OurTupelo

HAZLEHURST — Cyn’tra sat in the back of his third-grade reading class at Hazlehurst Elementary. A worksheet lay before him: blank. He seemed confused, looking around at classmates, who were writing responses, and at the teacher. The teacher repeated the questions and provided hints and tips. 

The 8-year-old was easily distracted. He gave up after slowly reading through the questions.

“He required extensive support,” wrote Vonnie Byrd, his assistant principal, after observing Cyn’tra in class. “He appeared confused and looked around the room.”

District contractors, officials and employees performed five similar observations, six behavioral, psychological and skill-based tests, a review of Cyn’tra’s developmental history and an interview with his guardian. They noted details such as his ADHD diagnosis, the type of medicine he takes and why. He also struggles to sound out words and make sense of them on the page. The documents detail how he is generally collegial with other students and behaves well. They also noted concerns such as a time when he threw a tantrum and his behavior escalated to the point where he was taken to the emergency room. 

Then Hazlehurst City School District officials dropped Cyn’tra from special education services. They gave no clear reason why.

The department’s decision was “devastating,” said Cynthia Catchings, Cyn’tra’s grandmother and guardian. 

The boy’s academic performance has dropped from B’s and C’s to D’s and F’s, she said.  

Catchings’ situation isn’t hers alone. Other Hazlehurst special education staff, parents of students with disabilities and advocates say the school district has not provided services required under federal law. They have filed more than a dozen pages of complaints with the Mississippi Department of Education and the Hazlehurst district’s central office in the last three years. 

Unresolved complaints and repeated violations of federal law are some reasons why the state might take over the district this school year. The agency also cited the district in December and March for operating a special education department that was unresponsive to parent concerns and lacked documentation of meeting students’ needs.

School board President Paul Rhodes declined to comment in light of pending litigation. 

District leadership has changed since the state education agency cited Hazlehurst schools for violating the rights of students with disabilities. Cloyd Garth, who was superintendent when the district was cited, did not respond to repeated requests for comment in regards to complaints from within the department during his tenure. He left his post on June 8, and school board members would not say whether he resigned or was fired. 

The district is also advertising for a new special education director. District officials did not respond to a request for comment on special education director Andrea Vasser’s employment status.

“I don’t know why they want him to fail,” Catchings said of the district cutting support services for Cyn’tra. “I don’t have any support from the school. They always say no child left behind, but we are both left behind: the parent and the child.”

Outcomes for students like Cyn’tra have reached a new low in Hazlehurst. The graduation rate for students with disabilities dropped from roughly 58% in 2023-24 to less than a third in 2024-25. 

State regulators note that dozens of students with disabilities aren’t getting required support

Under a new mandate from the U.S. Department of Education to provide written monitoring reports to districts, the state agency took additional steps to hold Hazlehurst public schools accountable for violating the civil rights of students with disabilities. In March, state officials notified Garth that investigators found poor oversight and no plans on how to help some students with disabilities.

The sheer volume of problems state investigators found with Hazlehurst schools’ special education department was alarming to Danita Munday, who worked in the state Department of Education’s special education monitoring division before departing.

“I think it would have been quicker to write a report about what they’re actually doing well because apparently it’s nothing,” Munday said.

Students with mild and severe disabilities missed out on services that made learning possible. Nearly a dozen student files were missing a learning plan all together. Without a learning plan, the state education officials can’t verify if those students are receiving required help in the classroom. 

State regulators found that school district officials greenlit learning plans for some special education students without involving parents and without regard to data, considering tests, and with no mention of student behavior.

When parents did request services or appealed department decisions, they sometimes waited for a response past federally mandated deadlines.

A student with failing eyesight and a partially deaf student lacked documented support services. Regulators also could not verify whether students with disabilities at the district alternative school got federally mandated support.

‘You’re just a teacher’ 

Three former Hazlehurst special educators, who worked in district classrooms, told Mississippi Today the dysfunction within the district’s department wasn’t limited to parent outreach and records management. They said the department’s leaders were more concerned with documenting services for students than offering them.

One former instructor said Vasser withheld full reports that analyze student eligibility for special education services. Without that information, it was more difficult to craft learning plans that fully accommodated the student’s disability. The instructor asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation from district leadership,

The educator said Garth threatened to fire them after they challenged the legality of a separate learning plan and sought guidance from the state Education Department. 

The learning plan was to have an elementary school student with a significant cognitive disability complete a packet of classwork each week at home alone in lieu of in-person instruction. The educator said they reminded Vasser the child’s family did not speak English

The educator also said Garth accused them of breaking the chain of command by calling the state Education Department.

“I’m not mad at (Vasser), but her rights end where mine begin. I nor my students will be mishandled,” the educator wrote in an April 2023 email to Vasser and Garth, which an educator gave Mississippi Today. “My concern is the response to my advocating for my students.”

Gardner Wooten left the Hazlehurst special education department in 2023. He said district leadership forced him to cancel meetings with parents of students with disabilities so he could substitute teach and proctor tests.

“Those students really got the short end of the stick,” he said. “I complained about it, too. They didn’t care. Their attitude there is that you’re just a teacher.”

‘This is not just a paperwork problem’

Two positions for special education teachers in Hazlehurst schools have not been filled since 2023.

Fewer staffers means existing special education teachers and officials have to manage larger caseloads. 

Catchings, Cyn’tra’s grandmother, said she knows the department is short staffed, but ending  special education services for her grandson will limit his future opportunities. She worries he will continue to fall behind.

Cyn’tra said he found it harder to focus after January, when he lost access to special services. The classroom sounded louder and the noises were distracting without the aid of a special education teacher to provide clear guidance for class assignments. He misses the teacher who would take him to a separate, quieter room to go over the classroom work.

“When I didn’t have her around, it would be way harder to read,” he said. “When we follow along with the story, I can read back to her.”

Teachers would better understand his behavior and be able to manage it without calling Catchings to intervene throughout the day, Catchings told Mississippi Today.

Without an individualized education plan, known as an IEP, teachers don’t know Cyn’tra needs questions read aloud and time to sound out words, Catchings said. His next teachers won’t know that he needs built-in breaks between tasks, a visual aid and extra time on tests.

Catchings has taken Cyn’tra to a nurse practitioner who can retest Cyn’tra for cognitive and psychiatric needs and recommend special education services for him. A separate psychologist had been waiting on Vasser to present the contract for his testing services to the Hazlehurst school board for reimbursement approval, according to Catchings.

It’s been six months.

“This is not just a paperwork problem,” said Munday, the former bureau director for special education policy “This is about a district using flawed processes to push a child out of special education, with no soft place to land.”

Correction 7/24/26: This story has been updated to reflect the correct titles of the healthcare professionals who have worked with Cynthia Catchings and her grandson.

Mississippi Today Ideas is a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share their ideas about our state’s past, present and future. Opinions expressed in guest essays are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Mississippi Today. You can read more about the section here..  

My kids love Olive Garden – a lot.

With an Italian last name like Barranco, I’ll admit I’m slightly embarrassed by how much they love what may be the most generic Italian restaurant in the country. But I keep that to myself and indulge them.

Every time we go, I’m reminded of a question I like to ask my students:

Why can’t we eat spaghetti with our hands?

Sure, it’s fine for a toddler.

But an adult?

Definitely not.

Seriously, though – why not?

It can’t just be because it’s messy. Pulled pork sandwiches and sloppy joes are messy too. Restaurants even hand you wet wipes because they know it.

So why is one acceptable and the other isn’t?

Most people answer the same way:

“Because… we just don’t.”

That’s true.

But have you ever stopped to wonder why we “just don’t?”

Probably not.

Most of us don’t spend much time thinking about the unwritten rules we follow every day.

We step onto an elevator and turn to face the door – only weirdos face the wall. When we’re ready to check out at the grocery store, we get in line. There’s no law requiring it. There isn’t a sign telling us where to stand.

We simply know.

The examples are everywhere.

We shake hands.

We leave personal space when talking to strangers.

We whisper in libraries.

We don’t wear pajamas to funerals.

We say “bless you” when someone sneezes.

I could keep going.

The point is that much of our day is spent following unwritten rules we hardly notice.

Sociologists call these social norms – the shared expectations that tell us how we’re supposed to behave and, just as importantly, how we’re not.

So what happens if we ignore them?

If you eat spaghetti with your hands at Olive Garden, no one is going to call the police.

But you’ll almost certainly get some strange looks.

If a student came to my class in a bathing suit, I wouldn’t throw them out.

But I’d probably wonder whether something unusual was going on.

So would everyone else.

Sometimes the consequences are stronger. People may avoid us, stop trusting us or quietly leave us out.

The fascinating part isn’t what the rules are.

It’s where they came from.

Who decided spaghetti required a fork?

Who decided we should face the elevator door?

Some norms began for practical or historical reasons. Others seem almost arbitrary. Over time, though, they become part of what we think of as “normal,” so we stop questioning them altogether. Most of us inherited them without ever being told where they came from.

We simply absorbed them by watching the people around us.

And that matters.

These unwritten rules are what make society possible.

Imagine a grocery store where nobody knew how to check out.

No lines.

Everyone walks to the register whenever they feel like it.

Every customer has a different idea of how it should work.

It would be chaos.

Social norms save us from negotiating every interaction from scratch. They make everyday life predictable. They allow millions of strangers to cooperate without ever meeting one another.

But that’s not the whole story.

The very thing that makes norms so useful also makes them dangerous.

A rule powerful enough to keep us all in line is powerful enough to keep the wrong things in line, too.

The same force that stops us from eating spaghetti with our hands can also preserve prejudice, discrimination, unhealthy traditions, wasteful customs and harmful silence.

The norm of “minding your own business” may keep someone from stepping in when another person needs help. A workplace norm against questioning the boss may keep people quiet when they see a bad decision being made.

Not every unwritten rule deserves to survive simply because it feels normal.

That’s why one of the most important questions we can ask is also one of the simplest:

Why do we do it this way?

Sometimes the answer is that the norm helps people cooperate and makes society run more smoothly.

Sometimes the answer is nothing more than, “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

Knowing the difference may be the most important unwritten rule of all.

After all, some rules simply help us eat dinner.

Others help determine the kind of society we become.

Raymond E. Barranco is a professor of sociology at Mississippi State University. His writing uses everyday experiences and social science to help readers better understand society and one another. He can be reached at rbarranco@soc.msstate.edu. 

A string of bad luck led Caroline Crowley to the Jackson Free Clinic. 

First, a flood damaged the former special education teacher’s apartment and forced her to move out. Then came transportation and health problems that made it difficult for her to return to work.

Standing outside the health center’s white building on a hot July morning, Crowley said the student-run nonprofit clinic, which provides medical, dental, mental health and specialty care to patients without health insurance at no cost, has done more than help her manage her health.

“If I had not gone through it, I wouldn’t have been able to come here to meet a lot of students, pouring into them, them pouring into me,” Crowley said. “I’ve met a lot of beautiful people. So it really has been character building for me. It has been healing for me.”

The clinic, which operates on Saturdays with the support of 50 to 60 volunteers each week, provided nearly 3,000 patient visits in 2025 — the highest number in the past five years, according to its 2025 annual report. 

Jackson Free Clinic’s record number of patient visits comes as free and charitable clinics across the country face growing demand. For over two decades, the clinic has provided care to patients and expanded to meet their needs, adding a range of specialty healthcare options, a Spanish clinic and social services support. It is one of the free clinics across the state that provide care to the growing number of Mississippians struggling to afford health insurance. The organization is funded primarily through grants and donations, totaling over $470,000 last year.

Khaylah Scott is a program manager for the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program, which operates a free helpline to assist callers in navigating health insurance options. This year, after federal health care subsidies that made health insurance more affordable for many Mississippians expired, Scott said her organization received more calls from people who could not afford their health insurance premiums. As a result, helpline staff have referred more patients to free and charitable clinics than in past years.

The 1,400 clinics affiliated with the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics provided 8.2 million patient visits in 2025, up from 6 million the year before, according to a recent report from the association. More than half of the patients were employed, showing that many people seeking low-cost care are working but still unable to afford healthcare. 

“Many people are used to hearing about hospital emergency rooms or federally qualified health centers or rural health centers,” said Nicole Lamoreaux, president and CEO of the national association. 

“Those are critical components of America’s healthcare safety net. But we serve the people who fall through all of those cracks.”

A broader mission

The clinic opened in 2002 from a local church as the Jackson Free Clinic for the Homeless to provide medical care to patients experiencing homelessness. But founder Dr. Joyce Olutade, who at the time was an assistant professor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, quickly realized that many people who needed medical services had housing and jobs but could not afford the cost of care. 

The clinic changed its name in 2004 to reflect its broadening mission. Twenty years later, clinic volunteers said patients face many of the same challenges. 

“A lot of patients that we see have jobs that don’t offer insurance or their insurance is too expensive,” said Natasha Burrell, a fourth-year medical student at UMMC and the chief outreach officer for the clinic. 

The clinic moved into its current building in west Jackson in 2004. According to Burrell, the owner of a neighboring trophy shop left his building to the organization in his will. That space was converted into a dental clinic, which opened in 2021. A new building that will house specialty services like psychiatry, gynecology and physical therapy was finished this summer and is expected to open later this year. 

Julie Darnell, a public health professor at Loyola University Chicago, has studied the role free clinics play in communities. In her work surveying free clinics between 2010 and 2015, she found that free clinics were expanding their services to meet more of patients’ needs. 

“Free clinics are gap fillers,” she said. “They’ve been really astute in being able to identify what those gaps are and then partially fill them.”

To serve patients that speak Spanish, the Jackson Free Clinic operates a Hispanic clinic every other month. Nancy Duarte-Sanchez, the language clinic’s co-director and a third-year medical student, said she has treated patients whose chronic health conditions went undiagnosed for years because they hadn’t been seeing a doctor regularly. She said she tries to establish trust in the healthcare system by explaining treatment options to people in their native language. 

“Having somebody who understands you, that you can communicate (with) directly, who speaks in your same language, that just takes away this extra barrier on top of the ones that they already face,” Duarte-Sanchez said. 

Beyond providing medical services, the Jackson Free Clinic also works to provide patients with healthcare and hygiene supplies. The clinic keeps a well-stocked closet filled with glucose strips, blood pressure cuffs, medications to reverse opioid overdoses and hygiene products like soap and menstruation products. Volunteers added nail clippers and chapstick after patients requested them. 

Volunteers handle all of the clinic’s day-to-day operations, from cleaning the building to answering voicemails to mowing the lawn, Burrell said.

One longtime patient, Isabelle Smith, began going to the Jackson Free Clinic after a workplace injury and subsequent back surgery six years ago left her unable to work. Out of work and with her application for disability benefits pending, Smith has gone without health insurance for years and had no other way to access treatment for her chronic conditions.

One aspect of the clinic Isabelle Smith appreciates most is that transportation is provided, she told Mississippi Today. At 62, she lives alone and doesn’t own a car after her previous one started breaking down and she sold it for parts. But Smith can still get to the clinic for quarterly checkups through a partnership with the New Jersey-based nonprofit Sostento, which pays for ridesharing services for patients who can’t drive themselves.

With her daughter and grandchildren living in Texas, the clinic volunteers have started to feel like family, Smith said, adding that they treat her better than most doctors she’s interacted with. 

“I tell them all the time, ‘I love y’all,’” she said. “Because if it wasn’t for you, all this trial I’ve been going through with my health, I wouldn’t have made it.”

PEARL – Mississippi Christian University golfer Sydney Moss has added the 2026 Mississippi Women’s Amateur championship at Patrick Farms Golf Club to her growing list of accomplishments.

Moss, a Shreveport native and daughter of former LSU All American and PGA Tour player Perry Moss, had previously won two Louisiana junior championships and one Louisiana State Women’s Amateur title.

Jackson State golfer Maddy Beeching, who lives in Ridgeland but is a native of Camberly, England, shot a final round 71 to tie Moss for first place the 54-hole tournament. Moss won the playoff with a par on the fourth extra hole to claim the title. Harper Hinkley of Summitt and Mississippi State also shot a final round 71 and finished third, two strokes back. 

Moss held a two-shot lead entering the final round in which she shot 73. She and Beeching shot even par for the tournament.

Moss began her college career at the University of Memphis, before transferring to Stephen F. Austin and then to Mississippi Christian University where she was All-Gulf South Conference as a junior this spring.

Lee Burke of Madison won the 36-hole senior division, shooting 73-73 to edge 12-time State Amateur winner Cissye Gallagher of Greenwood by a single shot. Betty Lou Sutherland of Madison won the Grand Lady division (age 70 and over), shooting 70-71 to best runner-up Marsha Stewart of Pearl, who shot 71-74.

Members of Mississippi’s Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council are scrambling to ensure millions of dollars they oversee can actually be used for awarded addiction-response projects. 

State lawmakers earlier this year awarded around $50 million in opioid settlement money — payments made by the companies that contributed to the overdose deaths of more than 10,000 Mississippians. The contracts between the state and the awardees say that the selected organizations will be reimbursed for every three months of work. 

The agreements were supposed to go into effect on July 1, but some organizations that were selected to receive the money haven’t signed them yet because the upfront project costs would be too high. 

The Legislature awarded the north Mississippi community mental health center Communicare $5.2 million to build a new pediatric emergency and long-term residential treatment center in Panola County — the first of its kind in the state. But Melody Madaris, the executive director of Communicare and a member of Mississippi’s Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council, told other members at a meeting on Tuesday that with the current contract setup, her organization couldn’t start work on the center. 

“There’s no way that our agency can purchase that building and wait for the reimbursement for an entire quarter,” she said at the meeting. “If we were capable of doing that, we would’ve already done it.” 

Madaris told Mississippi Today after the meeting that she has yet to sign Communicare’s opioid settlement contract because of this dilemma. Mississippi Deputy Attorney General Doug Miracle, who filled in as council chair for Attorney General Lynn Fitch on Tuesday, told the other members that less than half of the grant agreements Fitch’s office was responsible for had been signed and returned by applicants. 

Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford and a council member, said she also heard from recipients that waiting three months could prevent them from ever starting their addiction response work. 

“It’s a difficult issue when it’s quarterly, especially these small nonprofits that we want to be able to work with,” Boyd said at the meeting. “They’re doing great stuff, many of them.”

The $50 million of legislative awards is the first time Mississippi elected officials have used the portion of opioid lawsuit money the settlements say must be used to address addiction. It’s the only state in the country that hadn’t spent any of that share by 2024, according to a KFF Health News investigation. 

Boyd said she was getting texts from people with applicant organizations about the reimbursements as the meeting was happening.

“I think it is a larger problem than the council realizes at this point,” she said to the other members. 

In a roll call vote, the majority of members agreed to allow opioid settlement grant recipients who applied in 2025 to propose alternative fund disbursement arrangements to their contracts, and the council would review each of those requests at the next meeting, which Deputy Attorney General Doug Miracle said would take place in the next two weeks. 

Miracle voted against the motion. He told members that opening up changes to the council-approved contracts for this cycle could further delay Mississippi from using opioid settlement money to address addiction, including for the applicants who can manage the 90-day reimbursement arrangement.

“The packages went out,” he said. “People have been told what the rules of the road were, and they’re returning them.”

Council members did not specify how applicants should go about requesting these changes. 

The Attorney General Office Communications Director MaryAsa Lee did not respond to an emailed question asking for further clarity. Miracle declined a Mississippi Today interview after the meeting. 

Little growth forecasted for 2027

In June, state unemployment remained unchanged for the fourth month in a row and year over year, at 3.8%. 

State economist Corey Miller said this is a continuation of the no-hire, no-fire job market of the past few months. Miller said there was a lot of hiring coming out of the pandemic but with ongoing economic uncertainty, businesses are likely reluctant to hire right now. 

Mississippi’s seasonally adjusted labor force participation rate, currently at 55.2%, is the lowest it’s been in two years. This follows national trends – the U.S. labor force participation rate in June of 61.5% was the lowest it’s been in five years. 

Looking forward, new estimates from the University Research Center and the state economist predict little change in employment for 2026 and a little growth in 2027 in Mississippi and nationally. 

According to the center, employment in Mississippi grew an average of 1.3% each year from 2021 to 2025. It predicts that employment will decrease by an average of 0.1% each year between 2026 and 2030. 

The state GDP follows similar patterns and predictions with growth slowing from 2.5% in the previous five years to 1.3% forecast over the next five.

Miller said that while it’s a downshift, the state remains a little ahead of where it was with GDP prior to the pandemic. These forecasts reflect some continued economic uncertainty in regards to tariffs and the ongoing war in Iran. 

Golden Triangle LINK

The Golden Triangle LINK, a regional partnership between Oktibbeha, Lowndes and Clay counties, has been nationally lauded for bringing new companies and economic development to northeast Mississippi.

But Oktibbeha County is reassessing its relationship with the regional economic development organization. In June, the Oktibbeha Board of Supervisors served the LINK a two-year notice that it could terminate its contract in 2028. 

The Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors and Starkville Mayor Lynn Spruill have expressed concerns over the LINK’s leadership turnover during the past year and less development being brought to Oktibbeha. In August of  2025, the LINK abruptly fired longtime CEO Joe Max Higgins, citing “workplace behavior and speech.” His successor, who was brought in from outside the organization, stayed less than four months. 

The organization is now led by Meryl Fisackerly who previously served as the LINK’s chief operating officer. At a July 13 meeting, Fisackerly talked to the board about the challenges and opportunities in the Oktibbeha County, and the board president expressed optimism about moving forward. He also clarified that the board was not upset with the LINK but rather was taking “an opportunity to have a conversation.”

Other news:

• Aluminum Dynamics is investing $200M in Lowndes County to build a recycled aluminum slab plant. The company has already invested $2 billion on an aluminum rolling plant in the county. 
• A new tenant has signed a lease for the former Levi’s building in Gluckstadt. MEI Industrial Solutions provides industrial services such as rigging and machinery moving. The Levi’s distribution center operated from 1981 until Deember 2024, and has sat vacant since. 
• Some say that as goes Jackson, so goes Mississippi. If so, there are some positive signs in downtown Jackson. Brunini, Grantham, Grower & Hewes, one of the state’s largest law firms, renewed its lease in downtown for 15 years. A new collaboration between three Mississippi universities and Downtown Jackson Partners will give students an opportunity to work on projects tied to downtown’s revitalization from a studio close to the Governor’s Mansion.
• Siemens Energy broke ground on a new $300 million factory in Rankin County where it will manufacture high-voltage switchgears that are used on electric grids.
• The University of Mississippi Medical Center will take over the Greenwood Leflore Hospital on Aug. 1. The Delta hospital has faced years of financial challenges and filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.  
• SIP Manufacturing, a beverage manufacturing company, is coming to Southaven. The California-based company said it is investing $100 million to establish operations and will create 187 jobs.

In Brejenn Allen’s painting, a store sits in a field surrounded by rows of crops.

The painting’s title, “Dolla Gentral” is displayed on a distinctive yellow sign. In the expansive sky above the store in the painting, some of the clouds are made up of Dollar General receipts, twisted up and painted over. 

“The work is doing two things. It’s honoring my memories and also calling into question or creating a conversation around their business practices and their business model and how it is taking advantage of their consumers,” Allen said.

The Meridian-based artist tries to capture the Mississippi and the South that she has experienced – its people, its beauty and its contradictions. 

Her “Dolla Gentral” painting urges the viewer to think about the complex socioeconomic realities of the rural South, she said. 

A video Allen made about her painting – she sits in front of a Dollar General store and talks about how the company is often one of the few places to shop in rural areas – has already generated conversation online. 

The video has over 3,000 comments and over 1 million views across social media platforms. Some chimed in with a list of Dollar General’s controversies, including the pushing out of mom and pop stores, claims of understaffing and lack of healthy food options. Others said that if a Dollar General is the only option available to people, they should just move closer to urban areas. 

“A lot of people didn’t get it when I posted it to social media. They’re like, ‘Oh, why do you shop there? They’re terrible. They’re taking advantage of you,’” the artist said. “We have to shop there. People are not choosing to shop there because that’s the best place for them. They’re shopping there because that’s the only option.”

A Dollar General in the middle of a field is a familiar sight to Allen and others in rural towns across the country. Allen’s family moved to the small town of Porterville from Indiana when she was 10 years old. The town didn’t have a grocery store so her family would shop at the local Dollar General when they didn’t want to make the long drive to a larger town. She has fond memories of going to the local Dollar General with her dad where he would buy snacks and ice cream sandwiches for her and her siblings. 

Over the past few years, Dollar General has paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits claiming price gouging and for worker safety violations. 

A 2024 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that when a new dollar store opens, employment and sales at local, independent grocery stores falls. And the drop was larger and longer lasting in rural areas. 

Dollar General has close to 600 stores in Mississippi, and in 2023, the state had three dollar stores for every 10,000 people, the highest rate in the country according to an analysis by Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

“There’s a lot of Dollar Generals and people see them without really thinking about it. But then when Ms. Allen put that piece together, it made people pause,” said Garry Brown, the owner of The Patton House and Gallery. 

The Patton House is one of the oldest homes in Jackson and now functions as an art gallery and community space. Allen’s work was recently displayed at the house as part of an exhibit called “Back Home Down South” alongside that of fellow artist Christy Meshe as they explored their shared Mississippi roots. 

“I think that piece spoke to what America’s going through right now. I think it’s going to ride the wave. It’s a rockstar like she is,” Brown said. 

Another of Allen’s paintings in the exhibit captures two people in front of an abandoned Meridian gas station selling “white dirt.” Eating white clay, especially to satisfy cravings from pica and-or pregnancy, is a practice found throughout the American South and across the globe. But researchers caution that consuming white clay over a prolonged period can lead to iron deficient anemia and other side effects. For Allen, the piece captures a very Southern tradition and also honors the entrepreneurship, labor and drive of Mississippians. 

“I wanted it to feel inviting to people that aren’t from here, but also representative to people that are from here. So if you’re from here, I want you to feel like, oh, that’s my home girl. She really gets it. And if you’re not from here, to be like, OK, I have a little bit better of an understanding of what Mississippi is like,” Allen said.

The three dimensional texture of the sunset in her painting “The Speedy Cash” reaches out to the viewer, inviting them into the world of the painting. It shows a payday loan store – another ubiquitous feature in poor, rural Mississippi – beneath a vibrant sky, its neon lights glowing.  

Payday loan or check cashing stores offer short term loans often without requiring credit reports or credit scores. They promise a quick way to get cash in emergency situations and are used by millions of Americans each year. However, critics say that the high interest rates, fees and industry practices are predatory, and are often used to cover people’s basic expenses. At one time, Mississippi had the highest number of payday loan stores per capita. 

“I’ve had to get a loan. So how does this circle back to my own experience with loan places and how I paid my loans off and how I’m in a place now to be able to make work about the places that I used to be?” Allen said.

With support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Foundation for the Mid South, she will continue to work on a series about check cashing businesses and their role in the Delta. 

“It’s filling a need even if it’s taking advantage of people in that specific moment. It’s tough, and I’m trying to capture that tension” Allen said. 

“I don’t think we should not paint something or not document it just because you think it has something negative attached to it. Because everybody has their own experience connected,” Allen said.

Among the criticism on social media over her Dollar General piece, many more people commented that they saw their own experience reflected in the painting. Allen says that’s one of the reasons she tries to capture Mississippi in her art.

“Our people and our story are something worth preserving and sharing,” Allen said. 

On Thursday, Allen was named South Art’s 2026 Mississippi Fellow for Visual Arts and she will compete for the Southern Prize for Visual Arts.

 As part of the fellowship, some of Allen’s work, including “Dolla Gentral,” will be displayed at the Western Carolina Fine Art Museum in Cullowhee, North Carolina.

Two-time cancer survivor Sherri Reeves knew she wouldn’t be able to keep her health insurance this year when her first bill arrived in the mail in January. 

Reeves’ health insurance premium increased five-fold — jumping from about $100 to $500 a month — for 2026. The 62-year old retired teacher from Lexington made the difficult decision to drop her coverage.

“I couldn’t afford that and my living situation, and my day-to-day,” Reeves told Mississippi Today. 

Reeves is one of thousands of Mississippians who chose not to stay enrolled in an Affordable Care Act health plan this year after enhanced federal tax credits, which made health insurance more affordable for 22 million Americans, expired in December. Active enrollment in the plans fell by about 70,000 people in Mississippi between February 2025 and February 2026, a nearly 25% drop, according to new federal data.

Health policy experts say the expiration of the enhanced subsidies has hit adults nearing retirement age especially hard. Because insurers can charge people in their 60s premiums three times higher than those in their 20s, many older adults saw some of the steepest price increases this year without the income-based subsidies. As a result, some older adults have dropped their coverage entirely, while others have chosen to delay care, opt for more restrictive coverage or tighten their budgets. They are more likely to have chronic health conditions that make going without insurance especially risky.

“Older adults are less buffered from those price increases,” said Lynne Cotter, a senior health policy research manager for the health policy research organization KFF’s ACA program. “And they’re going to feel them fully, which means that they might have to make other hard choices about how they spend their money.” 

Congress first authorized the expanded subsidies in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mississippi was one of the states that benefitted the most from the increased federal support. Between 2020 and 2025, the number of people enrolled in ACA marketplace plans increased by about 240,000. During the same period, the rate of people without insurance — one of the highest in the country — dropped by over 65,000.

Mississippi saw one of the largest increases in marketplace coverage in part because state lawmakers, for over a decade, have chosen not to expand Medicaid. Roughly two-thirds of the people who initially enrolled in marketplace coverage this year would meet the annual income eligibility requirement for Medicaid — between about $16,000 and $22,000 for a single person — had the state opted to expand coverage.

With the enhanced subsidies now gone, marketplace premiums for people renewing their coverage more than doubled on average, according to KFF. About 2.6 million fewer Americans were actively enrolled in plans in February compared to the same time the previous year. The Trump administration has attributed much of the decline to its crackdown on fraudulent enrollments. 

Adults aged 50 to 64 made up about one-fifth of the Mississippians who chose a marketplace plan during open enrollment in 2026, according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data.

After dropping her coverage in January, Reeves went without health insurance for five months before she discovered she could gain coverage through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs because she serves as a caregiver for a veteran family member. While the plan does not have a monthly premium, it also does not cover appointments with all of her existing doctors and has higher copays for care. 

To afford her care, she has delayed doctor’s appointments to spread out costs and enrolled in payment plans. Before this year, she said, she was not used to owing doctors money.

“It’s been going through my brain about going back to work part time,” said Reeves, who retired in 2016 after she received her second breast cancer diagnosis because it was difficult to undergo treatment while working full time as a teacher. “I’m really thinking about it seriously.” 

She is one of thousands of Americans with serious health concerns who faced difficult choices due to rising insurance costs. Last year, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network found in a survey of cancer patients and survivors that three out of four would not be able to afford a comprehensive health plan without the extension of the enhanced premium tax credits. A quarter said they were likely to become uninsured, and a third said they would switch to a plan with a lower monthly premium but higher out-of-pocket costs. 

“The motivation to stay enrolled is very high when you’re experiencing a life-altering diagnosis such as cancer,” said Lucy Dagneau, senior director of state and local campaigns for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. 

Michael Minor is the executive director of Hernando-based Oak Hill Regional Community Development Corp., which runs Get Covered Mississippi, a statewide, faith-based coalition that has worked for over a decade to help connect Mississippians to coverage options through the marketplace, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program. Older adults make up a significant portion of the people the organization assists, Minor said. 

He said this year, he’s received more calls than in years past from people who enrolled in what he calls “skimpy plans,” or those with lower premiums that may not cover people with preexisting conditions or ACA required services, such as maternity, prescription or mental health services. He said staff have also heard from older adults who had to go back to work or opt for more restrictive coverage. 

While many marketplace enrollees still qualify for smaller federal tax credits, others with incomes at or above 400% of the federal poverty level lost eligibility entirely. These people must now pay the full cost of their health insurance premiums without federal support. 

Nationwide, adults ages 50 to 64 make up about half of the enrollees affected by this change. This is because many older adults are at their peak income, Cotter said. Combined with higher insurance costs due to age, this creates what Cotter described as a “double whammy” of sharply increasing healthcare costs for some older adults. 

Laura Tedder, a 63-year-old living in Raymond, worked as an attorney before she chose to retire early after her husband died. She purchased a health insurance plan through the marketplace. In 2025, it cost about $550 a month. 

Her plan now costs about $1,500 a month because her income is just above the threshold for federal assistance. She said she spends roughly a third or a fourth of her fixed income on healthcare costs and is counting down the months until she turns 65 and becomes eligible for Medicare. She has 16 left to go. 

To make ends meet, Tedder has sold personal items, stopped eating out, avoided buying brand names at the grocery store and limited outings to avoid paying for gas. She has delayed doctor’s appointments and has been putting off taking her dog to the vet for three months.

“I’ve cut everything as much as I possibly can,” she said. “I’m hanging on by my toenails.” 

The loss of enhanced premium tax credits is expected to continue to drive up costs not only for older adults but also for younger people, as healthier enrollees leave the marketplace and leave behind a smaller, sicker pool of participants who are more costly to insure.

This effect is already evident in preliminary rate filings for 2027, Cotter said. ACA marketplace insurers have proposed a median premium increase of 14%, according to a KFF analysis of filings from 16 states and Washington, D.C. 

Higher premiums will have ripple effects across the healthcare system, increasing costs for patients, insurers and hospitals, which are required under federal law to provide emergency care regardless of a patient’s insurance status, said Khaylah Scott, program manager for the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program.

“Everyone has a higher price to pay,” she said. 

WASHINGTON — One Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer has been referred for discipline over a use of force incident since the beginning of the Trump administration, said Democratic members of the House Homeland Security Committee after a briefing with ICE officials Wednesday about body cameras, vehicle stops and training.

The closed-door briefing for committee members comes in the wake of two shootings in which ICE officers shot and killed two immigrants that they were trying to arrest, raising concerns over the agency’s tactics at a time that it is ratcheting up its arrests.

The shootings in Maine and Houston over the span of a week have led to fierce criticism that there’s not enough oversight of the agency key to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched the crackdown after retaking office, and in the Maine shooting, family members of the ICE officer who opened fire say he had a history of violent behavior and never should have been given a badge and gun.

Rep. Seth Magaziner, a Democrat from Rhode Island, said they were told during the briefing that there have been 56 complaints of excessive force against ICE officers; 32 were cleared, and one was referred for disciplinary action. Magaziner said they were told no discipline had yet been handed out. The rest of the incidents are still under investigation, he said.

“It just defies belief that an agency of 20,000 plus officers with all of the chaos that we’ve seen over the last year and a half through the surges and civilians being injured and killed, that no one would be found to have violated use of force with the exception of possibly one person,” Magaziner said.

ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. Department leadership has promised to hold officers responsible found to have violated department policy. But they’ve also defended their officers, saying they are operating in a dangerous environment where they’re constantly being attacked and doxxed.

The numbers mark an increase since February when then-acting director Todd Lyons said during Senate testimony that ICE had opened 37 investigations for excessive force; 18 of those were closed, 19 were still pending and one referred for “further action,” Lyons said.

The ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said the ICE officials could not discuss the shootings in Maine or Houston, as those are both open investigations. Thompson, who said he came away with more questions than answers from the briefing, said he wanted to know who investigates use of force incidents: “Sometimes they said the FBI, sometimes they said HSI. Sometimes they said another entity.”

The officials said they were going to retrain officers who had gone through a shorter curriculum that was in place last fall, Thompson said. In June, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the agency would be increasing the amount of training for new officers starting this month.

Thompson said he pressed for answers about how many officers had been brought back for retraining and how they’re being retrained but couldn’t get any clarity.

Thompson said he and the committee chair, Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., will follow up with ICE with a list of questions.

Garbarino said he appreciated ICE briefing the members.

“Today was an important opportunity for Members to receive timely answers on the status of body camera deployment for law enforcement in the field, training and vetting standards and requirements, and current guidance on the use of vehicle stops as part of immigration enforcement,” Garbarino said in a statement.

When it comes to vehicle stops, Magaziner said they were told that current guidance to ICE officers is to only do them when there’s no other alternative, and they’re supposed to use lights and sirens. But, Magaziner said, that guidance has only been passed along verbally to the staff as opposed to a written directive.

Both the shootings in Maine and Houston involved shootings of immigrants who were in moving vehicles, raising questions about ICE’s training and policies surrounding how it tries to apprehend people when they’re driving.

After the Maine killing, Trump administration officials told ICE officers to suspend most vehicle stops. But the next day, Trump announced on social media that he wanted ICE to keep doing them.

TAMPA, Fla. — Unearthed at Ole Miss after an offseason filled with tales of betrayal, unkept promises and watching college football’s ugly underbelly tearing at the fabric of an institution came this surprise from the new coach there, Pete Golding:

“I have no ill will toward Coach Kiffin,” Golding said Wednesday at SEC Media Days.

Golding was the up-and-coming defensive coordinator who was asked to pick up the pieces when his old boss, Lane Kiffin, abruptly left for LSU for a seven-year, $91 million deal just as the Rebels were about to embark on their first trip to the College Football Playoff last season.

Partly thanks to the fact that the coach had two of the game’s most explosive players in quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and running back Kewan Lacy, Golding racked up two wins, over Tulane and Georgia, and almost a third.

That made Mississippi’s decision to give him a five-year contract right after Kiffin’s departure look like a stroke of genius. It also gave Golding a spot at the podium in Tampa, where he opened up and became an early favorite to “win” the 38th version of the SEC’s annual preseason football gabfest.

“It’s the ex, right? There’s always going to be the history,” said Golding, who is married with three children. “Do you have an ex? Are you married? Well, if you do get married and you have an ex that your wife knows about, like, she doesn’t ever end; she’s never dead. She’s always going to get brought up, and so that’s kind of where it is right now. That’s always going to be there a little bit, which is fun to a certain degree.”

Fun, indeed. And it’s no sure thing that Ole Miss is going to take a step back from last year’s 13-2 record and its trip to the national semifinals just because its celebrity coach, Kiffin, has moved west. (By the way, Ole Miss hosts LSU on Sept. 19.)

Chambliss is returning off a 3,900-yard, 22-touchdown season and a win in court, where he was granted a sixth year of eligibility. Lacy’s 73-yard touchdown run in Mississippi’s CFP loss to Miami capped a playoff stretch that identified him as a first-tier threat. The Rebels have launched Heisman Trophy campaigns for both.

“You know they’re really good players,” Golding said. “I’m not going to talk to you about that. Y’all already know that.”

Golding flicks away questions about tampering allegations

Golding was equally colorful about tampering, a topic the Rebels were drawn into this offseason when Clemson’s Dabo Sweeney accused Ole Miss of unethically luring linebacker Luke Ferelli, who had barely moved from Cal to Death Valley when he suddenly bailed for Mississippi.

Without getting into details of the Ferelli affair — which served as a rare example of a coach calling out another coach for tampering — Golding pointed to one of the key problems about the transfer portal, saying it’s only natural a player would want to know he has a place to go before he leaves his current school. Add agents into the mix, who can easily circumvent rules that prohibit contacting the player, and chaos ensues.

“By design it’s put a lot of people in bad positions,” Golding said. “Let’s not act like recruiting in college football for the last 100 years is the most moral thing.”

Golding is a new homeowner and it’s Kiffin’s old house

When it comes to ethics and morals, though, the conversation down South seems to funnel back to Ole Miss these days. And Golding and Kiffin.

Kiffin’s move, the pundits say, showed college sports’ money-grubbing opportunistic side at its worst. The much-debated bill circulating in Congress intended to regulate the industry includes what’s known as a “Lane Kiffin Rule” that restricts when coaches can leave for new jobs.

It has made for great headlines. Golding’s reaction to it — golden, as well. And in a sign that all may truly be forgiven, ESPN reported that not long after Kiffin bailed for Baton Rouge Golding bought his house in Oxford.

He said he and Kiffin text frequently, and there’s a friendship there that goes beyond coaching.

“I can separate the two. Some people can’t,” Golding said. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I don’t care, all right? Like I told an Ole Miss group the other day, ‘In 2021, if you said you could look in 2025 and you’re about to be 11-1 and go to the playoff, would you take it if your coach was leaving?’ Hell yeah. You would. Everybody won from it. It’s OK.”