Former State Rep. Bennett Malone

Former State Rep. Bennett Malone passed away Sunday morning, a spokeswoman for Speaker Philip Gunn confirmed.

Malone, a Democrat from Carthage, resigned from the Legislature in 2015 after serving 36 years. He represented District 45, which includes Leake, Neshoba, Rankin and Scott counties.

He served as chairman of the House Corrections Committee during the final years of his legislative career.

Speaker Gunn was not immediately available for comment Sunday morning.

State Rep. Tom Miles, D-Forest, described Malone in a Facebook post as “a true public servant that loved his constituents that he served” and as “someone that wasn’t afraid to stand up for the little man.”

 

 

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Kate Royals is a Jackson native and became Mississippi Today’s first community health editor in January 2022. She returned to Mississippi Today as the lead education reporter after serving in the same capacity from 2016 to 2018. Prior to that, she was a reporter for the Clarion-Ledger covering education and state government. She won awards for her investigative work, including stories about the state’s campaign finance laws and prison system. She was a news producer at MassLive in Springfield, Mass., after graduating from Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communications with a master’s degree in communications.