Matherne Announces Candidacy for Brownsville Mayor’s Race

Jo Matherne, a Brownsville native and Vice President of INSOUTH Bank, is the first candidate to announce for the upcoming race for Mayor of Brownsville. Longtime City Mayor Webb Banks will retire when his term ends in 2010, and Matherne’s announcement opens the campaign season for his replacement.

“I am looking forward to a very active campaign,” Matherne said in a prepared release. “We have a lot to talk about here in Brownsville, and I look forward to getting the message of my candidacy and my qualifications out to everyone in our community over these next few months.”

Matherne is the daughter of the late Judge Kirby and Betty Matherne, and was born and raised in Brownsville. She was married to the late Dick Meschendorf for 23 years before his death in 2006. She earned undergraduate and Master’s degrees from UT, Knoxville; and spent over 20 years in banking and as a private business owner in Knoxville before moving back to Brownsville in 1998.

Since 1998, Matherne has been corporate Marketing Director for INSOUTH Bank, which is headquartered in Brownsville; and has been a very active volunteer in the community. She is currently Chair of the Board of Trustees for Leadership Haywood County, Treasurer of Habitat for Humanity, and Board member for Reading Railroad (Haywood County’s Imagination Library affiliate).

She is a 2002 graduate of WestStar, a regional leadership development program; and has been President/Chair of several local organizations including Brownsville Rotary Club, the Arts Council, Brownsville Haywood Park Community Hospital, DAR, and the Staff/Parish and Finance Committees at First United Methodist Church. Matherne has also served on the regional board of the YMCA and the Board of Pensions for the Memphis Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Qualifying petitions for the Mayor’s race in June 2010 won’t be available until this coming December, according to Matherne, “but I want to spend these next three to four months out in Brownsville, listening to what people are saying about our priorities going forward – what their concerns are and what they expect from their next Mayor. I plan to get to every ward in the City, attending neighborhood meetings, civic organization meetings, community center activities, getting folks around their kitchen table – we need to start our dialog now so we can be prepared to move Brownsville forward in the future.”