New city council member Patty Nail Dean is sworn in by Hanceville Municipal judge Steven Gravlee.

HANCEVILLE — Hanceville’s somber swearing in ceremony and organizational meeting Monday evening also took on the tone of a community celebration, as a socially-distanced crowd filled the Hanceville Civic Center to near capacity to witness the city’s new administration and appointed officials take their oaths.

New council member Patty Nail Dean marked the upcoming Hanceville city administration’s lone new addition, taking her oath of office to join returning incumbent council members Jimmy Sawyer, Kim Brown, Jimmie Nuss, and John Stam — as well as her brother, mayor Kenneth Nail — on the newly-installed council.

The event featured a little bit of pageantry, as emcee James Fields introduced each elected leader for a stage walk-on to the accompaniment of inspirational music. With a live DJ in place and refreshments at the ready, friends and family stuck around afterward to mingle with the city’s leaders.

Once all members had been sworn in by municipal judge Steven Gravlee, the new council conducted its first housekeeping meeting onstage, naming departmental chiefs and making other day-one appointments. For the most part, those administrative functions represent continuity: All of the city’s current departmental leaders, including fire chief Roger Green, police chief Bob Long, and judge Gravlee himself, were re-upped to continue in their previously-held positions. Tania Wilcox also was appointed to continue in her position as city clerk.

Sawyer, whom the council once again selected as mayor pro tem, led the crowd in prayer at the end of the ceremony and thanked the community for its strong showing of support.

“Over the next four years, we’ll have to make hard decisions — decisions that are sometime not easy to make,” said Sawyer. “I feel confident that I can ask this on behalf of my fellow council members: that, during these next four years, from time to time, that you just lift us up in your prayers…that we will be strong leaders, and good stewards.”