City commissioner and former teacher honored for touching the entire community.
This year, Aspire Plant City awarded Mary Thomas Mathis with its 2025 Woman of Distinction Award. Aspire’s statement about the award read, “The event was a beautiful reminder of how one woman’s heart can touch an entire community. Thank you, Mary Mathis, for inspiring us all to lead with grace and purpose.”
Mathis graduated from Plant City High School in 1975, then proceeded to Clark Atlanta University, where she majored in History and minored in Secondary Education. After graduating, when she returned, she took her first job at Moss Brothers as an assistant buyer. Then, in 1985, she began teaching eighth-grade history at Turkey Creek Junior High School. “I loved it. I love my city,” she said. “I was born and raised here. When I graduated college, I always wanted to come back home and teach, and make a difference in my community.”
When Mathis began to teach, she was “Following my mother’s footsteps,” she said. “She was a teacher, and also her sisters; all teachers. What was rewarding is, I was able to bring history alive in the classroom. I loved it.” For example, to imprint in students’ memories how the European travel across the world to find spices influenced history, she made one batch of chicken wings with no seasoning, and one batch of curry chicken wings. In class, she blindfolded two boys, and fed them the wings. One would say the wings tasted nasty, but the other declaring they were delicious. Mathis retired in 2021.
In addition to her 36 years of teaching, Mathis has served as a City Commissioner since 2000, when she won by seven votes in a special election to fill the seat vacated when Sadye Gibbs Martin died. Since then, Mathis also took on roles as mayor for one year, and vice-mayor for two years. Looking back on her role as a City Commissioner, Mathis is pleased about being “A part of the city that is growing. I am excited about the businesses that have come in. We are up to 41,000 people, but we have managed growth while still keeping the charm of Plant City. As you grow, you can lose the charm of something. But the charm of Plant City is still here.” Mathis had strong support in whatever she did. “The love of my life, Tony Mathis, always, always, encouraged me to keep doing what I was doing,” Mary said. “God bless him.” Tony passed away on September 8, 2024.
Mathis’s family, friends, and Aspire members came out for the award ceremony. “When I got the word, I was elated, just excited that evidently somebody had been watching,” she commented. “Because a lot of times people watch you, but you don’t know they are watching you. So, that someone had been watching to see the accomplishments and the things I had been doing in the city; I was very happy about it. At the ceremony, two people spoke on my behalf. Dawn Hyatt, of Historic Plant City Main Street, my dear friend, and Alden Sharper, my grandson in the eighth grade, spoke about his Gigi, and what his Gigi does for him and his brother and sister.”
Aspire Plant City is locally base, and members of Aspire benefit from personal and professional empowerment, growth, development, and encouragement from each other as they build relationships. The organization’s website states, “We believe every woman has value and worth that she can offer her community. The foundation of the organization is built on our shared values. Our desire is to create a space for women to come together and strengthen one another.”
Aspire of Plant City promotes the following values for its members:
• I aspire to live with integrity
• I aspire to be courageous
• I aspire to pursue
my purpose
• I aspire to extend grace
to myself and others
• I aspire to grow myself and encourage growth in others
• I aspire to be inclusive to all, and respectful of our differences
Aspire has an upcoming Christmas ornament exchange with treats, followed by a Christmas light stroll in McCall Park. For more information about Aspire, see https://aspireplantcity.wildapricot.org.
