Hutch Post expresses its sincere thanks to Judge McCarville's court reporter Angela Schultz, for the detailed biography that makes up the bulk of this article.
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — District Judge Joe McCarville is retiring, and Chief Judge Patricia Macke Dick is inviting those with memories of "Joe Mac" to share to a reception Jan. 5 from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the third-floor courtroom in the Reno County Courthouse designated Division One.
McCarville has been a leader from his youth, having received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York entering on July 1, 1965, and joining the Class of 1969.
As a cadet, he at first had to work hard to keep up with the academic load but by the third year made it onto the Dean's List. Athletically, he helped his Company in intramurals with two years on the track team, two years cross country team and two years on the triathlon team. That team won the Brigade Championship his last year and he won the Brigade Open individual championship. He was selected as the Company F-3 Most Valuable Athlete for the 1968-1969 academic year.
He also was on the intercollegiate pistol team (an actual varsity sport!) four years earning a varsity A as a scoring member of the team that beat Navy. He graduated June 4th, 1969, as a Second Lieutenant, Infantry, Regular Army.
After graduation he attended the Parachute School at Ft. Benning, GA, followed by the Jumpmaster School, Ranger School and Infantry Officers Basic School followed by assignment to the 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg, NC. There he served as a Rifle Platoon leader in B Company, 1st Bn, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment for a month before being selected to lead the Battalion Reconnaissance and Surveillance platoon.
After five months in the 82nd Airborne, he received orders to Vietnam.
Before being deployed, he attended the Jungle Warfare School at Ft. Sherman in the Panama Canal Zone and earned the Jungle Warfare Expert badge. Finally, arriving in Vietnam in August 1970 he discovered that the Division he had volunteered for, the First Infantry Division, had been redeployed to Ft. Riley, KS.
He was instead assigned to the 101st Airborne Division in northern I Corps, just south of the DMZ. He served for seven months as an infantry platoon leader. After dozens of helicopter air assaults, and hundreds of days patrolling and nights conducting ambushes or overnight defenses, he was promoted to company executive officer running the company's rear operations out of Camp Evans.
That job lasted two months until he became the Battalion Assistant Operations Officer for Air. The last four months in Vietnam were on firebases and in command-and-control helicopters, tracking the movements of his battalion's companies, planning, and directing helicopter air assaults and planning and directing air support missions.
McCarville returned stateside in August 1971 to Fort Riley, Kansas and was assigned to Division Headquarters of the Big Red One, detailed to the "General Staff' branch and worked as an operations officer. After a few months training in the field at Fort Riley and in Germany he had the good fortune to meet Diane Deffenbaugh Hewitt. Thirty-four days later they were engaged and five and a half months after that they were married.
After three years at Fort Riley, he left the Army to enter law school at Washburn. The second day of classes, their daughter, Amy was born.
During his last year of law school Joe was able to do internships at the Lyon County Attorney's office, the Washburn Legal Clinic, and the Shawnee County District Attorney's office.
In Shawnee County he worked with, but not for, Joe O'Sullivan. After graduation he was able to stay on as an Assistant DA until offered a position by O'Sullivan in the Reno County Attorney's Office.
The family bought a house and moved to Hutchinson at the end of March 1978. Diane was pregnant and son David was born in July.
O'Sullivan was elected County Attorney in November of 1980 and resigned in August 1981. McCarville was selected by the Republican Central Committee to serve the rest of his term.
In August 1982, he lost the Republican primary for DA to Timothy Chambers.
In January 1983 he joined Rauh, Thorne, Robinson, and Childs as an associate. Later he became a partner and with the passing of Ralph Thorne, and Charles Rauh and departure of John Robinson, the joining of David Brown who later passed away and the merger with Ron Leslie and Paul Brown the firm was known as Leslie, O'Sullivan, McCarville, and Brown.
In 2002, McCarville ran for District Judge in the August primary, defeating David Holmes. He then lost a hard-fought general election to Richard Rome that November.
In 2004, he ran in the August Republican primary for District Magistrate Judge against five opponents and was successful. He faced the winner of the two-way Democrat primary, Randal McEwen and was again successful.
After two years as Magistrate, he ran in the 2006 Republican primary against Thomas Stanton and Rick Roberts. After the primary victory he faced Sarah McKinnon who he defeated in the November general election.
After four years as the Division III District Judge, he helped to organize the Reno County Drug Court. After about ten months of recruiting, organizing, and training, the Drug Court had it's first session in March 2011.
Since then, hundreds of seriously addicted people, who also faced multiple barriers to successful treatment and sobriety, have graduated with lives of recovery, stable jobs, restored family relationships and community involvement. They left behind crime, addiction, and incarceration.
In his two years as Magistrate Judge and continuing as District Judge, McCarville presided over all the civil protection from abuse and stalking cases for 17 years. He had asked for that case load because he felt his 22 years of private practice handling hundreds of divorce and custody cases gave him an advantage in assisting those families.
McCarville has been a shooter and a runner almost all his life. In addition to his competitive shooting while a cadet, he has continued as a competitive shooter in rifle and pistol, as well as an NRA Certified Firearms Instructor.
McCarville runs for exercise and recreation and has competed in running road races and in triathlons.
He has served on various boards of non-profits and was a volunteer Boy Scout leader for over 20 years earning Order of the Arrow Vigil, Brotherhood and Vigil Honor degrees and receiving the District Award of Merit and from the Council the Silver Beaver Award.
Refreshments will be served at McCarville's reception and there will be presentations and speakers at 3:30 p.m. Jan. 5. This will include an opportunity for friends to share any stories or thoughts and well wishes for Judge McCarville.