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The question on everyone’s mind: Does Ole Miss have a shot against mighty Georgia. The answer: Of course they do, but the Rebels will have to play their best game and hope Georgia doesn’t. The Cleveland boys also discuss the New Orleans and Duke’s Mayo bowls and the resurgent New Orleans Saints.

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When students have to grapple with challenges outside of school such as homelessness and food insecurity, it can curb academic performance, attendance and mental health. 

Those struggles can also lead to higher dropout rates and lower grades, said Josh Anderson of FutureEd, an education think tank. It’s like a stone dropping in a pond, with the impact rippling outward. 

But wraparound services, such as washers and dryers and food pantries, can directly counteract these negative effects, research shows. 

About 25 million students, or more than half of public school students in the country, were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch during the 2022-23 school year. Wraparound services are also essential in a district like Jackson Public Schools, where about a third of students live in poverty.

Jackson Public Schools leaders say the district works hard to eliminate barriers to education through wraparound services especially at their four “community schools.”

It’s a long-standing, mutually-beneficial model where communities pour into their schools to create students who will go on to support their communities. Jackson’s community schools aim to support the whole student, inside and out of the classroom.

“We preach it all day long: What’s your plus?” said Stacey Webb, principal of Lanier Junior Senior High School. “It’s a diploma, plus. It’s not just about academics, but also providing things to help scholars be successful.” 

But the services don’t just affect the students. Caring for the child includes caring for their families, Webb said. The services impact parents, too, boosting engagement and cementing schools as the anchors of their communities. 

“A helpful way to think about this is the hours we have,” Anderson said. “If you add them up over 18 or 20 years, we’re spending less than 20% of those hours in a school building and a lot more of our hours with our families and in our neighborhoods. 

“Schools are vital, and we need them to be better and better. But if we want kids to be ready to learn in school, supporting the family makes a tremendous difference.”

‘Just showing we care’

Laundry services operate on a need-to-know basis at Lanier. 

Students put their clothes in a laundry bag and hand it to a teacher, and by the end of the day, their clothes are washed, dried, folded and ready to go home with them — no questions asked. 

Parents in need, too, can wash their clothes at the school on weekends. 

“If the only thing keeping you from coming to school, we’re going to take care of that for you,” Webb said. “I tell my scholars all the time, we’re going to break the cycle some of them are in.”

The home appliance company Whirlpool started donating washer and dryers to schools across the country in 2015, making it easier for students to have access to clean clothes. At the end of the 2022-2023 school year, nearly 61% of students at participating schools considered at risk for chronic absenteeism were no longer at risk, according to the company. 

Laundry services are just one of the ways educators at Lanier care for their students. The school also operates a clothes closet — stocked with prom dresses, professional clothes for jobs interviews, school uniforms and casual attire — a food pantry and health clinic.

The clinic, staffed by nurse practitioners and nurses, opened a decade ago through a partnership with University of Mississippi Medical Center. 

Students can receive primary and preventive care of the clinic — services like mental health and physical assessments, prenatal care and asthma management — instead of missing class to go to a doctor’s office. 

Webb said all of these services the school provides signals to the students that their teachers and principals care about them, which she’s seen reflected in student grades and attendance.

“I believe it’s about the relationship, just showing we care about you as a person,” she said. “I tell my staff and students that if you can develop a relationship with someone, you can do anything to help them.”

Serving the whole family

This past school year, more than a quarter of K-12 students were considered chronically absent statewide, according to data from the Mississippi Department of Education. That’s more than double the rate during the 2018-19 school year. 

More than a third of JPS students are chronically absent. 

The more needs students can have addressed at school, the more likely they are to stay in class, Johnson Elementary Principal Guyniesha Johnson said. 

“If they don’t have a way to wash their clothes, let’s provide them with one,” she said. “If they don’t have food, let’s get them food. It’s our goal to meet all of those needs.”

Aside from laundry services and a uniform closet, the school has operated a weekend food service for years through a partnership with the Mississippi Food Network and the Junior League of Jackson: Students can take home a bag of food on Friday that will last their family through the weekend. Last year, Johnson Elementary also started stocking a food pantry, where students can go “shopping” for groceries.

Johnson Elementary is located in the Georgetown neighborhood. Many homes in the community continue to be multi-generational, the principal said, with grandparents and great-grandparents living in the same house as their grandchildren. 

The neighborhood has seen decreasing access to fresh food over the years, Johnson said — today, there’s just one grocery store. 

When food insecurity is an issue for a Johnson Elementary student, their families are struggling, too. Part of the district’s community schools model is to help the whole family, Johnson said. 

“We ask the kids how many people live in their household because we expect and believe that the food is to help everybody, not just our students,” she said. “We want to be able to fill those gaps.”

Reducing barriers to learning

Everything a student might need is located in one room at Walton Elementary School: The aptly-named “community room.”

The room houses nonperishable food items, uniforms, backpacks, coats, personal hygiene products, and on occasion, even bikes. 

Principal LaRoy Merrick considers it a personal responsibility to keep the room stocked at all times, making sure the needs of all of his students are met. 

“I can’t control what a child gets when they leave me, but while they’re with me, they’re getting everything they need,” he said. “My responsibility is to make sure they’re educated and nurtured and loved.”

The school relies on community partnerships to serve its students. During the holidays, nearby Cade Chapel Missionary Baptist Church provides Thanksgiving meals to students and their families. The Junior League of Jackson hosts a sort of farmers market once a month at the school, where families can select fresh groceries to take home. 

“We’re a family here,” Merrick said. “In order to educate students’ minds, we have to educate them in all other ways.”

That community collaboration component is integral because schools alone cannot solve the myriad of challenges students face, said Anderson of FutureEd. A web of community partnerships help support the schools’ work. 

“If you provide support to a child and their family, you are doing one of two things, and both are super helpful,” he said. “You’re reducing barriers for them to get to school ready to learn … and you’re making home a more conducive environment for child development. A model that does these things consistently can make a meaningful contribution to a child’s wellbeing.”

It’s work that’s going to impact students far beyond their years at school, he said, “20 years down the road.” 

There’s a complaint that Liz Norell often hears from faculty at the University of Mississippi: Students are not doing the course readings.

Is it true? And if so, what should professors be doing to help students?  

“We’ve been talking about this issue for as long as I’ve been in higher ed, and that’s almost 20-something years,” said Norell, an associate director of instructional support at the university’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. “It’s obviously much more complex than just a simple solution or answer. But I think we’re all trying to figure out how to reach our students in this time when everything feels so hard.” 

Norell provides resources, professional development and other services to help faculty improve their teaching. Her role at the center aims to promote innovative teaching practices, improve student success and create more inclusive learning environments. 

When these professors’ broad theories about college students’ reading habits became too critical, Norell spoke with students.

Last spring, she surveyed 155 students about their reading habits. That semester, Norell also created a student focus group to gather more input for her research. Students shared with her three common reasons why they didn’t complete reading assignments. 

First, some instructors didn’t talk about the readings in class, which students said  made the assignments seem pointless. Some students said they felt unsure of how to apply the information they read on exams or in class discussions. Other students said the assigned readings for different classes within the same major or field of study were too similar. 

Rethinking the types of supplemental materials faculty assign could help their students, Norell said. Reading assignments should be relevant or purposeful to students’ lives. 

“My students tell me all the time, ‘Why do I need to read this? Why should I care about this?’” Norell said. “If I can’t answer that question as an instructor, or if my answer is ‘Because I told you to,’ then I’m not motivating students to learn.” 

Creating ‘aha moments’ in the classroom 

When assistant professor Corbit Franks began teaching athletic training, he considered himself a traditionalist.  

Franks, who is also a clinical education coordinator of athletic training, was adamant about assigning coursework that included lengthy peer-reviewed journal articles and multiple textbook chapters. He also insisted students write papers and do critical analyses of the class readings. 

Since Franks began working with Norell and her team at the center, he adjusted his teaching style and syllabi to accommodate what he sees as a decline in students’ willingness to read and engage with supplemental class work.  His new approach often involves providing “a thoughtful explanation” of why the course readings are useful for future clinicians and healthcare professionals. 

If students come to class prepared to discuss supplemental readings such as research and peer-reviewed journal articles from the National Athletic Trainers Association Position Statement website, their knowledge of the profession, the human body and themselves will improve, he said. That effort can also help students pass their board certification exam. 

“When you look at most of the professions that these students are getting into, the biggest thing that they need is the ability to critically think and build upon one complex thought off of another,” Franks said. 

Franks said he tries to create “aha moments,” in class through reading discussion. It helps students see beyond the class and semester. The discussions can also help them engage with their future patients, clients and or athletes, he said. 

He also allows his students autonomy to design coursework such as questions for quizzes and exams, which helps him understand if they have a grasp on the reading assignments. 

Franks also redesigned his assignments around the skills he wants students to learn. 

“When it comes to certain projects, I allow them to do videos, podcasts or find other creative ways to show off their personality,” Franks said. “It allows students to learn, think creatively and critically, plus relay the information in a way they understand. Plus, it creates a sense of equity in the classroom.” 

Franks said he no longer sees teaching as a one-way street, with the instructor as the “authority figure ruling with an iron fist.” Instead, he said, his approach is a constant dialogue with his students.

“When you enter a classroom, you enter into a kind of a contractual agreement or mutual respect between student and instructor that you both are there for the betterment of the greater good,” Franks said. “It makes them feel comfortable to share and express their needs, thoughts or ask for help. It is effective for their overall success which is why I began teaching in the first place.” 

Getting back to the principles of teaching 

In October, Norell presented her first set of preliminary data on students’ reading habits to faculty in a small workshop titled “When and Why Do Students Read for Class?” She highlighted the disconnect she found between students’ motivation to read and what they are asked to do or learn for the course. 

Of students who responded to Norell’s survey, 55% reported a high motivation to complete their assignments, but less than 46% said they felt engaged with the course material.  Less than 44% said they felt well supported in their efforts to learn. The qualitative results also indicated that students don’t feel the assigned reading is useful or connected to their class performance.

Caris Miller, a senior studying integrated marketing, said she is the type of student who reads and completes all of her assigned readings for her classes. But if professors don’t use the textbooks students bought for class, students may feel less obligated to do the readings required for the course, she said. 

“Professors don’t understand that we also have four other classes we’re juggling, so having eight required textbooks that we don’t need, but you have us buy, just feels like a waste of our resources,” Miller said. “A lot of us here are also on loans or student scholarships. We have to be smart about everything, including our money.” 

Norell also asked faculty members to reflect on their own reading habits. It opened discussion around a point often overlooked on the issue: Students’ and adults’ ability to read and focus for long periods of time has decreased. 

A 2021 Gallup poll results released in 2022 indicated U.S. adults are reading about two or three fewer books than they did between 2002 and 2016. The numbers are lower for college graduates, according to Gallup. They read an average of about six fewer books in 2021 than they did between 2002 and 2016.

“There’s an opportunity for us all to think about reading like practice, such as building muscle or a yoga practice where you’re investing time to do it.” 

Norell said she is recruiting other colleges and universities to assist with her research project. Gathering student input from other institutions across the country will help paint a national picture of the trends and patterns in students’ reading choices, she said. 

That input can also help better understand faculty members’ perceptions of the issue. 

“I believe that learning happens when we are in environments where we feel psychologically safe, where we feel like we belong, and where we feel like people care about us,” Norell said. “And that’s all relational.” 

Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

Rural communities in Mississippi are constantly being under-resourced, underserved and overlooked.

Growing up in a small town in the Delta, I witnessed firsthand the everyday struggles of my neighbors, from food insecurity caused by high medical expenses to limited access to basic health care services.

I grew up in Belzoni, a small town of less than 1,800 that lost its hospital in 2013. Since then, Belzoni residents have been left vulnerable, with no access to 24/7 emergency care and limited preventive health care options.

Currently Belzoni residents and residents of neighboring towns rely on a single emergency helicopter in Belzoni, and are forced to commute 20 to 35 minutes to the nearest hospital, often during life-threatening emergencies when every minute matters.

This new reality is not just inconvenient; it is extremely dangerous. My community has witnessed community members lose their lives because help could not arrive in time, especially during natural disasters and medical crises.

Without a nearby hospital, many residents began to view health care as a privilege rather than a right, often neglecting their health or abandoning preventive care altogether.

This is not just happening in Belzoni, though. Across Mississippi, nearly half of rural hospitals are at risk of closing, putting thousands more families in danger, according to a 2023 American Hospital Association report.

Additionally, over 200,000 Mississippians fall into the Medicaid coverage gap. They earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance, according to a 2024 KFF report.

Without Medicaid expansion, this issue will only worsen.

Medicaid expansion would not solve every issue Mississippi faces, but it would give rural families the chance to invest in their health without sacrificing their essentials and viewing health care as a burden. It would also bring in necessary federal relief to struggling hospitals and provide coverage to families that are caught in the gap.

Medicaid expansion is not a political matter; it is a humanitarian matter.

It is about ensuring that all Mississippians, no matter their location, have access to reliable and quality health care instead of risking their lives simply because of where they live.

We have to take immediate action for our rural communities because they deserve better and simply cannot afford to wait any longer.

Bio: Kayla Smith, who grew up in Belzoni in the Mississippi Delta, is a public health major in the class of 2027 at the University of Mississippi

Looking back on 2025, this year has been filled with unexpected turmoil, twists and turns in the news, both in Mississippi and around the country.

Here at Mississippi Today, our health team has reported out stories, and many of you have followed along, like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which are set to endure historic levels of funding cuts. We will continue to focus on how these changes shape health care systems and people’s health outcomes and quality of life. Through it all, we are here for you.

Keep up with health news in 2026 when you sign up for our monthly health newsletter The Pulse, sent on the last Friday of each month.

Three killed in UMMC helicopter crash

Three crew members aboard an AirCare helicopter from the University of Mississippi Medical Center died in a crash in remote Madison County near the Natchez Trace Parkway.

Quick surgeries, scars and facelifts that fade: Complaints pile up about a Jackson plastic surgeon

Some patients say they are unhappy with scarring and other problems after having facial plastic surgery by Dr. Adair Blackledge of Jackson. Blackledge says he prides himself on his skill and good patient care, and that critics have harassed him and his staff.

‘One of the worst things I’ve ever seen’: Baby tests positive for meth following day in child care

The Mississippi Department of Health, which is responsible for regulating and licensing day care centers, fined Little Blessings $50 after the incident.

A Food-Growing Tradition Finds New Roots in the Mississippi Delta

In the Mississippi Delta farming region where most crops get shipped elsewhere, a growing group of farmers is cultivating produce that makes it to local plates.

Mississippi’s C-section problem: A third of low-risk women are undergoing surgery for their first birth

Despite national pressure to reduce low-risk C-sections, Mississippi’s rate has stayed high across the last decade — peaking at 32.5% in 2018, according to data obtained from the Mississippi State Health Department.

Archie Manning calls New Orleans children’s hospital naming ‘our family’s finest hour’

Archie and Olivia Manning’s tight-knit family is often referred to as the first family of American football. Now, there is the Manning Family Children’s hospital in New Orleans where the two native Mississippians have lived for the last 54 years.

UMMC quietly leaves new health care association

Mississippi’s largest hospital quietly left the Mississippi Healthcare Collaborative less than four months after it joined the group as a founding member.

OptumRx sues Mississippi Board of Pharmacy, alleges due process violation

A lawsuit filed by a major pharmacy benefit manager in December alleges the Mississippi Board of Pharmacy violated the company’s right to due process by releasing the findings of an audit before determining any wrongdoing.

Mississippi faces potential loss of over $100 million in federal cuts to health agencies

The cancellation of grants awarded to the Mississippi State Department of Health totals $117,848,189, according to the Department of Government Efficiency’s “wall of receipts.”

In the state with the most C-sections, these hospitals are challenging the status quo

Wayne General is a small, rural hometown hospital in eastern Mississippi. Baptist DeSoto is a large regional hospital just outside of Memphis. And Singing River is a mid-size hospital network on the Gulf Coast that boasts low rates at all three of its delivery locations.

But the providers at these hospitals all agree on one thing: birth takes time.

James Lukes says he slips in his earbuds and the slow ache of blues fills his ears. Johnnie Taylor’s “Last Two Dollars” crackles through the radio, carrying him back to the dusty fields of his childhood farm in Mississippi. 

Now 74, Lukes says he has to lean on a cane as he shuffles through the prison yard of the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, where he’s spent more than five decades serving a life sentence. At 17, he was charged with the stabbing death of Grace Justice in a convenience store in Waynesboro. At 19, fearful of the death penalty, he pleaded guilty – a decision he has second-guessed for decades. He maintains he is innocent. 

For the first two years, Lukes was young, angry and refused to believe he’d spend the rest of his life in prison. He quickly realized he needed to do something with his time. He took up playing basketball in the yard, but when his aging bones finally began to protest, he switched to watching television and taking walks. Lukes has taken re-entry courses, has a job and strengthened his faith by attending church regularly. 

Even so, the Mississippi Parole Board has turned him down 28 times since he became eligible for release in 1982. Lukes tried admitting guilt to the Parole Board in hopes of gaining parole, but to no avail.

Lukes is among 1 in 6 prisoners, or roughly 200,000 people in the United States, serving life sentences. Nearly 70,000 people serving life were under 25 at the time of their offense and over 40,000 people are serving prison sentences of 50 years or more. 

According to a Nov. 3 fact sheet from the Mississippi Department of Corrections, roughly 1,700 prisoners in Mississippi are serving life sentences.

In the years since Lukes was sentenced, the legal system has taken a deeper look at how it treats young offenders. 

Twenty-eight states have banned mandatory life sentences for those whose crimes were committed as juveniles, following U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have called the practice unconstitutional. High court rulings in Roper v. Simmons (2005), Graham v. Florida (2010), Miller v. Alabama (2012), Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016), and Jones v. Mississippi (2021) have cited brain science showing people under 25 are less capable of understanding long-term consequences and are more susceptible to peer pressure. 

In April 2021, the conservative-majority court reversed that trend, concluding in a 6-3 decision that courts could sentence juveniles to life without hope of parole, even without a finding that a juvenile was permanently incorrigible, a benchmark the court had set in Miller v. Alabama.

Juveniles don’t have the same rights and responsibilities as adults, advocates say, so they should not suffer the same consequences. 

Yet nearly 500 U.S. prisoners serve life-without-parole sentences for crimes they committed as juveniles. An additional 8,600 people as of 2020 are serving a sentence of life with parole or virtual life sentences for crimes committed as juveniles. 

Lukes reflects back on his teenage years, admitting he used to party too much. Prison has made him grow up, he said. While he is thankful to be alive, Lukes said he wishes he could have started a family of his own.

“When you’re in prison, you cannot do what you want to do. You have to do what they want you to do,” Lukes said. 

Lukes said he especially misses the Southern home cooking of potato salad and fried okra. Growing tired of the prison’s gray meat, he has opted for eating fish and chicken. 

It took Lukes two years to adjust to prison life. In the beginning of his time in prison, he would call home to his mother frequently, said his cousin Bobby Joe Gandy.

“He cried and cried. His mom said he had to confess or they’d execute him,” Gandy said. 

Gandy and his brother decided to go to the store where the crime occurred to question the victim’s husband, who owned the store. Five decades later, Gandy can still recite Ralph Justice’s response to him: “He said, ‘Somebody has to pay for it. I’m not.’” Justice died 28 years ago.

According to Lukes, when he arrived at the store, he saw blood on the ground. Afraid, he turned around and went home. Lukes said he later learned Grace Justice had run out of the store after being stabbed. She died on the highway. 

Having already pleaded guilty, Lukes said claiming innocence to a Parole Board could jeopardize his chances at leaving prison. 

“I was just sad, but I had to come up out of that because I was going to be here a long time,” Lukes said. “I’ll have to do the time no matter what I do, so I might as well focus on something that will help me do my time more easily.” 

For a while, seeing his family got Lukes through prison. He was furloughed for 10 days around Christmastime in 1979 and never violated the terms. He would go home and visit with family, and come back on time. His only write up in prison was for sending a Christmas card to a female guard. 

A change in administration took away Lukes’ furlough in the 1980s. Now, he relies on phone calls and the rare opportunities his family has to make the long drive up to the prison from Wayne County.

Lukes said he misses his family and hopes to go home to be with them. His family has advocated heavily for his release. His only obstacle is the Parole Board. 

A report from FWD.us says Mississippi’s parole laws “are a major driver of the state’s dangerously high prison population.” And with parole rates decreasing, prisoners like Lukes are trapped in a cycle of denials. 

“The Parole Board used to give parole. The last 10 to 15 years, they started cutting back,” Lukes said. “I don’t know why.”

The board has continuously denied Lukes, citing the violent nature of the crime and victim opposition. The Parole Board has not responded to a request for comment. 

Former Parole Board Chairman Steve Pickett said 65% of prisoners in Mississippi are eligible for parole today, compared to about 35% a decade ago. The change comes from a push to undo tough-on-crime laws enacted in the mid-1990s, when prisoners convicted of violent offenses were ineligible for parole. 

Despite the increase in eligibility, Pickett, who served on the board nine years, said the rate of parole is lower now than in 2014. A public records request with the Mississippi Department of Corrections shows the parole grant rate for November 2025 as roughly 54%.

“Unfortunately, it’s just easier for people to throw money at corrections than it is to hold the system accountable,” Pickett said. “The general public is far removed from the world of corrections.” 

But it’s not just Mississippi affected by these practices. 

In Michigan, Henry Hill was 16 when his life came crashing down. He was at a park with his friends confronting other kids when the situation quickly escalated. 

Hill admitted to having a gun on him, but was running away from the scene when his friend shot and killed one of the other boys. Despite a sheriff testifying to this in court, Hill was convicted of first-degree murder for aiding and abetting and sentenced to life. 

A mental evaluation found Hill to have the education level of a third-grader and the mentality of a 9-year-old. Nevertheless, Hill was tried as an adult. 

“To be sentenced to the rest of my life in prison for a crime that I actually didn’t commit, I would have been able to understand it if I never got out, if I actually did something, but I didn’t,” Hill said. “And then on the flip side, if I did commit the crime, at what point is enough enough? 

So far, 22 states still sentence juveniles to life without parole. Despite efforts from local lawmakers to abolish juvenile life without parole, states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Mississippi remain stuck. 

Wisconsin state Rep. Todd Novak said he’s hopeful the legislature will pass a bill aimed at abolishing juvenile life without parole. A bill he sponsored in 2023 didn’t have time to pass before the session ended. Had it gone through, he said, it  would have eliminated juvenile life without parole and installed a sentence review mechanism for minors. 

Novak, a Republican, said Wisconsin needs to follow the ruling of Miller v. Alabama, which called the sentencing of juveniles to life in prison “cruel and unusual punishment.” 

Despite these rulings, Novak said he has seen  hesitation from lawmakers who are afraid of how the bill will affect public safety.

“I think the big key is to make sure people understand that if this passes, that all these 17-year-olds that were sentenced, that are now in their 40s to 50s, aren’t just automatically going to get out,” Novak said. 

Novak hopes the bill will address Wisconsin’s current harsh sentencing of juveniles. 

One example comes from a tragic event in 2022. A 10-year-old boy in Milwaukee was charged as an adult for the fatal shooting of his mother after she refused to buy him a VR headset. Wisconsin state laws require children 10 and older to be tried as adults for violent crimes such as homicide. 

In Mississippi, children 13 and older can be charged as adults for serious offenses like murder or armed robbery.

“Mississippi doesn’t see life for how it is,” Lukes said. “If someone did their time, let them go.” 

Republican state Rep. Becky Currie, who chairs the House Corrections Committee, declined to comment on whether there are  plans to amend Mississippi state law to address juvenile life without parole.  

In Michigan, Hill was able to gain parole in 2017, and has since been working at a factory and spending time with family. 

“So many evil people out here in society,” Hill said. “They don’t believe in second chances. They don’t believe in anything until somebody in their household or their family or friends get in a similar situation, then now (they think) we gotta get him out and see things with a different perspective.” 

Lukes is trying to find a pro bono lawyer to help reopen his case. His next hearing is in four years. He’ll be 77 years old.

Correction, 12/26/2025: This story has been updated to show Lukes is 74.

In January, hundreds of oral histories, manuscripts, book collections and historical archives of Black Mississippians collected by the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University will go into a temperature controlled storage during renovations of its campus home, Ayer Hall, which is also the oldest building on the campus. 

The federal funds covering the cost of the move came through this fall, but for several months earlier this year, it was unclear whether that would happen.

In 2023, a severe storm damaged Ayer Hall’s HVAC system and a few floors where many of the center’s archives and cultural artifacts are stored. In November 2024, the Margaret Walker Center staff applied for a $317,039 federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to cover relocating the historic materials while Ayer Hall is renovated. IMLS is a small federal agency that supports museums, libraries and cultural institutions across the country.

Then in March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order requiring the IMLS and other federal agencies to scale down to “the minimum presence.” At IMLS, nearly 70 employees  were placed on administrative leave at the small federal agency, which supports museums, libraries and cultural institutions across the country.

When the IMLS team was placed on leave, the Margaret Walker Center staff was left in limbo about their grant. After nearly six months of uncertainty, the center received its IMLS grant in September. 

“We couldn’t be more grateful,” said Angela Stewart, an archivist at the center. 

The Margaret Walker Center funding will also help cover the cost of professional development workshops with a focus on boosting museum operations and management.

Maintaining cultural institutions like the Margaret Walker Center requires funding that goes beyond the price of admission or local tax dollars, said Sen. Hillman Frazier, a Democrat from Jackson and a 1974 JSU alumnus. In states like Mississippi, where access to resources and support for cultural institutions may be meager, funding has been essential in preserving state history, he said.  

“It is a godsend to get this money, the tools and resources for an institution like the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State,” Frazier said. “Museums and libraries are sometimes the only access to education that people may have where they can further explore their curiosity and areas of interests, as well as know their history.”

The importance of the history

After the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Margaret Walker Alexander, an accomplished poet and writer, founded the Institute for the Study of the History, Life, and Culture of Black People at what was then Jackson State College. 

At the time, universities and colleges across the country were adding Black history departments, courses and programs to their curriculum as a result of student activism from the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. 

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, who knew Walker and attended Tougaloo College in the 1970s with her son Sigismund Walker Alexander, remembers admiring her “spirit and commitment to writing about Black people and Black life in the Deep South.” Walker was a pivotal figure in the movement to establish Black intellectual and academic studies,  he said. 

“She aspired for the institute to reflect her passion as an academic, artist and activist, and the university commended her preservation efforts,” said Thompson, a 1972 JSU alumnus.

When Walker retired in 1979 after 30 years as an English professor at Jackson State, the university honored her by renaming the cultural center after her. 

The center is also home to important collections and memorabilia from notable Black Mississippians such as a collection from William Lamson, an architect and analyst for court cases dealing with school desegregation, voting rights, housing discrimination and judicial redistricting. Another example is a collection from Rod Paige, the first Black U.S.  secretary of education who was also an interim president of JSU, That collection includes memoranda, reports, speeches, scrapbooks and papers reflecting on Paige’s role during George W. Bush’s presidency. Paige died Dec. 9.

“There’s so much history of Black people in Mississippi that is in danger of being lost, so it’s important to keep funding and supporting these institutions to preserve her legacy but also the works associated with it,” Thompson said. 

Stewart, the archivist, said it was important to Walker to provide space for people to “learn how to think and be curious” rather than being told how to think. The importance of preserving archival work at the center helps engage visitors and students in research, scholarship and history. 

“We have to know who we are and where we’re going,” Stewart said. “That’s the importance of history. And archives do that.” 

Correction, 12/25/2025: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Sen. Hillman Frazier’s first name.

John Parker Campbell describes the wild pigs on his family farm as “a constant headache.” 

Hogs will eat up corn and peanuts that have just been planted, damaging acres of crops in a night. Some years the hog damage is worse than others but it has been a problem since his father started farming in Copiah County in the 1990’s.

In Mississippi, wild hogs create around $60 million to $80 million in damage every year, including eating crops and damaging property. Farmers, researchers, the state and the federal government are trying to fight the infestation, but it’s a never-ending battle for landowners. 

“Farmers have enough stress as it is. They don’t need this modern-day locust,” said Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson

Campbell and his father use traps and have an electric fence around their property to keep the hogs out. The fence has been effective, although the feral pigs have broken through parts of it before. However, it was expensive to initially put up and costs thousands of dollars each year to maintain. 

“You have to know that they’re out there,” said Campbell. “We keep an eye on our fields but you can get busy and then go a couple days without looking and they can just do a tremendous amount of damage.” 

The wild hog population has grown over the past 40 years, not just in Mississippi, but across the United States. In the 1980’s they lived in 17 states, now they can be found in 35. Previously, it was thought they cost the U.S. $2 billion a year but new research indicates that number is actually over $3 billion. 

Wild pigs are not native to the United States. The first population was escaped livestock brought to the Americas by European settlers. Later, Eurasian boars were imported for hunting and joined the wild hog population. With no natural predators and plenty of land, water and food, their numbers have grown.

While some owners successfully deterred pigs by using electric fences, the only way to manage the larger population is by killing the hogs.

Mississippi was the first state to launch a statewide wild hog-control program in 2020. The program provides education and traps to landowners.

The program operates with a budget of $183,000 a year which mainly goes to staff salaries and maintenance of smart traps and cameras. The program has four application cycles with each cycle receiving between 35 and 40 applications.

There are a number of ways to reduce the pig population, including using traps, aerial gunning and poison. While wild hogs are considered nuisance animals and can be hunted year round, hunting is relatively ineffective at controlling the larger population. 

Aerial gunning in Mississippi is only used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It also has limited use as the pigs can easily run into the trees for cover, whereas in places like Texas, there is more open and flat land. While there is ongoing research into the use of poisons, including contraceptives, it’s challenging to make sure that other animals don’t eat them.

Trapping is one of the most common methods and is preferred as it requires less time and effort than other methods. A new study from Mississippi State University looked at the economic benefits of trapping.

The average landowner in the study had an estimated $20,000 in hog damages per year. It showed that reducing a local pig population can lead to less damage and $300-$4,000 in savings per pig the next year for land owners. But combatting the wild hog problem is an expensive and constant battle. 

The study involved intense, dedicated hog removal through Delta Wildlife, a conservation nonprofit. 

Jody Acosta, Delta Wildlife’s nuisance-and invasive-species program manager, and his team set up and monitor traps around the Delta. While the team is experienced and knowledgeable, Acosta is clear that the job is not about the glory of hunting but about pest management. 

Some of the trap doors will only close when a Delta Wildlife team member remotely pushes a button. So they work around the clock, often late at night, checking the live video feed of the traps. Once they successfully trap a group of pigs, a Delta Wildlife worker quickly makes their way to the trap so they can dispose of the pigs and reset the trap.

The study estimates that it would cost a land owner about $200 per pig if they outsourced every part of trapping. Strickland, one of the study’s authors, acknowledges that “it’s absolutely a big number” but says that the average landowner would likely pay less. Despite the initial sticker shock, Strickland said the study shows that pig removal results in a “positive return on investment” and that government programs are economically viable. 

Long term, Strickland thinks it’s possible to reduce the wild pig population through a concerted effort and investment. He urges farmers and landowners to take wild pigs seriously even if there’s only a few on their property at the moment.

“The problem will only get worse and worse,” said Strickland.

ONWARD – Growing up near Washington D.C., Miriam Bowden treasured the summers she spent visiting family in the Mississippi Delta. She got to engage with a world foreign to her own, she fondly recalled, playing in the fields, fishing and foraging.

“Even though I am truly a city child, every spot of countryness I could find, I gravitated towards it,” she said. 

Decades later, Bowden now owns one of the south Delta’s most well-known institutions, the Onward Store along U.S. 61, or the “blues highway,” in Sharkey County. Over the last century, the business has worn a number of hats: restaurant, gas station, post office, gift shop. The store also boasts a claim to fame most Mississippians are familiar with.

Just down the road, in 1902, then-president Theodore Roosevelt ventured on a bear hunt with Holt Collier, an esteemed marksman and former slave. After the president had little to show for the outing, Collier cornered a bear to give Roosevelt an easy shot. But, as the legend goes, Roosevelt considered the maneuver “unsportsmanlike,” and instead let the bear run free. News of the trip reached a toymaker in New York, and the popular Teddy Bear spread from there. 

Bowden retired in 2021 from her job of nearly 20 years, teaching theater to middle and high schoolers in Maryland. When the COVID-19 pandemic shrunk her usual classroom into a computer screen, her joy quickly faded, she said. 

She originally moved to Mississippi in 2023 to take care of the 320-acre farm her great grandfather bought years and years ago, located just south of Mayersville in the south Delta – or, as she described, “in the middle of nowhere.” 

But about a year later, Bowden drove past the Onward Store and saw a “for sale” sign posted outside. Right there and then, she found her new calling. 

In a rural area with scant economic growth and where it can take hours of driving to find groceries, the store is much more than a historical maker. It’s a nexus for locals and travelers to refresh, replenish and reunite. 

Even more crucial for Bowden, reviving the business – which has been closed since January, 2024 – means reconnecting herself with a community her family left its mark on. 

On the same farm where her mother, aunts and uncles grew up, her grandfather, Henry Sias, hosted Civil Rights icons Fannie Lou Hamer and Stokely Carmichael, Bowden said. Sias also headed the local “colored” school. Her family, she added, took part in the 1960s Freedom Rides, and even joined Hamer when she gave her famous speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Bowden’s cousin, she said, had to drive Hamer around because she couldn’t drive herself. 

“That’s part of my family history as far as I’m concerned,” she said.   

While it wasn’t the case when her family bought the property, the land is now one of the few Black-owned farms in the heavily agricultural area, Bowden added. 

The journey to reopen the Onward Store hasn’t been cheap. Even with the help of a couple of loans, buying and renovating the shop, including tearing up rotted floors, have drained her entire savings.

“I would say that I’ve bet my future on this store,” said Bowden, now 62. 

Unsure how soon she’ll have her full vision of the store ready, Bowden is hoping to at least have the deli open by the end of 2025. There, she plans to serve a variety of lunch staples, especially local classics: hoop cheese, crawfish salad, egg salad, bologna salad, hogshead cheese and pimento loaf. 

But she also wants to transform the Onward Store, which she said had become somewhat of a tourist trap over the years, into something new. Bowden wants to add books and photographs showcasing the local blues culture, for instance. After all, she said, Muddy Waters grew up just around the corner. 

And in addition to selling hunting supplies and retro toys – yes, including the Teddy Bear – Bowden wants the Onward Store to serve as a vehicle for local goods, like vegetables and crafts. In an area with few jobs, she hopes her investment in the space can encourage and support other local business owners. 

Since she started repairs on the store a few months ago, visitors have constantly walked in, hoping it was finally open. Not yet, Bowden would tell them, but she would take their phone number down to let them know when it’s time to return. 

“ The community really wants to see it happen, and I want to make it happen for them,” she said. “Ever since I first started looking at this place, it’s been like a mission, and I think of it as my sacred duty to have this place where people can gather and have good food and conversation and everything. That is important.”

While it’s taken some acclimating to the rural lifestyle, Bowden said she’s found her happiness in Mississippi that went away during the pandemic. 

“We (up North) have some pretty bad opinions about (Mississippi), some of them are real, but a lot of them are not,” she said. “Beyond the notorious things about here, there is absolute beauty. I have found peace since I’ve been down here living on the family farm. That has been awesome.

“I can go out on my porch and look up in the sky and see the Milky Way at night. I could never do that in Washington, D.C. There’s such beauty here and there’s peace and there’s some good people here.”

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann asked the state Board of Election Commissioners on Tuesday to file for a stay on a federal judge’s ruling that could lead to special elections for at least two seats on the Mississippi Supreme Court next year. 

Hosemann made the request in a letter to Gov. Tate Reeves, Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Secretary of State Michael Watson, fellow Republicans who comprise the election board. The request follows a Dec. 19 ruling by Mississippi Northern District federal Judge Sharion Aycock, which gave the Republican-controlled state Legislature until the end of its 2026 regular session to draw new Supreme Court district boundaries.

The ruling should be challenged, Hosemann said, because it could allow the federal court to redraw the boundaries to the court’s “liking,” an outcome that could favor candidates supported by Democrats. 

That’s what happened after a federal three-judge panel last year ordered lawmakers to redraw some legislative districts in three areas of the state to give Black voters a fairer shot at electing candidates of their choice. Not appealing that ruling sooner was a mistake Hosemann doesn’t want repeated, he suggested.

“Previously, this Board did not request a stay of a similar order to redistrict the Senate and the House districts, allowing the Senate and the House to effectively be redrawn by unconstitutional federal mandates on issues currently before the U.S. Supreme Court brought by other states,” Hosemann said in his letter. “But here we are again.”

Fitch’s office also appealed that ruling and asked the U.S. Supreme Court to sharply curtail the federal Voting Rights Act by declaring private voters cannot sue to prevent discrimination at the ballot box. 

If the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Mississippi’s favor, it would mean only the Department of Justice could sue to enforce the Voting Rights Act. 

With respect to the the ongoing legal battle over the state Supreme Court, the matter stems from a 2022 lawsuit filed by a group of Black voters and candidates. The group in 2022 sued state officials, alleging that Black candidates face unfair difficulties getting elected to the state’s high court.

 In a 105-page ruling in August, Aycock, a President George W. Bush appointee, found that the three Supreme Court districts were drawn in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act. Aycock asked the Legislature to redraw those districts in the future to give Black voters a fair shot at electing candidates of their choice.   

The plaintiffs had requested special elections for seats held by Justice Kenny Griffis and Justice Jenifer Branning. Griffis’s term ends in January 2030, while Branning’s runs through January 2033.

Last year, Branning, a white candidate who described herself as a “constitutional conservative” and was backed by the Republican Party, defeated longtime Justice Jim Kitchens, a white man widely viewed as a candidate supported by Black voters. 

No Black person has ever been elected to the Mississippi Supreme Court without first obtaining an interim appointment from the governor, and no Black person from either of the two other districts has ever served on the state’s high court. 

Hosemann said the federal court ruling could have far-reaching consequences for several elected offices beyond the state Supreme Court. 

“Even ignoring the facts of the ballot box and the inherent constitutional right for the Legislature to draw districts, this case goes even further,” Hosemann said. “It refused to restrict any potential special elections to the two Mississippi Supreme Court districts at issue in favor of ordering the Legislature to redistrict and then the federal court will review the Legislature’s efforts.”

The federal court under this tack could also compel special elections for the Public Service and Mississippi Department of Transportation commissions, Hosemann said.

Correction, 12/23/2025: This story has been corrected to show Hosemann issued his letter Tuesday.