Editor’s note: The Dispatch toured all five Lowndes County districts with their respective supervisor. The goal was to highlight each region’s unique aspects and challenges, and how that region’s supervisor approaches the job. We published each district’s story on five straight Mondays. Today, we present the series’ final installment: District 5.
Like several Lowndes County supervisors, Leroy Brooks is a native of his district.
Next year will mark his 32nd year to represent District 5, which mostly consists of western Lowndes County. He says there’s a story to tell about what happened there in that time. It’s the story of a transformation from an agrarian society into the county’s industrial hub.
“It takes on a more important perspective because when I look at all that development, to me it was just an area I played in as a kid,” Brooks said. “It was an area I hunted rabbits on and hauled hay. To see in my lifetime the transformation from old country farmland to a center of industrial development is very gratifying.”
Brooks said he’s proud to have been in office as the upstart industrial park morphed into an ever-growing GTR Global Aerospace Park. That came to be through the willingness of past and present county leaders to invest, as well as their partnership with economic development drivers, he said.
While this area generates a large share of the county’s property tax revenue, it’s like the other four districts, especially District 4, in terms of its people and needs.
Demographically, more than 75 percent of Districts 1, 2 and 3 are white, while District 4 is 80 percent black. District 5 is slightly more diverse, as 66 percent of its 11,649 residents are black, 32.1 percent are white and the remaining 221 people within its confines are of other racial backgrounds.
Its western- and northern-most points are the Oktibbeha County and Clay County lines. It bottoms out on the north side of Gilmer Wilburn Road. To the east, it takes portions of four Columbus wards. The most notable landmark of District 5 in the city limits is the Mississippi University for Women.
While the industrial park is typically associated with District 5, Brooks’ representation also includes Artesia, West Lowndes, Elm Lake, Prairie Waters and Mayhew, which is home to East Mississippi Community College’s Golden Triangle campus.
In recent years, improving fire protection and ratings there was a priority and prompted the opening of the Charles Younger fire station in 2010 and increased cooperation with East Oktibbeha County Volunteer Fire Department on calls in western portions of District 5. Lowndes County Volunteer Fire Department is in the planning stages of a three-bay station to replace an aging one in West Lowndes.
Currently, the biggest road project under construction is a 1-mile stretch of Old West Point Road. A failing box culvert there was replaced, and crews are now paving and widening the part of the road between West Bank Access Road and Younger Road. Because Old West Point Road is a state aid road, the Mississippi Office of State Aid Road Construction is funding the project.
Brooks said the road is a key thoroughfare as it is used to get to the Plymouth Bluff Center.
“It took about seven years,” Brooks said. “(A property owner) wouldn’t sell us the right of way. Once we started talking about imminent domain, he decided he’d work with us on it.
“You’ve got quite a few people moving over here,” he said multiple times during a tour of his district with The Dispatch. “One of the things that’s going to happen, you would suspect, is that people who get jobs at these plants, they want to be closer to their job. West Lowndes is probably going to become one of the largest white voting precincts because that’s where everybody’s gravitating. You’ve got the golf course and you’ve got these subdivisions. It’s kind of quiet out here.”
For his district, the two most needed improvements Brooks thinks will be necessary to better serve those who move there for faster access to their jobs are improved educational opportunities and the construction of a large-scale community park. The former is out of his hands, Brooks says, but a long-term project is in the works with Columbus Lowndes Recreation Authority staff to develop an area that would serve the recreational needs of western Lowndes County in an accessible spot for multiple communities.
“We’re kind of at a juncture now where the dynamic is changed after 30 years,” Brooks said. “These individual community centers in your neighborhoods are good for some things, but let’s look and find 10 acres somewhere. Let’s build a nice community center, a track and two or three baseball and softball fields where you can bring people together and have family reunions and church activities that are big in the area. I think as we move forward, a lot of things are going to be regional. It’s just easier to maintain, but in time we can put something together that’s going to bring people together in a laid-back kind of environment.”
Early in Brooks’ tenure as supervisor, the establishment of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway prompted requests for boat ramps. There are now two, thanks to communication between Brooks, county leaders and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Although they were completed years ago, Brooks said they’re still projects he’s proud to have had a part in seeing through. One of the ramps is informally nicknamed after him.
“I don’t know how it became to be Leroy’s Landing,” he laughed. “Everybody just started calling it that. That’s kind of a name that stuck with it over the years. It’s used a lot. These ramps in the summertime are used a lot, but those are the kind of things that are unique to the district.”
One thing Brooks said believes he does more than his colleagues is marrying couples. As a supervisor, he has the same authority as a justice court judge. He said he’s often married military personnel who are about to be deployed and want to exchange vows with significant others before they leave.
Most importantly though, he said he tries to be a conduit between the people he’s elected to serve and the people who oversee county operations.
“In many instances, some of our constituents do not know how to access the network,” Brooks said. “We become the person they call.”
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.