Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today

Sara Miller, HOPE Policy Institute analyst, and Rep. David Baria, D-Bay St. Louis, speak at Thursday’s Democratic budget presentation.

HATTIESBURG – House Democrats, feeling unheard by Republican leaders at the Capitol on budget and tax policy, are taking their message directly to Mississippians.

About two dozen Hub City residents gathered Thursday evening at the Jackie Dole Sherril Center downtown to hear several concerns from Democratic leaders over lower-than-projected revenue collections, budget cuts and a continued focus on cutting corporate taxes.

“We want you to better understand what we’re dealing with at the Capitol,” said Rep. David Baria, D-Bay St. Louis, the House minority leader. “We’ve raised these issues repeatedly when (Republican) leadership bring tax cuts and budget cuts to the table, but we feel like it’s falling on deaf ears.”

“We want to bring this information to you, the voters, so y’all can understand what’s happening in your Capitol and with your economy,” Baria said.

Republicans hold a three-fifths supermajority in both the House and Senate, meaning no Democratic votes are needed to pass appropriations and revenue bills. The result: Democrats’ concerns have been ignored by legislative leadership the past two regular sessions.

Their concerns over budget and tax policy are rooted in unexpected budget cuts, declining revenue and Republicans’ continued focus on cutting corporate taxes.

Mississippi collected $169.3 million less than expected last fiscal year, prompting three mid-year budget cuts. Lawmakers in March approved a fiscal year budget that was $314 million less than budgeted for the previous fiscal year.

Sara Miller, analyst at HOPE Policy Institute, gave attendees a crash course in recent budget trends and implemented tax policies. She said one major reason state revenue collection has fallen short of projections is corporate tax cuts.

Miller warned that the 2016 franchise tax cut, which goes into effect starting this fiscal year, will further cut into revenues.

Republican leadership has based its fiscal policies on the theory that cutting taxes will attract new companies to the state and encourage new investment from existing companies, which will then create jobs, benefitting Mississippi workers and consumers.

Kayleigh Skinner, Mississippi Today

House Speaker Philip Gunn

At the end of this year’s legislative session, House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, expressed the views of the Republican leadership about state spending: “We Republicans have campaigned for many, many years that we are for living within our means, we are for controlling spending, we are for reducing the size of government.

“We don’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem. We are for reducing the tax burden,” Gunn said.

Democrats, though, have long maintained that the approach will do nothing more than cut into revenue sources that are already struggling to fund basic governmental services.

Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today

Rep. Percy Watson, D-Hattiesburg

“There is an effort right now to intentionally underfund government,” said Rep. Percy Watson, D-Hattiesburg. “I’m impressed to see all the interest in these issues because they are vitally important.”

Baria said House Democrats will host at least three other town halls across the state this fall. The next will take place Sept. 19 in Tupelo.

Mississippi’s story bubbles up from native soil. It also comes home to roost. This visual narrative — perspectives from insiders and outsiders — will cover the walls of the Mississippi Museum of Art in a blockbuster exhibition to greet the bicentennial of Mississippi’s statehood.

Picturing Mississippi, 1817-2017: Land of Plenty, Pain, and Promise, Dec. 9 through July 8, 2018, will journey through time, visiting a landscape, its people and history as pictured in more than 175 works by more than 100 different artists.

In a dialogue of perception and portrayal, the exhibition will wrap in creations of indigenous cultures, European exploration and settlement, the Civil War, responses to the civil rights struggle and development of the state’s own artistic voice.

Its large number of loaned works by artists from outside Mississippi includes responses to readings, visits and imaginings of the state, Mississippi Museum of Art director Betsy Bradley said. That fills in some gaps of “The Mississippi Story,” which highlights the permanent collection and will be de-installed for the museum-wide bicentennial show. The National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution and Minneapolis Institute of Art are among the prestigious institutions loaning works.

Photo courtesy of Mississippi Museum of Art

Andrew Bucci (1922-2014), The River, ca. 1955. oil on canvas. © Courtesy of the Estate of Andrew Bucci

With art during the Civil War period and works by such big names in the American art canon as Winslow Homer, John Steuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton, Picturing Mississippi expands the narrative and highlights the visual art that has shaped Mississippi’s image.

“The goal was not so much to be encyclopedic and comprehensive, but to give an overview of artistic life connected with this place,” said exhibition curator Jochen Wierich, adding it will celebrate the diversity of responses Mississippi has inspired over the past 200 years with the state as both exotic and as home.

Picture the state as an indigenous people, forced from their longtime lands, leaving it behind, as Benny Andrews does in “Mississippi River Bank (Trail of Tears Series).” It is a work resonating with dignity, heartache and the chasm between cultures. See it as an open invitation to adventure and commerce, as the boisterous crew in George Caleb Bingham’s iconic “The Jolly Flatboatmen” conveys.

Photo courtesy of Mississippi Museum of Art

George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879), The Jolly Flatboatmen, 1877-78. oil on canvas. Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection, 1992.15.

The crimps and curves of George Ohr’s vessels share another view, as clay from the land itself, guided by Ohr’s imagination and skill.

Photo courtesy of Mississippi Museum of Art

Benny Andrews (1930-2006), Mississippi River Bank (Trail of Tears Series), 2005. oil on canvas with painted fabric collage. © Estate of Benny Andrews, Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York.

Statehood’s start makes a slightly arbitrary beginning for an exhibition that also will dip further into the area’s past, with pottery and stone effigies from its native cultures, early maps and images of American Indians by Europeans, Wierich said, such as a French painter’s depiction of a Natchez Indian based on romantic literature.

Throughout, viewers will learn how Mississippi’s image was shaped by its people — European Americans, African Americans and more.

“The visual culture of this place was always shaped by these different communities,” Wierich said. “They lived together but they also, oftentimes, were in conflict.”

That theme continues into the civil rights era’s conflicts, “and artists respond … in their own way — sometimes with images that might be upsetting, regardless of where you’re coming from or what your history is.

“Then again, we also find moments where art has a way of reconciling.”

Picturing Mississippi shares the story through paintings, prints, photographs, maps, sculpture, decorative arts, furniture and contemporary expressions in mixed media.

© Courtesy of the artist via Mississippi Museum of Art

George Catlin (1796-1872), Mó-sho-la-túb-bee, He Who Puts Out and Kills, Chief of the Tribe, 1834. oil on canvas.

A chronological thread weaves through history, from pre-statehood European explorers and settlers, the reign of King Cotton with Natchez as its cultural center, the trauma of the Civil War, Reconstruction, early 20th century Mississippi artists going abroad to study as well as artists from outside keen on the region, Mississippi artists and modernism, civil rights, the state in recent years and a look into the future.

Among the standouts: George Catlin paintings of Choctaw Indians after they were relocated from their Mississippi homeland to Oklahoma; a major history painting by John Steuart Curry, inspired by the great Mississippi River flood of 1927; Sam Gilliam’s painting “Red April,” an example of the Tupelo-born artist’s soaked canvases, from his MLK series referencing the civil rights struggle.

“Some people regard these soaked canvases as the visceral response to the killings that were happening and the sadness that many people felt during that time,” Wierich said.

Another response to the civil rights struggle is Bob Thompson’s “Homage to Nina Simone,” whose song Mississippi Goddam captured the sadness and rage about the violence. The painting’s colorful figures and idyllic setting echo artists such as Gauguin, perhaps projecting an image that tries to transcend the conflict, Wierich said, while still expressing an underlying dissatisfaction.

Photo courtesy of Mississippi Museum of Art

Bob Thompson (1937-1966), Homage to Nina Simone, 1965. oil on canvas. Minneapolis Institute of Art, The John R. Van Derlip Fund, 89.83 © Estate of Bob Thompson, Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York

“We call it ‘Picturing Mississippi,’ … visitors should come open to being able to explore multiple images, multiple pictures, multiple artistic interpretations.

“The beauty of having a show like this is that, you can see them all in one room. You can see all these different perspectives, all these different artistic voices,” Wierich said. “In that regard, it’s quite a cacophony, but it’s a beautiful tapestry of things to look at and enjoy.”

Art Across Mississippi: Twelve Exhibitions, Twelve Communities shares the Mississippi Museum of Art’s permanent collection statewide in another celebration of the state’s bicentennial year. Through May, the themed exhibitions packed with artworks by such regionally acclaimed artists as Walter Anderson, William Dunlap, Marie Hull and Hystercine Rankin visit affiliates around the state. Lizzy Abston, the museum’s curator of the collection, said a good balance emphasizing Mississippi art was the aim in these dozen shows. Like many institutions, the Mississippi Museum of Art can show only about 4 to 5 percent of its permanent collection at any given time, and this gets more of the collection into the public sphere.

The Remaining Schedule

Eudora Welty’s Women, through Sept. 9, Mississippi Cultural Crossroads, Port Gibson

Narratives of the Land, Sept. 1-Oct. 14, McComas Hall Art Gallery

More than Meets the Eye: The Art of the Mississippi Blues, Sept. 8-Oct. 23, E.E. Bass Cultural Arts Center, Greenville

A Social Art: Mississippi Art in the Early 20th Century, Sept. 15-Oct. 27, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, Gautier, and Feb. 9-March 23, Meridian Museum of Art, Meridian

Voices in the Threads: Quilts from the Mississippi Museum of Art, January through February, Union County Heritage Museum, New Albany

Formal Explorations: Abstract Art from the Permanent Collection, December through March, Gumtree Museum of Art, Tupelo

Southern Gothic: Spiritual Sites and Evocative Spaces in Mississippi Art, Feb. 1-March 15, Historic Jefferson College, Natchez

Fine/Folk: Modes of Representation in African-American Art, March 12-May 19, Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, Biloxi

MEMPHIS – Some defeats hurt more than others. If you are Jackson State and you lose 63-0 to powerhouse TCU, you can get over that one fairly easily. You know, deep down underneath all the padding and bravado, you aren’t supposed to win that game. It’s a money game. You take the check and go back to work.

But a week later, when you play hated rival Tennessee State, a really good team at your own level, you know you can win if you play your hardest and your best.

But when you lose – 17-15, when a final field goal sails just six inches wide to the left – you have to fight for the words to describe the pain. That’s especially true when your kicker, Christian Jacquemin, had made a 47-yarder for what appeared to be the winning points, only to learn Tennessee State had called timeout a fraction of a second before the ball was snapped.

Tony Hughes, JSU’s 58-year-old head coach, tried to find the words to describe the pain outside a locker room, where he had just left his heartbroken players, some in tears.

“It hurts, it hurts to the core,” Hughes said after a long pause. “It just rips your heart out. Our kids have worked so hard to get into position to win a game like this, and to lose it like that just rips the hearts out of their chests.”

Hughes inherited a talent-depleted JSU team and has worked his fanny off, trying to replenish the once-proud program. You could see the strides he and his staff have made Saturday night in the Southern Heritage Classic at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium. An announced crowd of 47,407 saw it first-hand on a pleasant night with a first hint of fall in the air.

You first need to know a little history here. Tennessee State had beaten Jackson State five straight times by an average of three touchdowns each. This is supposed to be a heated rivalry but it’s hard to even call it a rivalry with domination like that.

And then Tennessee State took the opening kickoff and went 65 yards in just four plays and 83 seconds, looking for all the world like the Tennessee Tigers would continue their utter domination of JSU. But, for the last 58 minutes and change, Jackson State took the fight to Tennessee State.

JSU out-gained TSU 303-238. The Mississippi Tigers had 21 first downs to Tennessee State’s 11.

But here’s the deal: To win games like this one, you have to first learn not to beat yourself. There were so many times during the course of the game when Jackson State couldn’t seem to get out of its own way.

Or, as Hughes put it, “You have to make plays in the red zone, and we didn’t make enough of them.”

In five trips into the red zone (inside the opponents’ 20-yard line), JSU came away with just three field goals. Seemed nearly every time the Tigers faced a short yardage situation, they tripped over their on feet – a delay of game here, an illegal procedure penalty there, an illegal substitution still another time.

“We’ve got to be more consistent,” Hughes said, and he is right.

Jackson State quarterback Brent Lyles showed flashes of brilliance. He completed 24 of 45 passes for 196 yards, also ran for 55 yards on 13 carries and produced more yardage individually than Tennessee State as a team.

“I thought he did some good things. I thought he handled himself well,” Hughes said.

But what really gives Hughes and Jackson State so much hope for the future is the Tigers defense, where the talent level and the speed level has risen a notch or two from recent years. After Tennessee State’s first drive, the JSU Tigers allowed only 174 yards of offense and 10 points. And seven of those 10 points came on a punt return.

“We can have a really good football team if we continue to play defense the way we did tonight,” Hughes said, and this observer would agree.

“We were so close to getting over that hump tonight,” Hughes said, holding a thumb and pointer finger millimeters apart.

Six inches – that’s how close.

“I coach the special teams,” Hughes said. “We work on that situation we had at the end of the game all the time, and he’s made them in practice.”

Jacquemin made the first one Saturday night. In fact, he made three of four, including a 49-yarder at the end of the half.

“It’s like I told him,” Hughes said, “he will face this situation again.”

It could be Saturday.

“You know, the thing is we have to go to Grambling next Saturday and they are the defending black national champions,” Hughes said. “They are not going to feel sorry for us. We have to go back and get ready to go play them. We’ll get back tonight. We’ll practice tomorrow. As hard as it is, we have to put this one behind us.”

And, man, it was so hard to do that.

“This is our street,” said Peggy Seaton. “This is my people’s land. We got to take it back. It’s time!”

Seaton, like many others who attended last weekend’s Juneteenth celebration on Farish Street, hope that someday Farish Street will operate as it did in the early 1900’s.

After Jim Crow laws forced racial segregation across the South, Farish Street became “the black mecca,” one of the most progressive communities of black-owned businesses and homeowners for a period that lasted into the 1970’s.

A resident of Jackson, Seaton says she’s witnessed businesses open and close in the Farish Street district.

“I try to shop out here. I hope people can find the money they need to come put their businesses back out here,” said Seaton.

Juneteenth is the oldest known commemoration celebrating the annulment of slavery in the United States. This year, the city of Jackson and other partners decided to host the annual celebration on Farish Street.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Right: Keyana Hawthorne watches as dancers take the stage at the Juneteenth Festival on Farish Street.

Keyana E. Hawthorne is co-founder of Legacy Builders, Inc., a non-profit organization that partnered Saturday’s event. The organization focuses on empowering communities by providing knowledge, resources and support.

“We’re doing a parade this year, because we want to expose all of the different facets that we as a people have in our community,” said Hawthorne. “We are business owners, we are artists, teachers and dancers.”

Hawthorne hopes the festival will unify and educate citizens about black history and culture.

David Mosley, also known as D-Meezy, is the co-founder of Respect Our Black Dollars, an organization that promotes black entrepreneurship, buying from black business and economical and consumer literacy in the black communities. Mosley is also a community coordinator for the Juneteenth and Kwanzaa celebrations in Jackson. The festival began with a demonstration of libations lead by Mosley.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

David Mosley, also known as Mr. D-Meezy, raises the microphone as the crowd shouts names of ancestors during the libation ceremony.

“You ever heard the brothers on the corner say, “I’m a pour out a little liquor?” That’s a form of libations. A space at a table where they had an empty seat, a little food and a little drink is another form of libations. All that is, is the honoring of your ancestors. Typically water and plant are used. The water being the source of life and the plant being the representation of the growth of life,” said Mosley.

Mosley held the microphone toward the crowd as persons would shout the names of the deceased. Mosley would repeat each name and pour the water into the plant as the crowd responded, “ashe” which means “so be it.”

Libations is something that is very ancient and important to African-American people, said Mosley.

“It is the constant regeneration of energy. As human beings we must remember that, so we don’t recreate the errors and in fact can uplift the greatness. That’s the purpose of libations.”

More than 30 registered black businesses set up tents to promote health and wellness, sell clothing and beauty supplies, paint faces and sell specialty foods.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Tierra Williams, owner of Pesto’s Vegetarian Cuisine and Catering, taking an order at the Juneteenth Festival on Farish Street.

Tierra Williams, the owner of Pesto’s Vegetarian Cuisine and Catering, uses all organic products. Alizeti pesto, Swahili for sunflower, is her specialty.

“We are trying to make people healthier one meal at a time,” said Williams.

Williams is also a member of Respect Our Black Dollars and hopes that Pesto’s could expand into a grocery store. The festival allowed her the opportunity to network with other black business owners.

Hawthorne added, “I hope to be able to circulate the money within the black community. All of our vendors are black-owned. The only way we will elevate financially is if we work together.”

Hawthorne described the festival on Farish Street as a “family reunion.”

“I’ve seen so many of my old classmates and coworkers with their families. That’s a good thing … That’s a good thing,” said Seaton. She makes an effort each year to support the city’s Juneteenth festivals and programs for herself and also for the upbringing of her son.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Maxwell Seaton, 3, of Jackson

“I want him to love everybody, but it’s also my job as a parent to teach him how to love himself for his skin color. To bring him out here to see people of color doing something amazing, I feel like it’s my duty,” said Seaton.

The post Juneteenth Festival adds flavor to Farish Street appeared first on Mississippi Today.

This story is our weekly ‘Sip of Culture, a partnership between Mississippi Today and The ‘Sip Magazine. For more stories like this, visit The ‘Sip’s website.

Nashville might get credit for being the hub of the country music industry, where the deals are made and records are cut, but the music itself doesn’t always come from Music City. A lot of times, the music comes to it.

Country music’s roots begin farther south along the Natchez Trace Parkway, across two state lines and deep into Mississippi, where the organic, traditional music of Appalachia intersected the rural blues music of the Delta.

Tourists and residents can discover the origins of this enduring American music on the Mississippi Country Music Trail, a series of 30 marked sites that celebrate the art form’s genesis with Jimmie Rodgers in Meridian and continue through its evolution and commercial peaks. The trail started June 1, 2010, with a marker celebrating Rodgers’ contributions. Each marker has a short biography of the performer being honored or a description of the significance of a particular place, as well as photographs of people, places and memorabilia.

“It’s our cultural story that sets us apart,” says Malcolm White, executive director of the Mississippi Arts Commission. “(It’s important to) tell our cultural story through music, literature, the arts, culinary, civil war, civil rights — all these huge components that we lay claim to.”

White has worked on the historic trails initiative as a member of the Mississippi Blues Commission and as former director of Visit Mississippi, the tourism division of the Mississippi Development Authority. He also was part of the first group to attempt the blues trail project in the 1980s under Gov. Ray Mabus, although it never was funded and eventually dissolved. Gov. Haley Barbour established a new effort in the 2000s that led to the current blues, country music and freedom trails.

“In the beginning it was just about marking things,” said White. “Then it began to be about making creative corridors and communities where people would show up to do one thing and end up doing 10 things.”

The Mississippi Blues Trail brought together more than 200 historic sites across the state under one constellation, putting a narrative to Mississippi’s legacy in blues music and its cultural impact. Attractions such as the B.B. King Museum in Indianola and the Grammy Museum Mississippi in Cleveland, as well as Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, expand upon the narrative that Mississippi is the birthplace of American music.

Music Mississippi

People gathered for the unveiling of the Mississippi Country Music Trail’s 30th marker, honoring Faith Hill, on Dec. 19, 2015, in Star.

On the heels of the success of the blues trail, an advisory board put together a commission of scholars including Barry Mazor, author of the biography Meeting Jimmie Rodgers, to draft a list of names and events for the Country Music Trail’s initial 30 sites, which included famous performers Faith Hill, Tammy Wynette, Charley Pride, Conway Twitty and more from every corner of the state.

The trail aims to trigger more music tourism and invigorate the state’s creative economy, and that idea appears to have legs. Site preparation and construction of the Mississippi Arts & Entertainment Experience are underway in Meridian. The 58,000-square-foot facility, located two blocks from “father of country music” Jimmie Rodgers’s Country Music Trail marker, will tell the state’s artistic history through immersive, media-driven, interactive exhibits and events.

AP Photo/Tina Fineberg

Marty Stuart, left, and His Fabulous Superlatives perform at the 35th Annual Mississippi Picnic in New York’s Central Park June 14, 2014.

White gives much of the credit for getting the Country Music Trail project done quickly to Philadelphia, Miss., native and performer Marty Stuart, whose personal collection of 20,000 country-music memorabilia pieces makes up a large portion of the displays at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.

“He took it on as a personal project,” says White. “He’s such a historian of country music that he went before the Legislature and really pushed hard to build the Country Music Trail.”

Stuart, a country music historian and archivist since his days in Johnny Cash’s backing band, also helped bridge the span between his home state, where many of the genre’s pivotal performers and songwriters grew up, to Nashville, where Mississippi-raised songwriters such as Paul Overstreet and Craig Wiseman moved to make their mark on the industry.

When Stuart, White and Mac McAnally, a Nashville songwriter and director of Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band, set out to commemorate the contributions Mississippians have made to country music with a trail marker in Nashville, they ran into roadblocks everywhere they went. They were told that it would never happen. But they had a plan and a crucial ally.

The trio recruited Craig Wiseman, another singer-songwriter with deep roots in Mississippi but wide branches in Music City, who happened to own a building on Music Row, the heart of the city’s music business.

“When I went to talk to Craig about putting a marker on his property, he was all for it,” says White. “He allowed us to place a marker on Music Row that talks about everything from Elvis Presley to Jimmie Rodgers, Tammy Wynette and all the great Mississippians who came to Nashville to make their mark.”

From left, Malcolm White, Craig Wiseman, Mary Margaret Miller White and Americana Music Triangle founder Aubrey Preston stand in front of the Nashville marker.

White noted that the goal wasn’t to get anyone to move from Nashville, but to tell a fuller version of Mississippi’s story.

“We’ve always seen this trail as a way to honor Mississippians and tell our story,” said White. “We have blues markers in Los Angeles, Chicago, France and all over the world, because the blues is a global phenomenon, and so is country music.”

For information on the Mississippi Country Music Trail, including views of the trail markers and maps, visit mscountrymusictrail.org.

The Markers:

• Ben Peters, Hollandale
• Bob Ferguson, Philadelphia
• Bobbie Gentry, Greenwood
• Carl Jackson, Louisville
• Charley Pride, Sledge
• Chris LeDoux, Biloxi
• Conway Twitty, Friars Point
• Country Music Comes of Age, Meridian
• Elsie McWilliams, Meridian
• Elvis Country, Tupelo
• Faith Hill, Star
• Hank Cochran, Isola
• Hoyt Ming, Ackerman
• Jerry Clower, Liberty
• Jesse Rodgers, Waynesboro
• Johnny Russell, Moorhead
• Leake County Revelers, Sebastopol
• Mac McAnally, Belmont
• Marty Stuart, Philadelphia
• Moe Bandy, Meridian
• Narmour and Smith, Carrollton
• Nashville, Nashville, Tenn.
• O.B. McClinton, Senatobia
• Paul Overstreet, Vancleave
• Rod Brasfield, Smithville
• Smith County Jamboree, Polkville
• Sparta Opry, Sparta
• T. Tommy Cutrer, Osyka
• Tammy Wynette, Tremont

The post Historic trail celebrates success of country music in Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Rogelio V. Solis, AP

Coach Ed Orgeron with his Ole Miss football team at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in 2007.

So, let’s say LSU leads Mississippi State 14-0 with 10 minutes to go at Scott Field this Saturday night. Let’s say the Tigers face fourth down and one yard to go at midfield.
What would Ed Orgeron, the man LSU pays $3.5 million a year to make such decisions, do?

“I’m punting,” Orgeron told reporters Monday in Baton Rouge. “I want to keep this job.”

But that’s not what Orgeron did 10 years ago when he faced the same situation, in the same stadium, as the Ole Miss coach.

Orgeron went for it. The Bulldogs stuffed a predictable run up the middle. They then rallied to score 17 points in the next 10 minutes to win 17-14.

Orgeron was fired the next day.

Thus ended one of the strangest weeks in the history of Ole Miss football – and certainly one of the strangest in my half century of covering Mississippi sports.

Three days before the game I had written that it had become quite obvious that Orgeron had failed miserably as Ole Miss’ coach, and that it was time for a change, no matter what happened in the Egg Bowl.

I cited both on-the-field and off-the-field problems including this: “Since Orgeron’s arrival, Ole Miss has won 10 games and lost 24. The Rebels are 3-20 against SEC teams, 3-23 against teams from BCS conferences. Ole Miss has won one game in three seasons against a team that finished with a winning record. The current Rebels rank last in the SEC in scoring offense, scoring defense, turnover margin, rushing defense, total defense, time of possession, red zone offense and kickoff coverage. They are 11th of 12 teams in rushing offense, passing efficiency, first downs, field goals and allowing third down conversions. They are the only team in the league without an SEC victory and they are one of two that is not bowl-eligible.”

Melanie Thortis

Rick Cleveland

Of all the hundreds of columns I wrote in 33 years at The Clarion-Ledger, none received more reaction, both positive and negative, than that one. Even after all the losing and controversy, Orgeron still had many supporters. I heard from them in emails, snail mail, phone calls and voice messages. (I also heard from people inside the Ole Miss athletic department thanking me for the column.)

So Ole Miss proceeded to kick State around for more than three quarters at Starkville. State could do nothing. Emails continued to pour into my computer in the press box. “What do you think now?” many asked.

And then Ole Miss lined up to go for it. And a Liberty Bowl scout told me, “He’s just trying to pull them off sides.” And I said, “Maybe, but with Ed you never know …”
And they went for it, got stuffed and the rest is history. When I got back to the press box from the locker room interviews, many of the angry e-mailers had emailed again to apologize.

I honestly don’t know whether Ole Miss was going to give Orgeron another year before that snafu. But after it, they could not.

To his credit, Orgeron has advanced back up the ladder, with first the New Orleans Saints, then Tennessee, then Southern Cal and finally LSU.

Is he a better fit at LSU than Ole Miss? No doubt.

Will he succeed at LSU? Let’s see. I am not ready to go there.

He reportedly is doing many things differently at LSU, delegating more to his assistants and easing up in practices so his players are more fresh on game day.

He not only delegates, he says he consults.

When asked about the fateful decision of 10 years ago, Orgeron said, “I should have punted the ball. It was an emotional decision. That’s why I have mentors nowadays, especially when I get emotional and I ask them what do you think. I ask Matt (Canada) what do you think. I ask Pete (Jenkins) what do you think. I ask Dave (Aranda) what do you think. So those are the things I’ve grown in that area.”

Again, we shall see.

Meanwhile, I can’t imagine Nick Saban – or Dan Mullen for that matter – consulting with “mentors” before making such a call. Can you?

The post Ed Orgeron returns to Scott Field, the scene of his demise as Ole Miss coach appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Kate Royals/Mississippi Today

Mayor Chokwe Lumumba Jr., speaks as City Council members Aaron Banks (far left) and De’Keither Stamps (middle) listen.

A group of roughly 100 parents, community members and educators descended on the Mississippi Department of Education headquarters on Tuesday to protest the potential state takeover of Jackson Public School District.

The group, called OurJPS, delivered a petition of more than 1,800 signatures opposing the takeover to the department, and a slew of speakers ranging from Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba Jr., to Murrah High School teacher Olivia Cote all asked the state not to declare a state of emergency in the school district.

Lumumba pointed out the “unprecedented” nature of the department’s practice of issuing a limited audit outlining violations and then immediately beginning a larger scale investigative audit at the same time the district worked to correct the violations found in the initial report.

“I hesitate to impose or to suggest nefarious intent on anyone unless I see it as being warranted. In having conversations with the state board superintendent, I have been assured that this was to be an objective process in which the facts were simply going to be presented,” Lumumba said. “After discovering the efforts that have been made to take control of our school system specifically by that leadership, I impose nefarious intent.”

Lumumba, along with the authors of the petition, claim that a “substantial number” of the audit findings have been corrected by the district.

Kate Royals/Mississippi Today

The crowd listens to speeches at the OurJPS rally held in the Mississippi Department of Education’s auditorium in Jackson.

Although a handful of standards were listed as compliant by MDE, the most recent, nearly 700-page audit report made clear the district had not corrected a number of findings, including problems that had been highlighted when the limited audit was released in 2016.

These failures include educational issues such as inadequately certified teachers, all high schools failing to provide the required amount of instructional time to students, and failure to implement drop-out programs and programs that encourage student attendance, among others.

The district, which is currently rated as an F by the Mississippi Department of Education, had corrected standards related to its financial management and one standard requiring full-time principals be employed at each school.

Kate Royals/Mississippi Today

JPS parent and former city council candidate Dorsey Carson speaks at the Our JPS rally.

Parent and former city council candidate Dorsey Carson questioned how state takeovers have worked for other school districts that have been placed under conservatorship.

“Let’s not kid ourselves about what this is really about. This is about control, paternalism. This is about somebody who wants to make money off of our backs,” Carson said. “I want to ask the state of Mississippi: what is your success story? You tell me.”

Cote, a Murrah High School 9th grade English teacher, said the findings in the MDE’s audit “do not reflect her everyday experiences” at school, and suggested the state should consider providing more resources to the district instead of a takeover.

“We need the resources to be able to take care of our children. Resources for smaller classrooms, support services, technology, and to fix our worn down infrastructure — resources that could help us deliver the high quality education that our children deserve,” she said.

The rally was held ahead of the state department’s Commission on School Accreditation meeting Wednesday to make a recommendation regarding the takeover to the State Board of Education. The state board will then consider the commission’s recommendation at its meeting on Thursday.

If a state of emergency is declared and approved by Gov. Phil Bryant, the district’s superintendent and school board will be fired and a conservator put in place.

The move follows the release of a series of audits that began in April of last year. The audits found the district in violation of 24 of 32 state accreditation standards, or the guidelines and performance standards for schools in Mississippi.

The post Jackson mayor, residents rally against possible state takeover of schools appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Two candidates are headed to a runoff in a special election that could solidify or spoil the Republican supermajority in the House.

Candidates Missy McGee and Kathryn Rehner received the most votes of four candidates Tuesday for the House seat left vacant by now Hattiesburg Mayor Toby Barker. But because neither candidate garnered 50 percent of the vote, the two will square off in a runoff election on October 3.

McGee earned 1,389 votes, or about 44 percent, while Rehner received 779 votes, or about 25 percent. Casey Mercier (690 votes) and Cory Ferraez (308 votes) did not earn enough votes to make the runoff.

Candidates do not officially affiliate with any party in special legislative elections in compliance with state code, but voting records show how the candidates may vote in the Legislature.

McGee has exclusively voted in Republican primaries, according to voter registration records. Rehner has voted exclusively in Democratic primaries and has said she would caucus with Democrats if elected.

Campaign finance dollars have poured into the race, further hinting at party affiliation. McGee and Rehner – considered the frontrunners by several Pine Belt and Capitol politicos going into Tuesday’s election – were the two big fundraisers of the four candidates.

Missy McGee

McGee raised a total of $66,580 with checks from longtime Republican donors and Jackson-based political action committees. McGee received $1,000 from the Mississippi Road Builders PAC, $500 from Mississippi Physicians PAC, $500 from the Mississippi Realtors PAC and $500 from the Mississippi Bankers Association PAC.

McGee received a $10,000 check from Hattiesburg resident Lawrence Warren, CEO of Warren Paving.

Kathryn Rehner

Rehner raised $43,295 with a list of individual donors who give to Democrats. Current state Rep. Jarvis Dortch, D-Jackson, Rep. Percy Watson, D-Hattiesburg, and Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Cleveland, cut checks to Rehner. Rep. Abe Hudson, D-Shelby, knocked doors for Rehner in Hattiesburg last weekend, according to his Twitter account.

The three-fifths supermajority, which House Republicans have enjoyed since the 2016 legislative session (and for the first time since Reconstruction), means that Republicans can pass revenue or tax bills without needing Democratic votes. In the House, a three-fifths vote (74 of the 122 seats) is necessary to pass those bills.

GOP House supermajority on the line Tuesday

The loss of one GOP House seat for any reason would would mean a loss of that supermajority.

Of the three currently vacant House seats, House District 102 appears the most vulnerable for Republicans. Hattiesburg, a college town, is the fourth-largest city in the state, and the district in question is home to more than 24,500 residents.

In 2010, the district’s black voting age population – which historically goes to Democrats in Mississippi – was 30.4 percent. Barker, who ran as an Independent in the mayoral race, was long viewed a moderate Republican, swinging likely Democratic voters to his camp.

Barker, who was first elected to the House in 2007 at the age of 25, chaired the Performance Based Budgeting committee. He gained the trust of the Republican leadership as he sat on conference committees in 2017 for key education and appropriations bills.

The past four elections have gone decidedly Republican, though the district is considered “in play” to several Democratic operatives in Mississippi.

• 2015: Barker garnered 3,500 votes, or 73 percent, edging out Democratic opponent Taylor Brinkley, who received about 1,300 votes, or 27 percent.

• 2011: Barker earned 3,957 votes, or 66 percent, while Democrat David Cook earned 2,049 votes, or 34 percent.

• 2007: Barker earned 2,955 votes, or 63 percent, while Democrat Jolly Matthews earned 1,766 votes, or 37 percent.

• 2003: Longtime Republican Rep. Lee Jarrell Davis, R-Hattiesburg, earned 4,007 votes, or 72 percent, while Democrat Rick James earned 1,549 votes, or 28 percent.

The post Runoff needed in House race that could shift Republican supermajority appeared first on Mississippi Today.

“This is our street,” said Peggy Seaton. “This is my people’s land. We got to take it back. It’s time!”

Seaton, like many others who attended last weekend’s Juneteenth celebration on Farish Street, hope that someday Farish Street will operate as it did in the early 1900’s.

After Jim Crow laws forced racial segregation across the South, Farish Street became “the black mecca,” one of the most progressive communities of black-owned businesses and homeowners for a period that lasted into the 1970’s.

A resident of Jackson, Seaton says she’s witnessed businesses open and close in the Farish Street district.

“I try to shop out here. I hope people can find the money they need to come put their businesses back out here,” said Seaton.

Juneteenth is the oldest known commemoration celebrating the annulment of slavery in the United States. This year, the city of Jackson and other partners decided to host the annual celebration on Farish Street.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Right: Keyana Hawthorne watches as dancers take the stage at the Juneteenth Festival on Farish Street.

Keyana E. Hawthorne is co-founder of Legacy Builders, Inc., a non-profit organization that partnered Saturday’s event. The organization focuses on empowering communities by providing knowledge, resources and support.

“We’re doing a parade this year, because we want to expose all of the different facets that we as a people have in our community,” said Hawthorne. “We are business owners, we are artists, teachers and dancers.”

Hawthorne hopes the festival will unify and educate citizens about black history and culture.

David Mosley, also known as D-Meezy, is the co-founder of Respect Our Black Dollars, an organization that promotes black entrepreneurship, buying from black business and economical and consumer literacy in the black communities. Mosley is also a community coordinator for the Juneteenth and Kwanzaa celebrations in Jackson. The festival began with a demonstration of libations lead by Mosley.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

David Mosley, also known as Mr. D-Meezy, raises the microphone as the crowd shouts names of ancestors during the libation ceremony.

“You ever heard the brothers on the corner say, “I’m a pour out a little liquor?” That’s a form of libations. A space at a table where they had an empty seat, a little food and a little drink is another form of libations. All that is, is the honoring of your ancestors. Typically water and plant are used. The water being the source of life and the plant being the representation of the growth of life,” said Mosley.

Mosley held the microphone toward the crowd as persons would shout the names of the deceased. Mosley would repeat each name and pour the water into the plant as the crowd responded, “ashe” which means “so be it.”

Libations is something that is very ancient and important to African-American people, said Mosley.

“It is the constant regeneration of energy. As human beings we must remember that, so we don’t recreate the errors and in fact can uplift the greatness. That’s the purpose of libations.”

More than 30 registered black businesses set up tents to promote health and wellness, sell clothing and beauty supplies, paint faces and sell specialty foods.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Tierra Williams, owner of Pesto’s Vegetarian Cuisine and Catering, taking an order at the Juneteenth Festival on Farish Street.

Tierra Williams, the owner of Pesto’s Vegetarian Cuisine and Catering, uses all organic products. Alizeti pesto, Swahili for sunflower, is her specialty.

“We are trying to make people healthier one meal at a time,” said Williams.

Williams is also a member of Respect Our Black Dollars and hopes that Pesto’s could expand into a grocery store. The festival allowed her the opportunity to network with other black business owners.

Hawthorne added, “I hope to be able to circulate the money within the black community. All of our vendors are black-owned. The only way we will elevate financially is if we work together.”

Hawthorne described the festival on Farish Street as a “family reunion.”

“I’ve seen so many of my old classmates and coworkers with their families. That’s a good thing … That’s a good thing,” said Seaton. She makes an effort each year to support the city’s Juneteenth festivals and programs for herself and also for the upbringing of her son.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Maxwell Seaton, 3, of Jackson

“I want him to love everybody, but it’s also my job as a parent to teach him how to love himself for his skin color. To bring him out here to see people of color doing something amazing, I feel like it’s my duty,” said Seaton.

The post Juneteenth Festival adds flavor to Farish Street appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi continues to have among the nation’s highest rates of poverty, income inequality and people lacking insurance as well as the lowest household incomes, new data from the federal government show.

The latest release of U.S. Census information, published Thursday, shows that 20.8 percent of Mississippians are in poverty, based on a three-year average between 2014 and 2016—the most in the U.S.

Alex Rozier, Mississippi Today. Source: U.S. Census

Although the state saw poverty dip slightly since 2014, Mississippi’s three-year poverty rate is one of only two states where more than 20 percent of the population are in poverty; the other is neighboring Louisiana, at 20.6 percent. 

Mississippi also ranks highest for what the Census calls proximity to or depth of poverty.

Nationally, the poverty rate has declined for three consecutive years, standing now at 14 percent.

According to the data, Mississippi also has the nation’s lowest median household income, of $41,754 annually. In addition to having the lowest median income of its neighboring states, Mississippi is just one of three states—along with Arkansas and West Virginia—where median yearly income is below $45,000.

Alex Rozier, Mississippi Today. Source: U.S. Census

Maryland has the highest annual median income, of $78,945 while the national median income is $57,617.

The Census also looked at numbers of people who lack health insurance. Mississippi’s rate of 11.8 percent is among the bottom ten states, and the highest in its region.

Utah has the most people without health insurance (16.6 percent) while Massachusetts has the highest portion of citizens who have health-care insurance.

Census numbers also note that of the 10 states with the highest percentages of uninsured, only Nevada had expanded Medicaid as of January 2016. Louisiana expanded the program, which the federal Affordable Care Act permits, later that year.

Alex Rozier, Mississippi Today. Source: U.S. Census

The post Mississippi still has worst poverty, household income appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Rogelio V. Solis, AP

Nick Fitzgerald scores on a three-yard touchdown run to give State a 17-7 halftime lead.

STARKVILLE — For Mississippi State’s soon-to-be-nationally ranked Bulldogs, the possibilities are endless following Saturday night’s shocking 37-7 annihilation of LSU.

These Bulldogs – huge, strong, fast and so well-prepared – seemingly played three feet off the ground, brow-beating LSU in every phase of the sport. The unranked Bulldogs ought to shoot right into the Top 20 after this.

Listen: LSU and State have faced off 111 times since the series began back in 1892 when MSU was all of 12 years old. The 30-point victory on Sept. 16, 2017, was State’s largest in that long, long history.

Rick Cleveland

The Bulldogs out-ran, out-passed, out-kicked, out-hit, out-blocked, out-tackled, and, yes, thoroughly out-coached LSU before an announced crowd of 60,596 that sounded like 100,000 amid an electric scene at Scott Field. Indeed, at times it seemed State players rode the sound waves of a frenzied crowd that mixed clanging cowbells with thunderous cheers.

Long and lanky Nick Fitzgerald is a much improved quarterback as a junior. He was already really good. Aeris Williams, the A-Train, appears to be a big-time back. Jace Christmann was perfect on placekicks. And State’s defense swarmed to the ball as if they were rabid wolves chasing yellow-helmeted rabbits.

Rogelio V. Solis, AP

Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen’s game plan worked to perfection.

For those of us who have watched this rivalry through the decades, this was a startling scene. Usually, when maroon and white collides with purple and gold, it’s the maroon and white that goes backward. That wasn’t the case on this warm, humid night when State won in the trenches as handily as it did on the scoreboard. Keep in mind LSU had defeated State 23 of the last 25 times the two have played. The Tigers had won eight straight here in Starkville.

Not this time. This was an all-night butt-whipping.

For LSU’s soon-to-be unranked Tigers, No. 12 in the land before this drubbing, the reality of a highly questionable hire last November quite likely will soon set in, if it hasn’t already. Honestly, watching Ed Orgeron’s third game as LSU coach, without the interim tag, seemed almost like watching the 2007 Ole Miss Rebels playing in purple and gold. LSU appeared careless, undisciplined and almost without a plan. And when things started to go badly, the errors snowballed. Ole Miss fans of 10 years ago surely can relate.

Rogelio V. Solis, AP

LSU head coach Ed Orgeron watches a replay on the jumbotron and there was nothing to smile about.

How did the Tigers stub their collective toes? Let us count the ways. They were penalized nine times for 112 yards and have now been penalized 30 times on the season. Two LSU players were ejected for targeting. Pass coverages were blown. When Fitzgerald hit Keith Mixon with a 45-yard, third quarter touchdown pass, Mixon was so wide open he must have been invisible to the Tigers. Either that, or he has really bad breath. There was no Tiger within 15 yards of him when he caught the ball.

Did LSU quit? That might be too strong a description. But the Bulldogs did beat the starch out of them. Up 17-7 at halftime, State scored on its first four possessions of the second half and outscored the Tigers 20-zip to the finish. Against an LSU defense that is supposed to be one of the nation’s most talented, State averaged 6.5 yards per play on 71 offensive snaps.

We’ve seen numbers like those over and over again in this rivalry. They’ve just nearly always been LSU’s numbers.

Fitzgerald, who did a sensational Dak Prescott imitation, said none of the Bulldogs talked beforehand about LSU’s utter domination of this series.

Rogelio V. Solis, AP

As a junior, Nick Fitzgerald has become much more accurate and confident.

“Nobody inside our program considers this an upset,” Fitzgerald said. “We expected to win the game.”

Said Mixon, who caught six passes for 97 yards and the touchdown, “We had the feeling that we had them right where we wanted.”

And when was that?

“After our first drive,” Mixon answered, matter-of-factly.

Dan Mullen, the Bulldogs coach who had won only one of eight previous games against LSU, tried his best to put a lid on the post-game ecstasy, a good idea with road games coming up against Georgia and Auburn.

Yes, he was pleased with the preparation, the effort and the performance, he said. More than anything, he was pleased with the crowd and atmosphere, calling the crowd “unbelievable” and saying “it made a huge difference.”

“We have a lot of young guys and they were juiced by this crowd,” Mullen said. “We’ve got to get a lot better. We’ve got to continue to improve, build depth and get better in all phases.”

Perhaps, but then where does that leave LSU?

Believe this: Nobody in the State crowd felt any sympathy for the Tigers.

The post An all-night butt whipping: State 37, LSU 7 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Ole Miss athletics

L.Q. Smith races down the field on a 48-yard pass play from Tim Ellis on Sept. 17, 1977. It was the only pass Smith ever caught at Ole Miss and it came against eventual National Champion Notre Dame. That’s Ellis, 18, in the background.

Let’s begin by going back to Sept. 16, 1977, back when Ole Miss played its most meaningful home football games in Jackson. And seldom has there been a more significant game than the one they would play the next day against the toast of college football, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

This was Friday night before Saturday’s game. Ole Miss players, coaches, cheerleaders and fans converged on Highland Village, then only five years old, for a huge pep rally. One by one, the team’s seniors were introduced and came to the microphone.

And then it was Tim Ellis’s turn. Said Ellis, smiling, “Hi, I’m Tim Ellis. Remember me?”

Melanie Thortis

Rick Cleveland

Some background: Ellis, at one time, was supposed to be the next Archie Manning. He was tall and lanky and could ever more throw the football. In today’s parlance, Ellis could spin it. But Ole Miss, under then-head coach Ken Cooper, had switched to an option offense, the veer, which required a running quarterback. For all his talents, Ellis was not that. He did not expect to play the next day unless the game got out of hand, which is what most experts expected. Notre Dame was a 21-point favorite.

Coached by Dan Devine, the No. 3 ranked Fighting Irish sported a roster densely populated by future NFL standouts. They had defeated Johnny Majors’ sixth ranked Pitt Panthers 19-9 at Pitt in their opener. Later, they would trounce No. 5 Southern Cal 49-19, Georgia Tech 69-14 and Miami (at Miami) 48-10. Yes, and they would rout undefeated Texas and Heisman Trophy winner Earl Campbell 38-10 in the Cotton Bowl for the national championship.

Notre Dame was college football’s Goliath. Ole Miss, in this case, was David. Few gave the Rebels a chance, including some of the Rebels themselves. That Ole Miss team was treading water, having edged then-Memphis State 7-3 and having been blown out 34-13 by Alabama in its previous games. They would lose to Southern Miss the next week and to Mississippi State later on to finish the season 5-6.

Rick Cleveland

Jack Carlisle (left) and Tim Ellis at a “roast” of Carlisle in 2012.

Says Jack Carlisle, who was an Ole Miss offensive assistant at the time, “I had watched every film of Notre Dame from the year before and I had watched their game with Pitt the week before. I’ll tell you the truth, I was just hoping we wouldn’t get embarrassed. Size-wise and talent-wise, we weren’t in their class. I’m serious.”

Carlisle felt no better about it the next day when the Fighting Irish trotted out for pre-game warm-ups in those famous gold helmets. “They were so big I thought the field was going to tilt their way,” Carlisle said. “They made our guys look puny.”

Ole Miss had one factor on its side: Mississippi weather. It was hot and brutally humid that day. Carlisle says Cooper, who died in May at age 80, made many smart coaching decisions against Notre Dame, but his best move was months before when he talked university officials into moving the game from nighttime to the heat of the day.

“I remember Ken coming in to a staff meeting and telling us that he had gotten the Notre Dame game changed from a night game to a day game,” Carlisle said. “That was huge, because it was hot that day, and I mean hot. Those big Notre Dame boys weren’t used to that kind of heat.”

In South Bend, Ind., the Irish had practiced for the previous two weeks during in cool, wet weather. In comparison, playing in Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium that day was like playing in suffocating jungle heat.

Still, nobody expected what proceeded to happen. And isn’t that the beauty of college football? We may think we know what is going to happen. But we don’t. As coaches sometimes put it, “On any given Saturday …”

Saturday, Sept. 17, 1977, was that Saturday. Ole Miss led 3-0 after one quarter and 10-7 at half.

The Ole Miss defense played as if the Rebels were playing with 15 – not 11 – players on the field. The Rebels were everywhere.

Ole Miss athletics

James Storey scores on a 9-yard pass from Bobby Garner just before halftime.

Carlisle, who will turn 88 this week and is one of the most successful high school coaches in Mississippi history, was an offensive coach that day but believes that Jim “Big Nasty” Carmody’s defensive game plan was what kept the Rebels in it. “Jim’s defensive plan was masterful,” Carlisle said. “His players knew just what to do.”

Carmody, who at 84 is retired and living in Madison, deflects all credit to the players, especially linebacker Brian Moreland, end George Plasketes and mostly tackle Charlie Cage, who surely played one of the greatest games an Ole Miss defensive lineman has ever played. Cage made 17 tackles, several behind the Notre Dame line. If the weather was the game’s biggest factor, then Charlie Cage, now deceased, was a close second.

Says Tim Ellis, the forgotten quarterback, “Occasionally, when I have nothing to do, I’ll watch the film of that game. Charlie Cage was by far the most dominant player on the field. He ate them alive. He made the first tackle of the game and from then on he put on an all-day ass-whipping.”

Even so, Notre Dame led 13-10 on the strength of two fourth quarter field goals, the second coming with just four minutes, 53 seconds remaining.

Ole Miss starting quarterback Bobby Garner had played a terrific game, running the option. But he had also taken a horrible beating from Notre Dame defensive ends Ross Browner and Willie Fry, two monsters. What’s more, Garner was dehydrated and would need intravenous drips to recover.

Both Cooper and Carlisle knew a change was needed.

Ole Miss athletics

Ken Cooper was fired after the 1977 season.

“We need to go with our best throwing quarterback,” Cooper said.

“That’s Ellis,” Carlisle responded.

Ole Miss got the ball back on its own 20, needing a field goal to tie, a touchdown to go ahead. “To tell you the truth, against that defense, I was hoping for a field goal,” Carlisle said.

But the Notre Dame defense was wilting. Jackson-area Irish alums had provided huge blocks of ice and huge fans to help keep players cool. By the fourth quarter, both the ice and the Irish had melted.

Said Tim “Remember Me?” Ellis: “By the time I got in the game, the Notre Dame players were throwing up on each other.”

So Ellis went to work. His first pass fell incomplete but his second, to tight end Curtis Weathers, went for 10 yards and a first down.  Cooper sent tight end L.Q. Smith into the game for the next play, a move that Carlisle calls “a stroke of genius.”

Notre Dame was expecting sideline passes to stop the clock. The call was for Smith to fake to the sideline, then go over the middle. Ellis hit him at the Ole Miss 40 and Smith zigged and zagged all the way to the Notre Dame 22. Wide receiver Robert Fabris knocked down two Irish defenders with one block.

And get this: It was the only pass L.Q. Smith ever caught as an Ole Miss Rebel.

“After that, we knew we were going to score,” Ellis said.

Running back James Storey then ripped up the middle for 12 yards to the 10 against the gasping Irish defense.

Carlisle sent in running back Roger Gordon with the next play, called “8-66 flood pick” – a rollout pass to the right with a wide receiver setting what was then a legal screen for a running back. The back was supposed to be Gordon, sent in by Carlisle because, said Carlisle, “Roger had the best hands of any running back. Storey was a great fullback, but Roger had better hands.”

Whatever. Storey, who was supposed to switch sides in the backfield with Gordon, did not. “Let’s just say I knew which back was supposed to get the ball,” Storey said.

The screen worked to perfection. Storey, all alone, reached slightly behind him to make what Ellis calls “a fabulous catch.”

Touchdown Ole Miss. The Rebels took the lead. And then, after the ensuing kickoff, Irish running back Jerome Heavens fumbled and Moreland recovered. The Rebels tacked on a field goal. Final score: Ole Miss 20, Notre Dame 13. It happened. It really did.

Watching it all on the Notre Dame sidelines was a reserve quarterback named Joe Montana. That’s right – that Joe Montana. Who knows what would have happened if Dan Devine had inserted Montana into the game as Ole Miss had inserted Tim Ellis? (Montana did enter the next week’s game against Purdue and started every game during the rest of his fabled career.)

Ellis, who lives in Jackson, says he can’t even estimate how many times somebody has told him they were at the game when Ole Miss beat Notre Dame and Joe Montana.

“But Joe Montana didn’t play,” Ellis always tells them.

“And they still swear they saw him play and that we beat Joe Montana,” Ellis said, laughing.

For that matter, Ellis was in the game for only nine plays. “Nine plays,” he said, chuckling again. “That’s how much I played. Nine plays. But those nine plays were pretty much a defining moment for me, at least athletically. I know this. Those nine plays have gotten me a lot more attention than I deserve.”

The sellout crowd that day was announced at 48,200. If so, there were only 48,199 there at the end, and that’s another story.

Vicki and Tim Ellis, on their 40th wedding anniversary in June.

Tim and Vicki Ellis had been married for three months before Sept. 17, 1977. Vicki was in the stadium for most of that day. But, midway through the fourth quarter, she headed back to Oxford.

“Things weren’t going well for Ole Miss, and Tim wasn’t playing,” she said. “I knew he was going to be disappointed with losing and mad because he didn’t play. I wanted to beat the buses home and be there.”

When Tim threw the game-winning pass – the pass of his life, one of the most famous passes in Ole Miss history – Vicki was pulled over at a Madison exit, listening to the game, hollering, pounding on her steering wheel and crying with joy.

“Since that day, I’ve probably had 200,000 people come up to me and tell me they were there,” Tim Ellis said. “Funny thing is, the person who mattered most to me wasn’t there.”

The post 40 years ago: The day Ole Miss and Mississippi heat, humidity melted the Irish appeared first on Mississippi Today.

“This is our street,” said Peggy Seaton. “This is my people’s land. We got to take it back. It’s time!”

Seaton, like many others who attended last weekend’s Juneteenth celebration on Farish Street, hope that someday Farish Street will operate as it did in the early 1900’s.

After Jim Crow laws forced racial segregation across the South, Farish Street became “the black mecca,” one of the most progressive communities of black-owned businesses and homeowners for a period that lasted into the 1970’s.

A resident of Jackson, Seaton says she’s witnessed businesses open and close in the Farish Street district.

“I try to shop out here. I hope people can find the money they need to come put their businesses back out here,” said Seaton.

Juneteenth is the oldest known commemoration celebrating the annulment of slavery in the United States. This year, the city of Jackson and other partners decided to host the annual celebration on Farish Street.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Right: Keyana Hawthorne watches as dancers take the stage at the Juneteenth Festival on Farish Street.

Keyana E. Hawthorne is co-founder of Legacy Builders, Inc., a non-profit organization that partnered Saturday’s event. The organization focuses on empowering communities by providing knowledge, resources and support.

“We’re doing a parade this year, because we want to expose all of the different facets that we as a people have in our community,” said Hawthorne. “We are business owners, we are artists, teachers and dancers.”

Hawthorne hopes the festival will unify and educate citizens about black history and culture.

David Mosley, also known as D-Meezy, is the co-founder of Respect Our Black Dollars, an organization that promotes black entrepreneurship, buying from black business and economical and consumer literacy in the black communities. Mosley is also a community coordinator for the Juneteenth and Kwanzaa celebrations in Jackson. The festival began with a demonstration of libations lead by Mosley.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

David Mosley, also known as Mr. D-Meezy, raises the microphone as the crowd shouts names of ancestors during the libation ceremony.

“You ever heard the brothers on the corner say, “I’m a pour out a little liquor?” That’s a form of libations. A space at a table where they had an empty seat, a little food and a little drink is another form of libations. All that is, is the honoring of your ancestors. Typically water and plant are used. The water being the source of life and the plant being the representation of the growth of life,” said Mosley.

Mosley held the microphone toward the crowd as persons would shout the names of the deceased. Mosley would repeat each name and pour the water into the plant as the crowd responded, “ashe” which means “so be it.”

Libations is something that is very ancient and important to African-American people, said Mosley.

“It is the constant regeneration of energy. As human beings we must remember that, so we don’t recreate the errors and in fact can uplift the greatness. That’s the purpose of libations.”

More than 30 registered black businesses set up tents to promote health and wellness, sell clothing and beauty supplies, paint faces and sell specialty foods.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Tierra Williams, owner of Pesto’s Vegetarian Cuisine and Catering, taking an order at the Juneteenth Festival on Farish Street.

Tierra Williams, the owner of Pesto’s Vegetarian Cuisine and Catering, uses all organic products. Alizeti pesto, Swahili for sunflower, is her specialty.

“We are trying to make people healthier one meal at a time,” said Williams.

Williams is also a member of Respect Our Black Dollars and hopes that Pesto’s could expand into a grocery store. The festival allowed her the opportunity to network with other black business owners.

Hawthorne added, “I hope to be able to circulate the money within the black community. All of our vendors are black-owned. The only way we will elevate financially is if we work together.”

Hawthorne described the festival on Farish Street as a “family reunion.”

“I’ve seen so many of my old classmates and coworkers with their families. That’s a good thing … That’s a good thing,” said Seaton. She makes an effort each year to support the city’s Juneteenth festivals and programs for herself and also for the upbringing of her son.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Maxwell Seaton, 3, of Jackson

“I want him to love everybody, but it’s also my job as a parent to teach him how to love himself for his skin color. To bring him out here to see people of color doing something amazing, I feel like it’s my duty,” said Seaton.

The post Juneteenth Festival adds flavor to Farish Street appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Ron Hall brought a Jackson Convention Complex audience to tears Tuesday as he recalled meeting Denver Moore.

The best-selling author, screenwriter and film producer explained to the hundreds gathered for the Make a Difference Lunch, presented by the Community Foundation of Greater Jackson, how his encounter with the homeless man changed his life and inspired his first book, Same Kind of Different As Me, a story of hope, forgiveness and redemption.

The movie adaptation will be released in theaters Oct. 20 by Paramount Pictures and Purflix Entertainment.

“Our story really is about black and white, wealth and poverty,” Hall said. “But our story gives hope to a nation of how we can all come together.”

“Though he was poor and though he was homeless, he saved me.”

The post Preview of a ‘Different’ film reveals similarities between rich and poor appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Rogelio V. Solis, AP

Nick Fitzgerald, a two- or three-star recruit, has played like a five-star for Mississippi State.

Long-time readers know my feelings about the star system in college football recruiting. It’s a good conversation piece, but the stars – even four and five at a time – don’t always translate into victories.

Rick Cleveland

If recruiting stars were the be-all, end-all, there’s no reason to even play the Mississippi State-Georgia game in Athens Saturday.

Stars-wise, it’s a total mismatch.

For our purposes today, I am going to use the scout.com ratings system. State fans, read it and weep:

• Georgia’s roster includes an even dozen five-star players, compared to State’s one, Jeffery Simmons. And I know what some of you are thinking: If Georgia has 12 Jeffery Simmons, the Peach State Bulldogs ought to just go ahead and petition to join the NFL.

• Georgia’s 85-man roster also is populated by 42 four-star recruits, giving Kirby Smart 54 players at the top two levels. State’s 85-man roster includes 15 four-star players, giving Dan Mullen 16 players at the four- and five-star recruit levels. That’s 54 to 16, if you are keeping score – but, of course, that’s not how we keep score in football.

Mississippi State has 55 three-star athletes, compared to 29 for Georgia. Talent-wise, using the scout.com stars system, Georgia has the fourth best team in the country, behind only Alabama, Ohio State and Southern Cal, in that order. Meanwhile, Mississippi State is No. 26, which also makes State the 11^th most talented SEC team.

So how come Mississippi State, the 26^th most talented team, smashed LSU, the country’s sixth-most talented team 37-7 last Saturday night? Currently, from this viewpoint, State looks like the second best team in the SEC West, but stars-wise, the Bulldogs rank seventh and last.

The fallacy of the system is that two- three-star athletes sometimes develop into five-star players. State quarterback Nick Fitzgerald was a three-star recruit (by scout.com, lower by others), LSU’s Danny Etling was a four-star. Whom would you rather have?

At Georgia, five-star quarterback Jacob Eason was injured in the opener, so the Bulldogs’ have turned to four-star Jake Fromm without any noticeable dropoff. But if you think that’s something, consider Georgia’s depth at running back. Nick Chubb, the senior starter, averages 6.6 yards per carry. He’s a five-star. Sony Michel, another senior, is a five-star, averaging 5.5 yards per carry. Aptly named DeAndre Swift, a five-star freshman, averages a whopping 7.5 per carry. Three running backs, 15 stars.

But I doubt Mississippi State would want to trade four-star Aeris Williams, who averages seven yards per carry, for any of them.

So what do the stars mean? What does it mean that Georgia has 54 four- and five-star athletes, compared to State’s 16?

Dan Mullen?

“It means they have an awful lot of talent on that Georgia team, but not much else to me,” Mullen answered on the SEC teleconference Wednesday. “You can only have 11 guys on the field at a time. It does tell you that every time they substitute, they are putting a four- or five-star guy in for another four- or five-star. You look at the film, you see how talented they are.”

But how talented someone is at age 17 and 18 doesn’t necessarily translate to how talented they will be at 21 or 22. Some guys develop later. Some guys haven’t been coached up. Some guys get hurt. Some guys just flat work harder. Some guys fit certain systems better.

And some coaches and recruiters evaluate better. Southern Miss used to beat powerhouse teams with zero-, two- and occasional three-star athletes. Jeff Bower was particularly good at that, finding the lean 6-3, 190-pound high school safety, who becomes a 6-4, 260-pound college defensive end.

MSU athletics

Deion Calhoun

Clearly, Mullen and his staff have evaluated talent especially well. One example: Starting offensive guard Deion Calhoun, out of Pleasant Grove, Ala., was a two-star recruit, the first Restoration Academy player to ever earn an FBS scholarship. State saw potential most others missed. Calhoun red-shirted as a freshman, became a starter in the bowl game his red-shirt freshman season, started all last year and last Saturday night blocked the socks off LSU’s four- and five-star defensive linemen. He wears Gabe Jackson’s old jersey, No. 61. He plays a lot like him, too. Jackson now makes $11.2 million per year for the Oakland Raiders. State’s two-deep depth chart includes several Deion Calhouns.

It’s a credit to Calhoun and the others, but also to the coaches who evaluated them and then coached them up.

The post Is it in the recruiting stars? If so, then State has no shot at Georgia appeared first on Mississippi Today.

When it opened in 2011, the Medical Examiner’s office at the Gulf Coast Crime Lab in Biloxi had everything: two autopsy stations, a cooler to store bodies before and after exams, and a digital x-ray system.

The only thing missing was an actual medical examiner to perform the autopsies. Six years later, Mississippi’s chief medical examiner says the state is no closer to finding someone.

“It’s a state-of-the-art facility,” said Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula. “So we the state paid to build the facility, and we’re paying to keep the thing running, and it’s not being used to its fullest capacity which doesn’t make any sense.”

And until the state hires someone, all bodies in the state must make the trip up to the Medical Examiner’s office in Pearl, outside of Jackson. Sometimes other things do as well.

Larrison Campbell, Mississippi Today

Mississippi Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Mark LeVaughn

On a recent afternoon, Christie Simmons, the office administrator, flagged down Chief Medical Examiner Mark LeVaughn in the hall outside the morgue in Pearl.

“Jim Faulk is about losing it on the phone,” she said, referring to the coroner in Hancock County. “A stomach just washed up on the beach.”

LeVaughn stopped and looked at her, amused. Although a body had been pulled from the sound a day earlier, body parts, especially internal organs, are significantly more rare.

“He’s not sure if it’s human remains,” she said. “He wants to know if he should send it up here.”

LeVaughn shrugged. If there’s any chance the remains are human, state law requires the medical examiner’s office to process them. “Sure, he can do that.”

She paused. “Well, there’s the issue of the smell. He said it smells pretty bad.”

LeVaughn considered this as she continued. “So should he pack it on ice? Or he said he could stretch it out.”

“Stretch it out? Why would he do that?”

She shrugged.

LeVaughn made a face. “This is why we need someone on the coast.”

But that doesn’t seem to be a possibility anytime soon. In February, the state actually got close to hiring someone. Contracts were signed, a Mississippi medical license was obtained. But weeks before the New York-based doctor was set to start, he backed out.

“And it’s like, here we go again,” LeVaughn said. “We’ve been through this before and it’s always the same thing.”

That same thing, according to LeVaughn, is actually two things: a low salary coupled with an extremely high caseload.

Currently, the advertised salary is $190,000 a year. While this is within range of many entry-level jobs posted on the website for the National Association of Medical Examiners, LeVaughn said, the coast pathologist needs enough experience to run his own office. The mid-range posted for those salaries is closer to $235,000 a year.

But the biggest impediment to hiring someone is, according to LeVaughn, the same reason someone is so desperately needed on the coast: caseload. In addition to LeVaughn, Mississippi employs two other medical examiners. This is just one-fourth the number that the National Association of Medical Examiners recommends for Mississippi’s caseload.

Public safety crisis: Bodies roll in, evidence stacks up

Gil Ford Photography

Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula

“Even going back to when I was a prosecutor, caseload was an issue. And it seems like it’s gotten significantly worse,” said Wiggins, who spent seven years with the district attorney’s  office before running for the state Senate in 2011. “And, again, it’s something we in the Legislature need to be addressing because public safety and protecting victims are a core function of government. And if we’re not giving (the Department of Public Safety) the tools they need, then we’re not doing right by the citizens.” 

That caseload reached nearly 1,700 last year, and LeVaughn estimates that approximately 300 of those cases come up from counties along the coast.

The irony in all of this is that transporting bodies 160 miles from the coast to Pearl is not cheap, either. Ferrying one body from Gulfport to the office in Pearl costs Harrison County $540 round-trip according to County Coroner Gary Hargrove. If the coast sends 300 cases a year, that’s a annual price tag of more than $160,000.

But there are other costs, too. If the case going up is a homicide, Hargrove said, investigators travel with the body to observe the autopsy. The trip from Gulfport is three and a half hours, each way.

“So you’re also looking at a loss of manpower for an 8-hour day, whereas if you were doing an autopsy down here they would be able to stop in and then return to their job,” Hargrove said. “So it delays us getting our job done, delays the pathologists getting things done in a timely manner. And it impedes the law enforcement from doing their job. So it’s kind of a trifold issue.”

“We need someone on the coast. That’s the bottom line,” LeVaughn said. “But I’m not sure when we’ll have them.”

Gerald Herbert, AP

Responders work the scene where a freight train smashed into a charter bus in Biloxi on March 7, 2017, in which four people died.

In the meantime, the medical examiner’s office on the coast does get occasional use. If a big enough event happens, such as the collision between a freight train and casino bus in March, the medical examiners will travel to the coast and work from the lab there.

Or, LeVaughn said, if a body isn’t expected to fare well in transit, he or one of the other doctors might conduct their exam down there.

Considering the stomach, LeVaughn grinned.

“That’s one of those things that might give me a reason to go down to Biloxi,” he said.

The post Why can’t a doctor stomach working in the Gulf Coast crime lab? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Legislative leaders conducting Fiscal Year 2019 budget hearings for state agencies signaled little willingness for increased state spending as hearings got underway on Thursday.

Rogelio V. Solis, AP

Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves asks a question of an agency head during legislative budget hearings on Thursday.

“We work for the taxpayers, not the bureaucracy that has been created over the past 200 years,” Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves said to kick off the hearings that continue today. “And if we will focus our efforts on that, we will make the best decisions for our constituents.”

Legislative leaders – who have promoted efficient spending while cutting most agency budgets the past two fiscal years – listened intently to seven agency heads present what they labeled basic needs, not desires: funding salaries for new highway patrol troopers, K-12 literacy coaches, medical examiners, DNA technicians and workforce development teachers.

But during periods of lawmaker questioning for all seven agencies that met Thursday, legislators fell back, in some fashion, to the lack of total funds available for increased state spending. Left unsaid was the impact of a $415 million tax cut over 10 years passed in 2016 and beginning to take effect this fiscal year. Tax revenue provides the bulk of the money available to run state government agencies.

State Economist Darrin Webb began the Fiscal Year 2019 budget process by discussing the state of Mississippi’s general economy. While Webb warned of no real declines in revenue collections, state GDP or unemployment rates, he painted a picture of increases in those areas for Mississippi that will be slower than all neighboring states and the national average.

On Friday, Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn will formally announce the first Fiscal Year 2019 revenue estimate, which gives lawmakers their first glimpse at a bottom-line spending total. The current fiscal year’s budget was set right at $6 billion.

State agency and department heads have already submitted 2019 budget requests that total $800 million more than this year’s budget – meaning lawmakers will have until early April to decide which agency needs to fulfill or cut.

Rogelio V. Solis, AP

A member of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee reviews budget figures at Thursday’s hearing.

On Thursday, two agencies – Department of Revenue, which collects the state’s taxes, and the Department of Treasury, which pays the state’s debts – hinted at the possibility that they might not have enough in the bank to pay their own agency bills the current fiscal year. Both agencies asked for an increase in funding for next year.

Department of Revenue asked for a 2019 budget increase of $4.2 million. Stated needs included hiring additional revenue auditors, who investigate for fraudulent tax filings.

Child Protection Services asked for a $15.2 million general fund budget increase. Stated needs included additional salary funds and an office space.

Department of Education asked for about $23 million in increases for three of their five general fund budget items, including a fully funded Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which has long been shortchanged by the Legislature. Stated needs included salaries for literacy coaches, seed funding to pay for superintendent of the Achievement School District, and more technology in the classroom.

Department of Public Safety asked for a $20.4 million general fund increase. Stated needs included salaries for five more medical examiners, salaries for 60 new highway patrol officers who have recently graduated from trooper school, a new building for Troop G in Starkville, and new Bureau of Narcotics vehicles.

Community Colleges asked for $78.1 million general fund increase. Stated needs included salary increases for teachers who haven’t received raises since 2008, additional support for workforce training programs, and $10.7 million for MI-BEST Career Pathways, formerly called Dropout Recovery Initiative.

Institutes of Higher Learning asked for a $6.7 million general fund decrease. IHL leaders focused on the positives of the university systems but discussed the need to address Ayers settlement funding moving forward. The Ayers case was resolved when the state agreed to provide a fund that would add money to support the state’s historically black colleges and universities. However, funds will be depleted in a few years and advocates for those institutions argue that additional funding is still needed.

Department of Information Technologies asked for a $9.9 million general fund increase. Stated needs included additional data processing servers and other equipment.

The Treasurer’s Office was on the schedule for Thursday, but no representative attended the meeting due to a scheduling conflict. Instead, the office sent a memo to lawmakers chronicling their stated needs, which includes a $51.9 million general fund increase for debt services.

The post Legislators draw firm line on state agencies’ 2019 budgets appeared first on Mississippi Today.

“This is our street,” said Peggy Seaton. “This is my people’s land. We got to take it back. It’s time!”

Seaton, like many others who attended last weekend’s Juneteenth celebration on Farish Street, hope that someday Farish Street will operate as it did in the early 1900’s.

After Jim Crow laws forced racial segregation across the South, Farish Street became “the black mecca,” one of the most progressive communities of black-owned businesses and homeowners for a period that lasted into the 1970’s.

A resident of Jackson, Seaton says she’s witnessed businesses open and close in the Farish Street district.

“I try to shop out here. I hope people can find the money they need to come put their businesses back out here,” said Seaton.

Juneteenth is the oldest known commemoration celebrating the annulment of slavery in the United States. This year, the city of Jackson and other partners decided to host the annual celebration on Farish Street.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Right: Keyana Hawthorne watches as dancers take the stage at the Juneteenth Festival on Farish Street.

Keyana E. Hawthorne is co-founder of Legacy Builders, Inc., a non-profit organization that partnered Saturday’s event. The organization focuses on empowering communities by providing knowledge, resources and support.

“We’re doing a parade this year, because we want to expose all of the different facets that we as a people have in our community,” said Hawthorne. “We are business owners, we are artists, teachers and dancers.”

Hawthorne hopes the festival will unify and educate citizens about black history and culture.

David Mosley, also known as D-Meezy, is the co-founder of Respect Our Black Dollars, an organization that promotes black entrepreneurship, buying from black business and economical and consumer literacy in the black communities. Mosley is also a community coordinator for the Juneteenth and Kwanzaa celebrations in Jackson. The festival began with a demonstration of libations lead by Mosley.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

David Mosley, also known as Mr. D-Meezy, raises the microphone as the crowd shouts names of ancestors during the libation ceremony.

“You ever heard the brothers on the corner say, “I’m a pour out a little liquor?” That’s a form of libations. A space at a table where they had an empty seat, a little food and a little drink is another form of libations. All that is, is the honoring of your ancestors. Typically water and plant are used. The water being the source of life and the plant being the representation of the growth of life,” said Mosley.

Mosley held the microphone toward the crowd as persons would shout the names of the deceased. Mosley would repeat each name and pour the water into the plant as the crowd responded, “ashe” which means “so be it.”

Libations is something that is very ancient and important to African-American people, said Mosley.

“It is the constant regeneration of energy. As human beings we must remember that, so we don’t recreate the errors and in fact can uplift the greatness. That’s the purpose of libations.”

More than 30 registered black businesses set up tents to promote health and wellness, sell clothing and beauty supplies, paint faces and sell specialty foods.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Tierra Williams, owner of Pesto’s Vegetarian Cuisine and Catering, taking an order at the Juneteenth Festival on Farish Street.

Tierra Williams, the owner of Pesto’s Vegetarian Cuisine and Catering, uses all organic products. Alizeti pesto, Swahili for sunflower, is her specialty.

“We are trying to make people healthier one meal at a time,” said Williams.

Williams is also a member of Respect Our Black Dollars and hopes that Pesto’s could expand into a grocery store. The festival allowed her the opportunity to network with other black business owners.

Hawthorne added, “I hope to be able to circulate the money within the black community. All of our vendors are black-owned. The only way we will elevate financially is if we work together.”

Hawthorne described the festival on Farish Street as a “family reunion.”

“I’ve seen so many of my old classmates and coworkers with their families. That’s a good thing … That’s a good thing,” said Seaton. She makes an effort each year to support the city’s Juneteenth festivals and programs for herself and also for the upbringing of her son.

Ashley F. G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Maxwell Seaton, 3, of Jackson

“I want him to love everybody, but it’s also my job as a parent to teach him how to love himself for his skin color. To bring him out here to see people of color doing something amazing, I feel like it’s my duty,” said Seaton.

The post Juneteenth Festival adds flavor to Farish Street appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Ashley F.G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

A lab tech prepares a body for autopsy in the Mississippi Medical Examiner’s office in Pearl.

Her dark blond hair hung, limp and dirty, on the gurney. Her fingers were black with fingerprinting ink, one of the resources the state medical examiners used to piece together the life that she had.

Not long ago, she had painted her toenails coral. The nail polish, bright and unchipped, bore no trace of what had sent her to the basement of Mississippi’s Forensics Lab in Pearl.

But her face did. By the time her boyfriend had sobered up enough to report her body floating in the pond near his home, detectives guessed she had been there for over half a day.

Larrison Campbell, Mississippi Today

Lab techs wheel a body from the cooler into the morgue’s exam room for an autopsy.

While assistant medical examiner Dr. Brent Davis conducted his exam, lab techs wheeled a fifth body into the room, zipped into a black bag. The exam room was at capacity, as it had been all morning. By the time the day was over, the three state medical examiners would perform 11 autopsies total.

This is an exceptionally high number, by all standards. One state over, Arkansas’s medical examiners each perform one exam a day on average.

But Mississippi’s Office of the Medical Examiner is severely understaffed, more so, in fact, than any other state medical examiner’s office in the country, according to a 2014 report from the National Association of Medical Examiners. Mississippi’s three medical examiners each performs between 500 and 600 autopsies a year, more than double the 250 that the National Association of Medical Examiners recommends.

And these staffing issues aren’t unique within the Department of Public Safety. Upstairs from the morgue sit three floors of the state crime lab. Over the last few years, budget cuts have whittled down what was once a staff of 120 to just 85. And with it, the backlog of cases has exploded, going from “basically zero to over 3,000 reports that are over 90 days old,” according to department director Sam Howell. Howell said he considers reports over 90 days old to be in the backlog.

“Time is of the essence in law enforcement. And with the lack of people and the high demand of requests we’re beginning to fail law enforcement in providing results in a timely matter,” Howell said.

Larrison Campbell, Mississippi Today

Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Mark LeVaughn

Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Mark LeVaughn insists that his team’s top priority is always thoroughness and accuracy. But just an hour in the morgue reveals the incredible stress the three doctors endure  — and the measures they take to keep the flow of bodies moving.

“We’re way beyond a public safety issue. We don’t have the recommended number of people working here,” LeVaughn said. “We are critically understaffed, and that’s a fact.”

Down in the morgue, two detectives hung back near the door as Davis continued the woman’s autopsy.  Detective Jeff Joyner stepped forward.

“Can you say if she drowned?” he asked.

Davis couldn’t. When a body spends enough time submerged, he said, water can work its way into the lungs even if they’re not breathing. Davis waved the detectives closer. A navy blue bruise cupped the woman’s left eye socket. Davis folded back the skin on her face. The bruise was visible on the underside.

“Her heart was still beating when she got this,” Davis said. “I’d call it blunt force injuries, drowning with blunt force injuries. If I could get more information from you guys, let’s say this guy all of a sudden sobers up and confesses, “I did X,” then I can say if it’s consistent with that.”

“It’s significant enough to cause death?” Joyner asked, indicating the bruise. Davis said it was.

As he walked the detectives out, Davis promised to have someone send over a CD of autopsy images in the next few weeks. He didn’t want to make them wait on the finalized autopsy report.

“I’ll tell you right now, my turnaround time is horrific. It’s about a year,” Davis said, referring to the finalized report. “When I first got here it was two to three months. And every month it gets worse.”

As Copiah County Coroner, Ellis Stuart plays the liaison between victims’ families and the Medical Examiner’s office. He said he had waited longer than a year for a finalized autopsy report. And he admits this makes him nervous.

“The longer it takes to get someone to trial the more things could go wrong,” Stuart said. “The defendant is entitled to a speedy trial. But so is the victim.”

This is a problem for any state. But it’s particularly acute in Mississippi, which has the second highest murder rate in the country and a nascent drug epidemic. And this means that the staffing issues aren’t just a problem for the departments but also for the public.

“Anything that has lab work, be it narcotics, homicide, a burglary, gets touched by the crime lab, which ultimately affects the outcome of the criminal investigation,” said Director of Public Safety Marshall Fisher. “So it could become a public safety issue if the staffing shortage is not addressed. It probably already is.”

Ashley F.G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Bodies awaiting autopsy line the far wall of the morgue’s cooler at the medical examiner’s office in Pearl

Lots of equipment, few employees

Mississippi’s new forensics laboratory, which opened in 2015, cost the state $30 million — and looks like it. At 90,000 square feet, the striking glass and steel building in Pearl nearly quadrupled the size of the old facility, in use since the middle of the last century.

Ashley F.G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Mississippi State Forensics Lab in Pearl, which opened in 2015

Inside the laboratories are modern and bright, white walls with gray accents. Much of the equipment is as new as the building.

“I don’t think there’s a lab in the country that has better instruments than us,” said Chris Wise, the lab’s technical assistance section chief.

Just as striking as the equipment filling the building, however, are the people who don’t.

On a recent Wednesday morning in the toxicology lab, one forensic scientist sat at his desk, peering through a microscope. The four desks around him, each outfitted with the same equipment, were empty.

The trace evidence lab houses some of the crime lab’s most expensive equipment, including three $300,000 scanning electron microscopes, which analyze everything from gunshot residue to paint samples and hair fibers. The lab currently employs three people, but Jacob Burchfield, a forensic scientist in the department, said they could use five to six more.

“We are not short on equipment,” Burchfield said. “Just people.”

As a result, Burchfield estimated that the backlog in trace evidence reaches approximately 600 cases, many of which contain dozens of individual samples, each needing separate analysis. Firearms, which employs four examiners and needs approximately four more, has a backlog of 800 to 900 cases, according to Wise.

Each one of these cases is tied to a crime, and having a full analysis of the evidence can be “absolutely crucial to making cases,” according to Jackson Police Chief Lee Vance.

Downstairs in the morgue, Davis said he didn’t suspect the woman he autopsied had overdosed. But he thought drugs were involved somehow, especially given the mental state of the boyfriend who had reported her body.

He wouldn’t know for sure, however, for close to a month. Toxicology screenings are detailed. Every drug found in the blood is quantified, confirmed and then the amount in the blood is quantitated, or measured. But the crime lab’s toxicology lab is so short-staffed the medical examiner’s office doesn’t even bother sending its samples upstairs. They outsource to a lab in Philadelphia, Pa.

“We have tox upstairs but they can’t do everything. They can screen things but they can’t do the quantitative work,” LeVaughn said. “They’ve got instruments up there, that sit and collect dust, that can do anything you want it to. But they don’t have people to operate the machines.”‘

According to LeVaughn, the contract with the Philadelphia toxicology lab costs the state $300,000 a year.

Larrison Campbell, Mississippi Today

Sam Howell, the director of the Mississippi Forensics Lab

Like many state agencies, the staffing issues in the crime lab boil down to one cause: funding. Not only have declining departmental funds chipped away at the number of positions — a decrease of nearly 30 percent since 2010 — but the jobs that are left, according to Howell, pay far less than similar positions in other states.

Legislators haven’t adjusted the department’s salary scale since 2007. So a chemist with a master’s degree in forensic chemistry starts with a salary of $32,000.

As a result, Howell said, attracting and retaining talent has become a struggle. University of Southern Mississippi and University of Mississippi both have forensic science programs. But graduates frequently leave for departments in other states. If they do stay in Mississippi, Howell said, many spend two years training at the crime lab, then use that as a springboard to programs outside of Mississippi.

“I’ve got employees all over the country — well, former employees,” Howell said with a dry laugh. “I lost one employee to the Virginia department of forensic science with a $20,000-a-year raise, doing the exact same work he was doing here. So we can’t compete. If we do get someone here and they’re a great employee and we train them, then they’re going to go somewhere else. That’s what we see happen all the time.”

“It’s a shame we have two highly touted programs in the state, and we’re training them to go somewhere else.”

The vault

For the most part, when the crime lab’s forensic scientists talk about their backlog, it’s an abstraction. Six hundred cases sound like a lot, but picturing them is difficult.

Down in the crime lab’s 4,400 square foot vault, the backlog is visible. Chris Wise walks down one of more than a dozen aisles. It’s about 20 feet long, filled with plastic bins and brown paper bags, each containing samples of trace evidence waiting to be analyzed. Wise taps a bin.

“Two years ago the backlog was to here,” he said motioning to the column of shelves in front of him. “Now we’re here,” he said, indicating everything behind him. The boxes filled almost two more rows of shelves. “So it’s doubled. In two years, it’s doubled.”

Larrison Campbell, Mississippi Today

Chris Wise stands in an aisle of the vault where forensic evidence waits to be analyzed. Two years ago, the backlogged evidence reached Wise’s hand. It now stretches several rows behind him.

After data is analyzed, the crime lab returns it to the law enforcement agency that sent it over. More than 400 state and federal agencies, from local police departments to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, submit their evidence to the Mississippi Forensics Laboratory. As a result, at any given time, the outcomes of hundreds, if not thousands, of cases in the state are waiting on an accurate, thorough analysis from the crime lab.

In addition to preventing law enforcement from making arrests, delays can also cause problems for the wrongfully arrested, according to Tucker Carrington, who heads the Innocence Project at the University of Mississippi Law School.

“In the case of a sexual assault, if the lab work isn’t done, that’s someone who’s free to stay out there and commit sexual assaults,” Carrington said. “You can have a suspect who’s not arrested and charged or one who is arrested and charged. And if it’s not them there’s no way for them to say it’s (not a match).”

Larrison Campbell, Mississippi Today

Forensic scientist Jacob Burchfield examines trace evidence with a scanning electron microscope.

Howell said that the crime lab does everything it can to avoid holding up a case. If a detective or elected official asks them for results, that can move a case to the front of the line.

“We try not to make it a problem, where if someone will call, let us know that this is a critical situation, we’ll try and prioritize that case,” Howell said.

But Howell also acknowledged that this fosters an imbalance, where certain cases — for instance, those that receive media attention or those in which the victim’s family has pull — can end up getting answers faster.

“And that’s very frustrating. And I get a lot of frustrated calls from law enforcement and prosecutors that they can’t go ahead with what they need to do, that they’re waiting on us,” Howell said.

“When you start getting behind, arrests don’t occur, cases become cold.” Howell said. “It affects the entire state and the public safety of the entire state.”

Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, spent seven years as an assistant district attorney prior to joining the Legislature. He agreed with Howell that backlogs can hinder all areas of law enforcement.

“It affects more than just the Department of Public Safety or the victims of crimes. It affects the coroners, it affects law enforcement,” he said, in reference to staffing issues in both the crime lab and medical examiner’s office. “It’s everybody in the system, and we owe it to the citizens that that’s being run right. So we have a ways to get there.”

“Our own worst enemy”

The Medical Examiner’s office doesn’t have the luxury of acquiring a backlog. Bodies, unlike physical evidence, can’t sit on a shelf.

So regardless of how many medical examiners are on staff, they are required to get through the same number of cases. In 2016, Mississippi’s three medical examiners completed just under 1,700 autopsies.

“Sometimes I think we’re our own worst enemy. We could easily have patients here for days, but families are going to complain to coroners, as they should,” LeVaughn said. “What suffers is the paperwork. We don’t have time.”

The National Association of Medical Examiners set 250 as its recommended maximum number of annual autopsies for two reasons. The first is accuracy. According to a 2008 study commissioned by the Mississippi Legislature, performing more than the recommendation “corresponds to a tendency for the forensic pathologist, regardless of skill, to engage in shortcuts or to make mistakes, including performing partial autopsies when a full one is warranted, failing to examine an injury or organ, or not completely recording relevant findings.”

The same study found that “at the threshold of 350 autopsies per year and beyond, a
pathologist’s mistakes may grow more flagrant and are more likely to involve errors in judgment.” Mississippi’s medical examiners each performed more than 550 last year.

Larrison Campbell, Mississippi Today

Assistant Medical Examiners Dr. Brent Davis and Dr. Lisa Funte

“Our role is recognizing the significance of what we see,” said Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Lisa Funté. “It’s not just noting that it’s a bullet hole, but interpreting what that means. If there’s stippling, whether it’s close range. And that takes time.”

The second reason the National Association of Medical Examiners gives for capping autopsies is burnout, a problem LeVaughn said he has witnessed firsthand. A few years ago, Mississippi had five medical examiners working statewide.

One retired. “I think the caseload got to him,” LeVaughn said. Then one took a job at the medical examiner’s office in Galveston, Texas. “It was a better paying job and a better case volume,” he said.

The flip side of this coin — and the bitter irony, according to LeVaughn — is that having so few pathologists on staff has made recruiting new ones next to impossible. In the last two years, LeVaughn said he has made offers to four doctors. Each one declined.

LeVaughn studies job postings from other states obsessively — he keeps a manila folder with dozens of them printed out — constantly comparing what they offer to his own department’s posting.

Larrison Campbell, Mississippi Today

In the toxicology lab, one forensic scientist uses a microscope to examine evidence.

Right now the biggest problem he sees with Mississippi’s job posting is that there’s only one. Maryland, a state with a population double that of Mississippi’s, is advertising for three new hires. Its ad boasts that this will raise the total medical examiners in the state lab to 20.

“If you have a place with an excessive workload, and you just advertise one position, that’s key in the problem of attracting people here. If I could advertise four of five positions people would say, ‘Hey, they’re serious about managing caseload and getting things under control,'” LeVaughn said.

Only 24 states, including Mississippi, have state medical examiners’ offices. The rest use a patchwork system of county and city medical examiners to perform their autopsies.

When the National Association of Medical Examiners surveyed the 24 state medical examiner offices across the country in 2014, they determined that, based on the population of the state, Mississippi needed a total of 12 forensic pathologists to handle the caseload. That’s a 300 percent increase in staff, more than any other state surveyed.

Ashley F.G. Norwood, Mississippi Today

Empty body bags line the hallway outside the exam room of the medical examiner’s office in Pearl.

But that recommendation assumes a murder rate close to the national average. Mississippi’s is almost double it, 8.7 per 100,000 people in 2015 versus 4.9 nationally. As a result, Mississippi sees nearly twice as many murders as other states its size. And every single one goes through the medical examiner’s office.

“I know we have the highest homicide rate of any of the job postings I’ve seen,” LeVaughn said. “It’s a very violent state.”

Arkansas, which has a population the same size as Mississippi, employs six medical examiners in its state office. Each handles approximately 250 autopsies a year, according to Dr. Charles Kokes, the chief medical examiner.

But even at that number, Kokes said his staff struggles to finalize 75 percent of its autopsies in 60 days. The National Association of Medical Examiners recommends a 90 percent completion rate in that time period. When told that the average case in Mississippi takes a year to complete, Kokes inhaled sharply, then sighed.

“At a certain point in time you run the risk of damaging the criminal justice system,” Kokes said. “You have these three pathologists who are working their tails off, but they’re not getting the cases out as quickly as they’d like to – so you have cases that are on hold, people sitting in jail, perhaps waiting on charges to be filed, you have court dates that need to be set and investigators who need to investigate more. Now there’s a lot of information that you can give an investigator verbally. But it’s the report that’s official.”

Arkansas is one of 16 state medical examiners’ offices nationwide to receive accreditation from the National Association of Medical Examiners. One of the prerequisites for accreditation is that medical examiners perform no more than 250 autopsies a year. Mississippi’s office has not been accredited, and until staffing doubles, LeVaughn said, “we’ll never get accredited. Ever.”

“If the accreditation is not granted because of the caseload we need to be looking at that,” said Wiggins.

Larrison Campbell, Mississippi Today

Chris Wise of the Mississippi Forensics Lab in one aisle of the vault, where hundreds of guns recovered from crime scenes await analysis.

LeVaughn said he has petitioned legislators for budget increases to no avail. His budget request for fiscal year 2018 asked for three new positions, which would bring the state total to six. So far he only has funding for one other position, the same one he has been trying to fill for several years. It’s for the Gulf Coast medical examiner’s office. Opened in 2011, it never has been staffed.

Why can’t a doctor stomach working in the Gulf Coast crime lab?

Some state officials recently have taken a backdoor approach to increasing staffing. Earlier this month, the Governor’s Opioid and Heroin Study Task Force recommended funding positions for two more medical examiners, as well as four more forensic scientists in the crime lab.

Senate Appropriations Chair Buck Clarke, R-Hollandale, said he was aware of the staffing issues in the medical examiner’s office and crime lab during the last session. But after declining revenues forced five mid-year budget cuts in 2017, money was tight across the board.

“During the end of the (legislative session) we look for critical needs. And then we’re hearing from the Department of Health that we’ve got to be able to examine water systems, well, that’s pretty critical. And then the Department of Mental Health says we can’t be putting (mentally ill) people in jail, so we’ve got to get funds to lessen that. And we take all those critical issues from other agencies and say, ‘What’s going to be our priority?'”

Clarke said he’s hopeful public safety can be a priority. Earlier this month, the Legislative Budget Office announced that revenue projections for July and August had exceeded expectations.

“We know it’s been a need. And the money’s getting better,” Clarke said. “Let’s knock on wood that we’ve turned a corner.”

But whether these will be approved in time to make a difference, if they are approved at all, remains to be seen.

“We could all leave if the opportunity comes,” LeVaughn said. “And there are many opportunities out there with a much lower caseload.”

The post Public safety crisis: Bodies roll in, evidence stacks up appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Encyclopedias by their very essence are monumental undertakings.

Even so, the size and scope of The Mississippi Encyclopedia, which catalogs the culture of a state celebrating 200 years of existence, are surprising on first encounter: 1,500 entries by 650 authors, 1,451 pages weighing in at nine pounds. And it took 13 years to complete.

The most comprehensive volume ever written about Mississippi covers the expected topics: every county, every governor, numerous musicians, writers, artists and activists.

And there are essays on agriculture, archaeology, the civil rights movement and the Civil War.

The first encyclopedic treatment of the state since 1907 also covers drama, education, the environment, ethnicity, fiction, folk life, foodways, geography, industry and industrial workers, law, medicine and music.

Native Americans, nonfiction, poetry, politics and government are included, as are the press, religion, social and economic history, sports and visual arts.

Peggy Jeanes, editor emerita of Mississippi History Now, who contributed to the encyclopedia, said the book “conveys what Mississippi is. It’s like a box of chocolates. You can open it, but it’s hard to close it. It is such a remarkable work.”

“It is our hope that this book gives people pleasure through browsing,” said Ted Ownby, who along with Charles Regan Wilson served as senior editors for the book. “Someone may be looking up something and find several other topics of interest in doing so. Unlike the internet, where people can get distracted by emails and such, a book can hold someone’s interest for a longer period of time as the reader explores what lies within the pages. There will be a lot of surprises.”

The project began, as all do, with an idea. Seetha Srinivasan, former editor in chief of University Press of Mississippi and now director emerita, took her idea to Ownby and Wilson. Former University of Mississippi Chancellor Robert Khayat and his chief of staff, Andy Mullins, energetically supported it. Wilson, along with Ownby and Ann Abadie of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, became involved in 2003. Glenn Hopkins, then dean of UM’s College of Liberal Arts, and Dan Jones, former chancellor of the university, also backed the project.

Photo by Melanie Thortis

The Mississippi Encyclopedia on display at Lemuria Books in Jackson

As the players in the project came on board, the next step was funding. First came an appropriation from the Mississippi Legislature. Grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mississippi Humanities Council and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History helped sustain the project, as did funding from the University of Mississippi’s College of Liberal Arts. Funding also was provided by a major grant from the Phil Hardin Foundation and gifts from Lynn and Stewart Gammill and other supporters from the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. Between $125,000-$150,000 were raised for the project, Ownby said.

“This book is not necessarily a celebration, defense nor critique of Mississippi,” Ownby explained. “Instead, it studies how things happened and how people reacted to those events. There are examples of people thinking and about events and their interpretation of them.”

Coordinating a book of this magnitude took very deliberate planning. Ownby explained that they relied on the expertise developed by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, which had extensive experience with similar encyclopedia projects, especially the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1989) and its update, The New Encyclopedia of the Study of Southern Culture (2006-2013), a series of 24 clothbound and paperback volumes, both published by the University of North Carolina Press.

The editors of The Mississippi Encyclopedia identified 30 leaders in their fields to serve as subject editors. Further suggestions for topics came from other sources, including authors, editors, colleagues and friends.

“Each topic editor was a scholar,” Ownby said. “Each sent a list of 30 to 40 topics for consideration, and often they sent a list of potential authors.”

Once the book’s topics were chosen, managing editors Andrea Driver and Odie Lindsay worked with the editors and associate editors to consult with authors.

Peggy Jeanes

Jeanes, who wrote four of the entries in the encyclopedia, said she learned about the project at an annual Mississippi Historical Society meeting.

“Ted Ownby spoke at our meeting and encouraged those in attendance to visit the Center for the Study of Southern Culture website. I did just that, and there was a list of potential topics for the encyclopedia,” she said. “They were seeking writers who had knowledge of the topics. I chose three, then pitched a fourth and they told me to go ahead with it.”

The entries Jeanes wrote include an article on Ingalls Shipbuilding, “the state’s major employer,” and Entergy Mississippi.

“I was the editor and writer for Entergy for 13 years, so I knew it was a remarkable company and a strong corporate and civic leader,” she said.

While writing about those companies was easy for Jeanes, due to good sources, her other entries were more challenging.

Photo by Melanie Thortis

The Mississippi Encyclopedia

“The first was ABC’s Robin Roberts, who was on their list of topics,” Jeanes said. “She had just published her book, Seven Rules for Life, and it was not long after Hurricane Katrina, when Robin took the opportunity to broadcast from her hometown of Pass Christian, telling a national television audience that Katrina had hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast.”

The fourth entry Jeanes wrote was the one she pitched.

“I’ve been fascinated by Thomas Jefferson Young for some time now,” she said. “He wrote a beautiful book years ago about a sharecropper who sought permission of the land owner to paint his house white. It received great accolades and was chosen as a Reader’s Digest Book-of-the-Month.”

Much of the 13-year gestation of The Mississippi Encyclopedia was spent just updating entries. At its publication, those involved with the book admit that in some sense the book is already outdated.

Dr. Ted Ownby, director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi

“Even so,” Ownby mused, “the idea of trying to include everything and everybody is daunting. There are people, groups and events that identify as Mississippian, and plenty of other stories and perspectives. I thought I might be defensive at first if people pointed out what didn’t make the book, but now that it’s published, I don’t feel that way at all. What we have is a really big book that people can learn from and enjoy, and even think about what would be there.”

Choosing a favorite entry for Ownby is much like a parent choosing a favorite child.

“The truth is, I love all the entries,” he said. “Our writers did a great job with both the obvious topics and the most obscure and interesting ones as well. I love that there are entries that don’t conform to what most people may think about Mississippi — like the one about Euna Lee, a woman whose works were published in New York literary journals and who started a literary cultural exchange between the United States and Latin American countries.

“And there’s Juanita Harrison, a black woman who wrote My Great Wide Beautiful World, an autobiographical book about her travels around the world. I love learning about all the wonderful authors this state has produced, as well as the many musicians, like Wadada Leo Smith, a jazz artist who grew up in Leland. At age 15, his band director allowed him to do a jazz version of Fever during the halftime show of a football game. He went on to become one of America’s great jazz trumpeters, involved with dozens of albums, including his boxed set, Ten Freedom Summers.”

Stuart Rockoff, executive director of the Mississippi Humanities Council, said the book is a great reference resource for anyone who wants to know more about anything to do with Mississippi.

Photo by Melanie Thortis

The Mississippi Encyclopedia

“I just used it the other day to look up a court case I was curious about,” Rockoff said. “The book is amazing. All 82 counties are in there, and it lists all the facts. I love that it’s written by scholars. The encyclopedia pulls together in one place the historical and cultural significance of our state.”

The Mississippi Encyclopedia is available at independent bookstores throughout the state, as well as online. Ownby, sometimes accompanied by Wilson, has been touring the state for book signings and talking about the book.

The book also is reaching a national audience, with an event at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and a couple of signings in Atlanta in conjunction with the Mississippi in Atlanta Society. The book also was celebrated at the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson in August. For ore information about The Mississippi Encyclopedia and book tour dates, log on to http://southernstudies.olemiss.edu.

University Press of Mississippi director emerita Seetha Srinivasan is a member of Mississippi Today’s board of directors.

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