If there was ever a question about where someone was buried in the generations-old Biloxi City Cemetery, the best place for researchers, family members and funeral home directors to turn for answers was Annette Barhonovich.
From her desk in the lobby of City Hall, Ms. Annette for the past 16 years has managed records on all interments in the cemetery. As a result, she established herself as a valuable resource for genealogists needing information about the 35-acre Biloxi cemetery, where there are 25,000 recorded interments, with the earliest marker from 1811, and thousands of others lost to time.
Today at lunchtime a host of city employees gathered to mark Ms. Annette’s retirement after 27.75 years of service to the city and its residents. Over the years, she served as safety officer for the city, as Emergency Manager with colleague and now fellow-retiree Frankie Duggan, and she was, for 10 years, on the mayor’s office staff as the citizens services representative, where residents turned if they ran into reams of red tape everywhere else.
Despite her “retirement,” Ms. Annette will continue to work a few days a week to help with cemetery issues.
“When you have someone with this vast amount of knowledge and ability, you don’t just let them go quietly into the night,” says Mayor Andrew “FoFo” Gilich. “Ms. Annette is going to continue to be a valuable resource at City Hall for staff and our residents, but now she’s also going to have more time to spoil her grandchildren.”
See photos from the lunchtime gathering
