OBITUARIES / Passings / Evelyn Gandy - Former lieutenant gov. of Mississippi

Evelyn Gandy, 87, a former lieutenant governor and the only woman elected to three statewide offices in Mississippi, died Sunday at her home in Hattiesburg, Miss. She had been in failing health with progressive supranuclear palsy, a disease similar to Parkinson’s.

In a political career spanning four decades, Gandy, a Democrat, was the first woman in Mississippi elected to the offices of state representative, state treasurer, insurance commissioner and lieutenant governor. All but the post of state representative involved statewide campaigns. She failed in two bids for the governorship, in 1979 and 1983, both times losing in a primary runoff for the Democratic nomination.

In her four-year term as lieutenant governor, Gandy voted to break a tie that led to passage of a law requiring that leases on school lands be based on the land’s true value. The change resulted in millions of new dollars for the state’s public schools.

A native of Hattiesburg, Gandy graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi and was the only woman in her law school class at the University of Mississippi. She also was the first female editor of the Mississippi Law Journal and the first woman to be elected president of the law school student body.