Ronald Peresich, dedicated Biloxi attorney who helped shape MS Coast, dies at 82

He always showed up.

Even after busy days of work, longtime attorney Ronald Peresich still went to his children’s sporting events when they were young, no matter if he had to bring paperwork to the bleachers or if it was 95 degrees and he was wearing a suit.

“It was important to him,” said Randi Mueller, his daughter, who is now a circuit court judge.

“Even back then, we knew that was special,” said Ron Peresich Jr., his son.

Peresich, who served Biloxi for decades as a prosecutor then city attorney, lobbied relentlessly for locals after Hurricane Katrina and whose drive and devotion helped shape the Mississippi Coast, died last week. He was 82.

His work influenced major policy issues that changed the trajectory of the region. He saw casinos as a path to economic revival, guided insurance wind pool reform, pushed to create a four-year university here and helped land a minor league baseball team. He also became an influential lobbyist in Jackson, where his efforts were often pro bono.

He worked closely with top state politicians and served many years as the managing partner of Page, Mannino, Peresich & McDermott. He was a trial lawyer licensed to practice in Mississippi, Arkansas and Georgia, and he represented big companies, individuals and local businesses. His wife, Ramona, said he was not drawn to the spotlight. But he thought deeply about how to make a difference.

“When he saw a need, he worked at it,” she said. “He thought other people should do the same thing.”

Over the years, he instilled that value in his colleagues and sometimes labored through weekends and nights. He believed a person’s word is their bond. And he was also a mentor who helped young lawyers with career decisions and hired women attorneys at a time when it was uncommon.

“He gave me really strong female role models,” Mueller said. “I didn’t grow up ever thinking I couldn’t do what he did.”

Impact and honors

Peresich grew up on Hopkins Boulevard in Biloxi. He believed cities across the Coast should work together and became involved in civic and business groups in the late 1980s and early ‘90s.

“A lot of people here at the time were realizing that unless the Coast found a way to present a united position to decision makers in Jackson, we weren’t going to progress,” Peresich told the Sun Herald in 2007. “We were competing with ourselves.”

He traveled often to the Capitol after Hurricane Katrina and also ventured across the Coast to look for people who needed help. Ramona Peresich said her husband took a ride into the woods with other leaders one day after the storm. She said they found a woman with three children who had been alone for a week and had used what remained of her home to build a lean-to. Once they knew where she was, they could alert aid groups. And they kept driving, searching for survivors who had not yet been found.

Along the way, his accolades stacked up. Peresich was named one of the country’s best lawyers for commercial litigation and toxic torts, selected one of Mississippi’s top 50 lawyers and earned the Spirit of the Coast Award in 2000. He was named an outstanding citizen by the Biloxi Lions Club and helped found a group of business leaders called Coast 21, which became the Gulf Coast Business Council. And he was king of the Gulf Coast Carnival Association on its 100th anniversary in 2008.

“He was very honored,” Ramona Peresich said.

Soft-hearted attorney

Peresich was the eldest of five children and attended Ole Miss on a baseball scholarship. He played on the team that in 1964 won the SEC championship. He also pitched for Ole Miss in the College World Series.

He was a young baseball player when he met his wife at an Ole Miss sorority party he had been dragged to by his sister. Ramona Peresich said she was standing on the house’s stately spiral staircase when she saw him in the crowd below. He noticed her too.

He worked three jobs to pay his way through law school and, at one point, hitchhiked from Oxford to visit Ramona in her hometown of Meridian with just $20 to his name. He later served as a law clerk to the Mississippi Supreme Court’s Chief Justice W.N. Ethridge, Jr. before the couple moved to Biloxi in 1969.

Here, he sometimes let his children watch jury trials.

“That’s really what inspired me to become a lawyer,” Ron Peresich Jr. said. “I just remember how impressed I was with the way he did it and I thought that’s what I want to do.”

For all his hard work, he was also soft-hearted. His family says they could never stop him from getting out of the car on a busy street to rescue a turtle. He would give money to people on the side of the road. He liked to golf. And he supported the Humane Society and owned dozens of dogs over the decades, many of them poodles, which he would sometimes bring with him to the office.

He joked with his children when they were young that before he married their mother, he used to be Superman. The family still has photos of him wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the hero’s classic symbol.

“We believed that when we were kids, we really did,” Mueller said. “He was Superman to us.”

This story was originally published May 30, 2025 at 9:19 AM.