Miles Patrick Nelson (born May 10, 1949) is a retired

customer service manager In sales, commerce, and economics, a customer (sometimes known as a client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a good, service (economics), service, product (business), product or an Intellectual property, idea - obtained from a seller, ven ...

and former Republican member of the

Mississippi House of Representatives The Mississippi House of Representatives is the lower house of the Mississippi Legislature, the lawmaking body of the U.S. state of Mississippi. According to the state constitution of 1890, it is to comprise no more than 122 members elected fo ...

, now Executive Vice-President of the Home Builders Association of Mississippi. He lives in Brookhaven, Mississippi.

Background

Born May 10, 1949, Nelson graduated from Monticello High School in 1967. He attended Copiah-Lincoln Community College, earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from

Mississippi State University Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Unive ...

in 1973, and went to work for Entergy. He earned an MBA from Tulane University in 2000, and retired from his position as a customer service manager at Entergy in 2011 in order to run for office.

Legislative career

In January 2011, Nelson announced his candidacy for the 40th district of the Mississippi House at a press conference attended by incumbent Ted Mayhall (also a Republican), who announced that he would not be running for re-election and that he was endorsing Nelson. Unopposed in the

primary Primary or primaries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Primary (band), from Australia * Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea * Primary Music, Israeli record label Works * ...

, he defeated

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

Shirley Aguilera-Logan in the

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

with 3,263 votes (64.11%) to Aguilera-Logan's 1,827 (35.89%). In 2012, Nelson ran in the non-partisan special election for the 19th

Mississippi State Senate The Mississippi Senate is the upper house of the Mississippi Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Mississippi. The Senate, along with the lower Mississippi House of Representatives, convenes at the Mississippi State Capitol ...

district (incumbent

Merle Flowers Merle Flowers (born October 20, 1968) is an American businessman and politician from the state of Mississippi. A member of the Republican Party, Flowers served in the Mississippi State Senate. Flowers retired from the Mississippi Senate in 20 ...

had resigned) on November 6. Since no candidate received an absolute majority, there was a run-off between Nelson (who had received 8,307 votes in a four-way race) and fellow Republican David Parker, who had come in first with 10,396. Nelson lost the November 27 run-off, with 2432 votes (37.98%) to Parker's 3971 (62.02%). On August 4, 2015, Nelson was unseated in the Republican primary by teacher Ashley Henley, with 799 votes (56.6%) to Nelson's 613 (43.4%). Henley was one of several challengers to incumbent legislators not supporting private voucher schools who defeated the incumbents with financial assistance from the political action committee of

Empower Mississippi Empower Mississippi is a Mississippi lobbying group that supports private school voucher programs in the state. The group is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) political advocacy organization with an affiliated political action committee (Empower PAC) and 5 ...

. At the time of his defeat, Nelson pointed out that Empower financed the majority of Henley's campaign, and that much of the PAC's funding in turn came from something called the Mississippi Federation for Children PAC, an organization headquartered in Virginia, which gave Empower $360,000 in March and April of that year, which allowed the mailing of eleven pieces urging voters not to vote for Nelson, but said nothing about Henley or her qualifications. “They took out four pro-public education advocates and I think it’s going to be pretty obvious what the implications are,” Nelson said. “...(We) were the swing votes in the epublican-controlledMississippi House of Representatives on education issues and funding.”

Personal life

Nelson is a member of the

Rotary Club Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations in the world. Its stated mission is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through hefellowship of business, profe ...

and

Chamber of Commerce A chamber of commerce, or board of trade, is a form of business network. For example, a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to ad ...

. He was formerly married to the former Katherine Baier, and is a Catholic. On February 15, 2019, he married Sally Burchfield Doty. In October 2020, he became Executive Vice-President of the Home Builders Association of Mississippi.

External links

Nelson's Facebook page

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nelson, Pat 1949 births Living people Republican Party members of the Mississippi House of Representatives People from Brookhaven, Mississippi 21st-century American legislators Tulane University alumni Copiah–Lincoln Community College alumni Mississippi State University alumni