Attorney Robert R. Bailess is in line to become Vicksburg’s first president of the Mississippi Bar Association in 90 years.

&#8220I’m just very humbled by it,” said Bailess, who will take office in 2007. &#8220I never had any intention of doing anything like this.”

The bar association is the statewide organization for lawyers to deal with such questions as professional ethics, discipline, unlawful practice of law, educational requirements, distribution of information, public relations and research in problems of legislative and judicial reform. It has more than 7,000 members, including about 108 from Vicksburg.

The association’s current president is Joy Lambert Phillips of Gulfport and its current president-elect is C. York Craig Jr. of Jackson, spokesman Gail Gettis said.

Bailess will take office as president-elect Aug. 1, with his term as president to begin a year later, Gettis said.

The bar’s bylaws provide that nominees for president-elect be alternated among its three districts, North, South and Hinds. Each district has about a third of the association’s members.

Vicksburg is in the North District. Also in the running for president-elect for the same term was Harold H. Mitchell Jr. of Greenville.

The nominees are chosen by the MBA’s nominating committee and campaigning by prospective candidates themselves is forbidden, Bailess said.

The president of the Warren County Bar Association, Judge Johnny Price of Warren County Court and Youth Court, said Bailess’ election reflects highly not only on him personally but also on the entire county association.

&#8220We’re proud that Bobby was elected,” Price said. &#8220He’s a former Warren County Bar Association President and he’s been very active on the state level. This shows just what a dedicated person he is to the furtherance of the bar association.”

Others from the Vicksburg area who are serving as MBA directors are Bobby D. Robinson of Vicksburg and Allen L. Burrell of Port Gibson, who are representing their respective circuit-court districts on the MBA board.

Bailess is a Vicksburg native and has practiced for 29 years with the Vicksburg firm Wheeless, Shappley, Bailess & Rector.

Bailess holds undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Mississippi.

He and his wife, Natalie, are members of Crawford Street United Methodist Church, where he has served on the board of trustees and as chairman of the administrative board.

Bailess has served as campaign chairman and president of the United Way of West Central Mississippi, district chairman of the Andrew Jackson Council of the Boy Scouts of America, president of the Vicksburg YMCA Board of Directors, board member of the Vicksburg Warren County Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the board of the Vicksburg-Warren County Economic Development Foundation and president of the board of directors of the Ole Miss M Club Alumni Association.

He currently serves as a board member of the YMCA, the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Ole Miss M Club Alumni Association, the UM Alumni Association, the UM Foundation and as a member of the UM Athletic Committee. He is also chairman of the board of the Vicksburg Convention Center and of the Vicksburg Warren Community Alliance.

Bailess was elected in balloting that ended Jan. 17.

Two other Vicksburg attorneys were president of the bar association since it was organized in its current form, in 1905, Gettis said.

Murray F. Smith served in 1906 and was installed during the first annual meeting of the bar in Gulfport, and A.A. Armistead served in 1917.

Smith was reported in the Jan. 26, 1906, Daily Clarion Ledger to have made &#8220a strong argument against letting the present loose system of legal practice in the state continue.”

The first state bar association in the United States was organized in Natchez in 1821, MBA information says.

That organization remained active for four years. A second voluntary bar association was formed in 1886, remaining active until 1892, the MBA says.

&#8220The leading lawyers of the day convinced the Legislature to enact the Unified Bar Act in 1932, to the end that every practicing attorney in the state was automatically made a member of the Mississippi State Bar subject to its rules and regulations,” the MBA says.

Bailess said he had yet to develop his agenda for his term as president.

&#8220It’s a very time-consuming job,” Bailess said.

&#8220It’s a great opportunity to be asked to lead the bar association, and I’m looking forward to it.”