Photo by Clarke Davis – Magistrate Judge Dennis Reiling will end a 50-year career on the bench Monday, Jan. 13, when friends will gather for a farewell reception in the courtroom shortly after the swearing in ceremony at noon.
Will continue to serve cities, perform weddings
by Clarke Davis
When noon arrives on Monday, Jan. 13, it will have been 50 years — almost to the minute — since Magistrate Judge Dennis Reiling first took the oath of office.
The oath of office will be administered to the officials who were elected in the November General at that time and it will be followed by a retirement reception for Judge Reiling in the courtroom.
The judge was honored in May at the Kansas Judicial Conference when he was presented with a framed certificate honoring him as “the longest serving judge in Kansas,” which recognized his 50 years on the bench.
Making the presentation was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Marla Luckert, who stated it was a record they think will not be surpassed. The certificate is signed by all the Supreme Court justices.
Judges have a mandatory retirement age of 75, but are allowed to finish their four-year term when they reach that age. Reiling was a year short of retirement when he began his last term. He is now 78.
Reiling first filed for the office of Probate Judge in June 1974 when it was a political office with a two-year term. He ran against Republican incumbent Dr. Jesse Wilson, an Oskaloosa chiropractor, and won in the primary.
The election of 1974 also gave the voters in the district a choice of eliminating party politics from the selection of judges by using a yes or no retention ballot. Reiling ran unopposed in the ’76 election for a four-year term and then became a magistrate judge under the state system Jan. 1, 1977. He was no longer a county employee, but rather a magistrate judge for the four-county 2nd Judicial District.
Reiling was a non-lawyer judge so he was given 18 months to become certified.
“I had a few years experience so I became certified within six months,” the judge said.
His office wall is adorned with another one of those large framed certificates denoting his certification and signed by all the Supreme Court justices at that time.
At the time he became magistrate judge, he also served as municipal judge for Oskaloosa and Valley Falls. He remains the judge for those two towns along with Meriden, Ozawkie, Perry, Nortonville, and Winchester. He will continue serving those cities in Jefferson County along with Holton and Hoyt in Jackson County.
He also served as a tribal judge for the Prairie Band Pottawatomie Tribe in Jackson County from 1999 to 2001.
In negotiating a salary, he was asked what his charges would be and he suggested 20 pulls on the $100 slot machine each month at the casino. The tribe didn’t go for that and they settled for a more traditional salary. During the unique time he served the tribe, it did put him in Washington, D.C., for a Tribal Judges Conference during which he was afforded the opportunity to present Attorney General Janet Reno with Kansas sunflowers from the Pottawatomie Tribe.
Those 50 years of service on the bench for Reiling came about almost as a fluke — a happenstance that aligned events just at the right moment.
Dennis owned and operated a tavern in Wathena back in 1974. That also was a fluke, but on this June day he had to be in Oskaloosa to support his sister, Connie Daniels, who was going through a divorce. He’d owned the tavern for over three years and was really thinking of putting that business degree to work that he had earned at Emporia State University.
One option was to apply for a job with an upstart savings and loan that was opening in Oskaloosa, his hometown. The other option? He walked into the County Clerk’s office instead and said, “I want to file for Probate Judge.”
His mother, Wilma, worked in the office and after the surprise wore off she turned to the County Clerk Velma Hannah and said, “You’d better handle this one.” It was only minutes before the noon deadline to file.
“When I got back to Wathena I called the Attorney General’s office and asked what the residency requirements were for being Probate Judge. I was told there apparently were none but it was strongly suggested I should be a county resident,” Reiling said.
While campaigning he knocked on a door in Winchester and after introducing himself the man said, “Yer that liquor candidate?” Dennis replied that he had a 3.2 bar in Wathena and the man said, “Yep. Yer that liquor guy!”
He’s pretty sure he didn’t get that vote, but he won the primary election nevertheless.
The Wathena bar was called The Place, which drew a large clientele from the states of Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri. Some might recall that in those days 18-year-olds could drink 3.2 (alcohol content) beer in Kansas, so Wathena was conveniently located for the out-of-staters.
Reiling discovered the tavern by visiting a friend in that town and inquired as to why the street was full of cars. While visiting the bar, he joked with the owner about selling it to him and that conversation ended with a few chuckles.
Dennis called the owner shortly afterward and asked, “Were you serious about selling?”
He was, and was willing to finance the sale. After winning the elective office in Jefferson County, Dennis leased the bar for a short time and then sold it back to the original owner.
Reiling has split his time between Jefferson and Jackson counties in serving the judicial district, spending at least one day a week in Holton. There are two other magistrate judges in the 2nd District serving Wabaunsee and Pottawatomie counties.
The duties of a magistrate judge are extensive and Reiling has presided over small claims, limited civil, and some civil cases along with traffic court, and misdemeanor crime trials. With felony criminal cases, he handles first appearances, arraignments, preliminary hearings, and most issues up to the trial phase when the District Judge takes over.
Photos of the district judges in Jefferson County line one wall of the court room and Reiling has known four, stretching back to when he was in high school. Robert Kaul served from 1949 to 1965 and then advanced to the Supreme Court. He was followed by John W. Brookens, Tracy Klinginsmith, and Gary L. Nafziger.
“Judge Brookens was a mentor to me in the early days,” Reiling said.
Many things change over the course of 50 years and the one most glaring the judge pointed out was the drug scene.
“In the early years, it was all about marijuana. Today the drugs are much worse, especially methamphetamines,” he said.
Advancements in technology have changed the inner workings of the court system statewide. All cases are online and the system was working well until it was hit by a cyberattack in October 2023. It took four months and millions of dollars to overcome the attack.
“Most of the personnel had never filed cases using paper, so it was a struggle,” he said.
The judge is also able to sign papers remotely from whichever county he is in, so cases can be expedited more quickly.
“I used to have a large stack of paperwork waiting for me when I got to Holton, but now I can sign most of that before I get there,” he said.
When not dispensing justice or refereeing disputes, one sideline for this judge has been officiating at weddings, which he plans to continue when requested. He has united countless couples in matrimony over the past 50 years and had some unforgettable experiences.
“A lot of my weddings were in the courthouse. The couple may have two witnesses and if they didn’t have two the ladies in the clerk’s office would act as witnesses so we could proceed with their ceremony,” he said.
He often went to the bride and groom’s venue and that has included the Hilton President Hotel in Kansas City, Mo., dinner boat cruises at Rock Creek Marina, and the Lawrence airport where the groom parachuted in to meet the bride.
“One of my more memorable weddings is where the bride and groom flew me to California to Coronado Island and put me up at the Marriott resort,” he said. “I spent three days there doing the rehearsal and wedding.”
The bride wanted him to perform the ceremony for the reason that she and his daughter, Rynita, who was killed in a car wreck, were very close friends and she wanted him to be the person to perform her wedding ceremony. She married a pediatrician and she was a nurse.
“During those three days I had a chance to visit my childhood friend James Reynolds, an actor by the name of Abe Carver on ‘Days of Our Lives’ for probably the past 40 years. James and his wife, Lissa, live in South Pasadena,” he said.
The judge was given a retirement reception Dec. 19 at the Jackson County courthouse, his last day of duty in that county. He shared the event with retiring Holton attorney J. Richard Lake, whose Holton practice dates back to 1978.
Dennis has invited retired Chief Clerk of the Judicial District Connie (Stephens Milner) Valenta and retired District Judge Gary Nafziger to share his retirement reception on the 13th.
His replacement on the bench is Wellington native Brian Yearout, who will be moving to Jefferson County from Topeka. He has previously served as a deputy county attorney in both Jackson and Pottawatomie counties.
Dennis and his wife, Linda, reside in Oskaloosa. Linda has retired after a 31-year career with her own American Family Insurance agency.
It is also the 50th anniversary of the sudden and unexpected death of both of Dennis’s parents. His dad, Carl, who operated the Skelly gas station and built a station on US-59 and Walnut Street, died of a heart attack Dec. 19 and his mother, Wilma, died 10 weeks later (March 8) of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Wilma had worked in the county clerk’s office and also became Jefferson County’s first licensed appraiser.
Dennis and the late Connie Daniels have a brother, Terry, who was a senior in high school at the time they lost their parents.
Dennis and Linda together have four daughters, Rynette Reiling, McLouth, Rychelle Reiling, Portland, Ore., Heather Reid, Winchester, and Megan May, Oskaloosa. Dennis lost a daughter, Rynita, in an auto accident in 1993. She was 16 at the time.
They have six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren with one more expected soon.
The judge has had a couple of bouts of cancer, first in 2010 and again in 2016, but is free of the disease now and has every intention of remaining busy.
His “land yacht,” — a 1997 Lincoln Town Car with over 200,000 miles — continues to serve as the signpost in the area’s small towns that court is in session.