Sometimes a family, a community, a region, a people, lose a friend, a father and neighbor whose loss cannot be measured in words. Yet we try.
Edwin Jerome (Jerry) Wilburn of Mantachie, Mississippi, left this natural world on January 13, 2026, surrounded by his loved ones. Jerry, as he was affectionately known, was born to Elijah and Lula Wren Wilburn on September 18, 1940, the youngest of five children.
Jerry Wilburn was a classic Itawamba Countian. Born on the west side of the Tombigbee River, he never left the community of his birth and was forever one of them. Scrappy. Sincere. Big hearted. Yes, yes, Jerry was a vessel testament of the muddy creeks, sandy bottoms and gentle drawls of his side of the river. Loved and admired by his family and friends, he sometimes baffled them. He was a personality peculiar unto himself. Sui generis.
Jerry Wilburn had a keen insight into human nature, coupled with a good heart and a brilliant comedic wit. He was a master of malapropisms, word substitutions, manic misspellings. He sometimes invented words and massacred phrases. He loved to expose hidden motives.
Jerry was authentic and despised pretense and uppitiness. Consequently, he found many opportunities to flash his genius on the floor of the House during his 20 years’ service in the Mississippi Legislature. He knew we all had feet of clay.
Let us revisit a few of his gems. After once losing a debate by an overwhelming vote on the floor of the House, he looked out from the podium and stated, “Well, now I know how General Cluster felt when he looked up and seen all them Indians.”
Jerry had the nerve to oppose Agriculture Commissioner Jim Buck Ross, who was seeking a special bill to keep the State in the business of manufacturing Mirex, which killed fire ants. No worry that Mirex also killed turkeys, bald eagles and quail and caused cancer in humans and had been banned by the EPA and the Stockholm Convention. What did they know? Mr. Wilburn opposed the bill on philosophical grounds. He took the podium and railed against the number of employees in the Department of Agriculture, saying “We don’t need no plant in Mississippi to make Mirex to kill far-aints. We can just line up all Jim Buck’s employees at the Tennessee line and they can march South like Sherman and just stomp all the far-aints out!”
He once said, “You say Jack Reed is for public education. Where did he send his kids? Vanderville!”
On seeing Representative Steve Holland giving a legislative report on Channel 9 TV:
“They Lord, that Holland has got so big that I had to push two TV’s together to get him all on the screen!”
Or try this:
“Y’all say you want to improve public education. Lord, God, you made so many changes in the last Session, you need to shut the schools down a couple years so the kids can catch up!”
About one of his neighbors’ property, he once said, “That land is so pore, a jack rabbit would have to pack his lunch to get across it.”
He once rigged a Decoration Day election for members to serve on a cemetery board.
Yes, Jerry could be a rogue and courted controversy. All the more reason to love him. Yes, yes, yes he was flawed like all of us. But he loved deeply, most especially the beautiful Margaret Ann Silas, whom he married on August 8, 1965, and who survives him, along with his daughters, Bronson Prochaska (John) and Millie Wood (Chuck).
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. That is to have succeeded.”
How do we measure a life? Did you leave the world better than you found it?
Jerry loved underdogs. Folks born with the deck stacked against them. As a legislator, he sponsored the legislation to create the North Mississippi Regional Center in Oxford which over the last fifty plus years has provided a home for hundreds of our children and adults with physical and mental disabilities. The Center recently recognized his battles for the disadvantaged by dedicating the Jerry Wilburn Memorial Bridge and Service Road on campus to him.
He never forgot the downtrodden. He remembered being a child who sometimes did not have shoes or nice clothes. He used his state retirement 13th check to fund the Wilburn Family Foundation, which has furnished shoes and clothing at Christmas for needy children in the Mantachie community for the last 29 years. Most recently, the Wilburn Family Fund furnished shoes and clothing for 92 kids on Christmas.
Jerry served in the Mississippi National Guard, played football at IJC, attended Mississippi State University, and was a member of the Mantachie High School Athletic Hall of Fame and the Itawamba Community College Hall of Fame. He also served on the Mississippi Oil and Gas Board for numerous years.
Jerry Wilburn is a special person whom we will never forget. Above all he was loyal to the people he loved and to those who loved him. Family, friends, neighbors, and the good people of Itawamba County.
As we like to say in Itawamba County, he was a real character. We must go forward now alone, never forgetting the lessons he taught us. The value of mirth, or just plain foolishness, love for our fellows, and empathy, especially toward those who have the least among us.
In addition to Margaret, Bronson, and Millie, he is survived by his grandchildren: Matthew Prochaska (Catherine), Will Wood (JoyBeth) of Mantachie, and Carter Wood of Birmingham, Alabama. He is also survived by his great-grandchildren: Eli and Margaret Prochaska, and Declan Wood of Mantachie, and a host of extended family members, friends, and neighbors who will miss him.
In addition to his parents, Jerry was preceded in death by his oldest brother he had never met, Quentin Wilburn; and three sisters, Lavelle Wilburn Hinkle, Jettie Pearl Wilburn Bean, and Edna Ellen “Toots” Wilburn Wesson.
Pallbearers will be John Prochaska, Chuck Wood, Matthew Prochaska, Carter Wood, Will Wood, Ronald Wesson, Lance Bean, Joe Wilburn, Tony Geiger, Charles Kirksey, John Robert Pearce, Jimmy Pearce, Charlie Huffstatler, Chip Mills, and James Warren.
Honorary pallbearers will be the members of the Bull Mountain Bottom Club, his congressional colleagues who served in the Mississippi House of Representatives during his tenure, members of the 1961 Itawamba Junior College Football Team, and members of the 1958-1959 Mantachie High School Football Team.
Visitation will be Friday, January 16, from 4-8 p.m. and again on Saturday from 12-2 p.m., with the funeral service at 2 p.m., at the First Baptist Church of Mantachie. He will be laid to rest in the Wilburn family plot at Stephens Cemetery. McNeece-Morris Funeral Home of Mantachie is honored to be entrusted with arrangements.
In lieu of flowers, friends may wish to make a donation to The Wilburn Family Foundation, c/o Farmers and Merchants Bank, P.O. Box 220, Mantachie, MS 38855.
