The county's firsts, tested office by office

TESTED NOVEMBER 2026 · UNTESTED OFFICES NAMED, NOT ASSERTED

First woman, Auditor — settled. Beverly Delores (Munger) Crone first sought elective office in 1979, was elected a South Bend councilwoman-at-large and re-elected in 1983, then left the council to fill a vacancy in the St. Joseph County Auditor's office and became the first woman to serve as St. Joseph County Auditor, elected to two terms and holding the office ten years. First women, Commissioners — settled, and plural: Crone left the Auditor's office to run for commissioner and, along with Cindy Bodle, became the first woman to serve as a St. Joseph County Commissioner; she served two terms, including a term as the board's first woman president, and retired in July 2003, ending a career the South Bend Alumni Association marked that year by making her the first recipient of its Baldoni Award for public service. She died December 31, 2017, and the South Bend Common Council's Resolution 18-01 of January 8, 2018, is the document that carries the whole course; it is the source for every first in this paragraph.

First woman, Prosecutor — settled, and dated to the future by weeks. When Amy Cressy filed for the office on January 21, 2026, the Tribune reported she was "potentially becoming the first female prosecutor in the county's history"; the banked leg records her election on November 3, 2026. She takes the office January 1, 2027, and the first is hers. First woman, Sheriff — a printed negative at the strength of the record reached: no woman appears in the sheriff's line at any point the record carries, the 2026 election returning Scott Ruszkowski to take the office in 2027; the negative would fall to the clerk's canvasses, named here as its settler. Settling sources: the clerk's canvasses and the League of Women Voters of the South Bend Area's records, which tracked women candidates across exactly these decades.

First Black holders — the honest state of the test is that open sources reached do not declare them office by office, and this section names the gap rather than filling it by inference. What the record does carry: Raphael Morton, the council's president in 2011–2013, its more-than-32-year member, and from January 1, 2025 a county commissioner — the longest-serving Black officeholder in the county's modern record at the strength reached, printed here as a service fact and not as a first, because no source reached calls him the first Black holder of either body. At the statehouse level the county's early Black representation is documented: the Political Graveyard's African-ancestry roster for Indiana lists Jesse L. Dickinson of South Bend, a Democrat, musician and social worker, who sat in the Indiana House of Representatives 1943–46. The office-by-office first-Black test — council, commissioners, clerk, auditor, prosecutor, sheriff — stands as this row's named residue, with its settling sources: the League of Women Voters of the South Bend Area records, The History Museum's local African American history collection, and the Tribune archive.

Sources: South Bend Common Council Resolution 18-01 (January 8, 2018) — the Crone course entire. South Bend Tribune, January 22, 2026 (Cressy's filing; "potentially becoming the first female prosecutor in the county's history"); 2003, Baldoni Award report (Crone's retirement). The Political Graveyard, African-ancestry politicians in Indiana (Jesse L. Dickinson of South Bend, state house 1943–46). Banked Government and People legs (the current rosters; Morton's service; the 2026 results).