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GULFPORT — Gulfport plans to break ground this month on a $54 million road project that would give drivers another way across Interstate 10. City officials say it would improve traffic flow and emergency access, while environmental advocates raise concerns about wetlands and flooding. 

The Interconnecting Gulfport project would build an overpass west of U.S. Highway 49, connecting the Airport Road area south of I-10 with Daniel Boulevard to the north. The route would also provide another entrance and exit for Gulfport Premium Outlets. 

The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality approved two state-level authorizations in May. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also lists a federal permit issued with special conditions June 12. 

The city awarded Cotton Creek Transport Inc. a construction contract in September, with completion required by May 2029. 

What will change for drivers

Plans include two roundabouts, connecting roads, drainage improvements, lighting, sidewalks and access for bicyclists and pedestrians.

City officials say the road would improve emergency response and provide another evacuation route during hurricanes. 

Engineers considered several routes before selecting the current alignment. According to a 2022 environmental assessment, an earlier option was eliminated because of conflicts with existing infrastructure, right-of-way limitations and environmental restrictions. 

Some residents hope the project will ease congestion around Highway 49 and I-10. 

“It’s honestly a good idea. It’d probably clear up a lot of the congestion in that area,” said Quintana, who has lived in the Gulfport-Biloxi area for 14 years. 

Gulfport resident J.E. Lawrence said afternoon traffic can make travel difficult.

“It’d be beneficial for all of our residents if we could do this from the 49 to I-10 aspect. Putting an (overpass) in could alleviate a lot of the traffic problems that we see, especially from Airport Road to, say, around the Crossroads Mall area. It’s very congested there during the day, especially at 5 o’clock when everybody’s getting off work,” Lawrence said. 

What the traffic study shows

A traffic analysis by engineering firm Neel-Schaffer compared projected conditions in 2045 with and without the new road. 

The study projected improvements in some areas but found that certain intersections could still experience significant delays. 

At Highway 49 and Airport Road, traffic conditions were projected to worsen by 2045 whether or not the project is built. 

It has not been confirmed whether the projections were updated following subsequent design changes.

Wetlands and flooding concerns

The project’s potential effects on wetlands and nearby neighborhoods have drawn opposition from the Education, Economics, Environmental, Climate and Health Organization, known as EEECHO. 

Katherine Egland, the organization’s co-founder and deputy executive director, said the group favors another route and has concerns about flooding. 

“I’m all about economic advancement, but this does not have to be at the expense of the environment,” Egland said. 

Egland said EEECHO has also sought an explanation from city leaders about their choice of route. 

“We’ve asked the former mayor and the current mayor for a meeting to help better understand why they would select this road over much better alternatives, and they have declined to meet with us to explain why,” Egland said. 

The project’s 2022 environmental assessment documents public concerns about flooding and effects on nearby communities, including Forest Heights. 

The Federal Highway Administration issued a finding of no significant impact for the selected route in 2022, determining that a more extensive environmental impact statement was not required. 

In May, the city said it had enlarged a planned detention pond to manage heavy rainfall, increasing the estimated wetlands impact from 66 acres to 98.3 acres. 

City officials said engineering analyses projected improved drainage and reduced flooding risks from rainfall runoff. The detention system is not intended to protect against coastal storm surge. 

The city provided information about the construction contract and planned groundbreaking but has not responded to follow-up questions, including whether drainage projections were updated following the design changes. 

Economic development officials on Wednesday urged Jackson business leaders to craft informed opinions about data centers and consider their impact on Mississippi’s infrastructure, economy and communities.

“You are entitled to all of your own opinions,” said Jeff Rent, president and CEO of the Greater Jackson Partnership, which organized the panel, “We are a nation of varying opinions. But I hope you will learn something today and base your opinion of data centers on the facts.”

Data centers are facing increasing pushback from residents in Mississippi and across the country as companies are rushing to meet the expected artificial intelligence demand for computing power. Residents are concerned about the impact on electricity rates, noise, water and the surrounding environment. There are seven data centers being built in Mississippi, with more potentially in the pipeline. In the Jackson Metro area, there are two in Madison County, one in Clinton and one in Rankin. 

State and local officials are eyeing more regulations. The Jackson City Council passed the state’s first data center moratorium and other cities have passed zoning regulations. Earlier this year, a legislative task force on artificial intelligence expressed concerns about the potential impact of data centers.

“There’s a lot of misinformation out there on social media, a lot of things that happen in other communities that are not relevant to our communities,” said Garrett Wright, director of Rankin First Economic Development Authority, “It is incumbent on everyone in this room, everyone on this stage, to make sure that the local population is fully informed of reality, not just what they are reading in the media.” 

Haley Fisackerly, president and CEO of Entergy Mississippi, said that it is important to understand what data centers are because they will be the new infrastructure, similar to railroads and the internet.

“I’ll tell you why I’m excited about it, “ Fisackerly said, “It’s not just about the growth and the jobs and investment. How is it going to transform the services we provide our communities and our customers?”

Fisackerly said that before Amazon Web Services decided to build a data center in Madison County, Entergy was concerned about the impact that rising costs, aging infrastructure, severe weather and a lack of sales growth would have on electricity costs for customers. 

Entergy, the state’s largest electricity provider, knew that it needed to build two new power plants by 2030, Fisackerly said, and having Amazon as a customer is now helping to pay for them and will lessen the increased costs for Entergy’s other’s customers. A report commissioned by environmental groups said that data centers have already increased rates for Entergy’s Mississippi residential customers by around $10 a month. Entergy has pushed back against these claims and emphasized that customers are benefiting from, not subsidizing data center costs.

Amazon has continued to expand its presence in Mississippi since the announcement of its first data center in 2024. It plans to invest $25 billion in Mississippi data centers in Clinton, Madison County and Warren County. 

“We have never seen an economic development opportunity like this in our state’s history,” Fisackerly said. 

Beyond the corporate investment, speakers on Wednesday highlighted data centers’ broader economic impact, including taxes directed towards public schools and job creation. Amazon recently tried to challenge Madison County’s property valuation which would reduce the amount it pays in property taxes. However, the county upheld the assessor’s valuation.

“When you think about data centers, it is not just the direct jobs. They are impacting every level of our education system. So, I’m so proud of what this entire region is doing to support the ecosystem for the data center industry,” Wright said.

“The jobs obviously are an important part, but what’s happening with the taxes? What’s happening with the wages? What’s happening with the home prices? What’s happening with the overall investment in the community,” said Andrea Hutchins, a project manager with Amazon Web Services.

The panelists emphasized the importance of partnerships between data centers, local businesses, government officials and the communities they’re building in. They encouraged people to ask questions and get engaged in the process.

“My advice is, it’s OK to say no. If you don’t want a data center, say no. Let your voice be heard,” said Joey Deason, Executive Director of the Madison County Economic Development Authority. But he cautioned against relying on misinformation and encouraged people to go to Amazon’s data centers in Canton to see and hear what they’re like. 

Panelists agreed that data centers are here to stay. Hutchins said that Amazon is projecting demand for at least the next decade, but there are ways data centers can be better partners. Deason said that there have been car wash gift cards given to people living close to the Amazon data centers and regular street cleaning in an effort to be good neighbors.

“I don’t think we can ignore the fact there have been some bad players or some some projects that have been detrimental to some local neighbors in the broader Southeast or even in the U.S. region. But there are a lot of ways to mitigate that,” Wright said, “ I think it’s incumbent on us as our developers to make sure that what we bring to our community is only going to increase the overall value of the region.”

International student Qingfang Pang had barely touched down on his new campus in Itta Bena last month when he learned his expired visa could thwart his hopes of finally breaking into the highest ranks of college basketball, according to his new school, Mississippi Valley State University.

MVSU spokesperson Donnell Maxie remembered that day: The 6-foot-9-inch junior forward from China hadn’t been in Delta Devils territory for long, but he quickly caught students’ attention at the small, historically Black institution nestled in the fields ringing the tiny Delta college town.

“You walk around, and you’re a 7-foot or 6-9 Asian kid here,” Maxie said. “Everybody wants to talk to you.”

The semester was already in full swing — classes were a couple weeks in, and basketball season was due to kick off in less than two months — when Maxie said MVSU secured Pang as a late admit. As a player, he was different from the Delta Devils’ usual picks as the worst-ranked team in NCAA Division I basketball for the last three years in a row.

The Delta Devils are a basketball team with such a storied losing streak that they rake in funding for MVSU’s whole athletic department by traveling the country to get demolished in “buy games” against powerhouse schools — taking home a payout of up to $100,000 a match. The team hasn’t won a nonconference game against a Division I opponent in 20 years, but it did earn nearly $1 million in buy games in 2024.

The news of Pang’s addition ignited the hopes of fans of the underdog team such as Oliver Fell, who opened a fan account on X to find humor in the Delta Devils’ many losses. He has accrued over 10 times more followers than the team’s actual account.

Pang was taller than the usual MVSU baller, and more sought after. Coming out of high school in Queens, New York, in 2024, he garnered over 10 offers, including multiple bids from top-ranked Division I teams, like the University of Illinois and University of Michigan.

He ended up cutting his teeth on junior college basketball at Monroe University in New York for the last two years. This fall at MVSU marked his break into Division I basketball. 

Pang stood out as an unconventional Delta Devils player for new head coach Mike Davis’ equally unconventional lineup — one that was filled with taller and more diverse talent than past teams at the HBCU. He was one of three ballers with an international background and two non-Black players, along with 7-foot center Tianhao “Howie” Wu, who also hailed from China.

“Pang is a guy who is frankly a caliber of player MVSU doesn’t get all that often,” Fell said. “A player who is excited to be a part of this team, who is certainly going to be one of the centerpieces on the squad and who brings a different kind of player and personality than Valley has seen before.

“Athletically, missing Pang would be a huge blow to the squad.”

Then, after Pang’s one day on campus, he was gone.

Three weeks in ICE detention

Pang hadn’t gotten the chance to play on the Delta Devils’ court when his new school realized his visa had expired, Maxie said. Pang and MVSU realized his transition wouldn’t run as smoothly as they had hoped.

Pang had been busy running through a checklist of first-day duties on campus. Maxie said he sat for a player photoshoot and met with the school’s international student services, which is in charge of making sure MVSU’s small contingent of 60 international students follows immigration requirements. 

The staff reviewed his documentation. Things quickly derailed from there, according to Maxie.

“Within 10 minutes of him being there, they told him, ‘Hey, man, you know your visa has expired?’” Maxie said.

Up to that point, Pang wasn’t aware his visa had expired, as he mistakenly believed that Monroe had arranged for it to be reinstated, according to his attorney, Marcus Session, a former professional basketball player. Monroe spokesperson Jacqueline Ruegger said the school warned Pang two years ago to reinstate his visa and that he had met with an attorney to discuss the issue at the university’s recommendation.

Because Monroe had already issued him the necessary immigration documents, Ruegger said, he was allowed to remain in the U.S. as long as he was maintaining a full course load at the school. But ultimately, he never reinstated his visa, and he graduated from Monroe in April with his associate degree in sports management.

In an effort to resolve his visa issues at MVSU, Pang decided to get a flight to New York to meet with his sponsor, a family friend, Session told WJTV. 

But in the process, Session said, he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Greenville airport on Sept. 29, amid what immigration attorneys say is an increasing wave of immigration arrests at airports.

Pang’s case follows a string of high-profile detentions of college student athletes in recent months, including fellow HBCU basketball player Aminata “Amina” Seck, over what the Department of Homeland Security has said are illegal overstays. Immigration law experts said these issues have traditionally been resolved by simply filing paperwork to reinstate the students’ visas. But the Trump administration has had an unprecedented approach: detention.

“Making an example of high-profile people is a very strong way to send a message,” said Adam Cohen, a Memphis-based immigration attorney who specializes in representing universities and international students. “It discourages and makes people fearful.”

ICE held Pang in detention at Richwood Correctional Center in rural Louisiana. Federal inspectors have uncovered a history of violations at the facility, including unsanitary conditions and restricting detainees’ access to their attorneys without any justification. 

The day ICE arrested Pang, an immigrant from Peru who was being held at the detention center died of a heart attack from septic shock.

DHS wrote in a statement after his arrest that Pang “accepted voluntary departure” — an agreement to leave the U.S. — and would remain in ICE custody until his “removal.” But Pang didn’t know what he was agreeing to and was “tired” of being treated like a “criminal,” Session said.

Pang wanted to return to basketball and classes, but Session said authorities told him to sign a removal order and failed to provide him with an interpreter — a violation for which federal inspectors have previously cited the detention center.

Pang was gone just weeks before the Delta Devils’ basketball season was about to kick off, with MVSU not knowing when — or if — he could return.

“No one thought this would happen here,” Maxie said. “Yet we’re still doing everything we can to make sure we help this student, like we would do for any of our students.”

Fans rallied around the Delta Devils’ new recruit as his detention garnered national attention. Fell launched an online petition calling for his release that racked up over 500 signatures.

“He’s been gone since the 29th of September,” Fell said, “in a facility meant to house violent criminals that doesn’t seem to treat these detainees as if they are anything more than that.”

Pang’s case reminded international student Israel Makoka of his time in a cell at another immigration detention center in Louisiana, after ICE arrested him and his younger brother Max in April while they were waiting for their school bus in Hancock County. Their arrests marked some of Mississippi’s highest profile immigration cases this year.

“You can’t do anything,” Makoka said, “You’re just in a room.

“You start questioning everything: Why did I even come to America?”

Makoka, who is from the Republic of Congo, spent nine days in ICE custody. Since then, he’s tried to resume life as any other 18-year-old, by graduating high school, moving away from his host family, starting his freshman year at Hinds Community College and playing for the basketball team there.

But Pang’s case hit close to home for Makoka and his host mother, Gail Baptiste. Like Pang, Makoka found support in the basketball community when he was detained after he and his brother unknowingly violated their student visas by transferring to a school closer to their host family.

What started as a mistake set off an immigration case that the Makoka brothers and their host family are still navigating. As Makoka awaits a decision in immigration court on whether his visa can be reinstated, he has to wear an ankle monitor everywhere as a condition of his release. 

“I feel a little connected to him,” Baptiste said of Pang’s case. “When it’s a kid, and they have the language barrier, and they’re trusting other people to understand the process.”

After three weeks in ICE custody, Session said, the removal order Pang signed was rescinded, and he was released from detention on Oct. 20 on a $12,000 bond. His return came just in time for the Delta Devils’ season opener on Nov. 6: a matchup against the Oklahoma Sooners. 

His attorney applied for his visa to be reinstated, and it could take 15 months for his application to be processed, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ current estimates. As he awaits a decision, he may return to classes and the basketball court.

Nichole Francis Reynolds, Coach Davis’ cousin and a Washington-area attorney who assisted with Pang’s case, said the forward would play before the school Saturday in MVSU’s Halloween basketball game.

Upon his release, Pang thanked Mississippi’s U.S. senators, Republicans Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, for helping to move his case forward. Despite their track record as Trump allies who support the president’s immigration policies, the senators’ intervention also proved pivotal in securing the Makokas’ release from detention, after the brothers’ largely conservative Gulf Coast community advocated for their return. Neither senator’s office responded to Mississippi Today’s request for comment.

But most of all, Pang was excited to return to the court.

“Thank you to Coach Mike Davis and the assistant coaches, who believed in me and never stopped supporting me, and to my teammates for standing by me,” he said in a statement. “I am looking forward to going back to school, catching up on my classes, and playing basketball again for Mississippi Valley State.”

What went wrong?

MVSU maintains that as an international student, Pang bears sole responsibility to ensure he maintains a proper immigration status. On MVSU’s part, Maxie said the school fulfilled its responsibility to manage his international student records and help him navigate immigration requirements.

“It is on the student to then follow through, and he did not follow through,” Maxie said. “So this is all of his own doing, unfortunately.”

While Pang is legally responsible for ensuring his status, immigration law experts said, based on the available information, MVSU also bears some responsibility.

Cohen said MVSU was “late” in fulfilling the requirements that came with Pang’s transfer as an international student. Before Pang even came to campus, according to Cohen, the university should have reviewed his documentation and noticed his visa had expired. It should have obtained his international student records from Monroe and issued him a key document called a Form I-20, which would confirm his enrollment to immigration authorities and allow him to apply for his visa to be reinstated.

But MVSU didn’t fulfill those responsibilities until after Pang was already on campus or even later, when ICE had already detained him.

“It’s late in the game to be just seeing this file and the student’s there on campus,” Cohen said. “It’s like basically going to a university and taking classes before that university even has jurisdiction over your student record.”

It wasn’t until Pang was in ICE custody that MVSU moved to obtain his international student records from Monroe and issue him a Form I-20, according to Maxie. But he said MVSU didn’t cause any “paperwork delay,” saying the school’s international student services notified Pang about his expired visa as soon as they noticed it.

“Our people, they are on top of this stuff. They don’t play about this stuff,” Maxie said. “They make sure that their documents and their paperwork is in line so that we don’t have issues, particularly in this political climate that we’re in.”

Pang’s case has also raised questions about the accuracy of the Department of Homeland Security’s public explanation for his arrest. The department wrote in a statement that Pang was arrested after he “legally” entered the country while in high school in 2023 on a “temporary basis not to exceed September 5, 2024, but illegally overstayed.”

That last day fell on his first week of classes as a freshman at Monroe. Ruegger said that while Pang’s visa had expired then, the school had already issued him a valid Form I-20, allowing him to legally remain in the country as long as he was taking classes at Monroe.

As a result, Cohen said he couldn’t see how it was in any way “accurate” for DHS to say that Pang had illegally overstayed his visa for the last two years. The department did not respond to Mississippi Today’s request for comment about the basis of its explanation.

“I think they are just embellishments and half truths or no truths,” Cohen said of DHS’ statement. “It’s amazing to see what is said and compare it to the actual truth of it.”

Former President Bill Clinton will campaign in Tupelo on Friday for Democratic Senate nominee Scott Colom, the Colom campaign told Mississippi Today.

The Democratic former president’s trip to Mississippi will be the latest in a string of appearances by national figures hoping to turn out voters in the state’s heated Senate race between Colom and Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. President Donald Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris have each come to Mississippi over the past week to campaign for Hyde-Smith and Colom, respectively.

In a statement, Colom said Clinton would discuss issues important to Mississippi voters.

“I am honored President Clinton is coming to Tupelo to highlight the issues that matter most for Mississippians, from the rising cost of gas and groceries to the negative impact tariffs are having on our farmers and small businesses,” Colom said. “Those are the same issues Trump voters talked to me about when I walked the line of the Trump rally on Monday, and it’s why I know Mississippians are ready to fire Cindy High Prices on November 3rd.”

Clinton last came to Tupelo for a campaign event in 2008, when he spoke at a fish fry to support his wife, then-U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, during her 2008 presidential primary campaign. He also traveled to Jackson in 2016 to support his wife’s next primary campaign.

Colom’s campaign also told Mississippi Today that South Carolina U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn would campaign for Colom in Mississippi on Thursday. Clyburn, the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, is set to make stops in Olive Branch, Ruleville and Jackson.

Clyburn will focus on voting rights and Hyde-Smith’s opposition to the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and Freedom to Vote Act, Colom’s campaign said. Mississippi remains embroiled in a fight over an expected push by the Republican-controlled state Legislature to redraw electoral maps, and Colom has highlighted the threat of redistricting on the campaign trail.

The South Carolina congressman also came to Mississippi in 2023 to campaign for Brandon Presley, the Democratic nominee for governor that year.

The Senate race has attracted a last-minute barrage of spending as Democrats see an opening and Republicans worry that reliably conservative Mississippi could become a casualty of Trump’s sinking popularity nationwide.

Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg campaigned for Colom in Gulfport and Biloxi on Tuesday, pleading for Mississippi voters to “send shockwaves” by voting for Colom. He was preceded by a cavalcade of Democratic senators who have come to Mississippi in the election’s homestretch for the Democratic nominee.

Democrats hope to flip the U.S. Senate and have begun looking at Mississippi as a dark-horse pickup opportunity. At his rally in the rural northeast Mississippi town of Corinth on Monday, Trump said he came to Mississippi because he couldn’t “take a chance” that Republicans might lose what has been a reliably safe seat.

In a statement, Jake Monssen, Hyde-Smith’s campaign manager, said Clinton is “synonymous with higher taxes, low morals, sex crimes, and Jeffrey Epstein.”

“Americans and Mississippians are tired of being pandered to by the hypocritical elite like the Clinton family,” Monssen said. “It’s a shame Scott couldn’t get Hillary to join him on the campaign trail.”

The election is on Nov. 3.

STARKVILLE — In marbled rooms at the State Capitol, conversations about school consolidation often lead to Oktibbeha County. 

Many state leaders consider the 2015 consolidation of the Starkville city public schools and Oktibbeha County schools a success story. 

That’s because the consolidation — which married a failing district in the county to one that was middling in the city — resulted in more money, a temporary enrollment bump, a new state-of-the-art school with expanded academic offerings and what is now an A-rated district.

But some locals might argue that account leaves out another part of its legacy: Every school that closed belonged to the county district, where 90% of students enrolled were Black. By comparison, the city schools were 30% white.

Jackie Ellis, 70, attended county schools and graduated from B.L. Moor High School, which later became East Oktibbeha High School. Now the old school is home to an events venue and a boutique motel. 

Every time Ellis drives by the motel, she feels what she lost.

Early resistance ends with shared mission

When the consolidation was first introduced — by lawmakers from Hattiesburg, no less — Starkville residents grumbled, Haley Montgomery recalls.

“The community was fairly blindsided,” said Montgomery, who at the time was a volunteer with the local public school parents’ group and freelanced for the school district. She now handles communications for Starkville Oktibbeha Consolidated School District. 

Starkville parents worried how consolidation with the state-managed Oktibbeha County School District would reshape their C-rated schools.

Families wanted a seat at the table and asked the Legislature to let locals take the lead. Lawmakers formed a committee of Oktibbeha County residents to recommend ways to improve education in their community.

The committee stumbled early on, when it proposed sending Oktibbeha students outside of the county. Rex Buffington, who led the committee, said the group was trying to shorten commutes for students who lived closer to neighboring school districts than to schools in Starkville.

But the proposal was perceived as a rejection of students. “And of course it was,” he said, acknowledging the misunderstanding. “Why didn’t we see that?”

Though painful, the incident helped change the committee’s perspective. No longer would they try to split up students. 

“These were all of our children,” Buffington said. “We were going to take responsibility for finding a plan to help children in both districts.”

When the committee visited the county schools, Buffington saw obvious disparities and, more importantly, the opportunities that lay before him.

“They didn’t have a lot of the extracurriculars that we take for granted,” he said. “I saw they were missing out on so much — in the classroom, yes, but even extracurricular activities. They didn’t have the things they needed and deserved. It was a moral issue to me.”

Many of the county students had grown up in the shadow of Mississippi State University but never visited the campus, Buffington said. The committee wanted to change that. 

The idea for the Partnership School was born. 

The university would partner with the district to train teachers at the campus, and would give sixth and seventh graders from across the county access to a sparkling new facility and extracurricular offerings that were previously unavailable to them, like an agriculture class and piano class.  

The school, lofty and spilling with light, opened in 2020 and serves 657 students on MSU’s campus. 

When history is erased

Orlando Trainer, who served as the county representative on the local consolidation committee, saw only benefits in merging the two districts. 

Trainer attended Starkville schools, but he and his wife, a graduate of the county schools, chose to send their daughter to Oktibbeha County schools for most of her education. Over time, Trainer saw how much help county schools needed — facilities in disrepair, limited extracurricular and academic opportunities and low student morale. 

Trainer, a county supervisor, considered the condition of the county schools as shameful, particularly with a university just a few miles away. 

“Consolidation for us was an act of redemption,” he said. “I only wish we had done it sooner.”

But for Ellis, the longtime Oktibbeha County resident and B.L. Moor High alumna, the loss of her school still hurts.

The only buildings that closed during consolidation belonged to the county district. Today, two former county buildings remain in use — an elementary school and another that’s an alternative school for students with behavioral problems.

East Oktibbeha High School was central to the community and a hub for civic life, Ellis said, including Juneteenth celebrations, ball games, fundraisers and concerts.

Julius Clark, a longtime Oktibbeha County Schools administrator before the consolidation, remembers the reaction when the closures were announced. 

“Of course, everyone felt that their children were being pushed aside or thrown into something that someone else wanted,” he said. 

Though Clark wishes those schools that were closed could have stayed in the community, he eventually came to support the consolidation. That’s because it gave county students access to extracurricular activities they didn’t have at their district, such as band and choir, and access to better resources, such as modern textbooks and technology. 

“They had been missing out on everything,” Clark said. “We didn’t have recognition or opportunities because of the money. Everything was based on money, and money is based upon your student body.”

Ellis, who works on historic preservation in Oktibbeha County, acknowledges that consolidation ultimately benefitted county students, improving their academic offerings and facilities through the Partnership Middle School. But she feels the community lost something important.

“The opportunity for the community to preserve (the East Oktibbeha school) property was given away to someone outside of the community,” she said. “It’s caused a great loss.”

A number of mementos such as class photos and trophies went missing during the consolidation, Ellis said. Some were found two years ago damaged or destroyed, she said. 

Artifacts that make up a school’s history and traditions are often overlooked during consolidation, said Carrie Hahnel, a senior associate with Bellwether, a national organization that works to improve education outcomes. 

Schools with more Black students are more likely to be closed, research shows. The logic of closing a predominantly Black school and moving students to a modern, well-equipped building makes sense, Hahnel said, it’s important to understand “that facility might be in disrepair because of a history of disinvestment.” 

A consolidation lesson: Listen to locals

In one Partnership School classroom in early September, Montgomery watched as seventh graders labeled vegetables on worksheets. Outside, a garden flourished under the summer sun. A fresh basket of sky blue eggs, gathered by students, sat on the counter.

“All things are difficult before they are easy,” read a cutout on the wall, a fitting reflection on the district’s consolidation.

For Montgomery, the consolidation was the right decision, one that ultimately brought the community together.

“There is something very special about serving your entire county,” she said. “If there were hurdles and challenges, our community is better for it.”

As state lawmakers consider consolidating more districts, Buffington hopes they learn from Starkville-Oktibbeha’s successes — as well as its failures.

Above all, he said, locals should lead the process.

“You should really put local people and parents, in particular, in the forefront of deciding how the consolidation can be shaped to best benefit the students,” Buffington said.

“That way the community has ownership of it,” he said, “and it’s not something that is done to them.”

For Ellis, the loss of her former school offers an important lesson: Communities should have a say in preserving their history.

On a sweltering afternoon in September, Ellis walked through the halls of her old high school, now an event space and motel. Her eyes lit up as she pointed out the gym and cafeteria.

“That school had been there for over 50 years,” she said. “It was like home to the community. It was like home to me. And that history has been erased.”

BILOXI – Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday pleaded for Mississippi voters to “send shockwaves” by voting for Democratic nominee Scott Colom and rejecting Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith next week. 

Buttigieg was the latest national political figure to campaign in Mississippi in the homestretch before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. The Senate race has also attracted a last-minute barrage of spending as Democrats see an opening and Republicans worry that reliably conservative Mississippi could become a casualty of President Donald Trump’s sinking popularity nationwide. 

Trump hosted a rally for Hyde-Smith in Corinth on Monday, days after former Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned for Colom in Columbus last week.

Trump’s approval ratings have plummeted nationally amid opposition to increasing consumer prices and an unpopular war in Iran. Democrats have grown optimistic that Colom could pull off an upset in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate in more than four decades. 

READ MORE: Trump rallies for Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi: ‘You like me’

“When you win in Mississippi, it is going to send shockwaves,” Buttigieg told a galvanized crowd in Biloxi. 

 Speaking to hundreds of people at a community center, the Biden administration transportation secretary said Trump and Hyde-Smith are directly responsible for soaring gasoline and grocery prices because of the president’s tariffs and other policies and the Iran war. 

“It’s happening because of decisions that were made in Washington,” Buttigeig said. “This time it’s not because Vladimir Putin decided to start a war. It’s because Donald Trump decided to start a war.” 

Colom repeated his campaign pledges about the need to raise the federal minimum wage and his desire to advocate for policies that help deliver access to affordable healthcare to rural Mississippi, which has some of the most dire health outcomes in the nation. 

“My commitment to you is that I am going to fight to do everything in my power to save our healthcare and save our hospitals,” Colom said.  

Buttigieg said healthcare issues show the Trump administration and Republicans are out of touch.

“Folks are saying, ‘We need help with healthcare,’ and they are saying, ‘OK, let’s build a new ballroom in the White House,’” Buttigieg said. “Folks are saying, ‘I need help affording the things that I buy at the store every week,’ and they are busy protecting whoever is in the Epstein files.”

Earlier in the day, Colom and Buttigieg had a press conference at the Coast Transit Authority in Gulfport, where the two celebrated the 2025 restoration of Amtrak’s Gulf Coast route from Alabama to Louisiana, called the “Mardi Gras Service.” 

The route was shut down after Hurricane Katrina and likely wouldn’t have been resurrected without a significant injection of federal money from Congress’ passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill in 2021. 

Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker was one of 19 Republican senators and the only Republican in Mississippi’s congressional delegation who voted for the federal legislation. Both Buttigieg and Colom praised Wicker’s support of the program and denounced Hyde-Smith’s opposition.  

“Let’s be very clear, there was a Republican U.S. senator from Mississippi who voted and acted to bring those dollars to this state,” Buttigieg said. “Just not Cindy Hyde-Smith because she was incapable of doing something without the permission of the then-former president.” 

Hyde-Smith at the time said she opposed the infrastructure legislation because it would increase the national debt, something Colom on Tuesday said was hypocritical because Hyde-Smith hasn’t voiced concerns about the debt increasing under Trump. 

“She doesn’t care about debt,” Colom said. “She cares about politics.” 

Colom also criticized Hyde-Smith for appearing with “Mardi Gras beads” at a ribbon cutting celebrating the reopening of the rail line, calling her dishonest for not disclosing to the public that she voted against the infrastructure bill. 

Buttigieg’s visit to the Magnolia State comes one day after Trump rallied for Hyde-Smith in Corinth in northeastern Mississippi, where he called Colom a “Democrat communist” and accused him of being soft on crime and overly supportive of transgender rights.

Colom called Trump’s description of him lies and pointed to his track record as a district attorney in north Mississippi as evidence that he’s tackled violent crime while in elected office. 

“Can you fill your gas up with those lies?” Colom said of Trump. “Can you pay your grocery bill with those lies?” 

Democratic leaders from outside of the state, such as Harris and Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, have campaigned for Colom in hopes of energizing Democratic turnout on Election Day. 

Hyde-Smith and the GOP have sought to tie Colom to the far-left of the Democratic Party and criticized him for welcoming national Democratic leaders to the conservative state. 

But Colom said Mississippi voters should ask themselves why people such as Buttigieg “care more about roads and bridges” in Mississippi than Hyde-Smith does. 

If Colom wants to pull off an upset, he would need to make significant inroads in the Gulf Coast area, which has become a firewall of support in recent years for Republican candidates. Colom told reporters he believes he’s gained support there because he’s had multiple events in the region and listened to voters’ concerns.

Buttigieg last visited Mississippi in 2024 while he was transportation secretary, to help break ground on a $20-million renovation of Medgar Evers Boulevard in Jackson. He also toured the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument and visited the Mississippi Delta, Laurel and Meridian. 

Buttigieg is a potential 2028 Democratic candidate for president and would likely need to shore up support among Black voters to capture the party’s nomination. Mississippi has the largest percentage of Black voters in the nation, but the national party often overlooks Mississippi because of its overall conservative electorate. 

Buttigieg said the national party needs to spend more time in conservative states such as Mississippi because “there’s no such thing as a permanently red state, district or county” and that Southern states deserve better than the incumbents serving them. 

“I think it’s always been a mistake to overlook Mississippi,” Buttigieg said.

HATTIESBURG — Southern Miss on Tuesday announced a plan to renovate the 42-year-old home of its nationally renowned baseball program, the only Division I program in the U.S. to boast 10 straight 40-victory seasons and 10 straight NCAA Tournament bids.

The school plans to raise approximately $25 million through private and corporate funding to complete a renovation and expansion of Pete Taylor Park/Hill Denson Field.

“Pete Taylor Park represents so much of what makes Southern Miss baseball special,” said Southern Miss Director of Athletics Jeremy McClain. “The history, the atmosphere and, most importantly, our fans have created an environment unlike any other. This project allows us to honor those traditions while making a significant investment in what comes next for our program.”

Jackson-based Weir Boerner Allin Architecture, which has designed numerous athletic facilities across the South including Dudy Noble Field at Mississippi State, partnered with Southern Miss to do master planning for the project. Seating capacity would increase to approximately 6,500. The largest crowd to date was 6,346, which included more than 2,000 standing room only. Southern Miss has sold out its season tickets of approximately 4,600 tickets for four straight seasons.

The proposed stadium renovation would include all chairback seating and the addition of eight more luxury suites to the existing 12. Said McClain, “We wish we had room for 20 more suites because we could sell that many more.”

The master plan includes an indoor pitching laboratory and hitting facility with high-tech sports science equipment to improve performance. Southern Miss coach Chrisian Ostrander, who has guided the Golden Eagles to 143 victories over three seasons called the proposed performance center “a game changer for player development, the backbone our our program.”

Southern Miss is calling the baseball stadium project “Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow, ” McClain said.

“The vision is not to change what makes The Pete special. It is to build around it,” he said. “We want our longtime fans to walk into the renovated ballpark and still feel everything they love about Southern Miss baseball, while the next generation of Golden Eagles experience a facility built for the future.”

McClain said he is confident Southern Miss can raise the money.

“We’ve had several preliminary meetings with potential donors,” he said. “We’ve confident we can get to the finish line soon and move forward with the project. Our baseball program is nationally competitive and we want to continue to invest in its future.”

Fund-raising will include naming rights to the performance center, as well as different enhanced seating areas in the ballpark, McClain said. Already this year, Renasant Bank bought the naming rights to the former M.M. Roberts Stadium in a deal that will pay the university $13.7 million over 10 years.

Julie Lee is a data reporter at Mississippi Today. Sarah Whites-Koditschek and Mukta Joshi are investigative reporters at Mississippi Today spending a year as New York Times Local Investigations fellows. They report for the Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center in collaboration with The New York Times.

Reporters for Mississippi Today closely examined video footage and broke down key moments of the police confrontation that ended with the fatal shooting of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley in a Walmart parking lot this summer.

The frame-by-frame review shows how a tip that two women were running out of the store escalated in a matter of seconds, with five officers surrounding their car, guns raised. The video analysis also catalogs the moments cited by several experts who said the police unnecessarily escalated the encounter and put themselves in harm’s way.

The Mississippi attorney general, Lynn Fitch, announced last week that the state would not pursue criminal charges against Hunter Foster, the Senatobia police officer who shot Kohen. The toddler was sitting on his mother’s lap as a second woman drove. Foster fired at the car as it drove in the direction of two officers, and Fitch ruled his actions were justified. 

That decision came after a state investigation that relied heavily on the video shown here.

The footage begins just after 2 p.m. on June 14, inside a small room with video monitors near the store entrance. A Walmart employee steps in, interrupting police officers who are discussing an unrelated incident.

Outside, the two women, one of whom is carrying Kohen, run toward a gray sedan in the parking lot, Walmart surveillance footage shows. Latoya Ferrell, carrying a box of diapers, gets in to drive. Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, climbs into the passenger seat with her son. 

It is unclear if the officers knew who the women were or why they were running. No one in the video accuses the women of a crime, hints at why they are running or mentions a child. 

An incident report that Senatobia officers filed later said baby clothes and a large box of Pampers Easy Ups diapers were stolen. The report says the diapers were “under rang,” a term for when an item is skipped at self-checkout or a cheaper item is scanned instead. Neither woman has been charged.

As the officers run toward the car, it backs out of its parking spot. They shout, “Stop!” 

The first person to draw a gun is a deputy from the Tate County Sheriff’s Office. He points it at the ground and holsters it almost immediately as the car continues to reverse. Meanwhile, Foster draws his gun. He is the first officer to aim at the car, 20 seconds after the Walmart employee alerted the officers.

Jeremy Bauer, a forensic reconstruction expert who reviewed body-worn camera footage from Foster and two other officers, said the car was still backing up when Foster pointed his gun at it.

Russ Hicks, a retired law enforcement officer and instructor from Washington, said, “What concerns me is taking out the gun so quickly on this kind of a case.” Hicks consults with police departments on use of force and de-escalation techniques.

As the driver backs out of her parking space, she hits an SUV, momentarily coming to a stop. The officers close in around the car, continuing to yell, “Stop,” and drawing their weapons. By the time the car accelerates forward, all five officers have drawn their guns.

The car accelerates toward Foster and a sheriff’s deputy. The front wheel appears to turn left, away from Foster. As the car’s bumper approaches Foster’s leg, he fires one shot at the windshield, about 25 seconds after the Walmart employee ran in. He fires at least two more shots into the side window.

An analysis of body-worn camera footage indicated the audio was at times mismatched to the video by fractions of seconds. The analysis indicated that Foster’s video had a larger lag, though still less than one-third of a second. For that reason, Mississippi Today muted the footage from his camera.

According to Bauer, the forensic reconstruction expert, Foster fires the first shot when his right leg is in front of the bumper and his left leg is beside the car. 

Bauer said it was hard to tell if Foster was grazed by the car. He noted that Foster’s balance was not disrupted and said there was “no definitive evidence of an impact.”

It is unclear in the videos whether any of the other officers who were close to the car were hit, Bauer said. He saw no evidence of possible contact with the other officers beyond one officer who braced his hand on the hood of the car. 

Veronica Roberson, Kohen’s grandmother, said Mississippi Bureau of Investigation officials told her when she viewed the footage that one officer — not Foster — was struck by the car. She said she was told that the officer who was struck was a sheriff’s deputy who was standing in front of the car. 

Walmart surveillance video seems to show him jumping out of the way in time. But the Walmart camera was recording at a lower frame rate than body-camera footage, so it is difficult to determine whether it accurately captured his movement. Other camera angles appear to show the car veer closer to him, and the deputy can be seen lifting his leg and bracing his hand against the car.

The videos released Thursday are a portion of the camera footage collected by state investigators, though they appear to capture the critical moments around the time of the shooting.

Leaked footage published by Darkhorse Press, a Mississippi news outlet, on Oct. 20 included a clip of Foster and another officer talking outside the hospital where Kohen was pronounced dead. In that video, which starts about 20 minutes after the shooting, Foster asks whether the 1-year-old had been hit, saying, “I didn’t even see a baby in her lap,” adding an expletive. That clip was not included in the footage released by the state Thursday. 

Foster was placed on administrative leave by the Senatobia Board of Aldermen on June 16, two days after the incident. He resigned last Wednesday.

Watch the compilation of the footage released by the Mississippi Department of Public Safety here:

Mississippi, the Federal Trade Commission and 19 other states have sued Dollar General alleging the company repeatedly overcharged customers across the country.

The lawsuit claims that the prices customers see on items on shelves and in advertisements are not what gets rung up at the register when they pay.

“Dollar General has for years engaged in deceptive conduct that harms the very consumers it claims to service,” the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Tennessee on Monday, said.

The Mississippi Attorney General’s office is suing for the state and did not respond to a request for comment. 

The discount store operates over 20,000 stores in the United States, with around 670 in Mississippi and 685 in Louisiana. In 2023, Mississippi Public Broadcasting reported Mississippi had the most Dollar General stores per capita in the country.

The lawsuit claims the overcharging pattern has persisted for years, despite internal company data, almost 30,000 consumer complaints from across the country and penalties from state regulators. 

Dollar Generals are a common sight in rural towns across Mississippi and the country. The chain promises discounts and low prices for customers, and has grown over the past decade, building stores in small, mostly rural, communities. The lawsuit said that the company’s main customers are low- and fixed-income households that “depend on Dollar General’s pricing accuracy for basic financial stability.”

“Although Dollar General promises convenience, low prices and value, the company has routinely charged customers more at the register than the prices displayed on shelves, price tags, and advertisements,” the lawsuit said.

The company denies the lawsuit’s claims and said in a statement it would “defend this litigation vigorously.”

“The lawsuit filed today by the Federal Trade Commission … and several States suggests that we have abandoned our mission and willfully disregarded the affordability needs of our customers. Nothing could be further from the truth,” the company statement said.

The company said that there are bound to be “occasional price discrepancies” but its goal is “100% accuracy between shelf and register prices in every store.” 

This is not the first time the company has faced trouble over its pricing.

Last year, Dollar General paid $15 million to settle multiple lawsuits over its pricing practices. Although the company denied any wrongdoing.

Also last year, an investigative series by the Guardian found that over three years, Dollar General stores across the country had failed over 4,300 price-accuracy inspections in 23 states.  

The lawsuit documents numerous examples of Dollar General customers paying more than they expected at the cash register. 

In February, a Mississippi customer complained that the dog food she bought was listed as $24.95 on the company’s website but she was charged $29 at the store. A Louisiana consumer was told that the store could not honor the sales prices that were listed in the flyer she received from the company because the sales prices were not in the register.

While a few dollars here and there may seem insignificant, over years and millions of purchases the lawsuit said that Dollar General has “extracted millions of dollars in unlawful overcharges” despite knowing about the pervasive problem.

“As a direct result of Dollar General’s unlawful conduct, consumers nationwide have paid significantly more than they expected for basic household goods and necessities, enriching Dollar General at the expense of the low-income and rural households it markets itself as serving,” the lawsuit said.

Upperclassmen at Mississippi State University will have more on-campus housing options after state higher education officials approved a $63.9 million dormitory expansion that would add 527 beds in two years.  

The expansion would increase the College View housing capacity from 656 beds to 1,183 beds, reviving plans for the second phase of the project that was postponed during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning board of trustees unanimously approved the project expansion plans on Monday. 

A private developer will finance the project through a partnership with the university, IHL spokesperson John Sewell said. The estimated construction completion date is August 2028. 

The university needs more modern housing for upperclassmen that is close to campus and connected to campus life, MSU spokesman Sid Salter said. 

The university also plans to take older residence halls out of service or repurpose them to better serve students’ needs, Salter said. He did not specify when those changes would begin. 

Mississippi State has 18 residence halls on its main campus in Starkville and requires freshmen to live on campus. The university enrollment has also increased from 22,649 students in fall 2022 to 23,563 last year.

Mississippi State Fall Enrollment 2022-2025

• Fall 2022: 22,649 
• Fall 2023: 22,657 
• Fall 2024: 23,150 
• Fall 2025: 23,563  

Under the approved agreement, Mississippi State will lease 16 acres to Education Realty Trust, a private college housing management and developer, for the expansion. The lease will run for 40 years with options to extend it up for 25 additional years.