From the nuclear industry to the first female mayor of Pine Mountain. Her story
Pine Mountain elected its first female mayor, who was sworn in to office Jan. 6 and has deep family ties to the area.
The new mayor, Mary Ruth Mullins, was born and raised in Pine Mountain. She earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from LaGrange College and a master’s degree in management from Florida Institute of Technology. She trained sailors on how to operate nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers in Idaho, she told the Ledger-Enquirer.
Mullins said her three-times-great-grandfather was Aaron Goodman, who is the namesake of the Goodman voting district in the area. Mullins also holds a record in Pine Mountain for scoring 64 points in a basketball game, while only playing three quarters, she said.
Becoming the first female mayor of Pine Mountain “feels great,” Mullins said. “You know, being a woman mayor is not the important thing; it’s being a good mayor is what is really important, being effective.”
Pine Mountain’s 2023 population estimate was 1,343 residents in the Harris County town of 3.1 square miles, according to Census Reporter. Despite its small size, the mayor has plenty of issues to handle.
“There’s something different every day that I have to deal with, basically a problem, you have to figure out a solution and go fix it,” she said.
Some of her goals as mayor include keeping the character of the town and improving its infrastructure, such as the water and sewer lines, Mullins said.
“One of the things I want to do is start a program where I get my public works personnel to segment the town into different areas, going worst to best, and attempt to replace those water and sewer lines that are in bad shape,” she said.
Life before returning to Pine Mountain
When working in Idaho, Mullins said, “from what I understand, I was the first female to qualify as an engineering laboratory technician, and the third to qualify as an engineering officer watch nuclear plant engineer.”
Mullins also worked in the nuclear utility industry in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, working on buildings that were part of the Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bomb.
Mullins said she came back to the Pine Mountain area to take care of her mother, who had cancer, and stayed after her mother died in 2014 to help take care of her sister, who died in 2023.
Mullins said she got more involved in activities in Pine Mountain after her mother died, which included the Chipley Women’s Club, formed by her great-aunt, grandmother and a few other people. The town was named Chipley until it was changed Pine Mountain in 1958, according to the University of West Georgia.
Why Mullins ran for mayor
Mullins said she isn’t a politician and being mayor wasn’t on her radar. She said she ran for mayor because approximately 50-75 people asked her to run, including her cousin Martha Hartley, a former Harris County probate judge.
Hartley told the Ledger-Enquirer that Mullins is a “highly principled person.” Hartley said Mullins appreciates Pine Mountain’s history, knows its values and its potential.
“She’s just a good community-oriented person,” Hartley said. “She genuinely cares about people. She helps folks all the time, all kinds of people throughout the community, and she’s very approachable.”
As mayor, Mullins said, she hopes her legacy will be “that I was fair and that I worked hard for them and did good things for the town and left it in a better condition than I got it.”