Saint Paul -- Governor Tim Pawlenty today announced the appointment of Mark M. Starr to a Sixth Judicial District trial court bench vacancy in the Sixth Judicial District in the city of Hibbing in St. Louis County. The opening occurred with the retirement of the Honorable Jeffry S. Rantala on October 31, 2003.

Starr is a senior assistant St. Louis County attorney in Virginia. He has been with the St. Louis county attorney's office since 1988. Starr was an attorney with the Hibbing law firm of Matonich and Persson from 1983 to 1988; a law clerk for Sixth Judicial District Judge Joseph Scherkenbach in Hibbing from 1982 to 1983; and an attorney with the Minneapolis law firm of Peterson, Engberg and Peterson in 1982. Starr earned his juris doctorate degree from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1981 and his bachelor of arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1978.

"Mark has a sense of compassion and a personal style that will make people who appear before him as a judge feel comfortable and that he takes a personal interest in their case," Governor Pawlenty said. "In addition, his active involvement in the Hibbing community serve him well as a judge."

Starr is co-chairperson of the Northern St. Louis County Multi-disciplinary Child Protection Team, past president and a member of the Range Bar Association, a member of the Minnesota State Bar Association, and serves the Children's Justice Initiative St. Louis County Core Team. He is currently chair of the board of directors of the Star Lake United Methodist Wilderness Camp, president of the Hibbing Soccer Club, a girls soccer coach, and is active in Wesley United Methodist Church in Hibbing, where he served as a lay leader and is currently on the finance committee. He was a Boy Scout leader, and delivers meals on wheels to the less-fortunate.

Starr, 47, was born in Minneapolis and resides in Hibbing with his wife, Suzanne, and their two children, Troy, 16, and Julia, 14.