Longtime Cullen/Red House District Supervisor, Dr. Nancy Carwile was recently recognized for her many years of service to Charlotte County.

Carwile, who resigned her Board of Supervisors seat in mid-May, received accolades from the board during its June meeting.

Carwile was first elected to the Charlotte County Board of Supervisors in 2003 and is noted as the first woman elected to a Board of Supervisors seat in the county. “I was told I was the first woman elected,” said Carwile. “There may have previously been an appointment for an unfilled term, but I am not sure about that.”

After serving close to 16 years on the board, Carwile pointed out that she wanted to be a strong voice for the northern part of the county while she was serving. “Countywide, I encouraged supervisors and citizens to research and find out a broader range of details before items came for a vote,” she added. “Experience is a good teacher, but when people come before the board citing this problem or that, or what was done ‘wrong’ in the past, that experience is often too narrow. I tried to find out more details, more points of view. And when there was a concern about some change, how to address that problem rather than ‘vote against’ something that might be beneficial if ‘done right.’”

During her time on the board, the former supervisor wrote and mailed a newsletter to those in her district. “She wrote not just on topics before the board, but on topics, she felt could impact or improve the lives of her neighbors,” her son Andy Carwile said during the June board meeting.

When asked what she enjoyed the most about her time Carwile said, “Building relationships with the people I represented, working with the many people who work in government, reaching out beyond County lines to find strength in cooperative endeavors … this is what was most satisfying for me.”

Over the years Carwile saw and was part of many changes in the county and she talked about some of that change saying that she would have been a poor representative if she was not “always thinking of what we needed to do for Charlotte County.”

The county’s recent vote on raising taxes was one of those hard changes Carwile took part in. “The board asked me to stay until the budget work was completed as we had recently faced some difficult modern decisions that we had to pay for,” she added.

Providing broadband internet for the entire county is an initiative that Carwile worked hard for, “I hope this will still happen,” she said. “But it will cost tax money to implement, and it will take courage and hard work to move forward.”

While on the board, Carwile was also part of the decision-making process for adding 911 signs for all county residents. Other big projects she worked on included helping to maintain the landscape at the Madisonville Convenience Center and the Little Free Library located there. “I also designed the Charlotte County brochure (no longer in print), organized the Ride in the Heartland for several years,and created the exhibits in the Old Jail Museum; but none of these I did without help from others, both county staff and private citizens,” said Carwile. “People working together accomplish much more than complaining does.”