Ms. Jinnie Wilson, Revenue Officer for the City of Hammond, was recently named as non-civil service employee of the year by the Hammond Rotary Club.

Ms. Wilson was cited by Mayor Mayson Foster for her exemplary work ethic, her dedication to the city and to her fellow workers, and for her “quiet completion of the tasks at hand.”

Jinnie and her husband Keith have been married for 33 years and have two children, Ashley Lyons and Jason Wilson, and one brand new baby granddaughter, Annabel Rose Wilson

Ms. Wilson has been in governmental service since right out of high school when she started work as a receptionist for the Police Jury Office in Amite.  At the Police Jury, she was promoted to the accounting department and later to the position of payroll supervisor.  Jinnie states that she remembers when the parish taxes were not renewed, when the lights went out at the courthouse because they couldn’t pay their light bill, when the Attorney General took over the parish, and then when Gordon Burgess was elected Parish President.

Hammond hired Jinnie in the Payroll Department in 1989, but she was hired away by then Clerk of Court Carmon Moore where she stayed for eight years.  In 1997, Mayor “Tippy” DePaula lured her back to the city to run the tax department, and she now serves as the Revenue Supervisor overseeing all funds taken in by the city.

Jinnie states that “I wear many hats and get lots of questions about different situations.  If it’s in my department, we get answers quickly and efficiently; if it’s not in my department, I try to get answers or at least point our customers in the right direction.”

The Rotary Club of Hammond was established in 1920 on the basis of a shared commitment to the founding principles of Rotary International: “World Peace Through Understanding” and “Service Above Self.”  Lance Kern now serves as the Club’s President.