By Bob Arnold
On a visit to his parents back in the mid-1970s when he was working on his B.A. in English at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, was startled to find that his mom and dad had packed up their belongings at their Greenville, South Carolina, home and were moving to Tupelo, Mississippi, where his father planned to operate an old furniture factory.
It was an unlikely beginning of a journey for Varas that has encompassed 42 years of legal service in Copiah County, including City Attorney and Municipal Court Judge for Wesson.
“The house was empty,” Varas recalls. “The furniture was in the moving van outside the house. I wondered what was going on.”
If the surprise was a little bit annoying, it nevertheless introduced him to Mississippi and led him to Ole Miss to study law from 1976 to 1979 and earn a J.D. that prepared him for a private law practice in Copiah and Lincoln counties, local judgeships and legal work for area municipalities.
Last month, Wesson government officials and town folk honored him at a special reception for his service to Wesson.
A native of Inglewood, California, Varas spent his early childhood in the Golden State at San Mateo on the San Francisco Peninsula and San Marino, where he fondly remembers bike-riding days when he could travel throughout the interconnected Southern California neighborhoods to special places, like The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, in Los Angeles County and in the Pasadena area.
Varas first came to the South when his father, who worked in sales and marketing for varied companies that transferred their personnel around the country, moved his family to Greenville, South Carolina, briefly before returning to California at San Marino and then going to the South again to Atlanta, where, he says “I thought I had died and gone to hell.” His family resettled in Greenville, where Varas graduated from high school in 1971 and then headed off to Wofford, graduating in 1975. With his family now in Tupelo, Varas chose to go to Ole Miss Law School.
He launched his career as an attorney with a law firm in Columbia, South Carolina, after passing a bar exam and becoming licensed to practice his profession in South Carolina and Mississippi. Ironically, going to Columbia brought Varas back to Mississippi after meeting and marrying the former Kate Walker (now Kate Hampton) from Wesson there. She suggested they return to her hometown, where she had just inherited the Victorian house on Highway 51 that would later become the venue of Porches Restaurant for many years. Varas lived there for eight to 10 years before his marriage ended, and swears that it is a haunted house with “good ghosts.” By then, Varas had made Copiah County his permanent home, establishing his own law practice -- first at Brookhaven in the early 1980s, and then moving it to Hazlehurst in 1985 – when he discovered there were no big law firms in the area looking to hire young attorneys. “When I came to Wesson, the old hotel was standing, the Post Office was where the new dental office is and there were no Dollar General or Family Dollar stores,” Varas recalls.
Always drawn to community service because “I believe in giving back to the world,” Varas took on multiple appointed roles as an attorney and judge for Copiah County and its municipalities while maintaining a multi-faceted law firm. There were no public defenders in those days, so Varas often found himself in criminal defense, appointed by judges when someone could not afford a lawyer.
His first judgeship was not an easy one in Georgetown where its Chief of Police at the time was “the epitome of the old-time image of a Mississippi lawman” to whom rights of prisoners meant nothing, Varas recalls. In addition to serving Wesson for the past 13 years as Municipal Judge and as City Attorney on and off since the 1980s, Varas has worked in similar capacities at Crystal Springs and Hazlehurst, and has been Copiah Country prosecutor, Copiah County Youth Court Judge and Special Master for hearings on committing mentally ill persons to institutions.
In his early years as a judge, Varas says he was “crusader,” seeking to bring values of equal justice for all and compassion to his decisions, while seeking to “make law and order” in communities – the fundamental job of municipal courts. “I was reared by parents with an American Dream view of life that all people are created equal,” he explains. “They weren’t church people, but they were religious in trying to practice love and compassion. That’s the personal background I bring to the court. I don’t understand the racism that I see in a society in which people have been indoctrinated to hate others.”
Over the years, as he has watched the same people coming back to his courts “over and over again” on the same offenses, and “increasing numbers of people coming to the courts because they have no sense of personal responsibility,” Varas says his focus has shifted to “public protection.” Varas says he believes strongly in the justice system and upholding its rules and laws, but “one of the reasons I’ve decided to retire now is I think I’ve lost at least some of the sense of humor and compassion I once had. “You expect upwards of ten percent of the people that come before you to return to court because they can’t change their behavior, but I have become frustrated by the growing numbers who never learned to accept personal responsibility for their actions, and blame others when they do wrong or make a mistake,” he explains.
What satisfaction has he realized as a judge?
“The best part of the job is working with top notch people, and the hardest part is dealing with the public,” Varas notes. “But the satisfaction, which occurs only rarely, happens when a stranger walks up to you on the street or in a store to thank you – for ‘hearing my case fairly and finding me not guilty,’ ‘giving me a break, although I was guilty,’ or even “sending me to prison, where I straightened out my life.”
What are your hobbies?
I’ve given up a lot of hobbies over the years – long distance running, scuba diving, hunting, fishing, golf. I was an active Episcopalian in Brookhaven’s Redeemer Church, but I am now married to a Roman Catholic woman. So I relax in my yard and garden, growing things. I continue to exercise, but not as vigorously, by taking walks around town, picking up litter while I’m at it to keep the town clean. I like to travel, and now enjoy the sites around Mississippi particular
Are you a reader?
As a lawyer, reading is a requirement that, over the years, turned me away from the from the variety of reading that I once enjoyed. As a lawyer, I came home
not for a good book, but to watch television. As an English major in college, I became a fan of Jack Kerouac, the beat generation writer; and Jerzy Kosinski, who wrote about the dark side of life. From childhood, I still remember Caddie Woodlawn, an historical novel by Carol Ryrie Brink, that nurtured my love of reading.
Do you follow movies or theater?
I didn’t like him in The Green Berets, but I enjoy John Wayne in Searchers. I like the songs in Scrooge with Albert Brooks, with its classic story of redemption. I attend local theater productions, and you can take me to an art museum any day.
Are you into music? I’m a listener. I don’t sing or play an instrument, but The Who plays my kind of rock ‘n roll.
What would you do with the winnings if you won the lottery? I’d pay off my debts, take a vacation, give to charity, help friends in need and bank anything that is left so I’d never have to worry about paying bills again.
How would you change the world? Above all, we need to make better citizens by investing in education and mental health. We need to walk the walk and quit talking about it. Parents need to rear their children to assume responsibility and not blame others when they make a mistake or do something wrong. With 40 people dying every day due to gun violence, we also need to enact stricter, but sensible control of firearms. AR-15s shouldn’t be available to people outside the military
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