal community. Many eyes in the Montgomery County Circuit Court room brimmed with tears as retired Circuit Judge Kenneth Devore administered the oath.
Devore served in the Montgomery Circuit Court for 17 years after serving 10 years as a county judge. He said he has the utmost confidence Viar will serve the bench well.
"I certainly can't be impartial when it comes to Bob," Devore said, "I feel like he's a son. He'll make an excellent judge. He has the temperament for it."
Viar, 43, said Devore was a Circuit Court judge when he - fresh from law school at Wake Forest - began practicing in 1978. Viar said Devore's example, and that of retiring Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge J. Patrick Graybeal, influenced his ideal of what a judge should be.
Viar will begin hearing cases Thursday, the day after Graybeal officially retires from his post. Viar has served for more than two years as a substitute judge in Graybeal's court - an experience that he said convinced him he wanted the job full time despite the obvious stresses and challenges.
"It's a court with a lot of problems and not many solutions," Viar said. "There are a lot of cases that come in that I honestly think I can't have too much effect on, but there are ones where you can make a lot of difference."
Viar said the latter cases are the ones he concentrates on because they keep his enthusiasm up; otherwise "the job gets tedious."
Viar will primarily hear cases in Montgomery County, Radford and Giles County. But he is a judge in the 27th Judicial District, which also includes Pulaski, Floyd, Wythe, Grayson, Carroll and Bland counties and Galax.
He is more than familiar with the court from the lawyer's side as he has represented social services there for many years. In his private practice, which he has had since 1986, Viar has handled numerous family law cases such as divorce, custody and child support.
The lawyer-turned-judge may have never entered law, however, if it had not been for a sloppy fast-food cook.
Viar said he earned his undergraduate degree in political science from Virginia Tech and knew he had two choices. He jokingly said it was law school or a fast-food career.
"And I had already been fired from McDonald's," Viar said and grinned.
Viar said he got the ax when he noted his objection to a cook tossing a hamburger that had fallen on the floor back onto the grill and onto a customer's bun. He was never asked to come back to work after that, he said.
His days of fast-food folly behind him, Viar plans to use his role in the court to help the community avoid what judges he recently met at an orientation seminar told him was "inevitable in five to 10 years." They said Viar can only expect problems such as gang violence, a "truancy rate that dwarfs" the present one in the New River Valley and soaring racial tensions.
"I came away with a real strong feeling that I don't want that to happen, Viar said. "I really like living here and I like the way things are. We have problems, but this is a pretty wonderful place to live."
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM THE ROANOKE TIMES. Bob Viar receives a cut offby CNBbaseball bat from his friend David Mullins before he was sworn in
Friday. In the background is retired Circuit Court judge Kenneth
Devore, who presided over the swearing in, and next to Viar is his
wife, Carolyn, and son Robert Viar III. color.