P. Luevonda Ross
December 2, 2016

Stephenson-Dearman Funeral Home 943 Highway 425 North Monticello, AR 71655 Map & Directions Stephenson-Dearman Funeral Home 943 Highway 425 North Monticello ,  AR 71657 12/9/2016 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm Map & Directions Funeral Service Monticello Middle School Auditorium Scogin Drive Monticello ,  AR 71655 12/10/2016 at 11:00 a.m. Map & Directions   Kennedy Blvd Cemetery Kennedy Blvd. Monticello, AR 71655 Map & Directions

The Honorable P. Luevonda Ross was born July 4, 1964, to the late James D. and Callie McCray Ross of Monticello, Arkansas. This bright light was extinguished from this earth on Friday, December 2, 2016 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

Judge Ross was a beautiful mind. She was an honor graduate of Monticello High School before earning her baccalaureate degree from Hendrix College in Conway. She also studied abroad at the University of London, and the University of Madrid. Through her travels, she enjoyed many plays and fell in love with Edinburgh, Scotland. She earned her Juris Doctorate of Law from the James E. Beasley School of Law at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Judge Ross was an incessant servant. She began her public service as a staff attorney at Central Arkansas Legal Services in Little Rock. She also served as a deputy prosecutor for both the 10th and 11th Judicial Districts. She worked in the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office in the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit as deputy attorney general. She additionally served as a staff attorney with the Office of Child Support Enforcement, while maintaining a private practice at the Ross Law Firm of Monticello.

Judge Ross relished her role as a professor. She was an associate professor of law at the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law at Faulkner University in Montgomery, Alabama, where she also served as the faculty adviser to the Black Law Student
Association. She coached the mock trial team to a national championship title in the Thurgood Marshall Mock Trial Competition. She received both the Professor of the Year and Coach of the Year Awards. She published an article on stand your ground laws in the 2007 edition of the Southern University Law Review. In addition to her time at Faulkner Law, she taught as an adjunct professor at Philander Smith College, University of Arkansas (Monticello), and at the University of Arkansas (Little Rock), William H. Bowen School of Law.

However, Judge Ross was drawn back to public service. So, after being appointed in 2012, in December 2014 she completed her term as Drew County District Court Judge, before announcing her ultimately successful bid to seek the position of 10th Judicial Circuit Judge, a position she would have assumed January 2017.
Judge Ross was a very accomplished and respected jurist. She was the Monticello-Drew County Chamber of Commerce 2014 Woman of the Year and was a recipient of the NAACP 2013 Leadership Award. She was a member of the Arkansas Bar Association, the W. Harold Flowers Law Society, and SEALI, the bar association for Southeast Arkansas.

Judge Ross loved the Lord and grew up as a child at Pilgrim Rest AME. In July 1983, she obeyed the Gospel of Christ and became a faithful member of the Church of Christ in Monticello. She taught Bible classes for women, and was a keynote speaker at women’s fellowship programs throughout the South. She enjoyed singing and was a member of several Christian a cappella groups, including: Virtuous, The Lewis Street Radio Chorus, and Vision.

Preceding her in death were her parents and her brother, Robert “Linell” (Carolyn) Binns of Monticello. She leaves devoted siblings: Calla (Joseph) Fisher, of Parsons, TN; Dewey Binns of Monticello; Quincey Ross of Granbury, TX; a host of nieces, nephews and cousins, and one very special cousin and friend, Vickey Jacobs.

One of her favorite passages of scripture is found in Micah 6:8, “He hath showed thee, O man, what was good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

Visitation will be held Friday, December 9, 2016 from 6-8 pm at Stephenson-Dearman Funeral Home. Funeral Services will be held at Monticello Middle School on Saturday, December 10, 2016 at 11 AM. Burial will follow in Kennedy Blvd. Cemetery in Monticello. Online guestbook www.stephensondearman.com.