Today is Byron L. Kinder's last day as a judge.
Because Missouri's Constitution required him to "retire" from the bench no later than June 25, 2003 - his 70th birthday - Kinder didn't run for re-election in 2002, and officially retired at the end of that year.
But the Constitution also allows retired judges to continue working as "senior" judges, by assignment of the state Supreme Court, and under its rules.
And Kinder has been doing that "senior" work for the last decade - helping the Cole County circuit court with a number of its cases, and carrying a nearly full docket in Miller County for about eight years.
"I'm going to be 80 next month," Kinder said in an interview this week. "I just decided that, at 80, it's about time to hang it up."
Throughout that 40-year career, he said, there were too many cases to cite any as highlights.
Still, Kinder said: "I think the thing that I found fascinating was the school foundation formula case (in 1993) that went on and on and on, with witnesses and experts from all over the country.
"It was fascinating, and a very complex process, the way they funded schools."
Eventually, Kinder would rule that funding for Missouri's public schools ranged "from the golden to the god-awful," and was unconstitutional.
Lawmakers wrote an entirely new funding formula and created a new way of testing students' learning - the Missouri Assessment Program that has continued through this year, with some changes along the way.
"We went through that whole drill - and I don't think much has changed since then," he said this week. "The final analysis on the thing, there's just not an equitable way to do it."
Kinder said he never woke up thinking, ""I really don't want to go to work' - especially being a judge here in Cole County, you get all these very interesting, complex cases from all over the state, from all over the country."
Because Cole County is the seat of state government, lawsuits against the state and its agencies - and challenges to the Constitution and to the petition campaigns that seek to change the laws or the Constitution - form an interesting and challenging part of the job.
On the other hand, he said, family law and juvenile law were the most difficult for him to handle.
"Nobody's happy with those things," he said, "but it's the lion's share of the business, or at least it used to be."
His original dream was to be a West Point graduate and pursue a military career. "But I flunked the math exam to get in," he recalled.
Instead, he got a chance to work as a U.S. Capitol policeman while going to George Washington University - and law school followed.
"I figured at that time, it was the last bastion of the individual," he explained.
Kinder has been a judge just over half his lifetime, first winning election in 1972, when then-Prosecutor Kinder defeated Jefferson City Municipal Judge McCormick Wilson in the Democratic Party's August primary election.
Kinder faced no opposition in any primary or general election after that first one, through his last election in November 1996.
Mid-Missouri lawyers often tell stories of Kinder's giving them a lecture on being prepared while in his court.
He said he may miss "lawyers, believe it or not" the most in his new retirement.
"I like the interplay," Kinder said. "I like to watch the way lawyers work.
"I may have been a little stern with them; you have to watch lawyers like horses - you don't want to let the bridle too loose on them, or they may run away with you."
Visiting with doctors, mowing the lawn and playing with the dogs are the things he expects to do most in the coming years.
Kinder hopes people will remember him as being a fair judge over the years, and noted that "being a judge is not a science, but an art form."
Though he applied once to be on the state Supreme Court - and was one of the three people nominated to the governor - he wasn't chosen, and later decided he preferred the contact with people a trial judge gets.
But Kinder still believes judges in outstate Missouri should be elected to office - but he thinks the elections should be "on a non-political ticket, (which) would force people to determine who would be the best judge, not who is in the party they prefer.
"What the hell is political, if you're an honest judge, about being a judge? If you're a decent, honest person and you follow the law in doing your job - there shouldn't be a political issue involved."