NATCHEZ — The city’s longest-serving sitting alderwoman will receive an award next week honoring her 20 years of service to her community.

The Mississippi Municipal League will honor Ward 1 Alderwoman Joyce Arceneaux-Mathis this week at its annual conference.

She will be inducted into the organization’s hall of fame for those who serve as elected municipal officials for 20 years or more.

Her historical significance to Natchez city politics, however, is greater than just her time in office.

In 1996, Arceneaux-Mathis was the first black alderwoman to be elected. In the 20 years she has served her city, she said a few major projects and events have stuck out as memorable.

“We’ve had some major things,” she said. “That’s why they call it troublesome Ward 1. A lot of what happens in the city is in Ward 1.”

Before being elected, Arceneaux-Mathis taught school for 22 years. For four years, she was the president of the Mississippi Association of Educators.

“That kind of gave me the background, the ambience you see on a regular basis,” she said. “You kind of have to be direct with young adults. You’ve got to either be what you’re going to be or you’re going to be run over. That gave me the background to come into that office.”

Her experience with the state-level education administration also gave her much-needed experience working on a governmental board.

“I was thrust into working with major elected office in the state,” she said. “So that gave me a different background.”

Her way of approaching her job as alderwoman has not changed in the past two decades, she said. Arceneaux-Mathis said she still prioritizes the creation of jobs to support young families and supporting infrastructure in the community.

In her first term, she acquired a nickname.

“I was called the grate queen,” she said, laughing.

The moniker came from her efforts to install grates over the open drainage ditches in her ward, to allow rainwater to run off without compromising the roads.

The relocating of the convention center from behind Natchez High School to its current location downtown was another issue she supported in the early years of her time as alderwoman.

She said one reason she supported the move was to ensure equality between the convention center and the community center, which she said was often used by black Natchezians.

“One would not suffer,” she said. “They were all there, so they had to be kept up as best as the city could keep them up. It wouldn’t be in a segregated area, so to speak.”

Just as her second term was beginning in the year 2000, Arceneaux-Mathis said a 100-year rain event struck her ward hard.

She received a phone call from a constituent at 3 a.m., begging for help as the waters rose to her porch steps.

“I put on my coat and I called the fire department,” she said. “The next day we found out how that water had built up — we had all this water coming from the north end of Natchez. All that water was coming down and exiting through Canal Street.”

The problem, the city discovered, was the old brick-and-mortar canal walls underneath Canal Street that had collapsed in two places.

The incident began the North Natchez Drainage project, an $8 million investment into the city’s drainage system.

“The resurfacing of the canal under Canal Street, that was the beginning of a 12-year project that has just now culminated,” Arceneaux-Mathis said.

With her 20 years of experience, Arceneaux-Mathis said she had advice for young people who are considering running for office — get involved and informed.

“I would start on some committees,” she said. “Find a good committee so you can learn as much about what’s going on in the city as you can.”

Attendance at biweekly meetings of the Natchez Board of Aldermen can also help members of the community stay involved and develop their own ideas of what the city needs.

Arceneaux-Mathis said she would ask an aspiring civil servant how they plan to make a difference in their constituency.

“What do you see as a need in your area, and how does that fit into the whole plan for the city, and how can you as an individual help to push that plan through?”

She said on city project she’d like begin in the next few years is the historical preservation and touristic development in the Woodlawn historic district, which is near to where she lives.

“That can be a big part of the story,” she said. “There are a lot of older homes in the area of major people in black community from after slavery all the way up to and through integration. That can be a major part of tourism if it’s handled correctly.”

Arceneaux-Mathis said the future of her political career isn’t really on her mind at the moment.

“I’m not even going to talk about it,” she said, joking. “I’m just going to get through the next four years.”