Madame Mayor: Nona Fox recalls her time in an exclusive club

In the 138 years that Marble Falls has been a town, only two women have served as mayor. The first one, Ophelia “Birdie” Harwood, was elected in 1917, three years before women were granted the right to vote by the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

The second one, Nona Fox, served three terms on the Marble Falls City Council before being elected mayor in 2003—84 years after Harwood stepped down. When her two years of service ended in 2005, Fox was termed out of office.

“I’m not as famous as she is,” said Fox with a laugh when asked her thoughts on being only the second woman mayor of Marble Falls. 

Harwood’s name is currently used for Birdie’s Market, a boutique at 706 Third St., and soon will be the moniker of the city’s first convention center, The Ophelia. The first woman mayor’s platform included keeping drunks and loose livestock off the streets and providing residents with a transparent city budget. 

While Fox has nothing named after her—yet—her impact was just as vital. During her tenure in office, she lowered the tax rate against the advice of the city manager and was instrumental in bringing Texas Tech University to town.

“I served during a great time,” she said. “We had plenty of money. We were supposed to have three months on reserve, but we had six, so we lowered the tax rate, which I don’t think had ever been done.”

According to Fox, the city manager told her, “You can’t run a city like you do your personal finances.”  

“I said, ‘If they ran the federal government like you run your personal business, we’d be better off,” she said. “He said, ‘You should always increase taxes if you can do it without voting,’ and I said, ‘If you don’t need the money, why increase taxes?’ I still feel that way.” 

Unlike Harwood, Fox had six years of experience as a city councilor before she became mayor, a position she sought despite some public pushback.

“Even I thought they’ll never elect a woman,” she conceded.

The surprise was that more women than men questioned whether she was capable. 

“They said, ‘That’s a man’s job!’” Fox recalled. “I said, ‘Why is that a man’s job? You can’t find a man who loves Marble Falls more than I do.’”

Her deep-seated love for her hometown is as rooted in the area’s history as Harwood’s. Fox was born Nona Ruth Barnett in 1942 in a Lampasas hospital. She is named after her grandmother Nona Elizabeth Barnett. Her grandfather H.A. Barnett served as Burnet County sheriff from 1932-38. The road to Highland Lakes Elementary School in Granite Shoals is named after him.  

Fox started her education in the Old Granite School at 2001 Broadway in Marble Falls, now The Falls on the Colorado Museum. A 1961 graduate of Marble Falls High School, her only time away from the city was as a newlywed. She and Mark Fox have been married for 63 years. 

“When we first got married, we lived in San Antonio,” Nona said. “I didn’t work because we only had one car.”

On weekends, she and Mark traveled to boat shows across the state, promoting the area for what was then called the Highland Lakes Tourist Association. 

“We were working for my daddy,” she said. “We didn’t get paid, but we got a lot of trips out of it, and we sure had fun.” 

Those trips taught her a lot about marketing and promoting the assets of her hometown, which came in handy when the couple returned to their roots and got into the real estate business. They first settled in Granite Shoals but eventually moved within the Marble Falls city limits. 

Fox pointed out to several local leaders that the area chamber of commerce lacked any Granite Shoals representation. She was quickly appointed to the board. 

“I said, ‘But I don’t live there anymore,’” Fox said. “They said, ‘No, but your heart’s there.’ I ended up being the president of the chamber at some point.”

Part of her early life was spent on a family farm in Fairland. The family moved to Granite Shoals, building one of the first large homes on Lake LBJ. She remembers the only phone service was a 10-party line with no room for the Barnetts. 

“We didn’t have a phone, and Daddy didn’t like that!” she said. 

Her father, Chester Barnett, didn’t want to leave his kids on the property after school with no phone because of rattlesnakes. 

“We needed to be able to call someone if one of us got bit,” Fox said. 

Barnett was working with John B. Selman to establish Highland Lakes National Bank in Kingsland and so turned to him for advice. Selman did some research and discovered the phone company (Bell Telephone at the time) had installed phone lines across Barnett’s land but didn’t have an easement.

“Pretty soon, we had a private line,” Fox said. “No one had a private line. Everybody was wondering how my daddy got that kind of pull!”

Another memory involves the magic of television. According to Fox, the Barnett family was the second in the area to have a TV in their home. 

“My kids asked me, ‘How do you know that?’” she said. “Well, I know it because we went to Bill Smith’s house every Wednesday night so my daddy could watch the fights, and they were the first people in town to have a TV.”

Fox’s mother, Kathleen Kroll Barnett,eventually convinced her father to buy one so they could stay home Wednesday nights.

“We only had one channel back then, KTVV Channel 7,” Fox said. “And they played the fights every Wednesday night.”

The Marble Falls that Fox lives in today has certainly changed from the days of party lines and one TV channel, and she has been part of that progress. Along with her service as a member of the City Council and mayor, she has long been an avid community volunteer and promoter. When asked about her proudest achievement, she doesn’t even have to mull it over.

“Texas Tech,” she said. “Bringing Texas Tech to Marble Falls was a big deal. It has educated lots and lots of people who didn’t have an opportunity before. They didn’t have to leave home to go to school, and most of the classes were at night so they could work and get an education.” 

Fox recalls when she was first told the university was interested in setting up a satellite campus in Marble Falls.

“I was told that all I had to do was raise $200,000, and if it didn’t work out, we would get MOST of that back,” she said. “I said, ‘Gee, thanks.’”

She got excited about the idea and took it to the Economic Development Corp. board, on which she served. She then approached the Lower Colorado River Authority. Between the two, the $200,000 became a reality and so did Texas Tech University at Highland Lakes, 806 Steve Hawkins Parkway.

“Then, we worked on getting Central Texas Community College, too,” she said. “That was another great opportunity.” 

Fox enjoyed her time on the council and as mayor and said more women should consider running for office.

“It’s a rare occurrence—always has been—to have any competition for any seat on the council,” she said. “There’s not a whole lot of people who want to step up and serve in these capacities.”

Fellow former council member and longtime friend Rose Metzler agreed. 

“We have a lot of capable females in this town,” she said. “Back then, we were all so involved in everything. I guess most of us were too busy to be on the council.” 

Metzler was elected in 1996 and served one two-year term.

Current Marble Falls Mayor Dave Rhodes, who will be termed out of office this year, said the problem is no one runs for office in the first place, whether man or woman. 

The next mayor of Marble Falls will be John Packer, who is running unopposed in the May 3 election. Packer served three terms as mayor from 2015 to 2021, when he was termed out. 

“Not a whole lot of people want to step up and serve,” Rhodes said. “I think it would be a good thing if more women participated. There are a lot of women on the commissions and the Economic Development Corporation. I think a lot of people believe the City Council to be a large time commitment, whether a woman or a guy. It’s not a male or female job, that’s for sure.” 

The job does have its drawbacks, according to Fox. Her husband refused to go to the grocery store with her because of how many people came up to her to talk about city issues and not-so-city issues. 

“I got calls all the time—days, nights, weekends—about things that had nothing to do with the city,” she said, remembering one caller who complained that her auto insurance had been canceled and she couldn’t reach the company on a Saturday to straighten it out. 

Fox assured her she would have coverage until Monday when the insurance office would be open for business.

She also was once accosted about upkeep of the Marble Falls city cemetery while at a funeral in Missouri!

That aside, she has no regrets.

“I really did enjoy it,” she said. “It was a real honor. People still come up to me and call me mayor. It makes me feel good.” 

suzanne@thepicayune.com