New Roads Mayor Tommy Nelson may have grown up in a political family, but he originally had no intention of ever running for political office.
Nelson jokes that his father, Tom Nelson, has been on the Pointe Coupee Parish School Board “longer than I’ve been alive.” Seeing the day-to-day duties of an elected official kept him from wanting to run for office.
“But as I got older, I saw that serving in office could be my way of helping and giving back,” he says. Nelson, a Democrat, made his first run for office in 1998, when he was a candidate for the at-large seat on the New Roads City Council. He finished second in the race, but was elected to the office four years later.
Nelson served in the post, which also handles the mayor pro tempore duties, while he was attending law school at Southern University. He soon decided to run for the mayor’s office.
“I saw different issues in our community—I don’t want to call them problems —but issues that I felt I could best handle and address as mayor,” Nelson says.
Nelson says his age wasn’t an issue in the campaign because of all the work he did to let voters know about him and the plans he had for the city.
In September 2006, voters picked him to replace retiring mayor Sylvester Muckelroy. Nelson took office in January.
Nelson says New Roads, which has a population of just under 5,000 is poised to be a hub for Baton Rouge, thanks to the John James Audubon Bridge, which is now under construction and will link Pointe Coupee Parish with the Felicianas.
“Once that bridge is completed, you’ll be able to get from New Roads to the Baton Rouge Airport in 15 minutes,” he says.
What was your first job?
“A student worker at the Louisiana Department of Insurance.”
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