Former Tchula Mayor Brown has died

JACKSON — Former Tchula Mayor Yvonne R. Brown, the first black Republican female mayor in Mississippi, has died.

Officials at Century Funeral Home in Yazoo City confirmed Brown died Monday but had no other details. A funeral service is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday at New Jerusalem Church in Jackson.

Brown served as Tchula’s mayor from 2001 to 2009. She stood out in a heavily Democratic town that, according to the 2010 census, had a population of about 2,100 that was about 97 percent black.

She also was the Republican nominee for Congress in Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District in 2006, losing to Democratic incumbent Bennie Thompson.

She served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 2004.

A list of survivors was not available.