Joan Heggen upset the apple cart as Tallahassee’s first female city commissioner.

(This column was first published in the Tallahassee Democrat on Jan. 31, 1994)

Joan Heggen passed the test on her first night in public office.

It was Feb. 25, 1972. She had just been sworn in as the first female city commissioner in Tallahassee's history. Her fellow commissioners began leaving - with not a one mentioning they were heading for the annual males-only gathering of then-current and former commissioners at Joe's Spaghetti House.

Then, a former commissioner - "sweet ol' Hugh Williams," Heggen recalled, "who I thank every time I see him" - walked over to Heggen, explained the dinner, and asked her to accompany him.

Recognizing a moment of truth, Heggen went. It was not a comfortable evening. One of the commissioners made a formal motion to allow wives to attend the dinner in the future. No one laughed when Heggen voted no, saying, "I don't want to bring my husband."

Yet despite the awkwardness, the other commissioners saw the Irish Catholic mixture of wit and ambition that had carried Heggen from high-school teacher to devoted mother to grass-roots politician. They saw the aggressiveness that would help change Tallahassee government during her three-year term, and the friendliness that would allow others to accept it.

And by night's end, it was clear the club had a new member.

"Those men were never anything less than gracious with me," Heggen said. "That (dinner) was an accidental moment. But it was a significant beginning."

She's stepping down, but don't count her out

Twenty-two years later, Heggen faces a significant finish. She retires today after almost five years as Assistant Leon County Administrator. In between bookend service to the governments of her adopted hometown, the Wisconsin native blazed trails for women as Florida Secretary of Community Affairs and Broward County Director of Health and Public Safety.

It's an early retirement for a still-dynamic 62-year-old. But if you must know - and there's not much the blunt, voluble Heggen won't talk about - she is leaving because she has rheumatoid arthritis. She's heard proper rest and exercise can help the illness.

Not that Heggen is just going to putter around her woodsy Lucy Street home. A former high-school and Utah State University English speech teacher, she plans to be a volunteer reading instructor for adults. And if the arthritis comes under control, she hasn't ruled out a return to public service.

"I'm proud of the fact I never got jaundiced about government," Heggen said. "I know we don't solve all the problems. I know we make mistakes. But I think it's an important role, and we should have our finest people serving."

This `housewife' beat the odds and won

Heggen was not the first female elected official in Leon County history. That distinction falls to Mary Lou Christie, who served on the School Board from 1965-69. But Heggen broke the political ice in other ways.

Until her election, the City Commission was the domain of local businessmen, who served as a civic duty. Commissioners conducted city business from their private offices, and rarely went to City Hall except for weekly meetings.

Heggen, who had moved to Tallahassee in 1969 with her Florida State professor-husband, Jim, and three children, changed that.

She had fallen in love with the beginning-to-sprout city. She was distressed by increasingly haphazard development. So despite "not knowing doodly-squat" about running for office, she and a handful of mostly housewife friends set up headquarters in an old gas station and began campaigning house-to-house.

Despite opposition ads that asked, "Do you want a housewife controlling the city budget?" Heggen was the leading vote-getter among five candidates in the primary. In the run-off, she beat developer Lee Everhart, who was coming off a term as mayor, by the solid margin of 59 to 41 percent of the vote.

"Certainly, I was aware (women had not been on the City Commission), but I would tell you that was no motivator," Heggen said. "I just wanted to make people aware of the need to plan carefully."

Heggen's presence forced immediate changes at City Hall - starting with fashion.

The city clerk at that time would not allow female city employees to wear pants or boots to work. But Heggen, as a matter of practicality in the drafty old City Hall, routinely wore comfortable pants suits and warm boots. And with the clerk unable to dictate a commissioner's attire, the prohibition soon fell for all city employees.

"Some of the older women (in City Hall) say they still remember the day I showed up in red boots," Heggen laughed.

Heggen - who as mayor in 1974 became the first commissioner to have an office and secretary in City Hall - sparked more significant changes.

She initiated the city's first applications for federal grants. She became nationally active in the League of Cities. She joined with commissioners Russell Bevis and Johnnie Jones to replace longtime city manager Arvah Hopkins with a more professionally trained city manager - a move which yielded current city manager Dan Kleman.

"I thought Joan was one of the best things that ever happened to Tallahassee," said Bevis, who operates Bevis-Colonial Funeral Home. "She became knowledgeable in areas we had lacked. I don't know if I ever saw a person better prepared for meetings."

Spurred by a compulsiveness she acquired in parochial school in Eau Claire, Wis. - "I was taught by Benedictine nuns, so I have G.U.I.L.T. tattooed across my boobs" - Heggen was determined to outwork her critics. She read and studied and asked questions.

"I think when she began, there was a certain amount of skepticism by staff and management and commissioners," said Rhett Miller, the retired Director of Public Works. "But after she got there, she showed she was a very attentive person, who worked very hard to brief herself. Within a short time, she was very well-respected."

Not all those outside City Hall shared that respect.

Heggen received threatening calls, "in which people literally said, `How'd you like to wear concrete shoes in the Gulf?' " Rumors circulated she was having extramarital affairs, "which made my friends laugh."

"Those things were extraneous to the commission, but they fit the stereotype of how you handle a woman," Heggen said. "They thought you could threaten a woman, and she'd back off."

The family came first

Heggen eventually did back off because she was a woman - and a mother.

She often received 30-35 calls a night from residents who felt more comfortable talking to a woman commissioner. At youth baseball games, people shouted at her son, Jon, "Hey, get your mother to buy us better equipment." She was rarely there when Sara, Jeff and Jon came home from school, and she frequently was gone at night to attend meetings.

So, convinced her job had become too hard on her family, Heggen did not run again in 1975.

"Somehow, it was very important that my kids were being left alone more than I wanted," Heggen said. "It was my mothering instincts that were bothered."

Heggen went on to become deputy director and then secretary of the Department of Community Affairs, spending eight years with state government. She followed that with four years as Broward County's Director of Health and Public Safety, before realizing she was lonesome for the company of her now-grown children. Back in Tallahassee, she spent two years as a consultant, before joining the county in 1989.

Nowadays, Sara, 37, is a social worker. Jeff, 34, is assistant superintendent at Hilaman Golf Course. Jon, 32, is a house painter. All three come home for Sunday dinner almost every week.

"We're an extremely close family, even though my parents are divorced (since 1981)," said Jeff Heggen. "I don't mind saying my mother is my best friend."

Heggen's motherly instincts were her signature with the county, as noted in a County Commission proclamation last week that named her "mother emeritus" of the courthouse.

She came to work each day at 7 a.m. She bugged janitors about unmopped spills. She answered the phones when receptionists were late. She took over offices when administrators were sick.

She shepherded County Administrator Parwez Alam and the commission through a period of growth. She revamped the writing of the weekly agenda to make it understandable to the average citizen. She restructured senior staff meetings so that all agencies understood the workings of the county.

"She is the most professional and ethical person I've ever worked with," Alam said. "It's strange to say because she worked for me, but she was my mentor."

Actually, it was the natural result of working with a woman who loves people and her community.

"It sounds so Pollyanna - and I'm not a Pollyanna - but I have this belief that government should do good for the people," she said. "Will I miss being in government? Absolutely.

"But I feel like I've been the luckiest person on earth to have the jobs I've had."

Gerald Ensley was a reporter and columnist for the Tallahassee Democrat from 1980 until his retirement in 2015. He died in 2018 following a stroke. The Tallahassee Democrat is publishing columns capturing Tallahassee’s history from Ensley’s vast archives each Sunday through 2024 in the Opinion section as part of the TLH 200: Gerald Ensley Memorial Bicentennial Project.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Ensley: First Lady of local politics takes final bow