AUBURN — Former Mayor John Jenkins thanked his supporters again Monday night as he donated a portrait of himself to Auburn Hall’s wall. A group of about 20 supporters were on hand as Jenkins stood with his portrait and was applauded by the sitting mayor and city council.

“I just cannot thank you all enough for what you did,” Jenkins told his friends after the meeting. “It was your work that put me in that seat. It’s not about me. It’s about what you’ve done.”

Jenkins served two terms as Auburn’s mayor from 2006 to 2009. He was elected to his first term in 2006, the year the city changed its elections from odd to even years.

He chose not to seek reelection when his first single-year term term ended in 2007 but was drafted in a write-in campaign. He won that election overwhelmingly in 2007, but declined to run again in 2009. He was succeeded that year by Dick Gleason.

Jenkins will become the first to have official portraits in both Lewiston and Auburn. He served as Lewiston mayor from 1994 to 1998. His Lewiston portrait is on display at City Hall’s first floor, across from the city council chambers.

“As we talked often about joint services, John was the first one out of the gate,” said Jonathan LaBonte, the sitting mayor. “He may be the only one to ever pull it off — being mayor of both cities.”

It was during Jenkins’ term in 2007 that the city rediscovered the cache of mayoral portraits. Jenkins said he was touring the Androscoggin County Historical Society’s stores in the County Courthouse, when he came up on the stack of 33 portraits dating back to Mayor Seth P. Miller, who served in 1870.

The portraits were moved to Auburn Hall in 2008 and displayed on the walls of the building’s main stairwell.

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