In 11th term, Mayor Mary isn’t finished

Throughout her lengthy and admired reign, Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins-Butler has been a person of integrity and conviction, essential to governing so effectively for four decades, she says.

Drawing no opponent in this spring’s municipal elections, Hawkins-Butler has in effect earned an 11th term, having first been elected in 1981. She has faced no formidable opposition since.

“It was a feeling of relief,” Hawkins-Butler said of not garnering an opponent.

“I have been a little controversial,” Hawkins Butler said of her time in office. “I stand by my convictions and beliefs and have never wavered from that.”

When she was first elected Mayor of Madison after serving one term as an alderman, Hawkins-Butler said she had no roadmap for the development of the city.

“We redefined economic development and made housing our economic development,” Hawkins-Butler said. “We wanted to create a community where people wanted to live with their families in a safe community with good schools and a place people we were proud to call home.”

By putting houses and residential community development first, Hawkins-Butler said the city turned down some businesses and opportunities that many other communities would have loved to have.

“We didn’t accept anything and everything just to create a tax base,” Hawkins-Butler said. “We went the other way using good building codes and designs to create a community.”

Hawkins-Butler said she and other people in the community believed that if the city grew the population, business would come because of the demographics.

Denson Robinson, who worked under Hawkins-Bulter as Madison’s public works director for 30 years, said he was proud to be a part of the team that was building Madison.

“I felt like we were headed in the right direction and a lot of times we second-guessed ourselves but that is not unusual in the business that we were in, building a city,” Robinson said. “In the long run we must have done something right.”

Lucille Nichols, executive director of the Home Place, a retirement community in Madison, said she has known Hawkins-Butler since before she became mayor.

“She is irreplaceable,” Nichols said. “Just look at the progress that she has made for the City of Madison for all of our residents. The advancement of design. Her unique and original ideas and her intelligence are just beyond comparison.”

Nichols, who has lived in Madison since 1968, said she supported Hawkins-Butler from the beginning.

In her first term as mayor, Hawkins-Butler said the population of Madison was 2,200 people.

Hawkins-Butler said she held town meetings to hear from residents about what they wanted their community to be as it grew and developed.

“Madison was a small town that they didn’t want to lose the charm of what was called the area’s historical district,” she said. 

“We wanted it known that we did not want to be an extension of Jackson or Ridgeland. We wanted you to know when you came to Madison. That was our goal. We immediately went to work on land use, on zoning ordinances.”

Hawkins-Butler and a group of Madison leaders used Germantown, Tennessee, as an example of how to create the type of community they wanted Madison to become.

“It was the closest one for us to visit and see the results of their work and to see that we really could make it happen,” Hawkins-Butler said.

The Jaycees organized a trip for Madison community leaders to travel to Germantown and meet with that city’s leaders, she said.

“Germantown hosted Madison Day, and we discussed what could be for Madison,” Hawkins-Butler said, adding leaders realized that “this is not just a pipe dream. We can do this.”

Hawkins-Butler said the approach of developing a housing community to bring business was considered a backward approach to economic development at the time and was a new concept for Mississippi.

“I have said many, many times that Madison has set the standard for policy on how to build a city, and that’s the way you look at it,” she said. “We were building a city for tomorrow. We did not accept anything and everything … to create a tax base, because if we had, we would have been just another suburb.”

For the efforts of staying true to that mission over the years, Hawkins-Butler said Madison has earned state and national accolades.

“Madison has drawn the attention of Red Book Magazine, of Family Circle, of Good Housekeeping, Southern Living, and we have been ranked as one of the top communities in the country,” she said. “We have been deemed Mississippi’s most successful city, Mississippi’s safest city and the list goes on.” 

Hawkins-Butler said the accolades are not due to her efforts alone.

“It is because of the hard work of so many people,” she said.

Looking back at her early days in office, Hawkins-Butler said she had naysayers who questioned her judgment as a young mayor, and she had to stay the course with the help and support of people in the community who shared the vision of what Madison could become.

“We never lost sight of our dream,” Hawkins-Butler said, acknowledging that the original plan has been modified and tweaked over the years “as all good plans are.”

“The bottom line is, we treated housing as our industry, and we focused on the place that people want to live here, and we put policies in place for residential development first and knew that if the people would come, the businesses would follow because they would have a market,” Hawkins-Butler said. 

“We were creating our own marketplace.”

The formula has worked. Madison now has approximately 28,000 residents as Hawkins-Butler is entering her 11th term as mayor and many major retailers and chains have outlets in Madison. 

All of those businesses, however, had to work within Madison’s strict codes and guidelines for such developments.

Hawkins-Butler said Madison has taken baby steps over the years, and she has had to overcome challenges along the way, including lawsuits against the city, and her personally, over developments, including a well-known battle with Walmart.

“Madison is in a great location and there were those who didn’t want any rules to play by,” Hawkins-Butler said. “Everybody knows about the battle of Walmart. That went on for years and years. Every city and every town wants a Walmart. Walmart was welcome but we had visions of brick and columns.”

Hawkins-Butler said the battle garnered plenty of press coverage including political cartoons and Walmart even produced a survey to see if she would be re-elected.

“They were going to wait me out,” Hawkins-Butler said with a laugh, adding, “I need to write a book.”

Walmart eventually relented and built the Walmart location to Madison’s standards.

Nichols said she never doubted Hawkins-Butler’s ability to prevail with her ideas.

“When she could confront people like the CEO of Walmart, I think she is capable of handling herself with anybody,” Nichols said.

Robinson said he believes Hawkins-Butler has succeeded in building a great city.

“It is obvious that she has done a very good job,” Robinson said. “If you look around the way Madison has grown and the property values and the number of people that continue to move in here they were pleased with something that’s going on. The property values remain high and we are trying to get more and more businesses in here to make life a little more comfortable for everybody. I think she has done a good job.”

Robinson agreed Hawkins-Butler has stayed true to her convictions.

“She had a vision and her saying always was. ‘If you build the rooftops, the rest of it will come and they will come in a quality manner,’” Robinson said. “I believe that is what happened. The property values on the older homes are very well and they continue to build new homes are record rates new lots and new subdivision. Anytime you take the approach that she took, we took, there are going to be some naysayers in the group and some never got over it and some did. I think we obviously made the right decisions based on what the city is today.”

For her next term, Hawkins-Butler said she hopes to focus more on the Madison Historical District.

“We have gotten to the point where we are proud to say we are Mississippi’s Safest City, we are proud to say this is a place where people want to live and now we look at things we preserve,” Hawkins-Butler said. “That is the Historic District of Madison, the area between U.S. 51 and the old school — the red brick building that is the school and the gym. Around that area on Main Street. We fought for 20 years just to protect Main Street. MDOT wanted to come in and five-lane it, make it a thoroughfare and it was a battle. How many people would fight for 20 years? Then we got the bypass. The parkway. Now that we have that area secured, now we can go to work.”

Hawkins-Butler said construction of the historic Madison archway, the Half Shell Oyster House and the Village at Madison developments are just the beginning of the Maidson Historic District development and that more is coming.

“It is all in the timing,” she said.

Nichols said she supports Hawkins-Butler’s efforts in the Historic District around Main Street.

“I’d like to see it completed,” Nichols said.

Robinson said he expects more of the same from Hawkins-Butler in her 11th term.

“I know we are dealing with new businesses wanting to come to town and the subdivisions,” Robinson said. “It will be more of the same, I’m sure. I think what she is doing continues to be good.”

One of the aspects of being mayor that Hawkins-Butler said she enjoys is speaking to students at area elementary schools.

“I tell the children to dream big,” she said, adding one of her favorite things is having a young parent come to her and thank her for speaking to their child’s class and saying she had spoken to their class when they were in school.

Hawkins-Butler said she enjoys sharing tidbits with the students about the city’s history, including that it was once the strawberry capital of the world and she emphasizes that police officers are their friends and firemen teach them how to drop and roll in a fire.

“They teach them how to take care of themselves and the importance of calling the number 911,” Hawkins-Butler said. “I talk to them about being mayor, and that they can be mayor, too.”

The lessons come from experience. Over her years as mayor of Madison, Hawkins-Butler said she has learned a few things and among those are, “Never give up. Don’t stop seeing your dream. I always said Madison is worth fighting for.”