Longtime Upper Keys resident and former Monroe County Commissioner Sylvia Murphy passed away on Saturday morning. She was 86.
Murphy spent much of her life serving the public between her years as an EMT with Monroe County Emergency Medical Services, where she retired in 1996, and two decades with the Tavernier Volunteer Fire Department.
She was elected Monroe County Commission’s District 5, which serves North Key Largo and portions of Tavernier, in 2006. She kept serving and running for reelection in the years that followed until she decided to retire in November 2020.
“At 86, was I going to be a county commissioner at 90? Come on,” Murphy said during a sitdown interview with the Keys Weekly in December 2021.
Murphy’s commitment to the job and Florida Keys residents was recognized by fellow commissioners, as she was named mayor emeritus on Dec. 8, 2021. She joined Wilhelmina Harvey as the only two mayor emeritus.
Murphy told the Keys Weekly one of her proudest accomplishments surrounded Key Largo’s Rowell’s Park at Mile Marker 104, bayside.
“I loved every minute of those 14 years,” she said, referring to her time as a commissioner in an interview with Keys Weekly in December 2021.