OurTupelo

Monday’s news that Mississippi College – soon to be Mississippi Christian University – will no longer field a football team seemed to come out of nowhere. “Shocking” is the word many have used to describe the news.

“I feel like I just lost a family member,” said Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer Fred “Fast Freddie” McAfee, one of the two most famous football players in Mississippi College history. “I remember playing my last regular season game against Delta State before an overflow crowd. I remember winning a national championship. I just can’t believe it has come to this.”

Many readers might wonder who the other most famous Mississippi College player was. That would have been the remarkable Edwin “Goat” Hale, a College Football Hall of Famer who in 1916 led the Choctaws to a 74-6 victory over Ole Miss. You read that correctly. Mississippi College 74, Ole Miss 6. MC also defeated Mississippi State, Southern Miss, Tulane and many other southern football powers early in the 20th century.

Mississippi College competed in football for 117 years. There’s a lot of history there, both good and bad, including that 1989 NCAA Division II National Championship, later vacated for scholarship violations. McAfee, a star player on that team, says he never was on more than a half scholarship in his four years at MC.

And McAfee, who later made All-Pro in the NFL, surely didn’t receive any NIL (name, image and likeness) money, which is one stated reason why Mississippi College made its decision to drop the sport. We will get to that.

First, this: There are many losers with this decision: the coaches, who no longer have a job; long-time Mississippi College football fans who no longer have a favorite team; and even Delta State, which loses its arch-rival. Delta State football coach Todd Cooley, whose Statesman defeated MC 20-14 on Nov. 16 in what apparently is the last football game MC will ever play, called the MC decision “very disappointing” and added, “I just hate it for the players and the coaches.”

But make no mistake: The biggest losers are the MC football players, who really do play for the love of the game. They must decide if they love it enough to play it somewhere else and, if so, then find a school that will take them.

Dr. Blake Thompson, the Mississippi College president in his seventh year at the helm, says he hurts for those players but at the same time strongly believes that the decision to drop football – along with the name change – are in the best, long-term interest of the school. One primary reason is economics.

“I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, but we’re looking at close to $2 million that we can save to put into our other sports programs, upgrade our facilities, and also put into other areas, including, of course, academics,” Thompson said. “We have a long standing tradition of academic excellence. We have among the highest incoming ACT scores of any school in the state. We’re proud of that.”

Thompson continued, “We also have bold aspirations for the future. I like the model of schools like Belmont University (Nashville), which doesn’t play football but has become quite competitive at the Division I level in baseball and basketball and other sports. Dallas Baptist, like us a faith-based school, has become a Division I baseball power.”

Thompson, who formerly worked at Ohio State, is in the middle of a seven-year term on the powerful NCAA Division II Presidents Council, and, consequently, is familiar with all aspects of of college athletics. “We’ve tried to look at the overall landscape of college athletics and determine where we stand and where we want to stand in that landscape,” he said. “We want to excel in everything we do. Sometimes, that requires tough decisions.”

One firm decision, Thompson says, “We are not in a place where we are going to be paying players. We are not going to play in that space.”

Over its last 10 full seasons, MC has won just 28 games, lost 74. Since the 1989 “championship” season MC has won 144, lost 200 and tied four. Those numbers will never be confused with Thompson’s goal of “excellence” in all MC does. None of that changes the fact, Thompson says, that this has been a gut-wrenching, quite emotional decision.

“My commitment since I got here seven years ago has been to care for these students,” he said. “All scholarship arrangements will be the same through the end of this school year. For those players who want to remain in school here, we will work with them, find scholarship money where we can from other sources. For those who want to continue playing football, we will help them every way we can with the transfer portal.”

The rest of the Gulf South Conference, including Delta State, faces a different and difficult situation. MC’s decision now leaves the league with only four football playing members: Delta State, No. 1 ranked Valdosta State, West Alabama and West Florida. The GSC was once known as the SEC of Division II football conferences. And, indeed, the four remaining football members all play the sport at a high level and all have won at least one national championship. But can four teams really be called a conference?

The post Exploring all the many facets of Mississippi College’s decision to end football appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Nearly five months after a new law to make prenatal care more accessible to low-income women was supposed to go into effect, its fate remains unclear. 

The state is still in negotiations with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services – the federal agency responsible for approving the state plan – according to Matt Westerfield, spokesperson for the Mississippi Division of Medicaid. CMS is supposed to take no more than 90 days to approve or reject a plan, but that 90-day clock has been suspended indefinitely since issues have been raised with legislation Mississippi lawmakers wrote last session. 

Presumptive eligibility for pregnant women allows temporary and immediate Medicaid coverage for low-income expectant mothers while they wait for their official Medicaid application to be approved – a process that can take months. 

Strict Medicaid eligibility requirements in Mississippi mean that a majority of low-income women are only eligible for Medicaid once they become pregnant. If a woman applies when she finds out she’s pregnant, that means a lengthy application process could cut well into her pregnancy and delay her seeking prenatal care, which is proven to lead to poor outcomes such as preterm birth – in which Mississippi leads the nation. 

Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford, who leads the Senate Study Group for Women, Children and Families, has been checking in weekly with Medicaid about the status of the policy. In a committee hearing Monday, Boyd followed up twice with newly appointed Medicaid Executive Director Cindy Bradshaw at the beginning and end of the meeting to try to gain clarity on the status of the policy. 

Boyd asked Bradshaw whether the 2024 legislation could be salvaged or whether lawmakers would need to redo legislation to enact the policy in 2025. Bradshaw said both that she hopes the state and federal agencies can come to an agreement, and also that she’d feel better with new legislation. 

“Well, I think we can come to a reasonable place that we will be able to get it,” Bradshaw said. “Am I 100% comfortable with that? No. I would prefer that we have legislation to shore up the concessions that we’ve had to make.”

It’s not clear what concessions the Mississippi Division of Medicaid has had to make, but it’s likely that CMS is requiring Medicaid to take out a proof of income and proof of pregnancy requirement lawmakers included in the original bill. 

Federal guidelines state that while the agency may require proof of citizenship or residency, it should not “require verification of the conditions for presumptive eligibility.”

CMS will not comment on ongoing negotiations with individual states.

If 2024 legislation can’t be salvaged, lawmakers would have two options for rewriting the law next session. They could take out the requirements with which CMS has an issue, or they could take their chances hoping a Trump administration would grant a waiver allowing them to keep requirements at odds with federal guidelines – something lawmakers will likely bank on with a Medicaid expansion bill next session, as well. 

Insisting on the proof of pregnancy requirement doesn’t serve much of a purpose, since it wouldn’t be possible for a woman to fake a pregnancy and receive prenatal care, such as ultrasounds. As for the proof of income requirement, it can be cumbersome on low-income women already facing socioeconomic hurdles, explained Tricia Brooks, a research professor at the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University and the lead author on the KFF Annual Survey on Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility, Enrollment and Renewal Policies.

“I remember when I first got pregnant, I thought I had the flu because I was nauseous for days on end,” Brooks said. “If I go to the doctor and find out that lo and behold maybe I am pregnant, and you want me to get enrolled, but now you’re asking me for paystubs … So now I have to come back in or somehow communicate or transmit proof of income to the provider. That just gives everybody pause of, ‘Oh my god, is this even worth it?’”

In the meantime, the Division of Medicaid is continuing to accept providers who wish to participate in the program and conduct eligibility determination trainings, according to Westerfield. Until CMS approves the state plan, none of the providers that have been approved will be able to provide care under the policy to eligible women.

Below is a list of the 13 providers that have been approved to participate as of Nov. 18: 

• Physicians & Surgeons Clinic – Amory
• Mississippi Department of Health, Dr. Renia Dotson – County Health Department (Family Planning Clinic)
• Family Health Center – Laurel
• Delta Health Center Inc (Dr. H. Jack Geiger Medical Center) – Mound Bayou
• G.A. Carmichael Family Health Center Providers – Belzoni, Canton, Yazoo City
• Coastal Family Health Center Inc. – Biloxi 
• Delta Health System – Greenville
• Delta Medical Group – Women’s Specialty Clinic – Greenville
• Southeast MS Rural Health Initiative Inc. – Women’s Health Center – Hattiesburg
• University of Mississippi Medical Center – Jackson
• Jackson Hinds Comprehensive Health Center – Jackson
• Central MS Health Service – Jackson
• Northwest MS Regional Medical Center – Clarksdale

An expectant mother would need to fall under the following income levels to qualify for presumptive eligibility:

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The National Folk Festival kicked off in downtown Jackson on Saturday. The festival is the longest running arts event comprised of a free, outdoor, three-day celebration of music, art and dance. 

The National Council for the Traditional Arts chose Jackson out of 42 cities from across the country.

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Mississippi College will change its name and drop its football program after the current season, the board of the private institution announced Monday.

The college, in the Jackson suburb of Clinton, will become Mississippi Christian University beginning with its bicentennial in 2026. It said in an announcement that the new name emphasizes the school’s status as a comprehensive university while keeping the MC logo and identity.

“These transformational and necessary changes are extremely important to the future of this institution,” Mississippi College President Blake Thompson said. “As we look ahead to the institution’s bicentennial in 2026, we want to ensure that MC will be a university recognized for academic excellence and commitment to the cause of Christ for another 200 years.”

Mississippi College sports teams compete in NCAA Division II. The college will have 17 sports after football is discontinued.

“As we consider the changing landscape of college football, the increasing influence of the NIL and transfer portal, as well as increasing costs to operate and travel, we felt it was necessary to focus our efforts on building first-class programs that can compete for championships,” MC Athletic Director Kenny Bizot said.

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A group of anti-abortion doctors is asking the state Supreme Court to reverse its earlier ruling stating that the right to an abortion is guaranteed by the Mississippi Constitution.

The original 1998 Supreme Court ruling that provides the right to an abortion for Mississippians conflicts with state law that bans most abortions in Mississippi.

The appeal to the Supreme Court comes after an earlier ruling by Hinds County Chancellor Crystal Wise Martin, who found the group of conservative physicians did not have standing to bring the lawsuit.

Mississippi members of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists argued that they could be punished for not helping a patient find access to an abortion since the earlier state Supreme Court ruling said Mississippians had a right to abortion under the state Constitution. But the Hinds County chancellor said they did not have standing because they could not prove any harm to them because of their anti abortion stance.

Attorney Aaron Rice, representing the doctors, said after the October ruling by Wise Martin that he intended to ask the state Supreme Court to rule on the case.

It was a Mississippi case that led to the controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed since the early 1970s a national right to an abortion.

Mississippi had laws in place to ban most abortions once Roe v. Wade was overturned, But there also was the 1998 state Supreme Court ruling that provided the right to an abortion.

Despite that ruling, there are currently no abortion clinics in Mississippi. But in the lawsuit, the conservative physicians group pointed out the ambiguity of the issue since in normal legal proceedings a Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of an issue would trump state law.

But in her ruling, Wise Martin pointed out that the state Supreme Court in multiple recent high-profile rulings has limited standing or who has the ability to file a lawsuit. Wise Martin said testimony on the issue revealed that physicians had not been punished in Mississippi for refusing to perform abortions.

Both the state and a pro abortion rights group argued that the physicians did not have standing to pursue the lawsuit. The state also contends that existing law makes it clear that most abortions are banned in Mississippi.

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GLOSTER — Drax, the United Kingdom-based wood pellet producer that’s violated air pollution limits in Mississippi multiple times, is asking the state to raise the amount of emissions it’s allowed to release from its facility in Gloster.

In September, the state fined Drax $225,000 for releasing 50% over the permitted limit of HAPs, or Hazardous Air Pollutants, from its facility Amite BioEnergy. In a pending permit application that it submitted to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality in 2022, the company is seeking to transition from a “minor source” of HAPs to a “major source.”

A “major source” permit would remove the limit over the facility’s total HAP emissions, but it would apply a new limit over the rate at which Drax could release the pollutants.

This year’s fine was its second penalty for violating Mississippi law around air pollution limits. In 2020, the state fined the company $2.5 million for releasing over three times the legal threshold of Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs, one of the largest such fines in state history. Drax underestimated its VOC releases since the facility opened in 2016, but didn’t realize it until 2018. The facility didn’t come into compliance until 2021.

The Environmental Protection Agency lists a variety of potential health impacts from exposure to HAPs, including damage to the immune system and respiratory issues. VOCs can also cause breathing problems, as well as eye, nose and throat irritation, according to the American Lung Association.

For years since Drax’s violations became public, nearby residents have attributed health issues to living near the facility. During a public hearing on Drax’s permit request Thursday in Gloster, attendees reiterated those concerns.

“We all experience headaches every day,” resident Christie Harvey said about her and her grandchildren. Harvey said she has asthma too, and her doctor was “baffled” by her symptoms. “Each week I have to take (my grandchildren) to the clinic for upper respiratory issues … It’s not fair that we have to go through this. Drax needs to lower the pollution as much as possible.”

Part of the public outcry is the proximity of people’s homes to the plant, which is within a mile of Gloster’s downtown.

“The wood pellet plant in Lucedale is situated in an industrial park outside of town,” Andrew Whitehurst of Healthy Gulf, an environmental group dedicated to protecting the Gulf of Mexico’s natural resources, said at the meeting. “The wood pellet plant that (Enviva is) trying to put in Bond will be situated north and west of the downtown area. Not like this when it’s right smack in the middle (of the city). It’s totally inappropriate. People can’t take it, they don’t deserve it.”

In a statement to Mississippi Today, Drax said it prioritizes the public health and environment in Gloster, adding that the permit modification is a part of standard business practice.

“When we first began operations, some of our original permits were not fit for purpose,” spokesperson Michelli Martin said via e-mail. “We are now working to acquire the appropriate permits for our operating output and to improve our compliance. Within these permits the requirements may change based on engineering data and industry standards. This permit modification is part of our ongoing plan to provide MDEQ with the most accurate data. Drax fully supports the resolution of our permitting request and looks forward to working with MDEQ to finalize the details.”

While researchers, including from Brown University, are studying the health symptoms of residents near the wood pellet plant, there is no proven connection between the facility’s emissions and those symptoms.

Erica Walker, a Jackson native who teaches epidemiology at Brown and who’s leading the study, spoke to Mississippi Today earlier this year. Regardless of the cause and effect, she said, the decision to put the plant near disadvantaged communities with poor health outcomes is concerning.

“We want to make sure we aren’t additionally burdening already burdened communities,” Walker said.

About 1,300 people live in the city, according to Census data, and 39% live below the poverty line.

Moreover, Gloster residents often have to travel hours, to cities such as McComb and Baton Rouge, to find the nearest medical specialist. Amite County, where Gloster is, has a higher rate of uninsured residents than the rest of the state, according to County Health Rankings, and the ratio of residents to primary care physicians is over three times greater in the county than Mississippi as a whole.

As part of its application, Drax is seeking a Title V permit under the Clean Air Act, which the EPA requires for major sources of air pollutants. This gives the EPA the opportunity to review Drax’s application and public comments submitted with it. The public can submit comments on the application until Nov. 26, and can do so through MDEQ’s website.

The Mississippi Environmental Quality Permit Board, which is made up of officials from several state agencies, will then decide whether or not to grant the new permits. A full overview of the process and Drax’s application is available online.

The post Gloster residents protest Drax’s new permit request appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves on Wednesday announced that state agencies are disbursing over $110 million toward economic development, infrastructure upgrades and workforce development around the state. 

The funding for the projects is coming from the state Legislature, the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Delta Regional Authority, the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission and the federal government. 

“We’ve secured billions in new private-sector investment and created thousands of jobs across the state,” Reeves said. “The funding we announced today will go a long way toward continuing Mississippi’s economic momentum and will help create more high-paying job opportunities for Mississippians across the state.” 

The bulk of the spending will go toward developing and improving industrial sites, which are often used to entice manufacturing companies to locate or expand operations in the state. If these sites have adequate infrastructure near them, companies are more likely to locate there.

Despite new investment in the state, Mississippi continues to grapple with one of the lowest rates in the nation of people who are actively seeking work or employed, at 53.9%. 

State Economist Corey Miller said at a legislative hearing last week that one of the reasons Mississippi is also experiencing a relatively low unemployment rate of 2.8% is because people have stopped looking for jobs. 

Reeves said on Wednesday that Mississippi may have a low percentage of people looking for jobs because the state has a relatively low cost of living and some families can afford to have only one income. 

“If an individual doesn’t want a job, the government ain’t going to force them to get a job,” Reeves said. “And that’s just a reality.” 

Still, the governor believes Mississippi can improve its labor force participation rate by improving education and providing people with better work skills. 

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