The Mississippi Board of Mental Health has named its Chair and Vice Chair for state fiscal year 2024, selecting Stewart Rutledge of Oxford as Chair and Courtney Phillips of Indianola as Vice Chair.
Stewart Rutledge
Rutledge is an affordable housing developer and attorney who has served on the Board since 2017. Phillips is the CEO of South Sunflower County Hospital and has served on the Board since 2018.
In addition to his experience on the Board of Mental Health, Rutledge was previously appointed by Governor Haley Barbour to be Chairman of the Mississippi Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee and to serve on the Mississippi Supreme Court’s Commission on Juveniles, both of which were aimed at ensuring the proper treatment of juveniles coming into contact with the justice system. In this capacity, Rutledge additionally served as Mississippi’s representative on the Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice in Washington, D.C. In Oxford, Rutledge serves on the University of Mississippi School of Law’s Business and Law Fellowship Advisory Committee including occasional guest lectures, and he co-chairs Oxford’s Affordable Housing Commission.
Rutledge represents the First Congressional District and is a family member of a mental health consumer.
Courtney Phillips
Phillips has more than 20 years of experience in healthcare, government, and not-for-profit organizations. South Sunflower County Hospital that he oversees includes Indianola Family Medical Group, Delta Primary Care, and Delta Surgical Care. He previously served as Chief Financial Officer at Delta Regional Medical Center in Greenville. During his career he has been a member of the Mississippi Hospital Association, Rural Hospital Solutions, Delta Council, the Rural Hospital Alliance, the Delta Trauma Board, and Mississippi Healthcare Executives.
Phillips represents the Second Congressional District on the Board of Mental Health.
The governing board of the Mississippi Department of Mental Health is composed of nine members appointed by the Governor of Mississippi and confirmed by the State Senate. The nine-member board is composed of a physician, a psychiatrist, a clinical psychologist, a social worker with experience in the field of mental health, and one citizen representative from each of Mississippi’s five congressional districts (as existed in 1974).