Elected officials, dignitaries and scores of community members gathered under gray skies Monday morning – and Monday afternoon – to cut ribbons on two public buildings that were developed through public-private partnerships.
A new Jefferson County Health Unit, named after Dr. Josetta E. Wilkins, was officially opened at 11 a.m. And at 2:30 p.m., the U.S. Brown Jefferson County Coroner’s Office was opened. Red Coats with the Pine Bluff Regional Chamber of Commerce did the honors with two big ribbons and a bigger pair of ceremonial scissors.
DR. JOSETTA E. WILKINS JEFFERSON COUNTY HEALTH UNIT
Known to her family as “Mama Sweetie,” Wilkins took the microphone from her grandson, Hank Wilkins V, saying that having the building named for her had been a surprise.
“I never knew I was even being thought of,” she said. “I cherish it.”
Wilkins expressed thanks to County Judge Gerald Robinson, who named the building for her, and then had special appreciation for her family.
“Thanks to my family. They go through so much with me. Everything they want to do, I don’t want to do it,” Wilkins said to much laughter. ” But I always win.”
The new 12,800-square-foot health unit sits on Hickory Street at the northwest corner of the Jefferson Regional Medical Center campus. The facility has more than a dozen exam rooms, a lab and an infectious disease testing area.
Robinson, who put the funding package together, thanked those who made the new building possible. Specifically, he thanked Simmons Bank, which donated a total of $1 million for the health center and a new Veterans Service Center that was recently opened; the P3 Group, which put together the public-private partnership for all three buildings, the state Department of Health, which contributed $700,000 to the project, and JRMC, which provided the location for the facility.
“This is how Jefferson County will continue to blossom,” Robinson said.
Another speaker, Mayor Shirley Washington, invited other Jefferson County mayors to the podium to stand with her. Altheimer Mayor Zola Hudson, Redfield Mayor Roben Brooks and White Hall Mayor Noel Foster made their way to Washington through the audience, which was seated in folding chairs under large canopies. Washington then thanked the other elected officials.
“Anything that is done in this county is done for all of us because we stand united,” she said, “and we applaud Judge Robinson for what he’s doing for Jefferson County.”
Wilkins was introduced by her grandson, Wilkins V, who said his grandmother grew up in Jefferson County where she worked in the cotton fields and understood what it meant to be a Black person in the South. That upbringing, he said, would not define her, however, as she went on to get a doctoral degree in education, becoming a professor at UA-Pine Bluff and serving four terms in the state legislature where she sponsored numerous pieces of legislation.
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