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Just over half of the third graders in Jackson Public Schools are reading on grade level, according to test results released last week by the Mississippi Department of Education. 

At some elementary schools in north and central Jackson, nearly all the students passed the third-grade reading test on the first try. But the results show that a majority of third graders at schools in south Jackson failed the test, raising the possibility that those students will be retained this fall. They have multiple chances to test again before that happens.

Students at Barack H. Obama Elementary and McWillie Elementary had the highest scores, with more than 95% passing, while students at Key Elementary, Shirley Elementary and Wilkins Elementary had the lowest, with less than 40% of students passing at those three schools. 

There are likely many reasons for this disparity, but local educators say the low reading scores reflect that it can be hard to be a kid in south Jackson right now. 

Learning to read is all the more challenging for kids whose basic needs are not being met. 

“The less resources you have at home, the heavier that burden is going to be,” said Pam Franklin, the program director at Operation Shoestring.

The nonprofit is one of several groups in the city that are working to reverse the downward trend. In 2019, 63% of the city’s public schoolers passed the third grade reading test. Before that, the bar to pass was lower, and a decade ago, nearly 85% of the students passed.

But without nutritional meals, clean clothes, playtime, sleep and a supportive parent who reads to them, kids will struggle to be friendly with their peers or respectful to teachers, let alone concentrate on vocabulary or phonics. 

“Before I walk in the door, I’m bringing all of that with me,” Franklin said. 

These challenges exacerbate the urgency educators face in teaching them to read by the end of third grade. It’s not just because students must, with some exceptions, pass the third-grade reading test to advance to the fourth grade. The failure to learn to read by this age has been linked to poor outcomes later in life, such as dropping out of school, earning low wages or delinquency. 

That’s partly because knowing how to read is a crucial life skill, said Greer Proctor-Dickson, the executive director of the Mississippi Reading Clinic. 

“We’re not conscious of all the reading that we do,” Proctor-Dickson said. “Street signs, bills, legal documents, menus.” 

For instance, students need to learn how to read in order to solve math problems that are posed in paragraph form. 

“Now I’m getting a double strike,” Franklin said. 

As Jackson loses population, fewer families are sending their children to JPS, leaving the district with less funding.

Ironically, that’s exactly what educators say Jackson’s kids need: More resources and more support. 

During the school year, the Mississippi Reading Clinic hosts classes at local middle schools to work with students with poor reading skills. 

Proctor-Dickson recalled a story of a JPS teacher the clinic was coaching who noticed that something was off with a boy in her class. When she asked him what was wrong, he said he was long overdue for a haircut and embarrassed to be seen in public. 

So the teacher called a barber who volunteered to come to the school and cut the boy’s hair that day. 

“It was like a 180 shift,” Proctor-Dickson said.

CLARIFICATION: This story was updated to reflect that the bar for passing the third grade reading test has been raised since 2015.

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

“The minor events of history are valuable, though not always showy or picturesque.” — Mark Twain, 1891

“I always say ‘tariffs’ is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary.” — Donald Trump, 2025

If I could slow time down just a kiss it would all come back, clear as that wink of a moon over freshly planted rows of cotton on Trout Valley Farm. Seems like only yesterday I was living out my calling, farming with my family in Tallahatchie County. The year before we had picked our best crop on record, and 2018 promised healthier markets for the fiber. Heading into spring I couldn’t wait to prep fields for planting. 

As farmers we are fundamentally hopeful people. The mere act of putting a seed into the earth and hanging the well-being of an entire family on it is itself an act of radical hope. As I once heard my father say, “Every year I take all I have and all I hope to ever have and plow it into the ground.”

And so, we entered the 2018 planting season with even more cotton acres than 2017. We didn’t know then there was doom on the horizon, though no one in our universe had ever heard of Wuhan, China.

And yet, China loomed large in our daily discussions about the future. A trade war simmered throughout the Spring. It was like the child’s game “King of the Hill: Tariff Edition.” The contestants: President Trump and General Secretary Xi JinPing. Every time cotton and grain markets went on a run, a presidential tweet or an announcement from Beijing would send commodities tumbling, as Sisyphus after a traipse up the mountain. 

By 2019 the markets were severely depressed for both. A tariff-induced depressed market, untimely drought, runaway production costs, and uncertainty due to the trade war forced us to close the doors on a 148-year-old, multi-generational, family-run farm. We became another victim of economic central planning and the hapless confluence of calamitous circumstances.

It caused my wife, our young daughter and me to upend our lives. The dream I worked for all my adult life and upon which my future depended, dead. At 40-years old, I had to recalibrate. My wife and I had to move from my community where we were both hopeful and active participants in its revitalization. 

In 2019, there was a 20% increase in farm bankruptcies across America. And this despite government largesse in the form of an inflation-inducing 28-billion-dollar bailout. While bankruptcies ran rampant, we don’t even know the total number of farmers who simply stopped, as we did, rented their land and moved away. In the final accounting, we’ll likely find that depopulation and dispossession of our rural and agricultural class is what led to America’s demise. 

While a farm is a dynamic and complex enterprise whereby any number and any combination of things can cause its failure, there is one thing that poses a greater immediate threat to any farm at any moment: Tariffs. 

Agrarian people have always known this. Our history is replete with political and sectional strife over the federal government’s use of tariffs and the redistributionism that comes with it. This history needs a little sunshine as agricultural people have always pulled the short straw with protectionist tariffs. 

The current iteration, as far as I can tell, is a negotiating tactic, yes. Revenue tariffs, it seems. But, President Trump has also been adamant that they are protectionist, intended to bring manufacturing jobs back, which, of course, is a laudable goal. It’s not clear that further impoverishing farm families, many of whom are already in financial straits, is the way to do it.

A recent Farm Journal poll showed that 54% of farmers don’t support tariffs as a negotiating strategy. The same poll found a bleak 92% of agriculture economists believe tariffs will hurt farmers in the long run. All the while the number of farmers has dwindled to a point where we are no longer a statistically significant parcel of the population.

Conflicts concerning tariffs along the urban/agricultural divide go back to the early years of the Republic. In 1816 Congress approved the first protective tariff, the Dallas Tariff at 20% to help pay off the debt from the War of 1812. They also wanted to level the playing field between English manufacturing and the nascent attempt at industrialism in the North. In 1824, the Sectional Tariff on imported goods went to 33% . In another four years the “Tariff of Abominations” placed a 38% tax on 92% of imported goods. Each of these found opposition across the South, as Southern farmers sold their crops and bought their goods on the international market. So, they had to pay more for goods and sell their crops for less, as we did in 2018.

South Carolina threatened secession. By 1832, South Carolina had the support of several states and declared these tariffs unconstitutional, thus unenforceable. President Andrew Jackson threatened the unthinkable: using the military to go to South Carolina and collect the duties at gun point. In 1833, President Jackson successfully urged Congress to pass the Force Act, to get the authority to do it. Henry Clay (architect of the American System agenda) and John C. Calhoun (Jackson’s vice president) avoided a disaster by reaching a compromise to incrementally reduce the tariffs, thereby stopping the Nullification Crisis from devolving into violence.

By 1842 Northern industrial interests were back at it with the Black Tariff. This put rates back around the levels of the “Tariff of Abominations.” The South howled claiming revolution was the only solution for this issue. James Polk won the next election and started reducing the tariff. The Walker Tariff of 1846 lowered the average rate to 25%. This stimulated trade and led to higher government revenues. While other major sectional differences persisted, on the tariff front, at least, the sections seemed satisfied.

In 1857, however, with a healthy tariff of around 15%, it began to fall apart. There was a financial panic that year caused by several converging events. However, a leading economist – Henry Carey, a Republican and avowed protectionist– laid the whole thing at the feet of the lower tariffs.

Due to Carey’s prominence, Rep. Justin Smith Morrill (R., Vermont), a founder of the Republican Party, recruited him to help develop a new tariff. For two years, prior to 1860, Congress debated the Morrill Tariff. It didn’t pass until after Abraham Lincoln’s election once states had started to secede. James Buchanan signed it into law on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration. 

As early as 1832, in the midst of the Nullification Crises, Lincoln said, “I am in favor of the internal improvement system and a high protective tariff,” before adding 28 years later in 1860, “My views have undergone no change… the tariff is to the government what a meal is to a family.” The Morrill tariff both informed and defined U.S. trade policy until the second incarnation of the income tax in 1913.

So, in terms of cultural differences in economic philosophy, what does this history verify except that farmers and stakeholders in an agricultural economy dependent on foreign trade have always vehemently advocated for free trade and against protectionist tariffs. And, that protectionist tariffs are a fundamental part of the Republican Party’s DNA. In fact, the Republican Party’s platform from 1860 featured the tariff as its 12th plank.

Mike Wagner, who owns Two Brooks Rice and farms grain in the Delta commiserated recently, “This tariff talk comes at the worst possible time for many of America’s farmers. There’s a perfect storm of conditions already [rising taxes, land/equipment/production costs] …China has not bought U.S. corn or soy since Jan. 16th.” After a pensive pause, he continued, “This happened most recently during the 45th presidency, and our export capacity never regained its footing…when agricultural markets are lost, the loss is permanent or gruelingly regained. A nation that can’t maintain the foundational part of its economy that farming is, and won’t support her growers, sacrifices her best defense.”

To better understand the impact of these particular tariffs, I spoke with Hank Reichle, president and CEO of Staplcotn, the oldest and largest cotton cooperative in the U.S. Echoing Mark Twain, he proffered, “By the way, history rhymes. Here we go again, like the Nullification Crisis, where agrarian South Carolina was concerned with tariffs restricting commerce, this time states concerned with the same are actually taking the President to court over the tariffs. 

“Compared to President Trump’s first term, this trade war is a little different because it doesn’t involve only China. Tariffs are only good for farmers if they create a competitive marketing advantage.” Reiterating the danger to farmers, he explained, “Tariffs slow the global economic growth that fuels consumption and so decreases demand for commodities.”

But, Reichle doesn’t only predict despair and doom. Due to the reciprocal nature of the context President Trump created, we could see commodity markets rise as new markets open to U.S. farmers. According to Reichle, “…there are several countries that buy a significant amount of cotton on the export market who could easily increase purchases from the U.S. while decreasing them from the likes of Brazil and Australia…”

Tenuous as it is, I worry for all my friends still farming and welcome this bit of hope. This is a year wherein the lives of many farmers and their families’ futures hang in the balance. If we get to harvest without a solution, it will not bode well for any of us. For without farmers prayerfully, hopefully and profitably “plowing all they have into the ground” every year, American society and its position in the world will crumble. 

Our greatest hope now is that our representatives in Washington remember their constituents and make deals (and tax cuts) that are in our best interest. Quickly.

Or, as Wagner put it, “Farming has always been a full contact sport…We need leadership. Not leadershit.”

Cal Trout holds bachelor’s degrees in history and English and a master’s degree in journalism. He currently owns and operates Trout Valley Quail Preserve and is a real estate agent. He also publishes and hosts the newsletter and podcast “Standing Point: Stories from Americans Afield,” which can be found at www.troutvalleyquail.com.

by Sophie Bates, Associated Press

TYLERTOWN, Miss. (AP) — More than two months after a tornado destroyed his home, Brian Lowery still looks through the rubble, hoping to find a tie clip his mother gave him, made from the center stone of her wedding band.

“I still have hope,” Lowery said.

He, his wife and 13-year-old son made it to safety before the tornado ripped apart their trailer home of 15 years, but the recovery from the storm has been a slow and painful process. Mississippi’s request for federal aid is still pending before the Federal Emergency Management Agency, meaning badly needed assistance has not yet made it to his hard-hit community of Tylertown to recover from the storms that struck in mid-March.

The delays could provide a glimpse into what’s in store for communities around the country as the summer storm season arrives and FEMA is mired in turmoil. A stretch of states including Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma have already been battered with tornadoes this week, setting the stage for more disaster requests to FEMA. And the Atlantic hurricane season is just around the corner.March storms left 7 dead and hundreds of homes destroyed or damaged

In Mississippi, nearly 20 tornadoes tore through the state on March 14 and 15, leaving seven people dead and hundreds of homes destroyed or damaged. Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves asked the Trump administration for a major disaster declaration on April 1. The state, and residents like Lowery, are still waiting.

The declaration would allow the state to access a wide range of FEMA resources, including financial aid for individuals and for government agencies still removing debris and repairing infrastructure.

“I don’t know what you got to do or what you got to have to be able to be declared for a federal disaster area because this is pretty bad,” Lowery said. “We can’t help you because, whatever, we’re waiting on a letter; we’re waiting on somebody to sign his name. You know, all that. I’m just over it.”

The declaration would allow the state to access a wide range of FEMA resources, including financial aid for individuals and for government agencies still removing debris and repairing infrastructure.

“We don’t have a declaration yet. People are still hurting,” said Royce McKee, emergency management director for Walthall County, which includes Tylertown.

Requests for help come at a time of upheaval for FEMA.

The agency’s acting administrator, Cameron Hamilton, was recently ousted after he publicly disagreed with proposals to dismantle FEMA, an idea President Donald Trump has floated in calling the agency “very bureaucratic” and “very slow.”

David Richardson, FEMA’s new acting administrator, committed himself to executing Trump’s vision for the agency. He also previewed potential policy changes, saying there could be “more cost-sharing with states” and that FEMA would coordinate federal assistance “when deemed necessary.”

Walthall County was hit especially hard by the massive storm system that wreaked havoc across multiple states. The storm spawned two significant tornadoes in the county, where four people died.

McKee said the county has sunk an estimated $700,000 into cleaning up the damage but can’t afford to spend more and has halted operations until it receives federal help.

“We need federal help, and we need it desperately, and we need it now,” said Bobby McGinnis, a Tylertown resident and firefighter. “I know President Trump said that — America first, we’re going to help our American folks first. But we haven’t seen the federal folks down here.”

While Mississippi has been waiting, a similar major disaster declaration request out of Arkansas after the storms hit was denied, appealed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and finally approved on May 13.

“We are encouraged by FEMA’s decision regarding Arkansas’ application from the same storm system that hit Mississippi,” Scott Simmons, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency’s director of external affairs, said in a statement. “We anxiously await a positive decision.”In Missouri, there are frustrations about the federal response to March storms

In Missouri, the federal response to storms earlier this year is being criticized as residents pick up the pieces from a Friday twister. The EF3 tornado packing winds of up to 150 mph (241 kph) slammed into St. Louis on Friday, and the city is awaiting a disaster declaration from the Missouri governor’s office so it can access federal help.

“We need to get the federal government mobilized,” said U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican. “All federal resources that can be brought to bear here should be.”

The senator also expressed frustration over the federal response to a deadly March storm.

“We cannot wait months. I’m not happy about the fact we’re still waiting from all of that damage two months ago. We lost 12 people in those storms. We’ve lost seven here,” he said. “The scope of the damage is immense.”Mississippi lawmakers press federal officials about assistance

Mississippi lawmakers have been pressing federal officials on the issue. During a congressional hearing in early May, Republican Mississippi Rep. Michael Guest asked U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees FEMA, to push forward the request.

“I would ask you if you could make sure that you could do everything to expedite that request,” Guest said. ”It is impacting my local jurisdictions with debris cleanup. It is impacting people as they seek to recover.”

Republican Mississippi U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith also asked Noem about FEMA assistance and the administration’s new approach to the agency.

“President Trump has been very clear that he believes that the way that FEMA exists today should not continue,” Noem responded. “He wants to make sure that those reforms are happening where states are empowered to do the response and trained and equipped, and then the federal government would come in and support them and financially be there when they need them on their worst day.”

___

Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, contributed to this report.

A Danish man living in Mississippi for a dozen years has been imprisoned in Louisiana for more than a month after Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers took him into custody because of a “paperwork miscommunication” during his effort to become a naturalized U.S. citizen, his wife says.

Kasper Juul Eriksen, now 32, left his home in Aalborg, Denmark, as a teenager in 2009 and spent a year in the U.S. as a high school exchange student in Starkville, Mississippi.

He and a local teenager, Savannah Hobart, fell in love. After he returned to Denmark’s fourth-largest city, he and Savannah maintained their relationship for four years, across an ocean and seven time zones.

Kasper immigrated to the U.S. in 2013 and got work as a welder – a job he has held steadily since then. He and Savannah married in 2014 and settled outside Starkville in the tiny town of Sturgis, soon starting a family.

For years, Kasper went through the process of trying to become a U.S. citizen, and Savannah Eriksen – now homeschooling their children and pregnant with their fifth baby, due in August – said her husband’s move toward citizenship appeared to be on track. He received notice last September that his naturalization application was being reviewed, and records from the U.S. government raised no questions about his paperwork, Savannah said.

Kasper and Savannah Eriksen went to Memphis, Tennessee, on April 15 so he could be interviewed about naturalization, and she said they were met by ICE agents.

“Kasper was detained for a paperwork miscommunication from 2015, and I was sent home with no explanation and no idea where my husband had been transported,” Savannah Eriksen said in a statement she released late Monday to Mississippi Today.

Kasper is among an unknown number of immigrants who have been detained since President Donald Trump began his second term in January. Some of the detainees had entered the U.S. without authorization, while others entered with temporary visas or, like Kasper Eriksen, were in the process of becoming naturalized citizens.

Savannah said she and her husband were told in April that his paperwork problem was with an application for removal of conditions on his residency – a form used by an immigrant married to a U.S. citizen.

After Kasper was taken into custody in Memphis, Savannah made the three-hour drive back to Sturgis by herself and “to say I couldn’t control my emotions would be an understatement,” she said.

“The next 24 hours would, without a doubt, (be) the most frightening and stressful I have ever experienced, as I pined for my husband and some kind of communication to confirm his safety and whereabouts,” Savannah said.

She said that before the April appointment, her husband had never been told about any paperwork miscommunication, either through online messages or during interviews in the naturalization process.

She later learned that Kasper was being detained at the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana.

Kasper’s attorneys have filed petitions to seek his release, and they met with him May 15 to review those. A judge will decide whether he will be let out, and Savannah said he does not have a court date.

“Kasper is a fully integrated, productive member of society,” Savannah said. She said he has “an impeccable work ethic,” holds a driver’s license and has paid taxes since being employed in the U.S.

“While Kasper embodies all the positive qualities of a hard-working man in pursuit of the American Dream, he never forgets his family and friends,” she said. “He spends time with us and takes the time to give each of his children the attention and fatherly love they deserve.”

She said friends and family in Mississippi and Denmark are supporting the family with “prayers, financial assistance and positive, uplifting attitudes.”

The newly refurbished Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Monday held a celebration of something Mississippians do as well as well as anyone anywhere. I am writing, of course, of college baseball, played here and supported by Magnolia State fans as well as – and perhaps better than – anywhere else.

Southern Miss’s JB Middleton, one of the best pitchers in college baseball, took home the Boo Ferriss Trophy, which goes annually to the state’s best player. It was a day for hard-throwing, small-town right-handers at the Hall of Fame. Middleton, a junior from Yazoo City, won the trophy named for the late Dave “Boo” Ferriss, another right-handed pitching ace from Shaw. Roy Oswalt, from Weir, who won 163 games pitching for four Major League teams, was the featured speaker. 

Middleton, expected to be a high choice in the upcoming Major League Draft, won over Delta State right-hander Drake Fontenot and three sluggers: Southern Miss second baseman Nick Monistere, Mississippi State third baseman Ace Reese and Ole Miss third baseman Luke Hill.

Ferriss, a Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer, surely would approve of Middleton’s amazing numbers produced this spring. USM’s Friday night ace won nine games, lost only one and had an earned run average of 2.05. In this college baseball era of soaring offensive numbers, Middleton allowed opponents to hit only .167. Perhaps most impressive of all was his strikeouts-to-walks ratio. He fanned 104 batters and walked only 23. He is the state’s only semifinalist for the Golden Spikes Award, which goes annually to the nation’s best amateur baseball player.

“JB’s a true Friday night ace,” Southern Miss coach Christian Ostrander said. “You get the ball in his hand, you’ve got a chance to win … obviously, we wouldn’t be where we are without him.”

The Golden Eagles, 41-13 and winners of 15 straight headed into the postseason, also wouldn’t be where they are without Monistere. The former Northwest Rankin star and Mississippi high school player of the year Monday was named the Sun Belt Conference’s most outstanding player after a regular season in which he slammed 18 home runs, knocked in 66 runs and batted .332.

“To have two of the five finalists for this prestigious award speaks volumes,” Ostrander said. “We’ve got a lot of really good players having great seasons this year.”

The three other Ferriss finalists also produced eye-popping numbers:

• Reese, a Texan and a sophomore transfer from Houston, was also named first team All-SEC and the league’s Newcomer of the Year on Monday. The sophomore hit .369 (a whopping .402 in SEC games) with 21 home runs and 66 runs batted in.
• Hill, a second team All-SEC selection, hit .345 with eight home runs and 35 RBI and led the SEC with 12 stolen bases in league play.
• Fontenot, Delta State’s Friday night ace and the Gulf South Conference’s Pitcher of the Year, won nine games and lost three with an ERA of 2.50. At one point he set a school record with 39.1 consecutive innings of scoreless baseball.

Oswalt regaled the awards luncheon crowd with stories of his fascinating career, during which he had back-to-back 20-win seasons with the Houston Astros and was the Most Valuable Player of the 2005 National League Championship Series.

He told about how Weir Attendance Center never had a baseball team or a baseball field until he came along with his 90 mph fastball as a 14-year-old. “My daddy was a logger and he cut down trees and cleared the area that became our baseball field,” Oswalt said. Weir played 17 games that first season. Oswalt pitched 15 of those, all complete games.

He also told a story about how, as a minor leaguer, he recovered from a serious shoulder injury in a most unorthodox fashion. His throwing shoulder was aching badly at the end of the 1999 season and he thought for sure the injury would require major surgery. Then, he got back home to Weir with hunting season about to begin.

“I was working on my hunting truck that had an engine that was missing,” Oswalt said. “I was fooling around with some spark plug wires and got shocked. Man, I mean, I got shocked. The current shot up from my hand and to my shoulder. I felt it throughout my whole body. It shocked the fire out of me, but once I recovered from the initial shock I realized my shoulder didn’t hurt anymore. It was fine after that.”

To his credit, Oswalt did not advise any of the Ferriss Trophy finalists to try the same treatment should they ever suffer a sore arm.

CLARKSDALE – J’s Grocery opened its doors in Clarksdale, marking a turning point for a community lacking access to fresh produce. Located in the Eastgate neighborhood, a historically underserved area, the store brings not only convenience but also a vital resource for those facing food insecurity. 

Tyler Yarbrough, a local advocate and director of Mississippi Delta programs at Partnership for a Healthier America, has deep personal ties to the neighborhood. He grew up just a few blocks away in Eastgate, where he witnessed firsthand the struggles families faced in accessing fresh food. 

“I grew up in this neighborhood, and it was difficult to find healthy food options,” Yarbrough said. “I’m proud to be part of this effort to bring a neighborhood corner store back to life, where residents can walk a few steps and find fresh produce.”

Before the opening of J’s Grocery, many neighborhood stores had closed, and those still open primarily offered shelf-stable snacks. Yarbrough and other partners have worked to revitalize this corner of Clarksdale by reconnecting the community with local farmers and providing fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats. 

“This isn’t just about food; it’s about connecting people to their roots and building a healthier future,” Yarbrough said.

The Jones family has served the Clarksdale community for over 27 years by providing essential groceries and community services, including a laundromat and barber shop. After J’s Grocery closed for several years, the family took the lead in its recent reopening, working closely with local advocates and organizations — such as Yarbrough’s Partnership for a Healthier America and the nonprofit Rootswell — to renovate the space and refocus the store on fresh, healthy food options. This collaboration reflects their commitment to continuing the family’s legacy of service while addressing food insecurity in the neighborhood. 

“We want to give the community a better way to eat,” said Alshun Jones, the son of store owner Al Jones.  “It’s about supporting the neighborhood and providing healthy options that have been missing for so long.”

Store owner Al Jones expressed his gratitude for the support and partnerships that made the store’s opening possible. “This is just the beginning,” Al said. “We want to see more stores like this across the city, helping communities thrive.”

The store’s reopening on May 2 also signals the beginning of a larger community revitalization effort, which includes plans for murals and safer sidewalks to connect the store to the nearby schools and residences.

With its focus on fresh food, community involvement, and local partnerships, J’s Grocery is more than just a store — it’s a beacon of hope for the Eastgate neighborhood, offering a fresh start for residents and a model for revitalizing food access in rural communities.

Mike Graves deferred payments to John Deere for the first time in a half century of farming in 2024.

A million dollars for a cotton picker, $800,000 for a combine and $400,000 for a tractor in recent years drove Graves, who grows cotton, soybeans and corn in Tippah County, to borrow money from Mississippi Land Bank, part of the nationwide Farm Credit System, a co-op that provides financial support for farmers.

But this year, as dim predictions for 2025 have farmers questioning whether a few bad years could tip into a crisis, borrowing money isn’t enough.

Graves said he doesn’t like to rely on federal subsidies, but without the $31 billion in emergency payments Congress approved to aid farmers in December, “wouldn’t any of us survive.”

“I hate that the government has to get in it, but I’m not going to turn down anything they offer, either,” Graves said.

Congress in December approved $31 billion in direct payments to help farmers nationwide cope with lackluster crop prices, high input costs and extreme weather. But some Mississippi farmers said the payments they received through the $10 billion Emergency Commodity Assistance Program were smaller and later than they expected. And it’s unclear when and how the remaining $21 billion in disaster assistance will be disbursed.

Rates the USDA announced in March were much less than initial estimates floated for the per-acre commodity payments – $200 for cotton, $100 for corn, $81 for rice and $50 for soybeans – all linked to an unsuccessful bill introduced by Mississippi Republican U.S. Rep. Trent Kelly in October. Instead, farmers are receiving $85 per acre for cotton, $43 for corn, $77 for rice and $30 for soybeans.

While Kelly’s initial bill calculated payments at 60% of farmers’ losses, the version included in the budget bill lawmakers passed on Dec. 21 – the day a government shutdown would have begun had Congress not acted – figured those payments at 26% of those amounts.

Though the law directed the USDA to make the payments within 90 days of its enactment – by March 21 – some Mississippi farmers said they didn’t receive their money until late April. And unlike the commodity payments, the $21 billion for natural disasters has no deadline for the USDA to disburse it. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website, Mississippi has disbursed $118 million through the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program. The USDA has not announced when or how the $21 billion will be distributed.

Will Maples, an assistant professor of agricultural economics at Mississippi State University Extension Service, said that while the state is “nowhere near” the conditions that led to the notorious farm failures of the 1980s, “the concern is, can we get there?”

“If we stay in this environment,” Maples said, “2025 is looking tough, and 2026 is another tough year. That’s when talk about ‘Can it get as bad as the 80s?’ will really pick up.” 

Maples encouraged farmers to look out for “price rallies” as the growing season progresses, and not to be afraid to sell early.

Still, some farmers say conditions are worse than they’ve seen in years, and that the timing of federal commodity payments – well into planting season – hasn’t helped.

Brian Camp, a Union County soybean farmer, said farmers had hoped to use that money to pay outstanding debts in time to purchase inputs like seed for this year’s planting season.

“What they sent us now, it won’t even pay our fuel,” Camp said.

Lauren Swann, who grows cotton and watermelons in Union County, said drought last summer in northeastern Mississippi made margins even tighter.

“The math just ain’t mathin’,” Swann said.

As farmers face uncertainty about potential impacts of President Donald Trump’s tariffs this growing season, some continue to grapple with the consequences of his first trade war, experts said.

On a podcast with Mississippi Today last week, State Economist Corey Miller said that Trump’s 2018 tariffs eroded markets for U.S. agricultural exports and could do so again. The U.S. lost some $20 billion in agricultural exports in Trump’s first term, Miller told WJTV earlier this year.

Maples said that while Brazil first surpassed the U.S. in 2013 to become the world’s largest exporter of soybeans, Trump’s 2018 tariffs – and China’s retaliation in kind – cemented the South American country’s dominance in the international soybean market. China, the world’s top importer of soybeans, which is Mississippi’s biggest crop by acreage, sources some 70% of its supply from Brazil.

For soybean growers, “a lot of what we’re dealing with now is kind of a holdover from the last 2018 trade war we had with China,” Maples said. 

The U.S. and China announced a tariff truce Monday, with both countries slashing tariffs for the next 90 days as they continue to negotiate.

Farmers described struggling to square Trump’s claims to be on farmers’ side with uncertainty about the potential for tariffs to further cut prices. In a March Truth Social Post, Trump urged farmers to “get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product” for domestic sale and “have fun!”

“We’re being told to go out there and have fun, and be patient,” Swann said. “But planting season doesn’t wait, so we can’t wait on help.”

Graves said he hopes Trump’s tariffs will ultimately lead to higher prices, as long as the measures “get everything straight before everybody goes broke on the farm.” 

“He said he’s going to take care of us,” Graves said. “But we’ll see, I guess.”

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

Several years ago, I confronted the possibility that I, like many Mississippians, had been blindsided by cancer.

A routine blood test detected alarmingly high PSA (prostate-specific antigen) levels, and after informing me that the odds were about 25% for a positive cancer diagnosis and 60% of that for an intermediate to severe form of the disease, my urologist recommended a biopsy. Those odds represented a 15% probability of a metastatic crisis, and given the low risks associated with prostate biopsies, I opted for the procedure.

After an anxious week of waiting, the pathologist’s report indicated that I had dodged the terrifying reality of cancer—unlike for the roughly 16,000 Mississippians who are diagnosed with cancer each year, with an associated annual death toll of about 6,500. 

I am a retired scientist and although my area of expertise involves field biology, my research background helped me evaluate the medical options and procedures related to prostate cancer. I could understand the relevant scientific papers and search for qualities that define good medical research: testable hypotheses, large sample sizes, replicate studies, appropriate statistical analyses and peer-reviewed papers published in reputable journals. When evaluating my options I could avoid ideologically-based claims like those promising that cod liver oil and  other vitamin A supplements are effective for preventing and treating measles.

I also understood that although the initial blood test for PSA antigens, preliminary MRI and biopsy were technological procedures, those procedures were developed through painstaking scientific research—the kinds of research carried out by institutions like the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s (UMMC) Cancer Institute, but now threatened by cuts to federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Cancer Institute and National Science Foundation (NSF).

In other words, the Trump administration is directly harming the kinds of scientific research that could improve the lives of those 16,000 Mississippians who are diagnosed with cancer each year.

In 2023, the UMMC received almost $97 million in research grants, awards and contracts, much of which came from federal funding sources. Cutting NIH funding to the UMMC and other American research institutions threatens the well-being of all Mississippians, regardless of their political affiliation, age, sex, gender, race or ethnicity—or whether their health is threatened by cancer, sickle-cell anemia, heart disease, diabetes, traumatic injury or poor delivery of medical services to underserved populations. Who among us doesn’t know multiple people whose lives have been affected by those diseases or problems? Ironically, it seems that cuts to NIH funding  likely will hit “red states” like Mississippi the hardest. 

Scientific research is a human endeavor, conducted by fallible human beings, as we all are. And yet the core scientific process, which relies on experimental and observational studies, verifiable data and hypotheses that can be tested by multiple independent observers, is the only truly self-correcting discipline—one that rises above the (occasional) false leads, mistakes and pettiness of its individual practitioners to improve the quality of life for everyone.

The scientific process is why we no longer believe that cancer is caused by an excess of black bile, as did physicians in the Middle Ages. We now have targeted gene therapies that dramatically increase survival rates for many types of cancers. It is why we no longer believe that malaria is transmitted by humid and stale air.

And it is why we embrace the germ theory of disease; use antibiotics to treat a variety of diseases, from syphilis to tuberculosis; and employ vaccines to prevent or diminish the damage caused by polio, measles, rubella, whooping cough: on and on and on. The medical benefits derived from high-quality scientific research is one critical reason that average life expectancy in the United States rose from roughly 40 years in 1860 to almost 79 years in 2020. 

Of course, federal researchers and research dollars benefit many other aspects of life in Mississippi besides those related to health care. Proposed cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, which could affect as much as 50% of the workforce at some stations (there are four such stations in Mississippi, supporting research projects on everything from cotton ginning to poultry and insect pest management), would harm the productivity and competitiveness of Mississippi farmers.

Proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—54% in the Trump administration’s proposed 2026 funding bill—will hamper the ability of the EPA to clean up Mississippi’s nine active Superfund sites, which contain toxic chemicals like PCBs and dioxins.

Or take the impacts of proposed cuts to scientific research by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Mississippi Gulf Coast is imperiled by rising sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico (almost 2°F between 1970 to 2020), driving increasingly powerful hurricanes, and a sea level rise of up to 10 millimeters/per year, which translates into almost 4 inches of sea level rise per decade, which in turn increases storm-driven flooding. Consequently, along Mississippi’s Gulf Coast homeowner’s insurance is becoming more and more expensive, while the nonrenewal rate by insurance companies is increasing.

Even if one does not “believe” in human-driven climate change, it remains imperative to study sea levels and sea surface temperatures to help protect against the harmful effects of increasingly powerful tropical storms—and the equally damaging effects on homeowner’s insurance rates and availability for Gulf Coast Mississippians.

It also is crucial that we understand the costs of extreme weather events, those causing at least $1 billion dollars, to help insurance companies, policymakers and scientists understand major disasters like the hurricanes that batter the Guld Coast of Mississippi—and yet NOAA will no longer collect these data.

Although scientific research is not primarily a jobs or economic stimulus program, federal research and development funding also contributes in vital ways to overall economic growth, maintaining America’s competitiveness on the world stage and our country’s high standard of living.

Recent analyses suggest that net economic returns for federal research and development dollars are much higher than for other forms of investment such as for physical infrastructure, and may be responsible for as much as 25% of post-World War II productivity and growth—and that contrary to claims by the current administration, public research investments are not less productive than private investments. 

I could describe many more examples of benefits provided by federal science funding, but I will end with one perplexing but illustrative story. Last February, President Trump ordered the release of billions of gallons of water from California reservoirs operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, ostensibly to benefit Central Valley farmers and help Los Angeles fight wildfires like those that devastated the area in January. However, there were no scientific justifications for President Trump’s order, as related to hydrology, irrigation or wildfire suppression

 Still, one Central Valley farmer stated that although the water release was counterproductive, “I have a conservative mindset. I encourage the trigger-pulling attitude, like: ‘Hey, let’s just get stuff done.”

Maybe there are occasions when a “trigger-pulling attitude” is appropriate. But when the gun is aimed at your own head, the results will be predictable and catastrophic—whether we’re talking ill-considered water releases from California dams or indiscriminate and draconian cuts to federal scientific agencies and research funding, which will harm the citizens of Mississippi in so many ways.

Bio: Christopher Norment holds a PhD in Systematics and Ecology from the University of Kansas and is an emeritus professor of environmental science and ecology at the State University of New York – Brockport. During his career he published over 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers and three science-related books of creative nonfiction, and received awards from the State University of New York for teaching and scholarship. He now lives in Jackson.

As an Ole Miss Rebel, he was the MVP of both the Gator and Sugar Bowls. As an NFL rookie, he intercepted eight passes and returned two for touchdowns. As a coach, he won two national championships and two Super Bowl rings. He played for coaching legends John Vaught and Paul Brown, coached with the legendary Tom Landry. He is a member of seven different halls of fame.

And all that doesn’t even begin to tell the story of Clarksdale native and Ole Miss great Bobby Ray Franklin, a gentleman and a winner, who died Wednesday in his adopted hometown of Senatobia. He was 88.

When writing the life story of Franklin, there’s just so much to cover. Where to begin? Let’s start with this: He was the son of a barber and was given the nickname “Waxie” because of all the butch wax he wore in his crew cut hair as a young man.

Says former Ole Miss Chancellor Robert Khayat, an Ole Miss teammate of Franklin’s and a friend for more than six decades, “From the time we stepped onto the campus in August of 1956, Waxie was the best athlete on our football team. He was a terrific quarterback and defensive back, but he was so much more than that. He was fast, he was smart, he was funny. He could run it, pass it, kick it, punt it, catch it and tackle whoever had the ball. He was a leader. There was nothing Bobby Ray Franklin couldn’t do. And everything he did, he did first class.”

Franklin was funny, indeed. One example: The 1959 Ole Miss team was one of the greatest in college football history, out-scoring opponents 349-21 in 11 games. In a September game at Kentucky, Franklin, the Rebels quarterback, was running with the football toward the Rebels’ bench, when three Kentucky players slammed him at the sideline, across the bench and into a brick wall. Franklin went down hard and stayed down. “Frightening,” Khayat called it. Doc Knight, the Ole Miss trainer, raced toward Franklin, yelling “Waxie! Waxie! Are you OK, Waxie?” Finally, Franklin looked up, grinned and said, ”I’m fine, Doc, but how are my fans taking it?”

Knight doubled as the Ole Miss track and field coach, and Franklin was one of his sprinters. Once , at practice, Knight was at the finish line timing Franklin in the 100-yard dash. Franklin finished and Knight started yelling. “He just ran a 9.6 100-yard dash!” There was plenty reason for his excitement, because the world record at the time, held by a German, was 9.76 seconds. Turns out, unbeknownst to Knight, Waxie had moved up five yards from the starting line. He may still hold the world record in the 95-yard dash.

Back to that Kentucky game in 1959 and the injury: Franklin’s head was OK, but his left leg was not. He was stepped on with cleat marks on his left calf, resulting in a blood clot. Hospitalized for three weeks, he lost his starting quarterback job to the great Jake Gibbs, who was backed by Doug Elmore. Franklin played only sparingly for the remainder of the regular season, including the 7-3 defeat to LSU that ruined an otherwise perfect season. Healthy for the first time since September, Franklin came back for the Sugar Bowl rematch with LSU to complete 10 of 15 passes, two for touchdowns, in the 21-0 Ole Miss victory. Franklin was voted the game’s MVP, just as he had been in the 1958 Gator Bowl victory over Florida.

At 5 feet, 11 inches, Franklin was not a prime NFL prospect. The Cleveland Browns got him in the 11th round, and, boy, did they get a bargain. Franklin became an instant starter as a ball-hawking safety and kick returner. He also was the team’s backup punter and placekicker and held for the extra points and field goals of Browns kicking star Lou “The Toe” Groza, a Pro Football Hall of Famer. Franklin once told this sports writer, laughing: “I always told Lou he wouldn’t have been worth a damn without me as his holder.”

Franklin also had been the holder for Khayat’s kicks at Ole Miss. Said Khayat, “The thing was, Waxie was as good a kicker as I was. Great punter, too.”

Franklin retired as a player after seven seasons with the Browns and immediately joined Bud Carson’s coaching staff at Georgia Tech. Among his first recruits to Tech was Meridian’s Smylie Gebhart, who became an All American. Landry, the Hall of Fame coach of the Dallas Cowboys, hired Franklin away from Tech for a five-year run that included two Super Bowl victories. Franklin left Dallas to join Howard Schnellenberger’s staff in Baltimore, but that staff was fired after one season.

His career at a crossroads, Franklin joined his older brother in a private business in Mississippi. That lasted five years before Franklin went back to coaching. Ray Poole, a long-time friend and former Ole Miss coach, had taken the job as head coach at Northwest Community College in Senatobia and offered Franklin a job as offensive coordinator. This was 1979. A guy who had won an NFL championship as a player and two Super Bowl rings as a coach, was asked to be a junior college assistant coach. Franklin once told a sports writer, “I knew what people were thinking. What a comedown: from Super Bowls to junior college. Why would he do that? I didn’t care what people thought. I loved football. I wanted back.”

Two years later, he became the Northwest head coach. Two years after that, Franklin’s Northwest Rangers won the national junior college championship. Ten years after that, they would duplicate the feat. In 2004, Franklin retired having won 201 games, while losing only 57. Thirty-five of his players went on to play professionally.

Speaking by phone Thursday morning of his nearly life-long friend, Khayat said, “One of the most endearing things about Waxie is how emotional, how quick to cry, he was. He would even cry about happy things. When he went into the Coaches Hall of Fame, he started talking about his former players and coaches and he started crying, I mean, really sobbing. I didn’t know if he would even finish, and then he slapped himself in the face. I mean, slapped himself hard, and he said, ‘Come on, Franklin, stop being a crying fool.’ And then he was fine after that. Gave a great speech.”

When you know that about Franklin, it makes what follows all the more impressive. This was Aug. 7, 2007, in Canton, Ohio. Gene Hickerson, the great Ole Miss and Cleveland Browns lineman, was being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Hickerson, stricken with Alzheimer’s, was in a wheelchair and seemingly oblivious to what was going on around him. Hickerson’s family had asked Franklin to be his presenter that night.

It remains one of the most poignant moments experienced in my nearly six decades of sports writing. Jim Brown, Leroy Kelly and Bobby Mitchell, the three Browns running backs Hickerson helped block into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, pushed Hickerson’s wheelchair onto the stage and Bobby Ray Franklin, at the podium, took a moment to gather himself. Then, he congratulated the other honorees, said what an honor it was to present his friend of 52 years, and continued: “Gene’s son, Bob Hickerson, called me and asked me if I would present Gene. The fact that Gene has been ill for the last several years, I was a little hesitant because being as close as we  were, it’s a tough thing for me to do, as you can see right here, today. I’ve got to make myself tough when I start talking about Gene…”

Franklin paused again, gathered himself again, and spoke thoughtfully and eloquently, saying what he imagined Hickerson would have said if he were capable of saying anything at all. And then he said this: “Gene finished his entire career as a member of the Cleveland Browns, a fact he was extremely proud of. He quietly did his job as well as anyone ever in NFL history. If not for the circumstances, I would be almost to the point of introducing my good friend to you. Gene would then step to the podium, tell you how thrilled he is to receive this honor today, and crack a joke or two.

“Unfortunately he won’t be doing that, as my friend will not be able to speak to you even though he is here, I love Gene Hickerson as if he were my brother. … Borrowing these words from another Hall of Famer, Gale Sayers, I would like to ask you all to love Gene Hickerson, too.”

Bobby Ray Franklin might have been the only person among thousands there that evening who did not cry. His speech was on-point, splendid even – as was his life.