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Special election runoffs held Tuesday determined who will represent parts of Jackson and the Delta in two state Senate seats as well as who will serve as Hinds County Coroner.

The runoffs Tuesday were necessitated when none of the candidates received at least 50% plus one vote in special elections in November. The special elections were held to fill vacancies due to officials leaving in the middle of their terms.

In the runoff for Senate District 26, a seat representing areas of north Jackson and rural Hinds and Madison Counties, Canton municipal judge Kamesha Mumford bested attorney Letitia Johnson in a race that saw more than a half-a-million dollars in campaign fundraising, WLBT reported. Mumford secured roughly 56% of the vote to Johnson’s 44% in the unofficial count Tuesday night, not including absentee ballots. The seat was left open when former longtime state senator John Horhn was elected mayor of Jackson in July.

Johnson, wife of NAACP President Derrick Johnson, had received an endorsement from Mississippi’s Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson. But it didn’t appear to draw votes from Mumford, who received endorsements from the mayors of two Jackson suburbs, Mayor Will Purdie of Clinton and Mayor Gene McGee of Ridgeland, as well as former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy.

Mumford touted her 18 years of legal experience during the campaign.

“When I get to the Capitol, my focus is going to be on measures that improve the quality of life for our residents: strong infrastructure, good roads and bridges, a solid quality education for our children, and public safety so we have safe neighborhoods,” Mumford told Mississippi Today in an interview during the campaign.

In Senate District 24, an area encompassing parts of Leflore, Panola and Tallahatchie Counties, Justin Pope on Tuesday night appeared to defeat Curressia Brown.

Pope, a corporate deputy with Progressive Health Group, reported he received 1,944 votes, or 54%, while Brown, a retired college educator, received 1,659 votes.

The seat was vacated when longtime Sen. David Jordan of Greenwood retired earlier this year.

In the countywide runoff for Hinds County coroner, Jeramiah Howard appeared victorious over opponent Stephanie Meachum, head of the death division at the state Department of Health’s vital statistics office. Howard has been serving as interim Hinds County coroner since his predecessor, Sharon Grisham-Stewart, retired in 2024. He received about 58% of the unofficial vote to Meachum’s 42%. Turnout in the race hovered under 7% countywide.

Howard, who received Grisham-Stewart’s endorsement, had dominated in the November election with 41% of the vote out of six candidates after placing signs in most precincts across the county. He thanked his nearly thirty volunteers ahead of the Tuesday runoff.

“Running for office is a noble deed,” he said. “My fellow candidates ran good races and deserve credit for putting their name on the ballot and reaching people in the community.”

Homecoming remains an important enough tradition in the Mississippi Delta that the violence that happened in Leland and Rolling Fork in October didn’t diminish the crowds. Relatives still traveled home. Dozens still set up grills and canopies at games. Mississippi Today produced a collection of stories of homecoming events in the Delta, where traditions have evolved over time.

GREENWOOD — A foldable chair is a staple during homecoming season in the Mississippi Delta. It’s your front-row seat for all the homecoming parade offers: music, spectacle and pageantry.

Parade participants rent luxury cars and refashion the tailgates into chariots for rugrat royalty. Students as young as 8 wear crowns and royal get-ups to sit on the hood of a car in a sash.

The float with the Greenwood High School homecoming court is a glorious spectacle. Scarlet capes flutter behind the school’s newly crowned homecoming king Melton Adams and queen Kiyah Davis. Melton boasts a coat encrusted with opalescent jewels, and Kiyah dons a flowing gown with a hoop skirt underneath. Greenwood High School’s prince and princess share a Victorian sofa on a ledge lower. Two oversized strings of pearls trail each side of the float.

The homecoming court along with the less ornate floats and trucks pave the way for the main attraction: Greenwood’s music man and his teen marching band.

Less than 30 minutes before the Greenwood High School band was set to join the parade line, band director Olander Emmons was listening to an upset student who had left his instrument at home and couldn’t participate in the parade. Emmons directed the forlorn teen to the band room. The 17-year-old walked away to get a spare instrument.

Tired of singing the blues

Emmons, like many of his students, joined Greenwood’s band in sixth grade. He played the saxophone, but his first instruments were the drums and then the piano. He learned to play both at church.

Emmons was working as a staffer at the local unemployment office when he ran into his high school band director while grocery shopping at Walmart. She remembered his skill as a music reader. He was already working as an independent musician, playing receptions and churches around the Delta when she scouted him for the band director job. He saw it as an opportunity to develop as an artist and mentor a new generation at his high school alma mater.

He knows how to play most of the instruments in the band, particularly the brass ones. His goal coming into the role three years ago was to write new songs for the band to perform. 

“I wanted the fans to wait in the stands to hear the band,” Emmons said. “And not go to the concession stand.”

A longtime gospel fan, he began listening to more blues music despite his religious upbringing. He felt inspired to incorporate more music from the region into the band’s setlist. Emmons has also tried to develop a “show band” for Greenwood High, incorporating choreography from Lovely Anderson, the dance team coach. 

Emmons said his band has grown from 60 to 125 members since he took over. 

He holds open auditions for the middle and high schools each year, pairing students with instruments. Some instruments like the bassoon require students with longer fingers, while others, such as a trombone, require students with longer arms. He pairs students with instruments for reasons both personal and biological.

Channeling pain through the music

Greenwood High has a poverty rate of almost 82%, according to state data from the 2023-24 school year. Gun violence claims the lives of a disproportionate number of teenagers in the region, a statistic that comes up in conversations with students about transportation after practice as well as in class. Sometimes Emmons’ students share stories from their neighborhoods, and those experiences inspire their own compositions, including recent performances at jamborees across the region.

“Music allows them to be able to vent,” Emmons said.“I hear a lot of kids that go through it. They try to put all the pain into the instruments they play.” 

During the homecoming parade, a hot October sun beat down on the streets of Greenwood as music filled the humid air. Dancers in pink outfits and teenagers in gowns and capes crisscrossed Cotton Street. Teachers and parents walked across cracked roads to their ride to the game.

Editor’s note: This column includes excerpts from Jerry Mitchell’s book, “Race Against Time,” which details how some of the nation’s most notorious killings came to be punished decades later.

I figured I had the right place when I saw the bumper sticker for David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader who nearly became Louisiana’s governor. I knew I had the right place when I saw a Confederate battle flag flapping in the breeze outside a white wooden-frame house.

As I stepped down the gravel driveway, a wiry 5-foot-8 man hailed me. I shook the hand of the 69-year-old, surprised by his steady grip. As I let go, I realized it was the same hand that squeezed the trigger of the .30-06 rifle that killed Medgar Evers in 1963.

Byron De La Beckwith waved me inside his home in Signal Mountain, Tennessee, and guided me into a back room, where he sat in a floral chair, holding court. An orphan by age 12, he had fought in the Pacific during World War II and returned to Mississippi with a Purple Heart. Eager to belong, he joined the Sons of the American Revolution, where he told me members began telling him “the horrible, insidiously evil things that went on in local, county, state, federal and worldwide government.”

Beckwith and his wife belonged to the far-right Liberty Lobby. Through its newspaper, The Spotlight, the organization claimed that fraud enabled “illegal aliens” to stay in the U.S. and that 6 million Jews didn’t die in the Holocaust because only 74,000 died at Auschwitz. (Historians put the actual Auschwitz figure at 1.1 million deaths, nearly all of them Jews.)

Spotlight, whose readership reached up to 1 million, pushed the agenda that secret sinister forces controlled the government, seeking to harm Americans through drinking water, prescription drugs and conventional medical treatment, including vaccines, despite the role vaccines have played in the global eradication of smallpox and the near eradication of polio. A recent study concluded that immunizations had saved more than 150 million lives.

Now, decades since my 1990 interview with Beckwith, what was once fringe thinking has become fashionable. Anti-science, anti-vaccine, anti-immigrant and anti-federal government rhetoric have made their way into the mainstream.

In 1998, The Lancet published a landmark study by Andrew Wakefield and other scientists about a possible link between vaccines and autism.

Although the British medical journal later retracted this study, mistrust mushroomed. Celebrities from Jim Carrey to Robert De Niro questioned the safety of childhood vaccines. They found a supporter in Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now the nation’s Health and Human Services secretary. In the wake of parents refusing to vaccinate their children, measles — virtually eradicated in the 2000s — has roared back to about 1,800 cases so far this year, resulting in at least three deaths, two of them children.

After the pandemic hit in 2020, Kennedy said in a video that “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese. We don’t know if it was deliberately targeted or not.” He called the COVID vaccine — developed during President Donald Trump’s first administration and backed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”

On Aug. 8 this year, a man angry about the vaccine fired hundreds of rounds at the CDC headquarters, killing a police officer before he committed suicide.

Inside Beckwith’s home in 1990, his wife, Thelma, brought him a glass of an orange drink. I noticed it was bubbling like a mad scientist’s potion. I asked him about it, and he explained it was orange soda, combined with food-grade hydrogen peroxide.

This, he told me, was part of his chelation therapy, which he insisted had kept his arteries clear since renal surgery. Chelation — a dubious treatment that Spotlight championed — grabs poisons and expels them through the kidneys, Beckwith said. “Right-wing folks all over the country are drinking hydrogen peroxide,” he said.

While chelation is used to treat lead poisoning, the medical community has rejected broader use. But that hasn’t stopped Kennedy from touting chelation. Celebrity Jenny McCarthy claims chelation cured her son of autism, but at least one child has died from this treatment.

Beckwith’s wife poured me a glass of this orange concoction, and I pretended to sip it. He promised me it would remove the poisons that the government had been pumping into my body through fluoridated water. “Fluoridated water has been killing babies,” he said. “It’s being suppressed by the government and national TV.”

For decades, the CDC praised fluoridated water, saying studies show the treatment reduces cavities. Despite that, Utah and Florida recently banned fluoride in public water systems. At least 16 other states have introduced bills to do the same. Mississippi has, too, despite the fact that much of the state’s water supply contains no fluoride.

Since taking over as HHS secretary, Kennedy has called fluoride a “dangerous neurotoxin” that can cause bone fractures, bone cancer, arthritis, thyroid disorders and reduced IQ in children. The Environmental Protection Agency is now reviewing evidence on fluoride in drinking water.

Beckwith said the words that changed him most came from Judge Thomas P. Brady, who decried the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision to desegregate public schools in an infamous speech known as “Black Monday.” He told a bizarre racist version of history in which he claimed whites built the pyramids in Egypt and that racial “mongrelization” had destroyed this society. This was nothing more than a desire by white supremacists to believe they were behind the world’s greatest achievements. In reality, these ancient civilizations were anything but white.

Brady said people of African descent should regard the day they arrived in America in 1619 as “Thanksgiving Day” because they were “brought from abject ignorance, primitive slavery and placed in a country that was Christian and civilized.” White Mississippi students read this speech in their classrooms along with textbooks that claimed the KKK had saved the South. These same textbooks failed to mention the savage massacres of Black Mississippians from Vicksburg to Meridian.

In recent years, attacks on “critical race theory” and diversity, equity and inclusion have led to revised textbooks. In Florida, new standards require textbooks to say “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Some textbooks now call slavery “black immigration,” and one book describes Reconstruction as a time when “great southern leaders and much of the old aristocracy were unable to vote or hold office. The result was that state legislatures were filled with illiterate or incompetent men. … In retaliation, many southerners formed secret organizations to protect themselves and their society from anarchy. Among these groups was the Ku Klux Klan.”

In March, Trump issued an executive order that instructed the National Park Service to remove materials that “inappropriately disparage Americans.” The Washington Post reported that the administration has ordered the removal of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks, including an 1863 photo used to expose slavery’s horrors — a Black man whose back was covered in scars.

After Brady gave his “Black Monday” speech, Beckwith sold copies of it and joined the white Citizens’ Council. He said the most powerful members of society — bank presidents, judges, lawyers, congressmen and other politicians — made up the council. “That was my first love,” he sighed, as if reminiscing about a high school sweetheart. “The Citizens’ Council was the first ray of light Dixie had seen since we fought through Reconstruction and captured the right to vote, the right of white people to run the South.”

He said there had been a “great awakening of council activity in St. Louis, but it’s under a little different name” — the Council of Conservative Citizens.

A quarter-century after Beckwith’s words, a young white man named Dylann Roof stumbled upon that group’s website in his Google search for “black on White crime.” After reading page after page of such violence, Roof took action.

On June 17, 2015, he walked inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in time for Wednesday night Bible study. While a dozen Black members closed their eyes in prayer, Roof fired 70 rounds from a Glock .45-caliber pistol, killing nine. When he recounted the slaughter to the FBI, he laughed.

Beckwith laughed, too, when he spoke about Medgar Evers. “I didn’t kill that n—, but he’s sho’ dead,” he chuckled. “He ain’t comin’ back.”

In 1964, two trials for Beckwith ended in mistrials. The all-white juries couldn’t agree on a verdict, despite the fact his rifle with his fingerprint had been left at the murder scene. But the Klansman failed to dodge conviction when he tried to bomb a Jewish leader’s home in New Orleans in 1975.

After spending two and a half years in prison, he joined the Liberty Lobby, which pushed for the deportation of all immigrants. Beckwith called those of Asian descent “the yellow plague” and said, “The Chinamen come over here and eat rice and dead rats, and all the money goes back to China.”

More than three decades later, these tropes persist. After a far-right outlet claimed Haitians, who migrated legally to Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets, then-Sen. JD Vance shared it on social media. City officials denied the report, but Trump repeated the claim in a 2024 presidential debate. He vowed to deport millions of immigrants, starting in Springfield.

In 2025 so far, more than 2 million undocumented immigrants have left the U.S. through deportations or other means, according to the Department of Homeland Security. In September, Trump announced that the fees to hire skilled foreign workers would rise from nearly $1,000 to $100,000.

Beckwith’s beloved Liberty Lobby advocated “America First,” a slogan adopted by the KKK in the 1920s in their opposition to Catholics, Jews and immigrants. The white supremacist group skyrocketed to more than 6 million members, electing thousands to state and national offices. In Mississippi, Klansman Theodore G. Bilbo served as both governor (1916-20 and 1928-32) and U.S. senator (1935-47).

Trump has since revived the slogan “America First,” and new Labor Department posters feature 1940s-era workers and families, promising “high-skilled jobs to AMERICANS FIRST.” All the workers are white men.

In a recent interview with conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, host of the “America First” livestream, decried “organized Jewry” and declared, “We need to recognize that white people have a special heritage here as Americans. … We’re losing our civilization because of mass immigration.” Trump should crush anyone in the way of deporting the 10 million people here illegally, Fuentes said. “If you’re not on board with that, you’re going to jail.”

The Liberty Lobby denounced foreign aid. After taking office in 2025, the Trump administration halted this aid, dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and asked Congress to rescind $8.3 billion in funding.

Beckwith told me to thank the KKK. If the group didn’t exist, “you’d be a damn mulatto, quadroon or octoroon instead of a white man, a Nordic man of blood and culture. You’d just be a damn mongrel,” he said. He told me that Evers, the civil rights leader he had shot in the back on that dark night in Jackson, was “nothing but a mongrel, and God hates mongrels.”

Beckwith told me that our ancestors were the true Israelites and that “anyone who calls Jesus a Jew is blaspheming.” His basement was already packed with an arsenal for the “holy war” that he said white Christians would win against Satan and the Jews. “We have more firepower,” he said.

In 2017, hundreds of white nationalists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” On Aug. 27 of this year, a mass shooter opened fire at a Catholic school in Minneapolis. He wrote on his guns, “Burn Israel,” “6 million wasn’t enough,” and “Kill Donald Trump,” a strong supporter of Israel who has survived two assassination attempts.

Back in the 1950s, the Liberty Lobby joined forces with the white Citizens’ Council, trying to get Black Americans shipped to Africa. Beckwith supported this. He said he believed that those of African descent were “mud people” who had no souls. “What is a n— but a heathen?” he told me. “He’s not a Christian. After you turn him into a literate Christian, he’s still a n—.”

I felt overwhelmed, stunned that such a person could exist, let alone that he could be celebrated — and worse — protected by those in power. Noticing the darkness outside, I told him it was time for me to go.

“Let me walk you to your car.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

He walked ahead of me, anyway, blocked my way to the car and spoke. “God will bless you if you write positive things about white Caucasian Christians. If you write negative things about white Caucasian Christians, God will punish you.”

He paused, then locked eyes. “If God does not punish you directly, several individuals will do it for him.”

He stepped aside, and I closed the door. I was glad to have something, even just a pane of glass, between him and me.

I couldn’t start the engine fast enough.

Four years after my interview, a Mississippi jury convicted Beckwith of murdering Evers, and the judge sentenced him to life in prison, where he died in 2001. Hardly anyone attended his funeral.

Thousands flocked to the funeral service of Evers, who was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. Words from the prophet Micah reminded author Margaret Walker Alexander of Evers: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Mississippi needs more people like Medgar Evers.

OXFORD — A University of Mississippi graduate who pleaded guilty to killing fellow student Jimmie “Jay” Lee has been sentenced to serve 40 years in prison, the conclusion to a case beset by concerns that the criminal justice system would not work.

Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., the son of a prominent family from Grenada, pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder and evidence tampering for hiding Lee’s body in a wooded gully in Carroll County near his parents’ home. 

Lafayette County Circuit Judge Kelly Luther accepted the prosecution’s recommendation for Herrington to receive a total sentence of 40 years to serve with an additional 10 years of post-release supervision.

Lee’s family, friends, Oxford police officers and even some university officials attended the sentencing hearing Tuesday. Herrington’s parents also sat in the audience, his side of the courtroom more populated than during the first trial.

Before Luther handed down the sentence, Lee’s father, Jimmie Lee Sr., addressed the court. Stephanie Lee stood behind him. The parents have rarely spoken publicly throughout the process. Jimmie Lee Sr. said he was a “broken father” and he reminded Herrington that Lee had trusted him.

“I’m here to give a message and just let Herrington know,” the father and pastor said. “Hell will put you in order. Heaven will put you out.”

Jimmie Lee reminded him of God’s redemptive plan: “You don’t have to go to hell.”

The father said he knew from the beginning that Herrington killed his son. He prayed for healing. He said his family has been living July 8, 2022 — the day Lee went missing — since that day.

“I had to witness my son’s skeletal remains. I touched his skull,” he said. “No father should have to go through that. No parent should have to go through that.”

When Judge Luther spoke, he praised the handling of the case.

“Mississippi got it right in this case. This case was investigated more thoroughly than any other case I have dealt with in my 35 years in this criminal justice system. It was defended … as well as any case I have dealt with in my 35 years. Everybody did their job,” he said.

Herrington did not speak at the hearing. His attorney, Aafram Sellers, said Herrington did not tell him why he killed Lee. The plea was ultimately Herrington’s decision, Sellers said, adding that redemption “starts with accepting responsibility.”

“We don’t see our lives going down these paths and that is what happened,” Sellers said. “… Both families have to go through that grieving process.”

The prosecution said it had not expected a plea deal. It came Monday as the court was selecting jurors in Madison County due to a concern that it would not be possible to seat an unbiased jury from Lafayette County. 

The first trial in 2024 ended in a mistrial. Action News 5 reported that one of the 12 jurors refused to convict Herrington because of the absence of Lee’s body. 

Earlier this year, Lee’s remains were found in a dumping ground in Carroll County. Prosecutors then indicted Herrington a second time.

Lee’s disappearance sparked a movement in Oxford called “Justice for Jay Lee.” His friends held protests outside the courthouse, tailgated at football games and ran a social media page.

Mississippi is the latest stop for the Flag Sojourn 250, a project where one American flag tours across the globe in honor of the United States’ 250th anniversary.

The single American flag is scheduled to travel to each state, U.S. territory and overseas U.S. military cemeteries as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration. Monday the flag was raised over the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion by three members of the U.S. Air Force after remarks from Gov. Tate Reeves and First Lady Elee Reeves. 

“The United States flag reminds us that our history, though marked by struggle, sacrifice and great challenges, has always been defined by perseverance,” said Reeves before the flag was raised on the overcast, brisk day in downtown Jackson.

Elee Reeves, who is also a co-chair of the America250 Mississippi Commission, said “The American flag serves as a beacon of hope for those chasing the American dream, a blessing to the families welcoming their loved ones home from service and a reminder of the values we teach our children.”

The America250 Mississippi Commission will hold various events next year as part of the country’s 250th anniversary celebration.

Flag Sojourn 250 is part of America250’s America Waves program, in partnership with the National Flag Foundation and several programming partners. It will complete its journey in Washington, D.C., in July 2026 as part of the celebration of the 250th birthday for the country.

The flag has so far been to 26 U.S. military cemeteries across 10 countries and to Guam, Indiana and Washington, D.C. The flag flies at each location for different lengths of time. The flag flew over the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion Monday and is now off to Arkansas.

The Mississippi Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council is set to finalize how it recommends spending tens of millions of state dollars Tuesday at 2 p.m. CT inside the Carroll Gartin Justice Building in Jackson.

The meeting can be viewed virtually at this link by entering the password “Council2.” 

The council, formed earlier this year by state lawmakers, is tasked with overseeing most of the money won from companies that contributed to Mississippi’s opioid epidemic — a public health crisis that’s led to over 10,000 deadly overdoses since 2000. State officials have been receiving tens of millions of settlement dollars since 2022 but haven’t spent the money on anything other than attorneys’ fees yet. 

Earlier this year, organizations across the state and country submitted 126 applications for money overseen by the council, which the office of Mississippi Attorney General and Council Chair Lynn Fitch said in November has accumulated to around $100 million. The council members reviewed those applications in private subcommittees this fall and scored them on a 0-100 point scale. 

At the last meeting in November, the members agreed to use Tuesday’s meeting to more thoroughly evaluate 59 applications that scored highly on the scale. They also voted to review a roughly $9 million application for opioid wastewater surveillance, a concept State Health Officer and Co-Vice Council Chair Dr. Dan Edney said had little utility. 

Most of the money requested in the highly-scored applications are coming from organizations with at least one representative on the council. Some council members, applicants without representation and addiction experts said they thought the process has favored committee members’ organizations. Michelle Williams, Fitch’s chief of staff, told Mississippi Today that members of the council are leaders in addressing the state’s addiction crisis, and it would harm the state’s public health response to exclude them from the application process. 

State law requires the council to submit recommendations to the Legislature by Dec. 7 — 30 days before the start of the 2026 regular legislative session. During the session, lawmakers are expected to approve or deny those recommendations and begin appropriating the state’s opioid settlement money. 

Some voters in the Jackson Metro area and in the Delta can participate in special runoff elections on Tuesday to decide who will represent them in the state Legislature.  

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Anyone in line to vote by 7 p.m. will be allowed to cast a ballot.

In north Jackson and rural areas of Hinds and Madison Counties, residents can vote in a runoff for the Senate District 26 seat, vacated by former state Sen. John Horhn when he became mayor of Jackson in July. 

The candidates in that runoff election are Canton municipal judge Kamesha Mumford and attorney Letitia Johnson, who received 39% and 28%, respectively, in a special election last month. 

In portions of Leflore, Panola and Tallahatchie counties, voters can participate in the runoff for the Senate District 24 seat, vacated by former state Sen. David Jordan when he retired from the Legislature in July. 

The candidates are Curressia Brown, a retired college educator and administrator, and Justin Pope, a corporate deputy with Progressive Health Group. 

The special elections to fill unexpired terms are nonpartisan, but both are to replace Democratic lawmakers in longtime staunchly blue districts.

Voters in Hinds County can also participate in the special runoff election for county coroner between Jeramiah Howard and Stephanie Meachum. Howard is the county’s current interim coroner. Meachum is the office’s former manager and currently runs the death division of the state Department of Health’s Vital Records Office.

Use this tool from the Secretary of State’s office to determine whether your district has an election and to find your polling place.

Homecoming remains an important enough tradition in the Delta that the violence that happened in Leland and Rolling Fork in October didn’t diminish the crowds. Relatives still traveled home. Dozens still set up grills and canopies at games. Mississippi Today produced a collection of stories of homecoming events in the Delta, where traditions have evolved over time.

RULEVILLE — Trumpets blared through the hallways of Thomas E. Edwards Sr. High School. Three administrators, including one who was pregnant, dashed down the green-and-white tiled hallway toward the auditorium.

“What happened to the grannies with the sewing kits in their bags?” one asked, out of breath.

Homecoming Queen Jaiilah Holmes would need to make her entrance soon, but her dress was coming apart at the shoulders. The rest of the homecoming court was already announced and seated. The emcee was stalling.

Down the hall from the gym, in a classroom with algebraic equations scrawled on the white board, an administrator and a teacher were helping repair the queen’s regalia.

Jazlyn Hopkins, Jaiilah’s mother, bent in black gladiator sandals to adjust her daughter’s tiara. The teen blushed, projecting a wide smile. She shimmered in a white dress with a silver floral pattern down both sides and a bodice encrusted with imitation pearls.

Trumpeting resumed as Hopkins and a teacher trailed the queen, carrying her six-inch train. 

The gym lights flicked off. The crowd cheered.

Jaiilah emerged from behind thick curtains in a glimmering gown wired with a green light.

The house lights revealed what a party supply company billed as a Venetian masquerade scene. White construction paper covered the floor, and black palm trees framed the space. Two black thrones perched atop a raised platform where the teen royals took their seats before dozens of clear banquet chairs. Girls in black gowns wore sashes that read Miss Psychology, Miss Drug Education and Miss Algebra I.

An incentive to achieve

In the last decade, the school started celebrating academic achievement as well as congeniality for homecoming-specific titles to motivate students to excel in their academic coursework as well as extracurriculars. Now, most of the 40 categories for the homecoming court recognize excellence in an academic course, giving many students a chance to wear a sash or crown.

“It starts something big,” school resource officer Lafagus Carpenter said about how the titles motivate students. “They start feeling like they got some work to them. They start seeing what they can be.”

Nikita Foster was most proud that her son Thomas won homecoming king because of his academic performance and involvement in athletics and other activities. She adjusted the crown atop his head as he powered on his phone outside the gym. He had thick dreadlocks that wouldn’t accommodate the sparkling headwear. 

Through dual enrollment, Thomas is a high school senior and a sophomore at Mississippi Delta Community College. He hopes to enter the University of Southern Mississippi as a junior kinesiology major and, after graduating, work as an exercise scientist.

“It’s just like a sense of peace and happiness to see them grow up,” Foster said. “I’m so proud.”

Monthslong planning for a royal touch

Many homecoming attendees and title holders prepare their outfits and campaigns months in advance. Edwards High previously boasted pyrotechnics as part of the homecoming display in the gym, contracting with a local decorator who made use of her contacts.

Jazlyn Hopkins had a designer in nearby Indianola make a custom dress for her daughter. She wanted her daughter to feel “glamorous.”

By the time the designer, Chezzrae Fowler Parker, began working on Jaiilah’ dress in September, other parents started calling about her custom gowns. A photograph of a lapis dress she made for a Gentry High School senior last spring lingered in some of their minds, and on their social media timelines.

The night of homecoming, administrators connected the clasps on the flowing gold and emerald robes worn by the king, Antwan Brinkley, and Jaiilah, the queen. They initiated a dance to the R & B record, “Hey Girl.” The attendants followed the steps of a choreographed waltz.

The evening ended with speeches from the king and queen, and announcements from principal Errick Lakes.

Elementary and middle school boys in black-and-grey patterned tuxedo jackets and Venetian masks met their families outside. Blown-up photos of King Thomas and Queen Jaiilah were unfurled at the back auditorium entrance.

Parents and neighbors captured the queen’s prance down the black carpet. Their focus was kept until the last beat. When the pageant came to a close, spectators fumbled through their purses and pockets for their car keys and made the rounds of relatives and former classmates.

The Edwards High parking lot was full by the court’s last dance. Cars were parked wherever people could find a spot, sometimes diagonally in front of double parked vehicles. Some slipped out of the gym early to avoid the rush of sedans and trucks — and the possibility of a fender-bender.

One mother gave directions to a cousin unaccustomed to squeezing out of a tight parking spot. 

“It’s a town of 2,000. It never gets this packed,” she said.

The car eased out, nearly nicking a Pontiac sedan and illuminated parents and attendants with its crimson taillights. Engines roared, and teen queens in floor-length gowns lifted their hoop skirts off the dirt road home.

Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., the University of Mississippi graduate accused of killing a fellow student and well-known member of Oxford’s LGBTQ+ community, pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder and tampering with evidence. 

The son of a prominent family in Grenada, Herrington was facing capital murder – and a potential sentence of life in prison – for killing Jimmie “Jay” Lee in the summer of 2022 and hiding his body. During a previous trial that ended in a hung jury, prosecutors alleged Herrington’s motive was to preserve the secret of his sexual relationship with Lee. 

The prosecution said it will now recommend a 40-year sentence with 10 years suspended. 

“He has accepted responsibility on his own instead of a jury placing responsibility on him,” said Lafayette County District Attorney Ben Creekmore. 

The plea deal came two and a half hours into jury selection in Madison County for the second trial. A judge ordered jury selection to take place outside Lafayette County, where trial was to be held, due to media coverage there.

It would have been the second time Herrington faced a jury. At the time of the first trial in December of 2024, law enforcement had not yet located Lee’s remains – a reason one juror reportedly refused to convict, causing a hung jury, according to Action News 5. This time, though, the state had Lee’s remains, which were found earlier this year in a wooded gully in Carroll County close to Herrington’s parents’ home. 

Herrington had been in jail since he was indicted for a second time earlier this year. 

Lee’s older sister, Tayla Carey, said she was “overfilled with happiness” at the plea, adding, “it’s well overdue.” 

Shortly after Lafayette County Circuit Court Judge Kelly Luther began winnowing the jury pool, a clerk approached the bench with papers. This prompted Luther to pause the selection and issue a warning to the nearly 150 potential jurors not to speculate or discuss the subject of the case before releasing them into the hallway.

An hour later, the prosecution and Herrington’s defense, Jackson-area attorney Aafram Sellers, reached a deal. Herrington’s mother tearfully met with the defense lawyers before she left the courthouse. 

Sellers did not want to comment on the plea until after sentencing, scheduled for Tuesday at 10 a.m. in Oxford. But he said the deal was possible once both sides “got to the courthouse steps.” 

Creekmore said the deal was unexpected. Though the defense had initiated some negotiations, he said they were “not robust.” Hotel rooms in Oxford had been booked for the jury; lunches and dinners ordered.

Though Lee’s family was already in Oxford, Creekmore said that Herrington was present for the deliberations in Madison. 

This resolution saves Lee’s family the agony of another trial and potential appeals, Creekmore said. It also adds back the charge of tampering with evidence, which Sellers had been successful in removing due to the statute of limitations. 

“It’s a terrible, sad, tragic story, and I’m relieved that the family does not have to relive the trauma of what happened to Jay Lee again,” Creekmore said. 

In Madison, some of the potential jurors said they knew what the case was about. One woman said it had been on the news this morning. But others were unaware, even after learning they had been called for a case from Lafayette County. 

Last night, some of Lee’s friends gathered outside the Lafayette County Courthouse with members of the local LGBTQ+ community. 

On the courthouse’s white exterior, they projected a graduation picture of Lee surrounded by azalea flowers as well as the name of their movement, “Justice for Jay Lee.” 

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