CORINTH – Corinth attorney Randolph Walker Sr. describes himself now as a “country lawyer,” referring to his current practice of general law.

The longest phase of his career, however, was in West Point where he practiced for 22 years, first with the firm of Pennington & Walker, then with state Sen. Bennie Turner at the Walker & Turner Law Office.

He spent almost another decade practicing in Atlanta, returning to a big city law firm as he had practiced in Washington, where he earned his law degree at George Washington University.

“When we went to West Point it was sort of a halfway point between my hometown of Biggersville and my wife’s hometown of Carthage,” Walker said. “We planned to be there only five years, but when my wife got pregnant we decided to stay.”

The first child was born to Walker and his wife, Jean Holbrook Walker, and they named him Randolph Jr., “Randy.” When their second son was born, Torrey, they committed to stay in West Point until he graduated from high school.

“I thought when we left West Point that we would return to Washington,” Walker said, “but my wife wanted to move to Memphis. Our compromise was to move to Atlanta where both of our sons were at Morehouse College.”

Walker initially brought his law practice to West Point “to give to the state and people who had made it possible for me to realize some of my greatest dreams.”

However, when he left the Alcorn County farm where he was reared, it was the farthest thing from his mind that he would ever return to those roots.

Now, though, Walker owns the family farm that nurtured him until he left his parents’ nest, and the time he spends there gives him some of his greatest satisfaction.

“I couldn’t wait to get away and thought I’d never come back,” Walker said. “Now, every free moment I want to be out on the farm. I’ve finally got it completely fenced in, and come this fall I’ll get some cows and a new tractor.”

Walker calls his practice now “semi-retirement” because he works only about 50 hours a week, compared to the 90 to 110 hours he routinely worked before.

The two to three days he would spend in the office when he first returned to Corinth has stretched to five, but he’s looking at pulling back again over the next year.

“I can take time off,” he said.

In fact, Walker and his wife use some of that time off to work their way through a “bucket list,” things they want to do before they die.

In June they took a longed-for cruise to Alaska after spending some time exploring Seattle. Other trips on the list include Japan with son Torrey, who spent two years teaching there; West Africa – Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal; Puerto Rico; and Cuba “if they open it up for travel.”

“And I want to take my wife to Paris again,” Walker said.

While Walker is enjoying the slower pace of his professional practice now, he remains very visible in the legal community.

He recently chaired a merit selection panel charged with evaluating U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Allan Alexander’s reappointment to a new eight-year term that begins in November.

Chief Judge Michael P. Mills of the U.S. District Court’s Northern District of Mississippi appointed Walker as chairman of the panel, along with six law members – Brooke Newman Driskell of Oxford, Joel J. Henderson of Greenville, Tacey Clark Locke of Iuka, Daniel E. Morris of Cleveland, William C. Murphree of Tupelo and William F. Travis of Southaven – and lay members Thomas Griffith of Amory and George “Pat” Patterson of Oxford.

“I was a member of the panel chaired by Corinth attorney Jimmy Price when Judge Alexander was first appointed 16 years ago,” Walker said, “but I was living out of state when her first reappointment came up.”

Walker also serves on the board of North Mississippi Rural Legal Services.

The other area that garners much of Walker’s time and attention is community service.

He was vice president of the South Corinth Focus Group that was appointed by the Corinth School Board to chart a course for the South Corinth Elementary School campus when it is vacated by the school district. The focus group established a board of directors that now works with the school district on the campus’ future.

Walker also was honored in June, more than a decade after moving away from West Point, by his former fellow church members at Davidson Chapel CME Church, West Point city and Clay County officials, and legal community colleagues for his legacy of service to that community.

The monthly community roundtable he and his wife founded and host in Corinth is a fellowship of people doing positive things to help their community.

And Walker is far from finished.

He plans to establish a community center in his beloved Biggersville community, specifically Oak Grove.

“Throughout my adult life I have felt service to the community is the price we pay for good neighbors and government,” Walker wrote in a brief biographical sketch when he joined Optimist International. “I thank my son Torrey for telling me about the Atlanta Optimist Club, … an organization whose creed states my philosophy of life.”

Contact Lena Mitchell at (662) 287-9822 or lena.mitchell@djournal.com.