For just the second time in the history of Marion County, a supervisor will serve as President of the Mississippi Association of Supervisors.
District 5 Supervisor Calvin Newsom has been selected to represent the entire state on behalf of all supervisors and will begin his one-year term when he is sworn in on June 16 at 8 a.m. at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi on the final day of the MAS 2022 Annual Convention, which begins Monday.
Newsom said he has been asked to run for President for several years, but one of his best friends, Melton Harris of Jackson County, who was scheduled to serve as president, died of a sudden and massive heart attack. With the urging of the Board of Directors, Executive Director and other members of the MAS, Newsom finally agreed to serve as President.
“They asked if I would consider taking my friend’s place, and I told them I would,” he said.
Although he was initially reluctant to take the position, Newsom added it means a whole lot to him to be able to honor his friend in such an esteemed way.
“It is a grand privilege to serve as the president of such an organization. There’s 410 supervisors in the state in the organization, and to be asked to serve multiple times and even this time to go ahead and accept that offer, it feels like I’m doing the best I can to carry on what Mr. Melton would’ve done,” he said. “He would’ve served well, and so will I. I will give 110% to make the Mississippi Association of Supervisors a place that is better than the way I found it.”
Newsom, who served as the First Vice President to Chris McIntire (Choctaw County) over the past year, said the MAS is an association like many others throughout the state and country. It advocates on behalf of all supervisors across the state, lobbies legislature to either pass or not pass certain bills, according to Newsom.
“Some bills that are passed actually take money away. Some bills cause the supervisors headaches because we have to come up with the money even though it was passed in Jackson or on the federal level,” he explained. “We try to lobby against that and change the legislature’s mind and get them to see why we are for or against that situation.”
The only other supervisor from Marion County to serve as MAS President was W.M. (Pat) Patterson, who also represented District 5 in the county, in 1972. Newsom considers it a great honor to represent Marion County at the state level and be a voice for the supervisors of Mississippi.
