NATCHEZ, Miss. – Adams County supervisors Monday appointed members to the Airport Commission, which has been reconstituted to just be an advisory board without the governing authority it previously had.
The county Board of Supervisors last month decided to strip the five-member commission’s powers over the county-owned airport. Supervisors will now govern the facility with Airport Director Richard Nelson’s day-to-day management and new county Administrator Mitzi Conn’s supervision.
Conn, who was hired by the board in April as county administrator, is a former Airport Commission member.
Supervisors reappointed previous Airport Commission members Cane Callon and Dante Weir and tapped Noble Guedon as a new member. No decisions were made on who’s to fill the advisory commission’s two other seats. Each of the five county supervisors has a commission member to nominate.
The Board of Supervisors’ decision in April to revoke the Adams County Airport Commission’s previous powers was partly prompted by its members’ lack of aviation experience, said county board President Kevin Wilson. While Adams County supervisors have been appointing the commission since it was established decades ago, they’ve been critical in recent years of members’ actions regarding the airport.
The supervisors in 2021 did discuss disbanding the commission and governing the airport themselves. They expressed concerns then that the commission was running off Nelson, who was appointed in 2018 as the Natchez-Adams County Airport’s director of aviation.
Converting the commission into an advisory board with no governing powers comes as Natchez-Adams County leaders continue trying to reestablish commercial air service here.
After about 30 years without, city and county officials since 2021 have been aggressively trying without success to lure a passenger airline to serve the community on a regular basis. State and federal grants have been provided to subsidize airline services and improve airport infrastructure.
Located about 10 miles northeast of Natchez, the airport dates back to 1946 when the property was obtained from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with runways built to military specifications, according to the airport’s historical accounts. The existing terminal building was constructed in 1959 by Natchez and Adams County when the airport had commercial passenger planes serving the area.
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