These Mississippians faced challenges, spoke out, made art and launched innovative projects in 2025. Our reporters wrote about their experiences – whether positive or negative – as part of our commitment to elevating the voices of everyday Mississippians, holding those in power accountable and shining a light on the state’s dark places. 

Jayme Anderson

Jayme Anderson wore so many medals to his Forest Hill High School graduation that his mom, Angella, could hear him clanking as he walked across stage. At home in south Jackson, 18-year-old Anderson displayed a coffee table’s worth of awards: trophies, badges, plaques, rainbow-colored cords and a binder full of college acceptances. Anderson applied to more than 600 colleges and was admitted to 582, racking up more than $10 million in scholarship offers. He chose Pennsylvania State University. Anderson said he was driven by curiosity, free time, a desire to go out-of-state for higher education and a competitive streak. He also wanted to inspire other Jackson Public Schools students, who he said are often misunderstood and stereotyped, even by fellow Jacksonians. – By Mississippi Today Jackson Reporter Molly Minta

Stephen Brown

Stephen Brown is a hip-hop artist, producer and DJ – and the head of Briarwood Arts Center in Jackson. On any given night, the rooms of Briarwood Arts Center are filled with artists, creatives and dancers who have come to build community and hone their crafts. Before Brown moved into the neighborhood, the building had been abandoned – but he had a goal to recreate the local arts scene after several popular hangouts had closed, so he decided to lease the space. The center now offers events like line dancing classes, Kuumba (Swahili for creativity) Youth Night, GoodEDvice ACT Prep Club and Crochet Circle, and most of the events are free. His hope is that his persistence and dedication to creating safe spaces inspires others in Jackson to imagine what’s possible for their neighborhoods. – By former Mississippi Today Jackson Reporter Maya Miller

Rep. Becky Currie

State Rep. Becky Currie of Brookhaven is a conservative Republican who has become an outspoken critic of health care services in Mississippi’s prison system and of VitalCore Health Strategies, LLC, the private company with a contract to provide those services. Currie, who is a registered nurse, began touring state prisons after becoming chairwoman of the House Corrections Committee in early 2024, and she found a disturbing dearth of medical care for inmates. “We’re paying $124 million to a company for health care and they are not doing it and they are keeping the money,” said Currie, who is pushing for reform and has been a centerpiece of Mississippi Today’s investigative series on prison health care, Behind Bars, Beyond Care. Currie said Dr. Raman Singh, VitalCore’s chief medical officer, told her and State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney in a private meeting that about 5,000 Mississippi Department of Corrections prisoners and some prison workers had contracted hepatitis C. Interviews and documents obtained by Mississippi Today show that only a fraction of Mississippi inmates diagnosed with hepatitis C receive treatment, which has allowed the treatable infection to develop into a life-threatening illness. – By Mississippi Today Political Reporters Michael Goldberg and Health Reporter Gwen Dilworth

Derrick Evans

Community activist Derrick Evans is working to protect his historic Turkey Creek neighborhood in Gulfport from the damage of climate change. Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Global Change Research Program published reports in recent years that link social disparities in the Southeast to a higher risk of impacts from natural disasters. Evans’ ancestors were among the freed slaves who founded  Turkey Creek after the Civil War. The area in north Gulfport now sits in the fifth most vulnerable census tract out of over 73,000 in the United States. Evans sees Mississippi as a state where people love hunting and fishing but political priorities seem detached from that very culture. “A polluted stream, an environmental vulnerability, is actually an abrogation to what we might call the Southern way of life,” he said. – By Mississippi Today Environment and Data Reporter Alex Rozier

Ann Fisher-Wirth

Mississippi poet laureate Ann Fisher-Wirth writes about seeing and listening to the world. Her poems contemplate natural scenes, such as a lone zinnia near a pond or a stag eating flowers over a raw grave. Fisher-Wirth directed the University of Mississippi’s environmental studies program and taught creative writing in its Master of Fine Arts program before she retired in 2022. She is a past president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, and is a senior fellow of the Black Earth Institute, which concentrates on social justice and environmental issues. She has written eight books of poetry. Her writing centers on place and humans’ connection to nature. – By Mississippi Today Summer Intern Maeve Rigney.

Tara Gandy

Tara Gandy was among the relatives of people killed by domestic violence who witnessed Gov. Tate Reeves sign a law that establishes a board to study how to prevent such deaths. Gandy’s 24-year-old daughter, Joslin Napier, was killed in Waynesboro in 2022. At the bill signing in April, Gandy carried a photo of Napier and said it was bittersweet and an honor to meet the families of other domestic violence homicide victims. Gandy said the board “will allow for my daughter and those who have already lost their lives to domestic violence … to no longer be just a number. They will be a number with a purpose.” – By Mississippi Today Justice Reporter Mina Corpuz.

Hilliard and Lillian Lackey

The family of Hilliard and Lillian Lackey of Jackson exemplifies hard work and academic success. Hilliard Lackey is a longtime professor of urban higher education and lifelong learning at Jackson State University. Several members of the family have doctoral degrees: Hilliard and Lillian Lackey; their daughters, Tahirih Lackey and Dr. Katrina Davis; the couple’s daughter-in-law, Tracy Knight Lackey; and his stepbrother and sister-in-law, Dr. Robert Long and Vanessa Rogers Long. Through the “Lackey Scholars” program, Hillard and Lillian Lackey have helped more than 500 high school students from Quitman County attend and graduate from Jackson State since 1967. – By Mississippi Today General Assignment Reporter Simeon Gates.

James Moore

James Moore of Hattiesburg translated personal tragedy into a mission to prevent other parents from enduring the loss of a child to addiction. A local bike shop owner and the father of a son who died of an overdose, Moore has long worked to stop overdoses across the Pine Belt region. But in 2025, his advocacy was elevated to a new level. He was a recurring voice in Mississippi Today’s reporting that highlighted how Mississippi was spending its opioid settlement money – including that local governments and the state had spent less than 1% of the money thus far on addressing the addiction crisis – and as a member of a state committee tasked with advising the Legislature on how to spend the remaining hundreds of millions of dollars moving forward. – By Mississippi Today Mental Health Reporter Allen Siegler. 

Stephanie Nowlin

For almost two years, Stephanie Nowlin was one of Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain’s top lieutenants. Cain hired Nowlin after she had served time in prison herself and made her his government affairs coordinator. The pair developed such a close bond that she came to view him like a grandfather. But now, she is speaking out about what she said is widespread medical neglect and mismanagement inside the agency and its facilities. Nowlin was a key source in an early  story in the Behind Bars, Beyond Care series revealing that in private, officials lamented the quality of medical services provided by Mississippi’s private medical contractor even as the company raked in hundreds of millions in public dollars. The series has also revealed that less than 6% of incarcerated people in Mississippi living with hepatitis C received treatment during a three-month time period, among other instances of alleged medical neglect in state prisons. – By Mississippi Today Politics Reporter Michael Goldberg

Jason Reid

Jason Reid, a physical education teacher in DeSoto County School District, has been teaching for 17 years. But in 2019, he also started moonlighting as a bus driver to earn extra money. Like Reid, many teachers in Mississippi often work multiple jobs – the state has the lowest teacher pay in the nation. And like many other educators, Reid said the worst part is the rising health insurance premiums – especially as a two-time cancer survivor. During his second round of treatment in 2022, his deductible was $13,000. He met the deductible early on, but still spent a huge chunk of money, he said. And as a teacher, there’s not an option to take paid medical leave. “We go on vacation … we’re not living paycheck to paycheck,” he said. “But we can’t live the lifestyle a lot of neighbors would live.” – By Mississippi Today Education Reporter Devna Bose.

Nina Rifkind

Nina Rifkind, a University of Mississippi School of Law adjunct professor, made national news standing up to President Donald Trump on behalf of her late grandfather, famed New York attorney Simon Rifkind. The New York Times and other news outlets reported on the letter Nina Rifkind and her sister sent to the law firm her grandfather founded criticizing Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison for yielding to the wishes of the president. Trump had threatened various penalties against the firm because one of its former partners had worked in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office that investigated Trump. The firm agreed to various conditions to avoid those penalties. She wrote that her late grandfather would not have settled a dispute where an attorney was simply doing his job.”He would have above all sought to protect the independence of the bar, not just the firm,” she and her sister, Washington, D.C., attorney Amy Rifkind, wrote in the letter. In addition to the national news coverage, Nina Rifkind also wrote an essay for Mississippi Today Ideas.

Kimberly Todd

Kimberly Todd, a northeast Mississippi mother of five, qualified for Medicaid coverage on paper but couldn’t access the program. The state had asked Todd to file for child support from her ex-boyfriend before granting her eligibility for the program – forcing her to face months of back and forth with case workers, miscommunication among state agencies, delayed medical care and the possibility of sending the father of her two youngest children to jail. While she eventually qualified for Medicaid, her plight shows the hurdles poor people face in accessing the social safety net in Mississippi – and the negative impact that the Medicaid child support requirement can have on already-struggling families. – By Mississippi Today Health Reporter Sophia Paffenroth.

Lucinda Wade-Robinson

After her 22-year-old son was killed in her front yard in 2014, Lucinda Wade-Robinson wasn’t sure she would be able to cover the $8,000 funeral bill. She applied in Hinds County for help from Mississippi’s victim compensation program, a fund that each state has to reimburse victims of crime and their families for funeral expenses, medical costs, crime scene cleanup, execution travel and counseling, among other costs. But the state attorney general’s office, which administers the program, denied her claim, alleging her son was responsible for his death, a type of denial known as contributory misconduct. Mississippi’s definition of what kind of conduct contributes to one’s death is broader than most states, and a Mississippi Today investigation found that Wade-Robinson’s denial is not unusual. Mississippi has one of the highest rates of denials attributed to “contributory misconduct” when compared to other states, with about 6% of all applicants getting denied for this reason. – By Mississippi Today Education Reporter Leo Bevilacqua

Know a Mississippian who made a difference in 2025? Tell us about them over email at info@mississippitoday.org. And sign up for our daily newsletter to hear from other Mississippians in the future.