Mildred Methvin

Background

Named for her maternal grandmother, Mildred Rosalind Hill Cunningham (1901-1982), Methvin is descended from a pioneer political family with roots in Natchitoches, Castor, and her native Alexandria, Louisiana. Her maternal great-great-grandfather, Milton Joseph Cunningham, was a member of both houses of the Louisiana State Legislature and for three terms prior to 1900 the Attorney General of Louisiana. Her great-grandfather, Charles Milton Cunningham, was the editor of The Natchitoches Times and a member of the Louisiana State Senate from 1915 to 1922. A great-uncle, William Tharp Cunningham, served one term in the Louisiana House of Representatives from Natchitoches Parish from 1908 to 1912, prior to becoming a judge.

Her grandfather, W. Peyton Cunningham, husband of the former Mildred Hill, was a lawyer and a member of the Louisiana House from Natchitoches Parish from 1932 to 1940. Her father, DeWitt T. Methvin, Jr., was an Alexandria lawyer prominent in both legal and civic circles. Her mother, Lallah Hill Cunningham Methvin (1929-2012), was the daughter of W. Peyton Cunningham and the first wife of DeWitt Methvin and the mother of his five children, including Mildred Methvin's four siblings. Her paternal grandmother, Myrtis Methvin, a native of Attala County in central Mississippi, was from 1933 to 1945 the mayor of Castor in Bienville Parish in northwestern Louisiana and the second woman in Louisiana history to serve as a town mayor. Her paternal grandfather, DeWitt Methvin, Sr. (1894-1975), was also a Mississippi native, a timber salesman, and a member of the Bienville Parish Police Jury, the parish governing body.

Methvin was reared in Alexandria and spent her formative period as well on Cane River Lake in Natchitoches with her Cunningham family members. A Roman Catholic, Methvin graduated in 1970 from Holy Savior Menard Central High School in Alexandria. She then attended H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College in New Orleans for three years before enrolling in Tulane University Law School her senior. She was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa upon graduation from Newcomb in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy. The summer before law school, she was an intern in the Washington, D.C. office of U.S. Representative Gillis Long. Methvin later transferred and received her law degree in 1976 from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.

Legal career

While in law school in the District of Columbia, Methvin worked in the office of Democrat United States Representative Gillis William Long of Louisiana's 8th congressional district, disbanded in 1993. She subsequently worked from 1977 to 1979 as an associate attorney for her father's law office, Gist, Methvin, Hughes & Munsterman in Alexandria, the Gist being Howard B. Gist, Jr. From 1979 to 1981, she was an assistant United States attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, based in Shreveport. In 1983, Methvin was named United States Magistrate Judge, with jurisdiction over civil and criminal cases, including violations of federal game law, for the United States District Court in Lafayette.

In 1990, Methvin was organizational chair of the American Inns of Court of Acadiana and in 1995 president of that organization. In 1996, she helped found a second Inn, the John M. Duhe, Jr. American Inn of Court. In 1997, William H. Rehnquist, then Chief Justice of the United States, appointed Methvin as one of only three magistrate judges in the country to the select committee which makes national policy governing the activities of federal magistrate judges. Magistrate Judge Methvin presided over numerous civil jury and non-jury trials as well as felony pretrial matters, including arraignment, bail, and detention hearings. She accepted guilty pleas, issued search warrants and arrest warrants, and selected grand jury members.

In 2016, Methvin was one of two attorneys for Patricia E. Powell (born August 1952), a former teacher at Tioga Elementary School in Tioga in Rapides Parish. Powell won a judgment of $1,147,732, plus interest and court costs against the Rapides Parish School Board on grounds that her 2001 dismissal was unjust retaliation for published comments that she had made about a former short-term Rapides superintendent, Betty Cox. Judge Thomas Yeager of the Louisiana 9th Judicial District Court said that Powell was not afforded "a hearing at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner" and was "the victim of political retaliation." Powell was fired under former Superintendent Patsy Jenkins. None of the school board members at the time are still serving.

Family life

In 1988, Methvin married James Thomas McManus (born February 1951) of Lafayette, and the couple had two sons, Michael James McManus and Connor Hill McManus. James McManus had three other children from his former marriage to Dianne Hatten: Christine Lynn McManus, Matthew Robert McManus, and John Thomas McManus, who hence became Methvin's stepchildren. The couple divorced in 2006.

Methvin is also heavily involved in the study of her family genealogy.