While his brothers hunted, Roy Mattina Sr. danced. The 92-year-old Biloxi native was always one of a kind. He was from a tight-knit generation born and raised on Point Cadet, a peninsula settled by immigrants on Biloxi’s eastern tip. Mattina was proud of his Italian heritage in a neighborhood where there were societies for residents of French, Italian and Slavic descent.

He was the last living member of the Biloxi City Council that inaugurated the city’s mayor-council form of government, from 1981-85, after the city switched from a commissioner government. He grew up in a Point neighborhood fondly known as Possum Neck. Mattina left high school early to join the Navy, but was later awarded an honorary diploma from Biloxi High School.