A retired school teacher has been named to the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission, the first appointment to the incomplete board in nearly a year.

Anita Collins will replace James Burnett, who resigned from the board in October 2009. The Board of Mayor and Aldermen also removed Mark Corum, whose term expires in 2015, but who attended only three of 12 commission meetings in the past two years, according to planning commission records.

According to the City Charter, commission members may be removed if they are absent for three consecutive meetings. The board voted 2-0 to remove Corum and appoint Collins. South Ward Alderman Sid Beauman was absent.

Corum’s dismissal leaves one more vacancy on the seven-member commission. Buildings and Inspection Department director Victor Gray-Lewis said he hopes to have a nominee to fill the seat by the first of the year.

The commission is one of six city boards with vacancies. The others are the NRoute Board of Commissioners, the Public Transportation Board, Board of Architectural Review, Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Directors and the Civil Service Board.

City officials have cited problems finding volunteers to fill the spots.

Collins, 77, joins Fred Katzenmeyer, Warren Jones, Tommie Rawlings, David Sessums and Steven J. Jones on the board.

She is the first person to be appointed since Jones was named to the commission in January. Mayor Paul Winfield said she sent a letter to the board asking to be appointed.

“I saw an article in the paper that they (the board) were having problems filling the vacancy,” she said. “I thought it would be a good way for me to give back to the community.”

Collins came to Vicksburg in 1959. She has a bachelor’s degree in speech and drama from Blue Mountain College and a master’s degree from the University of Iowa. She taught at All Saints’ College from 1959 to 1963 and at Vicksburg High School from 1972 to 1998, when she retired.

“In between, we raised our family,” she said.

She later worked in real estate.

She is a member of the Vicksburg Art Association, Four Seasons of the Arts and the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation.

She has two sons, Stan and William, and two grandchildren.

Corum, who is currently in California, said he has had health issues and was unable to make commission meetings. He said he was injured in a severe traffic accident during a trip to California in March and was bed-ridden for three months before he could return here for the summer. He said he has been in California since October and plans to return to Vicksburg in January.