Mary Jane Hancock ‘graduates’
Will stay to train Kelly, then pursue creative interests, history
By SHARON KERR

MARY JANE HANCOCK will continue to assist in the treaurer’s office while her protegé and new Jasper County Treasurer René Kelly undergoes state-required training.

County Treasurer Mary Jane Hancock says after serving Jasper County more than 20 years, she is not retiring in January, she’s “graduating.”

She will continue to assist in the treasurer’s office while her protegé, René Kelly, takes state-mandated training in January.

Hancock started working for the county in November of 1983.

“My good friend Janet Williams was working for District Attorney Guy James Gray. She was trying to do everything by herself and had a heart attack right there in the office.”

Hancock was working for a CPA firm at the time, but jumped at the chance to work in the DA’s office.

“It was a tough first six months,” Hancock reported, “I never knew where the ladies’ room was because I never left the office.”

Hancock ran for and was elected treasurer in 1993.

“When I started, we were hand-writing receipts,” she said. County records are now computerized.

“We couldn’t begin to generate as much information, but in some ways it was easier to do back then. I’ve saved some of the old ledgers so people can see how it used to be done.”

Hancock plans to help out part-time until quarterly reports are done and Kelly has her feet on the ground.

“I’ve known René since before she was born,” Hancock said. She explained that she worked with Kelly’s mother and they were both pregnant at the same time.

They were reunited many years later when Hancock discovered Kelly working in a bank and recruited her to work for the county.

Hancock says she’ll stay involved, not because she has to, but because she wants to.

“I’ve always been involved with youth groups and volunteer things in the past. Maybe I can do more and not be spread so thin.”

Hancock always takes a week of her own vacation to spearhead the Festival of Trees on the Courthouse square. She was outside in freezing wind the final days before the Christmas parade, getting them all ready for the big day.

“Each year it gets bigger, and the trees are so creative and memorable this year,” Hancock said.

Another pet project she is proud of is the bell on a stand just inside the courthouse. She has yet to authenticate all the details, but according to Charlie Wilkinson, who donated the bell, it is the original courthouse bell.

Hancock is working on a story she has titled “A Tale of Two Bells,” based on stories Wilkinson used to tell in her office on Fridays while his wife visited the hair salon.

Jasper’s first courthouse was a log cabin that burned in 1849. The second courthouse, built in 1852 in the same location, was a twostory frame. That structure was moved in 1889 to make way for the central core of the current building. In 1934 the two wings on either side were added.

County historian Bertie Bryant says the clock tower was taken down for repairs around 1957 and not replaced until the building was restored in 1993, but Bryant thinks the bell in the tower is the original bell for this courthouse.

Hancock thinks the bell Wilkinson donated might be from the second courthouse, but with a 36-year gap in storage, there’s no telling.

When blacksmith Tobie Parker made the stand for it, he cleaned the bell and searched for a maker’s mark or date, but found none. It’s the kind of mystery that fascinates Hancock and will doubtless occupy more of her time when she “graduates.”