The two newly elected McComb board members come from families that found ways to serve others, but not necessarily as elected officials.
On July 1, Terri Waterman-Baylor will be the Ward 3 selectwoman and Bruce Mullins will be the Ward 5 selectman.
Waterman-Baylor defeated incumbent Devante Johnson while Mullins beat incumbent Ronnie Brock in last week’s Democratic primary, winning the seats outright since there are no other candidates awaiting in the general election in June.
Waterman-Baylor said she is the first elected official in her family while Mullins said his brother, Centreville Alderman Dennis Wilson, was the only elected official in his family until now.
Waterman-Baylor said a road in Magnolia, where she is originally from, was named after her grandfather, the late J.J. Carter Sr.
“He was a farmer,” she said. “He worked with the district supervisors in Pike County advocating the needs for the citizens for farming, and he was deacon at Sherman Missionary Baptist Church.”
Waterman-Baylor also said her grandfather served in the U.S. Marine Corps.
“I learned (from him) how to be a servant to our community, learned how to understand the needs of our community,” she said. “I just learned how to give back, give and give out with love.”
Waterman-Baylor said her other grandfather, Joseph Waterman Sr., served in the Army and her grandmothers, Willie Mae Carter and Julia B. Waterman, were instrumental in her life.
Waterman-Baylor said her mother, Mary Waterman, was the first Black nurse at the McComb Infirmary in 1958 and father, Joseph Waterman, retired from the Mississippi Department of Transportation.
Waterman-Baylor, a graduate of South Pike High School and Alcorn State University, holds a bachelor’s degree in family consumer science with a minor in child development. She earned a master’s degree from Concordia University in educational leadership in 2018.
She said her parents stressed the importance of education, and it was a message that stuck. She is now a teacher at South Pike High School.
Her sisters, Dr. Sherry Waterman-Chapman and Joan Anne Waterman, both earned agricultural education degrees from Alcorn State.
She said her uncle, the late Charles Waterman, was the first Black deputy sheriff in Pike County.
Mullins said his family also is rooted in service to others. He credited his mother Dorothy Mullins, who died at 48, with teaching all three of her kids to serve.
“When you look back at the kind of mother, she was a very inclusive individual,” he said. “Everybody liked her.
“She gave us a healthy sense of respect for the people around us. She talked to us about things. Most parents will shelter their children from things that are bad that are happening around us. I think we were able to see the message of domestic abuse in the neighborhood.”
Mullins said his mother helped domestic abuse victims and would have people over for meals when they would not otherwise be able to eat.
“That wasn’t the kind of thing my mother would have pointed out,” he said. “You learn to appreciate people for who they are, not what they have.”
Mullins is a 1973 McComb High School graduate, earned a degree in business administration from Mississippi Valley State University in 1978, then went to Jackson State University to work toward his master’s in business administrator, but made up his mind he was not having enough fun at his age and moved to New Orleans, where he taught accounting and business management courses at a college-level trade school.
Mullins later moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area, back to New Orleans, and home to McComb. He worked for Amtrak for 36 years, retired as the district manager of station operations and is a part-time tax preparer at Jackson-Hewitt.
Waterman-Baylor’s daughter Jazmine Amelia Baylor was the class 2016 valedictorian at McComb High School, graduate of Tougaloo College 2020 with a degree biology pre-med and is expected to graduate from Morehouse School of Medicine on May 21.
Mullins was a single parent to his daughter Ashley.
Both incoming officials plan to use the next two months to learn about their new positions.
Waterman-Baylor plans to be a “servant to the people” and encourages everyone to vote in Tuesday’s Democratic primary runoff. The mayor, Ward 4 and selectman at-large races will be on the ballot.
“The first thought I would like for every citizen is to come out and vote May 17,” he said. “Before we have any thoughts, we have to come out and vote. We can’t go any further unless the citizens go out and vote. We need them to trust the new board. There’s a lot of doubt. They need to exercise their right to vote.”
Mullins said he plans to focus on making sure all audits are completed and getting city finances in order when taking office.
“I want to see a board that can cooperate as a whole, an intelligent board that not only understands his or her ward, but what is good for the entire city,” he said.
