Brown, daughter Elizabeth and husband Louis Worthington invest many hours in community volunteer work.
By KATHERINE WILCOX
USFSP Student Reporter
GULFPORT – Christine Brown lives in an 88-year-old house diagonally across the street from the Gulfport Historical Museum, which she helps run.
The memorabilia in her home includes two mullet boat replicas that were made by hand a hundred years ago, when Gulfport was a tiny fishing village.
She volunteers for committees, clubs and causes in the city and has served on the City Council since 2013.
But to some old-timers, the two-term council member is – relatively speaking – still a newcomer to Gulfport.
Take Brown’s husband, Louis Worthington, 72. He was born in Gulfport, a direct descendant of the family that founded the city, and remembers playing with the mullet boat replicas in flooded streets when he was a boy.
Or her brother-in-law, Bob Worthington, another Gulfport native, who fished for hours with his brother when they were boys and now helps him serve up fried mullet at his niece’s big birthday party and canned food drive every February.
Brown didn’t move to Gulfport until 1988, didn’t seek elective office until 2005 and didn’t win her council seat until 2013.
Serving on the council “was the next natural step and I was ready to give more,” said Brown, 55. “You need to have the city in your heart before you run for an election.”
As a girl, Brown said, she never had a city to embrace. She was born in Hawaii to a military family and “went to 13 different schools” before landing at St. Petersburg’s Lakewood High School.
After graduating in 1979, Brown said, she got a hairdresser’s license – which still comes in handy – moved to California and got married. The marriage didn’t last.
She returned to Florida to earn a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at Eckerd College, a teaching certificate at the University of South Florida in Tampa, and a master’s in curriculum and instruction at the University of Florida.
She has taught math at Boca Ciega High School since 1994.
Brown met Worthington in 1988 through friends. “We kept seeing each other because I fixed cars and she needed help,” he said.
Brown said she decided to keep her maiden name because “I was the last Brown in my family with no boys. I did it to honor my father, and besides it’s a royal pain to change your name.”
Their daughter, Elizabeth Brown-Worthington, 18, is a senior at Boca Ciega. She will enroll at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point this summer.
Brown says she is a “call-me-if-you-need-me kind” of public servant.
Brown, Worthington and their daughter said they invest more than a thousand hours a year in volunteer work in their community, from the Gulfport Historical Society – where Brown is chairwoman – to the city’s Teen Council, where Elizabeth served for six years.
Brown and Worthington also helped start the Gulfport Fire Department’s Community Emergency Response Team, a group that is trained to help emergency responders in case of disaster.
Brown lost campaigns for the City Council in 2005 and 2007, but she won the Ward 2 seat in 2013 and was re-elected in 2015. She said she plans to run again next year.
Brown calls herself “a small government, call-me-if-you-need-me kind of person.”
“I think that 99.6 percent of the people don’t want you to bother them unless they need you. Maybe I have a different attitude than some people, but I don’t feel like it’s my place to be in your home and in your life.”
But one Gulfport activist is critical of Brown’s style.
“I think she cares a lot about Gulfport,” said Margaret Tober of the Gulfport Neighbors service group. “She’s doing a good job, but because of her quiet nature we don’t really know what she’s doing.”
Tober said Brown could be doing more than just waiting for problems to come to her.
“Maybe she could be more supportive of code enforcement and taking on more projects like restoring some of Gulfport’s historic brick streets,” she said.
Tober also criticized Brown for nominating her husband for the “Spirit of Gulfport” award. “That’s just something that you shouldn’t do.”
Brown dismissed the criticism.
She nominated her husband, she said, “because for years he single-handedly scrapped abandoned boats that were left derelict in the bay and sold the parts and gave the money to the city to pay for the city of Gulfport employee appreciation luncheon.”
When Gulfport was a tiny fishing village, mullet boats that looked like this hand-crafted replica were fixtures along the waterfront.
Asked what she would like to accomplish if she wins another term, Brown stressed the development of Gulfport’s waterfront and the importance of building a multi-room hotel to help the city attract more tourists.
When their daughter leaves for college this summer, a family and neighborhood tradition may end.
For years, the couple has hosted a combination fish fry and canned food drive to celebrate Elizabeth’s birthday in February. The exchange of gifts for donations was her daughter’s idea, Brown said, and this year an estimated 150 people attended the event.
“I can stand in line for dinner at my own home and not know some of the people in line with me,” said Worthington.
“I’d like to stop the whole thing since she’ll be going to college this year,” said Brown. “But I think people are going to show up anyway. We even stopped sending out invitations, but everyone just knows when to show up.”