Amid hundreds of hugs and well-wishes the past few weeks as retirement nears, Chancery Clerk Dot McGee credits co-workers and family for making 12 years in the courthouse most special.

“I couldn’t have done it without them,” McGee said Thursday as more than 100 crowded the third floor of the courthouse in front of chancery court, the second of two days of sendoffs for the three-term clerk and 23-year staple of county government.

As chancery clerk, she kept records for the Board of Supervisors.

“She is the embodiment of a public official,” Board President Richard George told the throng as he read the first of two honors given.

Hearing praise from her six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren was simply sweet.

“This is for a great grandma!” said granddaughter Maggie Waites, 15, as she read an honor of their own.

“I’m going to play with my grandchildren, spend some time with them,” she said during an address before the Vicksburg Lions Club a day earlier, adding play time will extend to the great-grandchildren as well. “Help their mamas get ’em back and forth, you know.”

McGee, 74, retires officially Dec. 30, a day after county officials are sworn in for the 2012-16 term. A 1953 graduate of Durant High School, McGee worked part-time in the chancery clerk’s office in 1988 and did clerical work for the county board in the four years leading up to her 1999 election. Twice she was re-elected without opposition. Donna Farris Hardy was elected in November to succeed McGee in the office.

Smiles beamed a mile wide across the faces of her deputy clerks — her “ladies,” as she’s called them whenever asked about them.

“She has always been there and always had time for us,” said deputy clerk Mary Flaggs, one of six deputy clerks expected to remain through the transition, while a seventh, Ann Tompkins, also retires at year’s end.

“Dot’s been a great boss,” deputy clerk Faye Willis said. “You can always talk to her at any time.”

Besides spending more time around the kiddies, McGee plans to volunteer with Youth Court as a guardian ad litem for abused and neglected children and work with her Bowmar Baptist Church members to visit seniors.

“It’s something I’m looking forward to doing,” she said. “In my church, there are several older people that just need somebody to come by and cheer them up. That’s another one of my missions.”

Stacey Waites, one of McGee’s three daughters and a social worker, believes she’ll be a natural volunteer.

“She’s a great Christian lady,” Waites said.

Chancery clerks maintain all records for boards of supervisors and chancery court. Within that, statutory duties include recording board minutes, preparing the claims docket and county payroll, recording and storing deeds, land records and documents received from chancery court. Another function is to handle collection of property taxes after the tax collector sells property at tax sale.

During McGee’s term, records kept by her staff of seven and that in the circuit clerk’s office have been scanned into a computer database. Last year, chancery and circuit court briefs in Warren County were made available online as part of the Mississippi Electronic Courts pilot effort. Several of the old, heavy, land record books were also refurbished in the past four years, at McGee’s urging.