Longtime Yarmouth town clerk retiring

May 19--SOUTH YARMOUTH -- When retiring Town Clerk Jane Hibbert locks her door for the last time Friday, she'll miss her staff and the residents she serves.

But there are a few things she's looking forward to leaving behind.

"I won't miss having to get up early and decide what to wear," she said recently.

Hibbert, who spent 42 years in municipal service, moved from Attleboro to Orleans when she was 4 and grew up on the Cape.

As an adult, she had a brief stint living in Hyannis before moving to Yarmouth, where she has been for 30 or so years.

She first joined the Yarmouth Town Hall staff in her mid-20s, taking a job at the collector's office.

"My mother was working in the assessor's office, and she told me about the job," Hibbert recalled. "I made $73 a week, and I paid for health insurance for my family. I had two sons. The younger one was 3 when I started there."

With an associate degree in business from Fisher College, Hibbert said she particularly enjoyed bookkeeping.

She joined the clerk-treasurer's office as a senior clerk in 1980. She became assistant town clerk-treasurer in 1987 and town clerk in 2004, after the two positions were split.

She then got a municipal clerk certification as well as a Massachusetts municipal clerk certification.

Tracy Post, vice chairwoman of the Board of Selectmen, characterized Hibbert as a mainstay on the town's team.

"Many late evenings, you can drive by the town hall and see that Jane is still there working," Post wrote in an email. "My mother worked at the town hall with Jane when I was just a kid. They remain friends today."

Hibbert's favorite part of the job has been overseeing elections, although the process has undergone many changes through the years.

"In the 1980s, we used punch cards," she said. "We used to go over to Cape Cod Bank and Trust. They had a reader they let us use to read the ballots. Dennis used it, too, so it would be a race to get there first."

Hibbert recalled tallying ballots one election until 4 in the morning.

"Now we have scanned ballots and we can get unofficial results from the tape almost immediately," she said.

As town clerk, Hibbert also has overseen her share of town meetings. The toughest was in 2008, when the regional school district called a contentious joint town meeting for Yarmouth and Dennis to settle the school budget.

The town clerk's office is busy year-round -- demonstrated by the almost continuous line at the customer window. Hibbert set the date of her retirement for May so she can wrap up this year's annual town meeting and election.

The town clerk's seat won't be vacant after Hibbert departs. The selectmen have already chosen former Assistant Town Clerk Phil Gaudet to take over.

In an email, Assistant Town Administrator Peter Johnson-Staub said Hibbert's hallmark is her work ethic.

"We regularly see Jane working several hours after Town Hall closes in the evening and she often comes in during the weekend," he said. "The fact that she continues these long hours in the final weeks of her tenure, and without compensation, speaks volumes for her commitment to serving the Yarmouth public."

"We wish Jane a long and healthy retirement -- she has certainly earned it," Johnson-Staub said.

Though Hibbert is leaving Town Hall, she's not leaving town. She and her husband, Alan, a marine technician, will do a little traveling but plan to still call Yarmouth home.

"We're thinking of buying a fifth-wheel trailer, pick a spot and go and spend a few months," she said. "We own some property in Maine and my husband always wanted to go to Alaska, and he has a cousin in Seattle. We also want to see the Grand Canyon."

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