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Rep. Price Wallace, a Republican state lawmaker from Mendenhall who was known for his big cowboy hat, his knowledge of agriculture issues and his effort to restore a state ballot initiative process, has died, House Speaker Jason White said Wednesday.

Wallace was 64. White did not mention the cause of death in a statement he posted on social media.

Wallace had served in the House since winning a 2018 special election in Simpson and Rankin counties. He rose to become chairman of the House Elections Committee, where he had been pushing to restore the state ballot initiative process, an effort that has fallen short.

He is survived by his wife Cindy Stevenson Wallace, children and grandchildren.

“He believed in restoring the constitutional right for Mississippians to have a fair and accessible means of influencing state policy,” White said. “Price was a proud Republican and an asset to our state. He was always so proud of his kids and certainly enjoyed the title of granddaddy. We will miss our friend in the House. Please join me in keeping his wife, Cindy, and his family in your prayers. A good man, may he rest in peace.”

A poultry farmer who was often seen donning a cowboy hat, Wallace was remembered on Wednesday by White and other officials as a strong advocate for Mississippi’s agriculture industry.

Rep. Fred Shanks, a Republican from Brandon, said Wallace was one of the first people he met in the Legislature. He quickly learned Wallace was a reliable colleague and an expert on all things agriculture.

“Price Wallace was a stand up man who you could always count on to come through in a pinch!” Shanks wrote on social media. “If anyone has ever asked or reached out to me on an agricultural question, since I’m a concrete cowboy, I can promise you that Price was the one who ultimately answered it! He was the real deal!”

In addition to his work as a state representative, he also served as an election commissioner, according to the Simpson County Republican Party.

Brad White, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation, said Wallace was like family to him.

“His word was gold,” White said. “And, if you needed someone in your corner, he was the type of fella you wanted. He leaves a strong legacy behind.”

At the Capitol, Wallace spoke often about his Christian faith and how it influenced his worldview. In a statement on social media, the Church of Mendenhall wrote that Wallace helped lead its board, “greeting you at the door with a smile and a bulletin every Sunday to grilling burgers for our youth.”

A no-holds-barred bout of partisan redistricting has been won by Republicans. Now it’s up to voters to decide whether it matters for control of Congress.

Republicans could net about 10 additional U.S. House seats in the November elections if redrawn voting districts perform as they were intended. The question is whether that’s enough for the GOP to hold on to a majority in the chamber, where Democrats need to gain only a few seats to take control.

Political trends and historic patterns favor Democrats. President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are negative. And the incumbent’s party has lost House seats in every midterm election over the past two decades.

This election season already has been unusual. Voting districts typically are redrawn only after a census at the start of each decade. But Trump urged Republicans last summer to redraw congressional districts to their advantage to try to prevent losses in the 2026 midterms.

Since then, Republicans think they could win as many as 16 additional seats from new House maps enacted in eight states — Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama. Democrats, whose counterattack faced several setbacks, think they could win up to six additional seats from new districts in California and Utah.

Nearly 145 million people — about two of every five U.S. residents — live in states with new congressional districts for this election.

Yet the mid-decade redistricting battle didn’t go as far as it could have.

Republicans in Kansas and Democrats in Illinois both rebuffed party pushes to take up redistricting. In Republican-led Indiana and South Carolina and Democratic-led Maryland, new congressional districts passed the state House but ultimately died in the state Senate. The Virginia Supreme Court invalidated new voter-approved districts that could have helped Democrats win up to four additional seats. And the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a lower court order that could have helped Democrats gain a congressional seat in New York.

Here’s a look at the states with new U.S. House maps:

Texas

Current map: 13 Democrats, 25 Republicans

New map: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a revised House map into law last August that could help Republicans win five additional seats. Democrats think they could still win some of those seats.

Missouri

Current map: two Democrats, six Republicans

New map: Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a revised House map into law last September that could help Republicans win an additional seat by reshaping a Democratic-held district based in Kansas City. Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins has until Aug. 4 — the date of Missouri’s primaries — to decide whether to reject an initiative petition seeking a statewide vote on the map.

North Carolina

Current map: four Democrats, 10 Republicans

New map: The Republican-led General Assembly gave final approval in October to revised districts that could help Republicans win an additional seat.

Ohio

Current map: five Democrats, 10 Republicans

New map: A bipartisan panel composed primarily of Republicans voted in October to approve revised House districts that improve Republicans’ chances of winning two additional seats. Democrats think they could still win those seats.

California

Current map: 43 Democrats, nine Republicans

New map: Voters in November approved revised House districts drawn by the Democratic-led Legislature that could help Democrats win five additional seats.

Utah

Current map: no Democrats, four Republicans

New map: A judge in November imposed revised House districts that could help Democrats win a seat in the Salt Lake City area.

Florida

Current map: eight Democrats, 20 Republicans

New map: Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed revised House districts in May that improve the GOP’s chances of winning four additional seats. Legal challenges are pending.

Tennessee

Current map: one Democrat, eight Republicans

New map: Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed new House districts in May that improve the GOP’s chances of winning an additional seat by carving up the lone Democratic-held seat, a majority-Black district based in Memphis. Legal challenges are pending.

Louisiana

Current map: two Democrats, four Republicans

New map: Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed off on new House districts in May that improve Republican chances of winning an additional seat by eliminating a majority-Black district held by a Democrat that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as an illegal racial gerrymander.

Alabama

Current map: two Democrats, five Republicans

New map: The U.S. Supreme Court in June allowed the state to use a congressional map approved by Republican state lawmakers that improves the GOP’s chances of winning an additional seat by reshaping a Democratic-held district that has a large number of Black voters.

Special Judge Barry Ford ruled Wednesday in favor of a claim by former Hinds County Supervisor David Archie that materials from the 2023 Democratic primary were not handled properly, making the winner unverifiable.

Ford ordered a special election for the District 2 seat within 45 days, finding that significant errors occurred in the safekeeping of ballots. He also cited Circuit Clerk Zack Wallace’s testimony about the lack of a chain of custody of voter materials. 

“I cannot determine the will of the voters, ” Ford said. “And case law says when the will of the voters can not be determined, then a do-over is required.”

The district’s current supervisor Anthony “Tony” Smith will remain in office during the time leading up to the special election. Smith told Mississippi Today that he has no plan to appeal the ruling, and that he is sure he can beat Archie again.

In a press conference outside the courthouse, Archie spoke about the ruling, and its importance to future Hinds County elections. 

“No matter what your party is, whether you are independent, a Republican, Democrat, or whatever you are, if you are a voter, Hinds County now will take your vote serious, based on the outcome of this case today,” Archie said. “And everybody in the nation would be looking at this place in Hinds County Mississippi.”

Warren Martin, who represented Smith, criticized the ruling, saying the county was invalidating Black votes.

“In a day and time where we see an assault on the Voting Rights Act at the federal level, state level, today a specially appointed circuit judge invalidated 8,000 Black votes in Hinds County District 2,” Martin said. “You saw it real time today, in Hinds County with a Black special circuit judge. That is an abomination.”

Martin also told reporters that Wallace should be held accountable for the missing materials instead of Smith. 

The ruling comes after an extended proceeding that began in February. Both Archie and the defense rested their case in Archie’s lawsuit on April 29. The group of election commissioners met with Ford through May 15 to advise him about their findings from the case.

Clarification, 6/3/2026: This article has been updated to show that the judge’s ruling focused on the mishandling of election materials, which he said made the results of the primary unverifiable.

Baptist Memorial Health Care will take over the lease and operations of Merit Health Rankin this year, making it the third Merit Health facility in Mississippi to change hands in the past two years, officials said Tuesday.

Memphis-based Baptist Memorial, a nonprofit health system, plans to invest $70 million in the 134-bed Brandon hospital and to enhance its services. The organization will retain more than 175 employees of Merit Health Rankin, according to a press release.

“We believe we can deliver exceptional community-based health care that will connect this community to our network,” Baptist Memorial Health Care President and CEO Jason Little said in the release. “With our resources and best assets, which I believe are our people, we can fulfill our 114-year mission of providing quality health care that aligns with the three-fold ministry of Christ while ensuring continued access to sustainable, affordable health care for this community.”

In a statement to Mississippi Today, Merit Health spokesperson Alicia Carpenter said the hospital system will continue providing safe, quality care to the community.

“Baptist Memorial Health Care is a highly respected organization and equally committed to quality and service,” Carpenter said. “We look forward to working together in service to our patients.”

In 1969, the Brandon facility opened as Rankin General Hospital, a county-owned, short-term acute care hospital. The Rankin County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted Tuesday to transfer the lease from Merit to Baptist after it completes the transition and receives regulatory approval. 

Merit Health hospitals are owned by Community Health Systems, based in Franklin, Tennessee, one of the nation’s largest hospital operators. The company currently carries over $10 billion in long-term debt and has struggled financially in recent years, leading it to sell or transfer hospitals across its network. 

The system owned or leased 69 hospitals in 2025, a 32% decrease since 2019, according to financial reports. In 2014, the company owned or leased 203 hospitals. 

On Monday, the hospital system announced the sale of four Arkansas hospitals to a Missouri-based nonprofit healthcare network in a $110 million transaction.

The hospital systems’ string of divestitures includes several Mississippi facilities. 

In 2025, the University of Mississippi Medical Center became the sole owner of the 67-bed former Merit Health Madison. The Canton hospital is now called UMMC Madison. 

Earlier that year, Memorial Health System purchased Merit Health Biloxi, which became Biloxi Memorial Hospital. Seven months after the acquisition, the hospital announced it would discontinue labor and delivery services, directing patients to its Gulfport location. 

Community Health Systems owns or leases six other hospitals in Mississippi, all operating under the Merit Health name. They are located in Flowood, Hattiesburg, Jackson, Natchez and Vicksburg. 

“Community Health Systems has been proud to provide quality health services for the residents of Rankin County,” Merit Health Rankin Chief Executive Officer David Henry said in the press release. “…We look forward to facilitating a smooth transition of operations of this hospital to Baptist Memorial and to continuing to serve Central Mississippi through our other Merit Health hospitals and services in the area.”

Carpenter, a spokesperson for Merit Health, did not respond to Mississippi Today’s questions about whether the system is considering selling or transferring any other facilities. 

Baptist Memorial spokesperson Kimberly Alexander said the system currently has no plans to acquire other Merit facilities.

Baptist operates 14 other hospitals in Mississippi. Since 2016, Baptist Memorial has added nine hospitals to its Mississippi network.

James Meredith believes his 1966 March Against Fear was more important than what he is most known for — becoming the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi.

Meredith, who no longer gives interviews, recently told Mississippi Today through his wife that he agrees with his granddaughter, Janae Knight, who said integrating the university she now attends was more personal. “It was necessary to wage his war against segregation,” Knight said.

But the March Against Fear was more important “because it included the masses gaining citizenship,” she said.

Friday marks the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the March Against Fear. A program commemorating that event is set for 2 p.m. Thursday at Smith Robertson Museum and Cultural Center in Jackson. 

Two months after the march ended, “Meet the Press” interviewed the Civil Rights Movement’s top leaders: the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Stokely Carmichael of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, Whitney M. Young Jr. of the National Urban League, Floyd B. McKissick of the Congress of Racial Equality and Meredith, the only one without an organization.

“He’s the last one of the massive figures of the Civil Rights Movement from that generation who is still around,” said Aram Goudsouzian, author of “Down to the Crossroads: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Meredith March Against Fear.” 

“He is at the heart of two of the biggest stories of the Civil Rights Movement, both driven by his individual actions,” he said. “And both of them spun beyond his control.”

A planned solo trek becomes a mass movement

Wearing a pith helmet, James Meredith started his March Against Fear on June 5, 1966. He designed his solo trek from Memphis, Tennessee, to Mississippi’s capital of Jackson to challenge white supremacy and to inspire other Black Mississippians to vote. 

His 220-mile journey began on a sidewalk outside the Peabody Hotel. 

On the second day of his walk near Hernando, Mississippi, reporters walked with Meredith on a stretch of highway lined with pine trees. A white man yelled out, “I only want Meredith.”

Meredith, a 32-year-old Air Force veteran who had survived the insurrection at Ole Miss when he enrolled there in 1962, spotted the man with the shotgun and ran. Three blasts struck him, and he collapsed on the gravel shoulder of U.S. 51.

Not long after a Memphis hospital admitted him, The Associated Press reported he was dead.The mistake occurred because an AP reporter thought he heard a reporter for the Memphis newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, say  “Meredith has been shot dead.” The words were actually, “Meredith has been shot in the back and the head.” 

AP photographer Jack Thornell, a Mississippi native, later won the Pulitzer Prize for his images of Meredith writhing in pain on the roadside that day.

Meredith survived, but while recovering, movement leaders, including King and Carmichael, flocked to Mississippi to continue the March Against Fear.

Black power movement emerges

One day, King and others detoured from the march and made their way to Neshoba County, where three civil rights workers had been killed two years earlier. King knelt in prayer at the jail where the trio had been held before a deputy released them into the hands of waiting Klansmen.

“In this county, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner were brutally murdered,” King told the crowd. “I believe in my heart that the murderers are somewhere around me at this moment.”

One white man yelled, “They’re right behind you.”

King responded, “We are not afraid. If they kill three of us, they will have to kill all of us.”

A melee followed, prompting King and the others to leave.

The last week of the march revealed the roots of a new polarization based on race in the South, Goudsouzian said. In Greenwood, Carmichael unveiled the phrase “Black power” to cheers, and the slogan’s popularity grew, foreshadowing the Black Panthers to come.

Meredith rejoined the march, which ended at the state Capitol with 15,000 gathered. King said the march would “go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom ever held in the state of Mississippi.”

It was the last great march of the Civil Rights Movement, Goudsouzian said, “the last time they would seek a shared goal, despite ideological differences.”

‘You really are a mad genius’

Meredith never stopped marching solo.

“He doesn’t fit in any box of those in the movement,” Goudsouzian said.

Meredith will celebrate his 93rd birthday on June 25, a day before the anniversary of the final day of his famous march.

Mississippi native Phil Noble has written a yet-to-be-published book on Meredith titled, “Mississippi Mystic: The Man who Integrated Ole Miss and Broke White Supremacy.”

He called Meredith “the most misunderstood person of the Civil Rights Movement for a whole bunch of reasons.”

At one point, he said he told Meredith, “You’re mad to think you could do what you tried to do, and you’re a genius because you did. You really are a mad genius.”

Meredith asked, “What’s the difference?”

There was a pause, and before Noble could answer, Meredith answered, “And I ain’t through yet.”

Mississippi State and Ole Miss will both face familiar rivals in NCAA Baseball Super Regionals; this weekend. State plays at Georgia. Ole Miss plays at Auburn. The two winners advance to the College World Series. The Clevelands also discuss what happened to Southern Miss, which is what happened to so many national seeds in NCAA Regionals last week. Today’s show also touches on the NBA championship series,, the College Softball World Series, the legacy of Vic Purvis, and Pearl River Community College’s national championships in both baseball and softball.

Stream all episodes here.

In 2022, Dyamone White, then in her late 20s, filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing that Black voters like her didn’t have a fair chance to elect justices to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Three years later, she won a significant victory. A federal judge ruled that Mississippi Supreme Court election districts violated the Voting Rights Act and that Black candidates who wanted to run for the state’s highest court were unlikely to succeed. U.S. District Court Judge Sharion Aycock instructed lawmakers to draw a new map to give Black voters more power, with court-ordered special elections to follow, likely this fall.

“WE WON,” White wrote in a social media post that day in August 2025. “This isn’t just a personal victory — it’s a win for every Mississippian who has waited too long for fair representation. I became a plaintiff because I refused to accept that our state’s highest court could exclude the very people it serves. Today, that changes.”

But that change still hasn’t happened — and a recent seismic ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court means it may never happen.

In late April, the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Louisiana v. Callais that dramatically weakened the Voting Rights Act, making it much harder for racial minorities to win voting discrimination lawsuits.

The decision further intensified a mid-decade redistricting war that’s been spreading across the country ahead of the congressional elections in the fall. But the decision affects politics beyond the federal level. The now-upended court battle about Mississippi’s judicial elections will serve as an early test of whether voting rights plaintiffs can still mount a convincing case in some circumstances.

In May, a federal appeals court vacated Aycock’s ruling from last year after the plaintiffs and defendants agreed that the Callais decision had dramatically changed the legal landscape.

That removed the state’s obligation to draw a new court map. It also eliminated the possibility that the state would hold special elections for its Supreme Court seats this fall, ending Black voters’ hope that 2026 may yield fairer representation at the top of the state’s judiciary. The case will now head back to Aycock’s court for new arguments under the higher standard created by the Callais decision.

The plaintiffs still see a path forward to win new maps. Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center argue on behalf of White and her fellow plaintiffs that they can still prevail under that new standard.

Looking to the court battles ahead, White is also looking back. She is from the tiny town of Edwards, a rural community near the state’s capital city region, and she recites its history of Black resistance to oppression, from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement and beyond.

“It’s an area that is resilient,” White said. “The people I grew up around, they were all fighters.”

The Voting Rights Act, passed in 1965, was a key tool in dismantling the Jim Crow regime of White supremacy that blocked Black residents from ballot box access in Mississippi and across the South.

Among other provisions, the law prohibited states from diluting the voting power of racial minorities and required that those voters have an opportunity to elect candidates of their choosing.

So, with Callais decided, what’s changed?

When plaintiffs filed suit over the Mississippi Supreme Court voting districts in 2022, they had to show a violation of the law only by pointing to discriminatory effects of the voting districts in use, regardless of what the original architects of those districts may have intended.

Those effects? Black people make up about 38% of Mississippi’s population, but the state has just one Black justice currently sitting on its nine-member Supreme Court. Only four Black justices have ever been on the court, all serving since 1985 and never more than one at a time. All four first reached the court through a gubernatorial appointment to fill a vacancy.

That has meant very little Black representation on a body that interprets state laws and the state constitution, hears appeals in criminal and civil cases and has some control over the operations of lower courts.

With no need to delve into the intention of the legislators who created the current districts in the late 1980s, Aycock, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the Mississippi Supreme Court districts as drawn have the effect of diluting Black voting power, violating the Voting Rights Act.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in the Callais case, however, sets a higher standard. A Voting Rights Act violation may now be found “only when circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred.”

Legal experts have said that proving intentional discrimination is challenging — made even more difficult by the Alito opinion’s endorsement of partisan gerrymandering as a legitimate purpose of redistricting. The conservative justice wrote that states can now defend themselves against race dilution claims by arguing that Black districts are being eliminated not because of racist motivations but partisan ones since Black voters have typically supported Democratic candidates.

States like Louisiana and Tennessee have moved to quickly eliminate Black-majority Congressional districts. They will likely defend their new maps as partisan gerrymanders, not racially motivated ones.

“It’s going to be just lightning-strike rare for a Voting Rights Act claim to work where partisanship is permitted,” said Justin Levitt, a former Department of Justice official and election law expert who teaches at Loyola Marymount University Law School.

However, Mississippi Supreme Court elections are nonpartisan, and that may make a meaningful difference in the current litigation, said Amir Badat, a civil rights lawyer who has argued a number of voting rights claims in the state.

Badat said that even under Callais, lawmakers may not be able to hide behind partisan intent to shield themselves from judicial scrutiny.

“In this kind of narrow circumstance, you still have viable Section 2 claims,” said Badat, referencing the section of the Voting Rights Act that bans discriminatory election practices.

Levitt agrees that voting rights cases in nonpartisan elections may still be possible to win under Callais, though he added that the overall impact of the decision likely makes even those cases quite difficult.

While the legal standard may have changed, White, the lawsuit’s lead plaintiff, says one thing has not: The reality faced by Black voters who want to see a fair state Supreme Court map.

“We laid out the facts of representation in the state. You can’t deny that, “ White said. “We can go back to court again, and the facts remain the same. Representation is not equal.”

This article was produced in collaboration with Bolts, a nonprofit publication that covers criminal justice and voting rights in local governments; sign up for their newsletter.

A topsy-turvy regional round in the NCAA baseball tournament has set up an intriguing set of eight super regionals featuring seven teams from the Southeastern Conference, just one from the Atlantic Coast Conference and four mid-major programs.

Nine of the 16 national seeds advanced to super regionals but conspicuously absent are the top two, UCLA and Georgia Tech. Two No. 4 regional seeds, Little Rock and St. John’s, reached the tournament’s second weekend for the first time.

Four of the best-of-three supers are Friday through Sunday: Cal Poly (39-22) at No. 16 national seed West Virginia (43-15); Little Rock (39-26) at Troy (36-30); Southern California (47-16) at No. 5 North Carolina (48-11-1); and Mississippi (39-21) at No. 4 Auburn (42-20).

The four series Saturday through Monday: Oklahoma (36-22) at No. 15 Kansas (45-16); St. John’s (36-24) at No. 7 Alabama (40-19); No. 11 Oregon (43-16) at No. 6 Texas (43-13); and No. 14 Mississippi State (43-17) at No. 3 Georgia (49-12).

The eight winners advance to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, starting June 12.

2025 CWS teams all gone

None of the 2025 CWS teams will be back in Omaha after Arkansas, Coastal Carolina, Oregon State and UCLA were eliminated in regionals. The other four CWS teams from last year — Arizona, Louisville, national champion LSU and Murray State — did not make the NCAA Tournament.

This marks the first time no teams from the previous year’s CWS reached super regionals. It will be the second straight CWS with no teams from the previous year after there had been at least one in every CWS from 1957-2024.

SEC bounces back

The SEC had seven of its 12 tournament teams get through regionals after having only four of 13 do so last year. College baseball’s most powerful conference has produced the last six national champions, 11 of the last 16 and have had a team in 15 of the last 16 CWS finals.

The SEC is assured of having two teams in the CWS and could have a record-tying four.

ACC flops

The ACC had the No. 2 conference RPI and had nine teams in regionals. Only one, North Carolina, made it through. Prior to this year, the ACC had never had fewer than two teams in super regionals. The Tar Heels went 3-0 in their regional and if they make it to Omaha, they’ll play for the ACC’s third national title in baseball and first since 2015.

First-timers in supers

Cal Poly, Kansas, Little Rock and Troy will be making their super regional debuts.

Big West Tournament champion Cal Poly was the No. 3 seed in the Los Angeles Regional and beat Virginia Tech once and St. Mary’s twice. Mustangs pitchers combined for a 1.33 ERA in the three games and Nick Bonn earned his nation-leading 16th and 17th saves. Casey Murray batted .583 (7 for 12).

It’s old home week for Kansas, which hosts former longtime conference mate Oklahoma after overcoming a five-run deficit to beat Arkansas 13-10 in the regional final. The Jayhawks’ 45 wins are tied with the program record set by the 1993 CWS team, and they’ve hit a school-record 110 homers.

Little Rock of the Ohio Valley and Troy of the Sun Belt are paired against each other for a battle of the Trojans. One surely will be adopted as the local fan favorite in Omaha (think 2025 Murray State, 2023 Oral Roberts, etc.)

Little Rock, which reached a regional final a year ago, broke through with three straight wins as the No. 4 regional seed in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Blake Simpson was regional MVP after going 8 for 14 with a double, triple, homer and four RBIs.

Troy, one of the last four teams to receive an at-large bid, went to Florida and outscored the Gators 26-13 over two games to advance. Regional MVP Jabe Boroff homered four times and drove in 12 runs over five games in Gainesville.

It’s been a while, Johnnies

Big East champion St. John’s heads to Alabama after one of the most surprising regional runs. The Red Storm went 3-0 in Tallahassee, Florida, to advance to supers for the first time since 2012. They’ll be playing for their first CWS berth since 1980.

St. John’s was the first team since 2023 to win three games in a regional when trailing by multiple runs. Adam Agresti’s two-out grand slam in the fifth inning Monday sent the Red Storm to a 5-4 win over Florida State, Agresti also homered in a 6-5 win over the Seminoles on Friday.

Year of the catcher

The deep pool of talent at catcher will be on display across the country.

SEC player of the year Daniel Jackson of Georgia is batting .396 and is fourth nationally with 29 homers and 83 RBIs. Then there’s Texas’ Carson Tinney (.333, 21 HRs, 56 RBIs); Auburn’s Chase Fralick (.321, 20 HRs, 60 RBIs); St. John’s Adam Agresti (19 HRs, 54 RBIs); Oklahoma’s Deiten Lachance (14 HRs, 58 RBIs); West Virginia’s Gavin Kelly (.381, 16 HRs, 56 RBIs); Cal Poly’s Ryan Tayman (.362, 18 HRs, 56 RBIs); and Troy’s Jimmy Janicki (.349, 23 doubles, 85 RBIs).

Two possible top-10 picks in the MLB amateur draft, Georgia Tech’s Vahn Lackey and Arkansas’ Ryan Helfrick, didn’t make super regionals.

Home field advantage

Since the tournament went to its current format in 1999, the team hosting a super regional on its home field has won 69.3% of the time. That’s 142 of 205 and does not include three series that were played at neutral sites.

CANTON — Lakiska Garrett wanted a different school for her granddaughter. She said her granddaughter cried each day she had  to go to the local public elementary school,  where she felt ignored and overwhelmed. Then a kindergartener, the girl would sometimes play sick or lie on the floor. 

Once, she fell to the ground and cried at the school drop-off because she didn’t want to enter her classroom, Garrett said.

When SR1 College Preparatory and STEM Academy, a charter school, opened in Canton in 2023, Garrett was excited. She enrolled her grandchild in the first grade at SR1 CPSA and saw her succeed. She was able to read with higher proficiency and make her way confidently through math worksheets.

“All my grandbaby needed was someone to be hands-on and take their time,” Garrett said. “I believe if I would have left her in public school that she’d probably have failing grades.”

Now the state may revoke the school’s charter because of numerous concerns with its leadership, including severe fiscal mismanagement.

In December, the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board began the process of shuttering SR1 CPSA after regulators found the school had one day’s cash on hand, turned in multiple late financial audits and had over-projected its enrollment for a third year. Regulators also said they have evidence of food safety issues in the cafeteria in violation of federal standards.

Regulators also expressed academic concerns about SR1 CPSA during a May hearing. Seven out of 11 Individualized Education Plans, or IEPs, were missing parent signatures, according to Dillon Pitts, charter school authorizer board attorney. These plans outline how school officials are accommodating a student’s disability. The board also claimed to not have received documentation for who supplied the school curriculum.

Amid the fight about the schools’ future, parents and some SR1 CPSA employees said they’re in the dark about what’s going on and why. 

Thursday, at an event that school officials organized to discuss the situation, some SR1 CPSA employees asked if they would still have jobs in the fall. Parents asked for suggestions of how they could advocate for the school. Some questioned why the authorizer board was moving to close the school. Parents, guardians and one employee said they’ve had minimal direct communication from state officials about the situation. One employee shared that school leaders have provided minimal communication about the charter revocation proceedings, too. 

They also expressed anxiety at losing one of the few alternatives to the local public school district. They said their kids enjoyed the more experiential approach to learning, which they say involves more projects and science experiments. School officials organized the event to dispel misconceptions about the charter revocation process, which still may culminate with the school’s closure.

Ozie Smith, whose daughters attend SR1 CPSA,  said she has felt ignored at charter authorizer board meetings about the school. She wishes state leaders and regulators would consider parent perspectives more. She recalled a cold reception from charter authorizer board members when she explained how impactful the more experimental curriculum had been for her daughters.

Authorizer board Executive Director Lisa Karmacharya told Mississippi Today that it’s school officials’ responsibility, and not the agency’s, to communicate with a charter school’s stakeholders before the board takes action. Charter schools are public, and public school boards are tasked with keeping the public informed on actions, spending and other updates as outlined in state law.

“Our responsibility and our contract is with the governing board who has the responsibility to oversee and communicate with the school until the charter board takes action to actually close the school, and then there would be responsibility on both ends,” Karmacharya said. 

The charter contract requires that governing authorities keep a record of all action taken by the school as well as all corporate affairs. In the case of SR1 CPSA, that would be the board of SR1 (Scientific Research), the Ridgeland-based nonprofit organization run by Tamu Green that operates the charter school. 

Some parents say embattled charter school was a ‘godsend’

After the recent event at SR1 CPSA, some parents and guardians lamented losing an alternative to the local public school district. Garrett said she would rather homeschool than send her granddaughter back to the local public schools. Three other SR1 CPSA parents said they have the same plan.

Smith said a representative from the Canton Public School District called her two months into the beginning of the 2023-24 school year to ask why her daughter hadn’t shown up for classes. Smith was shocked that the district just realized she was enrolled elswhere. She said she knew at that moment she had made the right choice for her kids.

SR1 CPSA is for parents that “want something different for their child,” Smith would tell other Canton parents with students enrolled in the local public schools. In the public schools, they were “only teaching the kids how to pass the state test.”

For Garrett and Smith, SR1 CPSA has been a “godsend.” Around 88% of the school’s roughly 19 third-graders passed their state reading tests this year. Garrett said her granddaughter has learned how to read faster than her own children did. 

Smith was one of the first parents to enroll her child in kindergarten at SR1 CPSA. She also went door-to-door to recruit local parents. She said she was met with much resistance because locals have a lot of pride for their hometown public schools. 

Canton Public School District elementary schools have improved their test scores in the last five years. Two elementary schools in the district received a B on the state accountability model last year, while one received an A. SR1 CPSA enrolls 98 students, while roughly 3,142 students attend district schools. 

Some parents sought out SR1 CPSA for its curriculum geared toward careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics — or STEM.

Three parents and grandparents who left Canton public schools for SR1 CPSA said bullying is common in the district, and they accused district leaders of playing favorites when disciplining students. Canton public schools also reported 90 incidents of violence during the 2023-2024 school year, which is the most recent year with data available. Beverly Luckett, a spokesperson for Canton schools, declined to comment.

Smith told Mississippi Today her children had a different experience at SR1 CPSA. She said its teachers and administrators are largely not from Canton. She said they’ve exposed her daughters to new career pathways like engineering and got them thinking early about their futures.

“We needed things to make our kids think differently,” Smith said. “This is college prep. They’re thinking about college.”

Some SR1 CPSA parents said they want to help the school and be better advocates. 

Smith told Mississippi Today she wishes she was better informed about the figures and data on which the charter authorizer board based its decision to start the process of shuttering the school. The authorizer board cited late audits, over-projected enrollments, lack of adequate documentation for spending, incomplete recordkeeping and food safety issues as some grounds for closure.

“We don’t have as many options in Canton, and that’s the issue,” Smith said. “I really wish that they could see it from our eyes so they can let us know what we can do, if we can do anything to change their decision.”

Volunteers with the Zoo Area Progressive Partnership, a nonprofit led by west Jackson residents, were shocked when they pulled up to the Jackson Zoo to find families lined up at the ticket booth. 

It was 9:50 a.m. on Saturday. The zoo – and its renovated splash pad – wouldn’t open for another 10 minutes. 

“We’re excited that y’all are here,” said Heather Logan, a ZAPP board member, who took a video on her phone to remember the moment. 

A number of events on Saturday drew families from across the metro area to the Jackson Zoo – from Pocahontas to Pearl – including many who said they couldn’t remember the last time they’d visited. About 175 people went to the zoo last weekend, Logan said. 

The turnout encouraged volunteers, local leaders, city officials and zoo employees who’ve been working to revitalize the struggling west Jackson attraction. Earlier this year, Jackson Mayor John Horhn announced his Planning and Development department would seek developers for the Jackson Zoo and the adjoining Livingston Park, but the city has yet to open bids. 

Nonetheless, improvements are underway. After three years, kids can once again wade in the bright-blue splash pad, featuring a tiger-tongue slide and a pelican that dumps water from its orange bill. 

“I’m so excited about the splash pad that I don’t know what to do,” said Pamela D.C. Junior, director of the city’s Human and Cultural Services department. 

ZAPP volunteers also spruced up the entrance of the 100-year-old zoo. With the help of a $5,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Mississippi, they installed signs featuring some of the zoo’s prized animals, including Big Mike, the rare white rhino. 

“It’s a great day in Ward 5, a great day for west Jackson,” Ward 5 Council Member Vernon Hartley said. 

Two local artists painted colorful murals featuring birds, trees and a magnolia flower. Justin Ransburg, one of the two muralists, said he wanted to capture “how peaceful it is here.” 

Deanna Crews, a 35-year-old teacher, said she could tell ZAPP’s work had freshened up the historic property. Her son, 4-year-old Issan, loves animals and is “a young scientist in the making,” but the last time she brought him to the zoo was a year ago. 

As they walked past the gibbon exhibit, Crews and her friend remarked that the zoo seemed like it had more animals than it did last time. 

The zoo also has at least 10 prairie dog pups that were born within the past few weeks, said Dave Wetzel, the deputy director. 

The prairie dogs – which Wetzel said don’t have names, because there are so many – are the only animals the Jackson Zoo is currently breeding. Wetzel said the chimpanzees are partially related, so they take oral birth control. The black-necked swans are brother and sister. The ostriches are too old. And don’t get Wetzel started on those gibbons, Buster and Emma. 

“The gibbons, they do everything but breed,” he said. “They are allowed to, if they so choose to.” 

Instead, Buster and Emma prefer to groom each other and snuggle. Wetzel speculated their relationship has remained platonic because Buster was hand-raised. 

“He didn’t get to see those movies,” he said. 

 A 7-year-old boy named Keylon and his 9-year-old sister named Lyniah toured the zoo with their parents, who did not want the family’s last name published. With lips stained from a blue raspberry snow cone, Keylon hollered in excitement at the ostrich exhibit. The Gluckstadt boy loves to recite facts about animals that he learns from watching YouTube videos, and the large bird reminded him of his favorite type. 

“That’s a dinosaur,” he shouted.

Lyniah was more critical of her time at the zoo. Standing in front of a shady exhibit housing a kookaburra, she said she thought some of the animals looked sad and that the $5 snow cone was too expensive. 

“Me and my brother had to share,” she said. 

There might be a grain of truth to Lyniah’s observation. Wetzel said the animals are happier when lots of people visit the zoo – especially Mathan, the North American black bear that Wetzel affectionately calls “Buddy.” 

“He likes company,” he said. “He likes people to sit there and talk to him.”

Ray McCants, the president of ZAPP, said the zoo is holding another family friendly event this coming Saturday, the “Kidtrepreneur Youth Marketplace” where dozens of kids will set up vendor booths. 

“Hopefully we repeat the traffic again next week,” he said.