Two new Chancery Court judges whose districts include Webster County will soon be taking their oaths of office.
Paula Drungole-Ellis and Rodney P. Faver will be new chancellors in the 14th District, which encompasses Chickasaw, Clay, Lowndes, Noxubee, Oktibbeha and Webster counties.
Drungole-Ellis will take her oath at 11 a.m. Friday while Faver will take his at 11 a.m. Jan. 4, both at the Oktibbeha County Courthouse in Starkville (chancery courtroom)
Senior Chancellor Dorothy W. Colom will administer the oath of office to Drungole-Ellis. Colom, who has served since January 1995, will retire Monday. Drungole-Ellis will become senior chancellor of the district.
She has served by appointment as Oktibbeha County Youth Court referee for the past 9½ years. She has practiced law in the Golden Triangle area for 32 years and is a former part-time professor at Mississippi State University.
Drungole-Ellis serves on the Judicial Task Force for Excellence in Education, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and the Methodist Senior Services board of directors.
The Oktibbeha County native was valedictorian of Maben High School. She earned a bachelor of science degree from Rust College, graduating summa cum laude, and a law degree from the University of Kansas Law School in Lawrence.
Faver’s predecessor, Chancellor Kenneth Burns, will administer the oath to him. Burns, who has served since January 2003, will also retire Monday.
Faver served as part-time Starkville municipal judge for nine years. He previously served as Starkville city attorney and prosecuting attorney, and as Oktibbeha County prosecutor. More than 21 years of his 30 years of private law practice focused primarily on Chancery Court.
He practiced law in Florida before returning to Starkville. There, Faver was a supervising assistant state attorney in the State Attorney’s Office in Broward County. He also was a senior litigation attorney for Cigna Insurance in Florida. He is a member of the Mississippi Bar and Florida State Bar.
Faver earned a bachelor of arts degree from MSU and a law degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law. He also studied at the University of Cambridge College of Law in England.
