Talking with a supporter last week regarding her history-making selection as the first black female to head the Clayton County Water Authority, Marie Barber stopped him in mid-sentence.

“I am the first female to be chosen as chairman of the Clayton County Water Authority and that is how I want this historical event to be remembered,” she said.

“The fact that a women is now chairman of the Clayton County Water Authority is the essence of this historical event,” she said.

“I am proud, yet very humbled, to be chosen for this position.”

Barber, who has been a Clayton County Water Authority Board member for 14 years, hopes her tenure will be remembered as one which helped move the water authority forward and continued its notoriety as one of the best managed, and best operated, water authority programs in the country.

More than 300 people turned out last Thursday for a reception honoring Barber and new Clayton County Water Authority Vice Chairman Oscar Blalock.

The function was hosted by Clayton County Commissioner Sonna Singleton and District 76 state Rep. Sandra Scott, D-Morrow, and held at the Charley Griswell Senior Center inside Clayton County International Park in Jonesboro.

Barber said her plan as the new authority chairperson was to help move the water authority forward with regard to its five-year master plan and continue its pay-as-you-go plan so the authority would remain debt free.

Barber also spoke of the authority continuing to implement technology which, she believed, would help employees serve the public in more efficient and economical ways.

“The Clayton County Water Authority has been able to lift the standard of customer service to high goals and we have been able to do that through our employees,” she said, adding the focus should remain on its employees and what they are doing for Clayton County water customers.

“These are the people who are down in the trenches each day combining their knowledge and the water authority’s technology to better, and more efficiently, serve our customers,” she added.

Barber pointed with pride to Clayton County continuing its notoriety as the place to be during last summer’s drought.

Throughout the drought, Clayton County continued to have plenty of water, she said, and credited authority employees and its water conservation plans that helped Clayton County endure the drought, Barber added.

“We had plenty of water in that time and we had plenty of inquiries as to how we were able to remain the place to be for water,” she added.