OurTupelo

These weary eyes watched football — all or parts of four games — morning, noon and night Saturday. I have some thoughts.

First, this: What does it say about college football when you watch game after game for nearly 12 hours, finally sleep, and your dreams are punctuated by TV timeouts?

It says, I believe, there are too dang many.

Other thoughts:

First up was San Jose State-Texas, one of any number of early season games when the visiting team, playing for a huge paycheck, is overmatched. San Jose State surely was. The attraction, of course, was Arch Manning, the young Texas quarterback with so many Mississippi connections. 

Young Manning was coming off his first meaningful college start — at defending national champion Ohio State, no less. That’s an incredibly daunting assignment for anyone, no matter pedigree and ability. Manning’s performance against the Buckeyes was uneven, as his stats showed: 17 of 30 passing for 170 yards, a touchdown and an interception, plus 38 yards rushing on 10 keeps. He showed both promise and at times uncertainty.

Fast forward to Saturday: After a slow start, Manning completed 19 of 30 for 295 yards and four touchdowns with one interception. At one point in the first half, he threw four touchdowns in slightly over five minutes of playing time. He ran for another touchdown, looking forever like his grandfather when he tucked the ball and took off. He missed some throws but hit far more than he missed.

Bottom line: He will only get better and better, as any young quarterback does with experience.

I didn’t even have to switch channels for the next leg of my football marathon: Ole Miss-Kentucky, a hard-fought 30-23 Ole Miss road victory.

Several takeaways:

• Similarly to Manning, Rebels quarterback Austin Simmons showed both promise and plenty room for improvement. Two interceptions helped dig the Rebels into a 10-0 hole on the road. But Simmons, displaying much poise for a 19-year-old, then helped them dig out of it, finishing 13 for 24 with the two interceptions and no touchdowns. Expect him to steadily improve.

• Meanwhile, running back Kewan Lacy, a sophomore transfer from Missouri, looks like the real deal. The Dallas native showed vision, speed and power in running for 138 yards and a touchdown on 28 carries.

• My biggest concern for Ole Miss was who was going to replace defensive tackle Walter Nolan, the NFL first rounder who was such a disruptive presence last season. Zxavian Harris, the Canton native and former Germantown standout, appears to be that dude. He was everywhere for the Rebels Saturday, a 6-foot-8, 330-pound force. His fourth quarter sack was one of the game’s biggest plays.

• Kudos also to backup quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, a transfer from Division II Ferris State, who filled in admirably and then some after Simmons suffered a fourth quarter injury. Playing before more partisans than he probably ever did in a full season at Ferris State, Chambliss led the Rebs to a game-clinching field goal on fourth quarter drive. His performance in the clutch was huge.

Don’t know what it is about Kentucky, but the Wildcats seem to play their best against Ole Miss. Bottom line: The 2025 Rebels did what the ’24 Rebels couldn’t, which is survive Kentucky.

Two TVs were necessitated to watch the second half of Ole Miss-Kentucky and the first half of Jackson State-Southern Miss, just the fourth time in history the two Mississippi schools have played one another. The Golden Eagles’ final winning margin, 38-20, is no indication whatsoever of how competitive this game was. Jackson State competed on even terms for most of the contest. T.C. Taylor’s Tigers appear a team that will once again dominate the SWAC and would be competitive in the Sun Belt. 

And Southern Miss, for the second straight week, appeared much improved in its first season under Charles Huff. Transfers from Huff’s Sun Belt champion Marshall team of a year ago were largely responsible for USM’s hard-won victory. Most notably, quarterback Braylon Braxton gives the Eagles a winner at the most important position on the field. Braxton threw for 214 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions, and he ran for 20 more yards. He will give the Eagles a fighting chance to win every remaining game on the schedule. On the flip side, USM could lose to any team left on its schedule. 

Jackson State battled the Eagles evenly on both sides of the line of scrimmage. Southern Miss was plus-two in turnovers — and blocked a kick for a touchdown — and that was the difference.

A crowd of more than 32,000, fairly evenly divided, attended a well-played game that, clearly, should happen more often.

We save the best for last: Mississippi State’s scintillating 24-20 victory over No. 12 Arizona State. We must wait until later in the season to know whether Arizona State, a playoff team a year ago, is as good as projected. This we do know: Jeff Lebby’s Bulldogs are a whole lot better than almost everyone thought they would be. State, winner of just two games in 2024, will be favored to be 4-0 headed into a Sept. 27 home game with Tennessee.

The Bulldogs had looked much improved a week earlier in a 34-17 road victory over Southern Miss. They proved it a week later, taking a 17-0 lead against the Sun Devils and then fighting off a furious second half rally.

Lebby dipped heavily into the transfer portal and spent millions of NIL dollars to fix what was clearly broken. All indications are that he spent wisely. It helps immensely that Blake Shapen, a terrific, resourceful player, is back and healthy at quarterback. State would not have been 2-10 last year if Shapen had remained fit throughout.

The Bulldogs benefitted immensely from a raucous, cowbell-clanging crowd that had Arizona State unnerved from the get-go.

“Awesome environment,” ASU coach Kenny Dillingham said afterward. “They were loud, really loud, but that’s what college football is supposed to be.”

Dillingham’s team had dominated the second half, taking its first and only lead, 20-17, on a chip shot field goal with 98 seconds remaining.

State needed only 68 of those ticks to respond on Shapen’s 58-yard touchdown strike to Brenen Thompson. Given the situation, it seemed hard to comprehend the Devils did not have a safety playing deep in the middle of the field on the third and nine play. But they didn’t, and they paid dearly.

Thus, it seemed the Bulldogs and their 50,000-plus fans experienced an emotional release of the frustrations of the death of a coaching legend and two long seasons of subsequent futility in a goalpost-dismantling postgame celebration. 

Yes, and a long, but eventful day in Mississippi football was done.

It wasn’t on TV, but Delta State’s 41-9 victory over North Greenville (S.C.) University deserves mention. That’s because, with the victory, Delta State coach Todd Cooley becomes the winningest coach in DSU’s 95 years of football. Cooley, the 19th coach in DSU history, has won 77 games and lost 46 as coach of the Statesmen. He passes the late Horace McCool, for whom the DSU football stadium is named, who was 76-58 over 13 seasons.

Tommy Duff, a billionaire likely candidate for Mississippi governor, again stopped short of offering many specifics on his platform at a recent speech in Rankin County.

READ MORE: Tommy Duff tries to stake out ‘outsider’ identity in first political speech

Sen. Scott DeLano, a Republican from Biloxi, says Mississippi has done little to help protect South Mississippians from storm damages and residents statewide from rising insurance costs in the 20 years since Hurricane Katrina. He says Mississippi lags behind other Gulf states, in part, because the state insurance commissioner has not pushed for a robust mitigation program. DeLano also addresses his recent social media post blasting a state Republican think tank leader’s comments that many viewed as racist.

The 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina slamming the Mississippi Gulf Coast has come and gone, rightfully garnering considerable media attention.

But still undercovered in the 20th anniversary saga of the storm that made landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and caused unprecedented destruction is the role that a worm farmer from northeast Mississippi played in helping to revitalize the Coast.

House Speaker Billy McCoy, who died in 2019, was a worm farmer from the Prentiss, not Alcorn County, side of Rienzi — about as far away from the Gulf Coast as one could be in Mississippi.

McCoy grew other crops, but a staple of his operations was worm farming. 

Early after the storm, the House speaker made a point of touring the Coast and visiting as many of the House members who lived on the Coast as he could to check on them.

But it was his action in the forum he loved the most — the Mississippi House — that is credited with being key to the Coast’s recovery.

Gov. Haley Barbour had called a special session about a month after the storm to take up multiple issues related to Katrina and the Gulf Coast’s survival and revitalization. The issue that received the most attention was Barbour’s proposal to remove the requirement that the casinos on the Coast be floating in the Mississippi Sound.

Katrina wreaked havoc on the floating casinos, and many operators said they would not rebuild if their casinos had to be in the Gulf waters. That was a crucial issue since the casinos were a major economic engine on the Coast, employing an estimated 30,000 in direct and indirect jobs.

It is difficult to fathom now the controversy surrounding Barbour’s proposal to allow the casinos to locate on land next to the water. Mississippi’s casino industry that was birthed with the early 1990s legislation was still new and controversial.

Various religious groups and others had continued to fight and oppose the casino industry and had made opposition to the expansion of gambling a priority.

Opposition to casinos and expansion of casinos was believed to be especially strong in rural areas, like those found in McCoy’s beloved northeast Mississippi. It was many of those rural areas that were the homes to rural white Democrats — now all but extinct in the Legislature but at the time still a force in the House.

So, voting in favor of casino expansion had the potential of being costly for what was McCoy’s base of power: the rural white Democrats.

Couple that with the fact that the Democratic-controlled House had been at odds with the Republican Barbour on multiple issues ranging from education funding to health care since Barbour was inaugurated in January 2004.

Barbour set records for the number of special sessions called by the governor. Those special sessions often were called to try to force the Democratic-controlled House to pass legislation it killed during the regular session.

The September 2005 special session was Barbour’s fifth of the year. For context, current Gov. Tate Reeves has called four in his nearly six years as governor.

There was little reason to expect McCoy to do Barbour’s bidding and lead the effort in the Legislature to pass his most controversial proposal: expanding casino gambling.

But when Barbour ally Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, who presided over the Senate, refused to take up the controversial bill, Barbour was forced to turn to McCoy.

The former governor wrote about the circumstances in an essay he penned on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina for Mississippi Today Ideas.

“The Senate leadership, all Republicans, did not want to go first in passing the onshore casino law,” Barbour wrote. “So, I had to ask Speaker McCoy to allow it to come to the House floor and pass. He realized he should put the Coast and the state’s interests first. He did so, and the bill passed 61-53, with McCoy voting no.

“I will always admire Speaker McCoy, often my nemesis, for his integrity in putting the state first.”

Incidentally, former Rep. Bill Miles of Fulton, also in northeast Mississippi, was tasked by McCoy with counting, not whipping votes, to see if there was enough support in the House to pass the proposal. Not soon before the key vote, Miles said years later, he went to McCoy and told him there were more than enough votes to pass the legislation so he was voting no and broached the idea of the speaker also voting no.

It is likely that McCoy would have voted for the bill if his vote was needed.

Despite his no vote, the Biloxi Sun Herald newspaper ran a large photo of McCoy and hailed the Rienzi worm farmer as a hero for the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning board of trustees is seeking proposals from executive search firms to assist with Jackson State University’s president search. 

The state’s college governing board which oversees and selects the historically Black university’s leaders said Wednesday that the firm will help identify and recruit candidates for the search process. The news comes three weeks after officials made public plans to launch a search committee, where all 12 trustee members will serve. 

Marcus Thompson resigned as university president in May, the third person to depart from that post in seven years. The state’s college governing board did not explain why he or his two predecessors left the post nor has it shared with the public details about its next steps for picking a permanent leader for the school. 

Alumni and supporters of the historically Black university have raised questions to the board about its opaque process, calling for a fair, transparent national leadership search for the university.  

The IHL board’s formal request for proposals can be viewed on its website. The deadline for submission is Sept. 12. 

In 2023, IHL hired Academic Search, an executive headhunting firm, for $115,000 after Thomas Hudson, Thompson’s predecessor, resigned. The board also paid the firm $85,000 for the Delta State search. 

The initial contract with Academic Search for Delta State was $130,000, but it was amended after the board cut the search short and chose Daniel Ennis. The board also used the firm for University of Southern Mississippi search. 

Founded in 1877, Jackson State, Mississippi’s largest HBCU, is located in the state’s capital city. The university serves more than 6,000 students with 520 faculty and offers 90 academic programs.

NEW ALBANY — After five hours in a courtroom where attendees struggled to find standing room, the Mississippi Public Service Commission voted to petition a judge to put the Holly Springs Utility Department into a receivership.

The PSC held the hearing Thursday about a half hour drive west from Holly Springs in New Albany, known as “The Fair and Friendly City.” Throughout the proceedings, members of the PSC, its consultants and Holly Springs officials emphasized there was no precedent for what was going on.

The city of Holly Springs has provided electricity through a contract with the Tennessee Valley Authority since 1935. It serves about 12,000 customers, most of whom live outside the city limits. While current and past city officials say the utility’s issues are a result of financial negligence over many years, the service failures hit a boiling point during a 2023 ice storm where customers saw outages that lasted roughly two weeks as well as power surges that broke their appliances.

Those living in the service area say those issues still occur periodically, in addition to infrequent and inaccurate billing.

“I moved to Marshall County in 2020 as a place for retirement for my husband and I, and it’s been a nightmare for five years,” customer Monica Wright told the PSC at Thursday’s hearing. “We’ve replaced every electronic device we own, every appliance, our well pump and our septic pumps. It has financially broke us.

“We’re living on prayers and promises, and we need your help today.”

Another customer, Roscoe Sitgger of Michigan City, said he recently received a series of monthly bills between $500 and $600.

Following a scathing July report by Silverpoint Consulting that found Holly Springs is “incapable” of running the utility, the three-member PSC voted unanimously on Thursday to determine the city isn’t providing “reasonably adequate service” to its customers. That language comes from a 2024 state bill that gave the commission authority to investigate the utility.

The bill gives a pathway for temporarily removing the utility’s control from the city, allowing the PSC to petition a chancery judge to place the department into the hands of a third party. The PSC voted unanimously to do just that.

Thursday’s hearing gave the commission its first chance to direct official questions at Holly Springs representatives. Newly elected Mayor Charles Terry, utility General Manager Wayne Jones and City Attorney John Keith Perry fielded an array of criticism from the PSC. In his rebuttal, Perry suggested that any solution — whether a receivership or selling the utility — would take time to implement, and requested 24 months for the city to make incremental improvements. Audience members shouted, “No!” as Perry spoke.

“We are in a crisis now,” responded Northern District Public Service Commissioner Chris Brown. “To try to turn the corner in incremental steps is going to be almost impossible.”

It’s unclear how much it would cost to fix the department’s long list of ailments. In 2023, TVPPA — a nonprofit that represents TVA’s local partners — estimated Holly Springs needs over $10 million just to restore its rights-of-way, and as much as $15 million to fix its substations. The department owes another $10 million in debt to TVA as well as its contractors, Brown said.

“The city is holding back the growth of the county,” said Republican Sen. Neil Whaley of Potts Camp, who passionately criticized the Holly Springs officials sitting a few feet away. “You’ve got to do better, you’ve got to realize you’re holding these people hostage, and it’s not right and it’s not fair… They are being represented by people who do not care about them as long as the bill is paid.”

In determining next steps, Silverpoint Principal Stephanie Vavro told the PSC it may be hard to find someone willing to serve as receiver for the utility department, make significant investments and then hand the keys back to the city. The 2024 bill, Vavro said, doesn’t limit options to a receivership, and alternatives could include condemning the utility or finding a nearby utility to buy the service area.

Answering questions from Central District Public Service Commissioner De’Keither Stamps, Vavro said it’s unclear how much the department is worth, adding an engineer’s study would be needed to come up with a number.

Terry, who reminded the PSC he’s only been Holly Springs’ mayor for just over 60 days, said there’s no way the city can afford the repair costs on its own. The city’s median income is about $47,000, roughly $8,000 less than the state’s as a whole.

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.

Throughout my career in the Marine Corps, logistics has always underpinned every operation — from training exercises to overseas combat tours to planning for future conflicts. Weapons, material, fuel and other supplies that our troops rely upon are delivered across thousands of miles of ocean, principally by ship.

I can assure you, the 70-ton M1A1 tanks I commanded in Fallujah in 2007-08 did not arrive by cargo plane. These vital war supplies, along with troop transport, are delivered by the U.S. Merchant Marine.

Not to be confused with the Marine Corps of which I served, the Merchant Marine is composed of civilian mariners and both commercial and federal-owned ships. In peacetime, the Merchant Marine carries domestic and international cargo. During conflict, the mariners become a critical component of the military logistics system. Unfortunately, the Merchant Marine is facing mounting challenges that threaten its ability to fulfill this role.

Maritime commerce plays an essential role in the global economy and the economic security of the United States.

Compared to China, our principal maritime competitor, the U.S. Merchant Marine fleet is smaller and is rapidly aging beyond its service limits. Compounding this issue is a dwindling number of shipyards, a shrinking shipbuilding workforce and a significant shortfall of qualified civilian mariners. This erosion poses a direct threat to the readiness and resilience of our defense and commercial supply chains.

The University of Southern Mississippi, however, is uniquely positioned to help address this challenge. With a strong affiliation with the maritime industry, the proximity of its Gulf Coast campus to naval bases, and the state’s only ocean engineering program, USM could take a transformative step by establishing the Mississippi Maritime Academy.

Civilian mariners are vital to the nation’s sealift capacity, which ensures the rapid transportation of military and humanitarian supplies during crises. The Merchant Marine also supports global commerce, with roughly 90% of world trade moving by sea. However, the U.S. pool of licensed mariners is aging, with many nearing retirements, and the recruitment pipeline is not keeping pace.

The Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) and the Department of Defense have repeatedly warned of this national security risk.

In response, MARAD published its “Mariner Workforce Strategic Plan” in 2023 (revised in 2025) and has designated 32 Centers of Excellence for Domestic Maritime Workforce Training and Education to help prepare students for various roles in the maritime industry. Notably, two of the inaugural centers are Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and Hinds Community College — evidence that Mississippi is already contributing to maritime workforce development.

Currently, new merchant marine officers are sourced through the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, as well as six state maritime academies in Texas, California, Michigan, Maine, Massachusetts and New York. These state academies receive limited federal assistance through the Navy-sponsored Strategic Sealift Midshipman Program (SSMP), as well as training vessels to support their unique licensing and curriculum requirements. Similar to the traditional Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC), the SSMP is tailored to develop a cadre of officers to operate merchant ships as naval auxiliaries and are commissioned as Strategic Sealift Officers in the Navy Reserve.

Yet even these combined efforts are not enough to meet the nation’s mariner needs. This poses a risk not only to the commercial sector, but to the Merchant Marine role as a military logistics reserve in conflict.

USM’s Gulf Coast campus offers a compelling solution. Its marine and ocean engineering programs provide a technical foundation that aligns perfectly with the needs of the maritime industry. Additionally, its proximity to key Gulf Coast naval installations, such as Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport and Naval Air Station Pensacola, presents opportunities for collaboration with the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard.

Furthermore, the Gulf Coast region supports a robust maritime industry, including shipbuilding, port operations and offshore energy. According to the Mississippi Development Authority, the maritime industries represent 22% of the local workforce in Mississippi’s coastal counties. Collaborations with these industries could enhance practical training opportunities for midshipmen.

This proposal is not without historical precedent. During World War II, the Merchant Marine Cadet Corps trained thousands of mariners at Pass Christian, Mississippi. The Pass Christian Cadet School, home of the Gulf Coast Cadet Corps, made a pivotal contribution to the Allied forces’ sealift capacity during the war. However, it was shuttered in 1950.

Reviving that legacy at USM by designating the Gulf Coast campus as the Mississippi Maritime Academy would honor Mississippi’s past while answering a strategic need.

Establishing a state maritime academy at USM would require coordination among the university, industry partners, state legislators and MARAD.

The Maritime Academy Act of 1958 outlines federal support eligibility, including requirements like mandatory Coast Guard licensing exams before graduation and accepting at least 10% out-of-state students. The governor may also request the assignment of Navy, Coast Guard or Maritime Service personnel as instructors and request access to a training vessel.

USM has the location, expertise and industry partnerships to lead the way. By leveraging these existing strengths, it can help secure America’s maritime future, strengthen its regional economy and contribute meaningfully to national defense.

Now is the time to act.

Robert L. Burton is a future warfare strategist, retired Marine Corps officer and military fiction writer. A Mississippi native, born and raised in Newton County, he was commissioned from the U.S. Naval Academy and received master’s degrees from U.S. Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies, U.S. Army War College and the University of Mississippi.

Sept. 5, 1942

Charles Jackson French, a 22-year-old mess attendant aboard the USS Gregory, rescued 15 sailors during the Battle of Guadalcanal.

Four years before the U.S. entered World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served as an attendant — one of the only positions open to Black Americans. And when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, he reenlisted.

Nine months later, three Japanese destroyers opened fire on the USS Gregory, killing 24 and injuring many others. When French saw injured shipmates drifting toward enemy fire, he tied a rope around his waist and dove into the dark water. He swam through the night, dragging the raft of injured shipmates through shark-infested waters. More than six hours later, a plane spotted them, and they were rescued.

French received a letter of commendation for his heroic act, but no medals.

Now his heroism is being recognized. The Naval Base in San Diego has renamed its rescue swimmer training pool after him. He has been posthumously awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, and now the Navy plans to name a destroyer after him.

French’s nephew, Roscoe Harris, called the story of his uncle “an American story. … He cared about his fellow sailors. He cared about them when the Navy was segregated. He saved those white sailors because they needed saving.”

We are still in the first week of September, and Mississippi’s largest football-playing universities all face really meaningful games Saturday. 

Let’s take a look.

Ole Miss at Kentucky, 2:30 p.m.

The 2024 Ole Miss season likely always will be remembered for what might have been. And what might have been was this: The Rebels, led by first-round NFL draft pick Jaxson Dart, should have played in the first 12-team College Football Playoffs. They were talented enough with a school record eight players taken in the NFL’s seven-round draft. That was more than the likes of Notre Dame, Clemson, Penn State, SMU, Boise State and Indiana — all teams that made the playoffs. That was also more than traditional powerhouses such as Alabama, LSU, Michigan, Florida, Southern Cal and Miami.

Of course, Ole Miss did not make the playoffs, and the 2025 Rebels on Saturday will face probably the primary reason the 2024 Rebels didn’t make it: Kentucky. In retrospect, that home defeat to Kentucky, which was a 17-point underdog, ranks as one of the biggest upsets of the 2024 college football season. After somehow defeating No. 6 Ole Miss 20-17 on Sept. 28, Kentucky lost its last six games against FBS teams. Most weren’t close. 

Defeating Kentucky on Saturday — and the Rebels are 9.5-point favorites to do so — won’t exorcise last year’s demon; however, it would be a first step toward making the playoffs this season. It also will provide a first SEC start, on the road, for Ole Miss sophomore quarterback Austin Simmons, who appears to these eyes potentially every bit as good as Dart. Yes, that is sky-high praise, but Simmons appears to have it all: the arm, the smarts, the speed. He appears to throw the football with the ease of throwing a baseball, and you can’t say that about a lot of quarterbacks. Yes, he made a couple of poor decisions in the opener against Georgia State, but he is 19 years young. Saturday should provide a big step in his maturing process.

Kentucky? Kentucky is a question mark, the case with so many college football teams in this transfer portal era. The Wildcats overhauled their squad with 24 transfers, including quarterback Zach Calzada and running back Dante Dowdell, the former Picayune superstar, who is making his third stop in three seasons of college football. Dowdell, who signed with Oregon and transferred to Nebraska as a sophomore, led Kentucky to its opening victory over Toledo with 129 yards and a touchdown on just 14 carries. Dowdell, who packs 227 pounds on his 6-foot-2 frame, will challenge the Rebels’ retooled defensive front.

Simply put, Ole Miss needs to take care of business. Stopping Dowdell and forcing Calzada to throw is the first order of that business. Calzada, making his fourth collegiate stop in his seventh year of college football, completed 10 of 23 passes for just 85 yards against Toledo.

Jackson State at Southern Miss, 4 p.m.

Southern Miss is a 7.5-point favorite, but don’t think for a second T.C. Taylor’s JSU Tigers don’t expect to win. And why wouldn’t they? The Tigers have now won 11 straight games. Meanwhile, Southern Miss has lost 11 straight. Jackson State has won those 11 straight by an average margin of 23 points. Southern Miss has lost those 11 straight by 25 points a game. At first glance, you ask yourself: How can USM be favored?

Yes, there is a difference in competition. FBS team such as Southern Miss can offer as many as 85 scholarships. JSU, which plays at the FCS level, can offer 63 scholarships, each of which can be split among multiple players. Theoretically, USM should have more depth. But then, Taylor says the Tigers are a solid two-deep at every position, and I haven’t heard Charles Huff, USM’s new head coach, say the same.

Huff has had nothing but praise this week for JSU, which defeated Huff’s alma mater, Hampton, 28-14 last Saturday. “Winning cures a lot and they have won,” Huff said. “Their players expect to win, their fan base expects to win … It’s gonna be a challenge. We need to improve quickly.”

To these eyes, Southern Miss appeared an improved team, although it was overmatched at the line of scrimmage last Saturday against Mississippi State. The biggest difference is at the quarterback position, where multi-talented Braylon Braxton should give the Golden Eagles a chance to win any game remaining on the schedule. Of course, until they prove differently, the Eagles also could lose any game remaining on the schedule, including this one. Expect a near-sellout crowd, a terrific atmosphere and a highly competitive contest. 

Arizona State at Mississippi State, 6:30 p.m.

Oddsmakers make Arizona State a 6.5-point favorite in what could be a statement game for Mississippi State. The statement? “We’re back!”

We will see. But I saw enough last Saturday to believe State is much improved over last season, especially at the line of scrimmage. State is huge — and can move — on both sides of the ball. Blake Shapen, a top-shelf quarterback, is healthy after sitting out the last eight games of 2024. Do not forget that the 24-year-old Shapen four years ago quarterbacked Baylor to a Big 12 Conference championship and was the MVP of a 21-16 championship victory over Oklahoma State. Shapen completed a record 17 straight passes in that one.

Clearly, Shapen can play, and he played well early last season in a 30-23 road loss to Arizona State. Led by irrepressible running back Cam Skattebo, who rushed for 262 yards and broke seemingly that many tackles, the Sun Devils staved off a fourth quarter State rally. Arizona State went on to an 11-victory season and the NCAA playoffs. You know what happened to State.

But a Mississippi State victory Saturday night would not shock this writer for any number of reasons, including that Skattebo, who pretty much single-handedly whipped State last year, now plays for the New York Giants. Other reasons:

• Arizona State was far from impressive in its 38-19 opening week victory over Northern Arizona.
• Arizona State is 0-2 all-time playing on the road against SEC teams and 1-6 overall against the SEC.
• State has covered the spread in its last four games against ranked teams. The Bulldogs are due to win one of those.

It’s hard to overstate how important this game is for State, mostly because of how difficult the schedule becomes down the road. Beginning Sept. 27, the Bulldogs finish the season, in order, against Tennessee, Texas A&M, Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Georgia, Missouri and Ole Miss. Good luck with that.

Reaching six victories and a bowl game would be a huge step forward for Jeff Lebby and his Bulldogs. It’ll be hard to find six without one of those coming this Saturday.

Cynthia Walker said she was 15 years old when she participated in her first ballot box review — reconciling the number of ballots with poll book entries and taking a count of everything, down to the number of rubber bands in each box.

She claimed her findings, recorded in handwritten notes on a yellow legal pad, led to a landmark election challenge for a Black supervisor 50 miles north of Jackson. The 67-year-old Yazoo City resident said she’s taken part in dozens of these examinations since then.

So when Walker saw former Hinds County Supervisor David Archie in the news in the summer of 2023, incredulous that he’d lost reelection in a smackdown by a political newcomer, she thought to herself, “I know what happened to him,” Walker told Mississippi Today. “I’m going to reach out to him.”

Two days later, Walker appeared beside Archie at a press conference outside the sheriff’s office to decry an alleged “high-tech” conspiracy involving a former election commissioner and voting machine company. She stood 5-foot, wearing a short tapered haircut, jewel dotted shades and a pastel yellow pantsuit.

“She’s a little bitty person, but she has the power of a giant coming out of her,” said Marilyn Hetrick, a 75-year-old Clinton resident, retired assistant personnel director for the city of Jackson, and one of Archie’s staunchest supporters.

Three years ago, Walker and Hetrick didn’t know each other — or the ousted supervisor, for that matter — from Adam. 

It was a curious time to become an ally of Archie, who’d become widely defined by his antics, such as a profanity-filled fit during a 2021 supervisor’s meeting. As officers removed him, he tore down the plexiglass partitions on the dias. This behavior, according to his supporters, has all been in the name of drawing attention to corruption in the county.

But the two retired women have teamed up in the last two years to fight what they call a calculated election heist. The alleged proof?

Missing voter signature books. Improperly sealed ballot boxes. Commingled election machine hard drives. A post-election Facebook message from the chair of the Democratic Executive Committee reading, “I’m f—ing David Archie on site !!!” 

This spawned a lawsuit, crafted from Hetrick’s suburban kitchen, exhibits strewn across her banquette, with Walker on speed dial from up north near the edge of the Mississippi Delta. 

“It was a radical departure from election laws. It was gross misconduct. It was illegal and immoral and disrespectful. It was voter disenfranchisement,” Walker said on the steps of the courthouse last week, Hetrick behind her.

“You just cannot ‘have it your way,’ like you’re at Burger King, when you’re processing election materials,” Walker added.

Even the harshest critics of Hinds County elections, such as former longtime Hinds County Republican Party chairman Pete Perry, say the challenge is baloney. Procedural irregularities alone do not demonstrate fraud, and they’re not likely to nullify a wide-margin outcome, experts said.

“I don’t think they ran a good election. I don’t believe they ran it legally,” Perry said. “I also don’t believe they did a damn thing that affected 1,800 votes. It’s not possible.”

On the day of the deadline for Archie’s petition for judicial review of the election in September of 2023, Hetrick said her fingers were practically bleeding from all the typing. Then at about 10 a.m., Archie received a call from Supervisor Robert Graham: The county had just experienced a cyber attack. The circuit clerk’s office cleared out for the day.

“My heart just dropped,” Hetrick said. 

Archie went down to the courthouse anyway, manilla folder in hand, and recorded videos in front of the locked glass doors to the unlit, empty office, according to his recent Facebook post. 

Still, Hinds County Circuit Clerk Zack Wallace — who was initially named as a defendant in the lawsuit — testified that his office was open that day, and Archie took no additional steps to file, meaning he’d missed his deadline. The judge agreed.

Thus ensued a two-year battle over whether the office was open or closed, culminating in over a dozen subpoenas and a packed courtroom hearing on Aug. 27, featuring a who’s who of county powerbrokers.

The special judge appointed to hear the case, retired Circuit Court Judge Barry Ford, reversed his original ruling that dismissed the case, allowing Archie’s lawsuit to proceed. 

“Today’s ruling was a win for our case to restore election integrity,” Hetrick wrote on Facebook later that day. “Those who intentionally disregarded election law and protocol must be held accountable as a deterrent to others who might try this in the future.”

One morning in the fall of 2022, a recently widowed Hetrick struck up a conversation with a tall, broad fellow with a slick head while walking on the track at the Baptist Healthplex near her home in Clinton. 

He was friendly, calm and knowledgeable, she said. Hetrick asked the man what he did for a living. “I work for government,” he said. What branch? “County.” What position? “I’m a supervisor.”

Which supervisor? “I’m David Archie,” he said.

Hetrick was floored. This wasn’t the loud-mouthed politician she was used to reading about in the news, whose opponent she actively supported years earlier.

Hetrick asked him about his boardroom blow-ups, which he described as a statement, a method of getting people to care about their local government’s dysfunction. After Hetrick vetted her new friend with her former coworkers from City Hall, Archie took her on rides-along to show her the progress he’s made in the county — the things he says the media never broadcasts.

“I started to understand where he was coming from,” Hetrick said.

Hetrick lives just outside of Archie’s district, in an area that was represented by Archie’s main foe on the board, former Supervisor Credell Calhoun. The two men hadn’t always been at odds.

Calhoun, a businessman and former auditor in the governor’s office, told Mississippi Today he supported Archie’s campaign for supervisor in 2019. When Archie won narrowly and it looked like there may be a challenge to that election, Calhoun said the board of supervisors directed all of its state road funding to Archie’s district, District 2, to ingratiate voters to Archie in the event there was a rematch. 

When that didn’t happen, Calhoun said the board took half of the money back to divvy up across the county, angering Archie. “We were trying to help him so much and then he turned,” Calhoun said.

Archie refutes this, saying the board directed the funding to his district because it had been neglected for several years. Archie has repeatedly accused Calhoun of misspending public money and impeding county progress, which Calhoun denies. He calls Calhoun a “40-year con man,” and Hetrick parrots.

So when the county’s Democratic Party primary rolled around the next year, Hetrick spent most of her energy supporting the candidate Archie’s camp preferred against Calhoun, former state representative Deborah Dixon. Dixon and Calhoun had similar contention, and she ran against the incumbent after she said he backed the candidate who knocked her out of the Legislature in 2019.

Hetrick served as a poll watcher — her first time in the role — for Dixon. At the election watch party that evening, Hetrick celebrated her candidate’s victory but was stunned by her friend Archie’s loss.

Archie had lost convincingly to Anthony Smith, the owner of a computer maintenance company and a real estate firm, by nearly 2-to-1. Smith, regarded by some as “somebody nobody knew,” took home more votes in 25 out of 26 precincts in the district. The total count was 2,810 for Archie and 4,687 for Smith. 

Plenty of residents were unsurprised by Archie’s ouster after all of the bickering. After all, voters shook up more than half of the board – including voting out Calhoun and a third incumbent. But Archie and his team were taken aback.

“Something just doesn’t feel right and we’re trying to figure it out,” Archie told Hetrick when she called him later that night.

Cue Walker. 

The retired paralegal, who’s since opened her home to shelter homeless families, had run as an independent for mayor of Yazoo City in 2022 and lost, receiving just 5% of the vote. 

Walker publicly alleges her election, and others in Yazoo, were rigged, the work of a Jackson-based election consultant named Toni Johnson. 

This is where Walker claims to have found a pattern: She alleges Johnson “came into Yazoo City blazing” starting during the 2018 municipal elections. Walker paints a vague picture of Johnson being in cahoots with the election machine techs and having special access to the computers. And that the candidates Johnson works for always win.

“She went to the highest bidder,” Archie said.

This connection is a handy detail for the Archie camp because Johnson previously served as a Hinds County Election Commissioner, where she found herself in Archie’s crosshairs. She’d also run against him for the supervisor seat in 2019.

Archie accused Johnson of pocketing county money in 2021, WJTV reported, and in early 2022, the auditor’s office arrested her for allegedly defrauding the government by using pandemic relief funds to purchase a television for her home and issuing no-show contracts for services including voting machine audits.

In the 2022 Yazoo City election, Walker alleged Johnson attended the ballot examination wearing her ankle monitor. Johnson pleaded guilty to embezzlement related to the flat screens in 2023 and stepped down from the commission. 

Later that year, after forming a nonprofit called We Must Vote, Johnson consulted Smith’s campaign against Archie. 

“She was very effective in helping me and, you know, I don’t judge anybody,” Smith told Mississippi Today. “I think she’s still a beautiful person.”

Archie’s team hasn’t provided evidence, or a description of evidence, to support allegations of election machine tampering. But Walker did proclaim during the post-election press conference that Johnson’s “blueprint, her DNA, her blood is all over the stealing, the roguishness and the thieving of elections in Mississippi.”

Johnson’s attorney Lisa Ross spoke at the event: “Show us one machine Toni Johnson has touched. She has touched none,” Ross said.

Archie vowed to bring his information to the county district attorney, the attorney general, the secretary of state and the FBI. 

“It is unbelievable that she (Johnson) runs around throwing her weight around because it’s our understanding there’s a real big fish,” Archie said at the 2023 press conference, holding his hands at the distance of a walleye, “that is behind her and protecting her.”

Archie repeated the “big fish” line to Mississippi Today during the reporting of this story, but would not elaborate, saying “you’ll soon find out.”

About a week after the press conference, the resolution board was still working to canvas the absentee ballots to determine which were legally cast and should be accepted. Democratic primary elections, which often determine the winner in Hinds County, are overseen by the Hinds County Democratic Executive Committee.

Jacquie Amos, then-chair of the committee, explained to Mississippi Today that some voters fill out absentee votes on ballots printed on regular paper, which cannot be fed through the machine. Resolution board members, trained by the committee, must transfer the votes to scannable ballots.

So if someone walked into the courthouse basement that day, one week after the election, this is what they’d see: Tables of people bubbling in hundreds of fresh ballots. 

Archie, joined by supporters, did just that, and things got heated. 

“You don’t really know what they’re doing, marking one ballot to another,” said Dixon, who was there to follow her own race.

Amos said she went down to the basement to try to explain the procedure to onlookers, since “no one knows the process, they always think something is wrong,” she said.

Perry was there, too, and said workers should have been looking over the board’s shoulder but weren’t — an account Amos rejects. Local activist Addie Lee Green, who was attempting to observe workers behind the counter in the clerk’s office, said the election officials attempted to call the sheriff to escort her out.

In addition to Dixon, Archie had backed Malcolm Johnson, former county special projects manager and talk show host, in another supervisors race. 

“He said, ‘Jacquie, we’re not going to let you steal this election from Deb or Malcolm,’” Amos said. “I turned around and said, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

Someone had to hold Amos back from a physical altercation. She said she was fuming when she left the courthouse to cool off and received a Facebook message, “Hey, don’t let them cheat Debroha (sic) Dixon out of her election. She won fair and square.”

“She won,” Amos responded. “But I’m f—ing David Archie on site !!!”

Amos said she’d already been on the outs with the supervisor. She said she’d incensed Archie when she refused — in response to many pleas — to run against Calhoun. Archie said that’s not true.

Soon, her profane Facebook message — which became exhibit E in Archie’s lawsuit — would appear in news outlets across the metro, though she said Mississippi Today was the first to call her for her side. 

Amos said she was disappointed Archie would use the message, composed in a heated moment, to paint her as corrupt, especially because she grew up with him as a kid. 

Amos’ father, a basketball and baseball coach at the now-defunct Hinds County Agricultural High School in Utica, had been Archie’s mentor before he passed. Her father campaigned door-to-door for Archie and was “crazy about him,” Amos said.

“‘If Daddy were here, David would not be acting that way.’ Mama says that all the time,” Amos said.

All of the drama is hurtful in more ways than one.

“What it does, in my opinion, is make voters stay away from the process,” Amos said. “People won’t vote. They say, ‘There’s corruption.’”

After the dust up in the basement, and the committee officially certified the election, Archie asked Cynthia and Hetrick to help with his ballot box review — the process a candidate must undergo in order to challenge the results.

Hetrick accepted the offer, thinking it probably wouldn’t bear fruit, but at least she could help her friend accept his loss. Until she saw inside the boxes.

In the election commission’s fluorescently lit office in late August of 2023, two white top folding tables sat end to end. Wallace, the circuit clerk, brought the election contents, the soft blue boxes carrying ballots and precinct materials, into the room so Archie’s camp could conduct its examination.

Walker was the leader, joined by Hetrick, advertising specialist Taylor Turcotte, Turcotte’s friend and Green, a former Bolton alderwoman and a frequent unsuccessful statewide candidate.

What happened in that room is a matter of perspective. Smith, who brought a campaign supporter known only to him by his alias “Eyes”, sat across the table from the women, filming videos of them on his phone. 

Walker described a tense scene, a gaggle of “grown rusty men that were on the attack, that ran interference, that cussed and screamed and threatened to fight.”

Turcotte’s friend was so uncomfortable that she didn’t come back after the first day. “They didn’t grow up in the hood like me,” Walker said. 

Smith rejected this telling, insisting all he did was “watch them very closely.” But Turcotte said Smith’s unblinking, “cold, dead stare” actually made her fear for Archie’s safety. At one point, a scrap nearly broke out, three of the women said.

“That’s how they pick fights with David is they get up in his face and they insult him, and then he gets loud to overwhelm them. And then David looks like the ass,” Turcotte said.

Hetrick, a devout Catholic, began arriving at the commission with her rosary wrapped around her wrist. Walker, who carried pepper spray, made a joke that Hetrick should bring holy water.

The next day, Hetrick said she brought her tiny white plastic bottle, embellished with a gold cross, and sprinkled the chairs around the table before Smith arrived that morning. The tiffs subsided after that, Hetrick said.

What disturbed the women more than the intimidating environment was what they said they found — or didn’t find — inside the boxes.

Each of the precinct boxes contained paper ballots, the petition states.

But the team alleges they found no machine tapes, the print-outs containing the number of votes scanned. They allegedly determined that all of the precinct media sticks, the hard drives that contain the digital record of the vote, were commingled in a bag with no seal, stashed in a commissioner’s desk in an open cubicle.

They alleged that out of 26 precincts, the boxes contained only eight receipt books, where voters record their signature when they sign in to vote, five ballot accounting forms, which show the number of ballots used and left over, and one machine key. 

This was after seven days of review.

“Everything was stored in all kinds of different places illegally but nobody cared,” said Turcotte, who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican against U.S. Congressman Bennie Thompson in 2024 and for an open seat on the Jackson City Council in 2025.

The team alleges there’s no way to determine how many people actually voted in the election due to the illegal maintenance of the records. 

“If Mr. Smith won, why will they not allow us to validate his win?” Walker said.

Amos said she didn’t know of any documents that were missing, and if the materials weren’t in their designated precinct boxes, it would have been because the commissioners had already started cleaning the boxes out to prepare for a runoff. The records should be stored together in the commission’s office, Amos said.

“I am not Olivia Pope and this is not Defiance,” Amos said.

The committee voted Amos out in 2024, replacing her with Clinton alderman James Lott, a director at Hinds Community College. She left the committee altogether and now serves as the chair of the committee for the 2nd Congressional District. Lott told Mississippi Today his goal is to advance integrity in Hinds County elections through proper pollworker training and giving equal treatment to any complaints.

“Everything deserves to be heard and investigated,” Lott said.

Through an attorney, the Hinds County Election Commission did not respond to Archie’s allegations or answer questions about the current status or whereabouts of the materials. 

Because the commissioners will make up the tribunal that offers recommendations to the judge deciding Archie’s case, commission attorney Ray Chambers said they have a responsibility not to respond to press inquiries prior to trial. The only filings from defendants in the lawsuit so far argue Archie submitted past the deadline and avoid any explanation or alternative to the claims Archie laid out.

Perry said his experience is that the laws around election procedure — such as chain of custody, storage of materials and ensuring they are sealed — are frequently disregarded in Hinds County. But it’s inconceivable to him that 18 signature books have vanished.

“I’ll bet my ranch on the fact that the sign-in books exist,” he said.

Mississippi Today requested to inspect the books, but Chambers said state law requires that when a challenge arises, the materials are kept under seal until the court hearing.

Perry, who has conducted dozens of ballot box examinations and testified as an expert in election challenges, was present at the commission’s office for some of Archie’s review. He said he observed the team talking back and forth; it didn’t look to him like they knew what they were doing.

“There wasn’t anything to be gained by where they were spending their time,” he said. “All they did was make a scene to say, ‘We spent a week down there.’”

Archie’s lawsuit itself does not allege that the paper ballots he reviewed were forged. It doesn’t utter ballot stuffing or vote buying.

“As a kid in the 60s, I saw it done,” Perry said. “That’s where everybody was marking paper ballots and putting it in a box. And at the end of the day, they’re sitting there, late at night underneath a light hanging from a single cord above a table in an old closed grocery store.”

But that’s not how it works anymore. Today, votes are counted by a scanner instead of by hand. When ballots are printed, there’s a record attached to verify how many are used and left over. The receipt books record how many people entered the polls through their signature. In the poll books, election workers mark on a roster of registered voters, recording who voted. Both of these may be matched to the number on the machine or the number of paper ballots. 

Mistakes do happen, particularly with affidavit and absentee votes, and can make a difference in a slim margin race when challenged.

But fabricating ballots in the hundreds, let alone thousands, in theory would require a multi-person conspiracy and a kind of sophistication that all evidence shows Hinds County officials do not possess, Perry said.

“You can’t manufacture that kind of vote. The system has too many checks and balances in it to do it,” Perry said.

That doesn’t mean Hinds County elections don’t have problems. 

Bridgette Morgan, a candidate in the 2024 election for Hinds County Court Judge, brought a challenge after losing in a runoff last November. In the first race of three candidates, she received nearly enough votes, shy just 9, to win outright.

Morgan alleged that irregularities were to blame for her not being declared the winner. She was unsuccessful in getting a jury to agree with her in July, and she told Mississippi Today she plans to appeal. (Morgan’s challenge was for a general election, so a regular panel of jurors was responsible for deciding the case).

Perry said he’s repeatedly told Hinds County officials that if they don’t start following the laws around securing and storing ballots and maintaining proper accounting, a close election will soon enough result in a new election, costing the county an extra $100,000.

“Because in a close election, the way that they’re ignoring the law, refusing to even pretend to follow the law, it’s going to get overturned,” Perry said. “Now, David Archie’s is not a close election.”

Both Hetrick and Walker refute Perry’s analysis. Hetrick said he lacks imagination; Walker said if he knows of repeating violations, he should have done something about it by now.

In the case of suspected outright election or voter fraud, a local district attorney, the attorney general’s office or the U.S. Attorney’s Office may step in.

But most of the election laws Archie’s lawsuit alleged were broken — those related to controlling the contents of precinct boxes, sealings, receipt book storing, the process for examining affidavits — do not come with criminal penalties for violations, leaving few avenues for prosecutors.

Reached about Archie’s claims, a secretary of state’s office spokesperson said simply that the state office has no involvement in the matter. The attorney general’s office confirmed to Mississippi Today it had an active investigation into Morgan’s case, but not Archie’s.

So what’s the recourse? In Mississippi, virtually the only way to address a complaint over the handling of an election is for a failed candidate to file a challenge with the qualifying body in the race — in Archie’s case, the Democratic Executive Committee. If that doesn’t work, a candidate can petition the court for judicial review. 

The losing candidate must have the money to hire a lawyer. In these cases, the proper defendant is the winning candidate, not the officials who were responsible for running a fair election. 

In the course of one of these lawsuits, a judge could order an election official be jailed for breaking the law, but Perry said he’s only seen that happen once.

Candidates have a difficult time prevailing in election challenges. They must show how irregularities could have made a difference in the outcome of the race. The courts are reluctant to order a new election without clear evidence that the will of the people could not be determined.

Take the challenge of Eugene Fouche, a Black candidate for supervisor in Yazoo County, in 1979. This is the election challenge and ballot review Walker referenced – she was actually 21 at the time.

Walker called it a precedent-setting case that resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Fouche’s favor, finding that he should have been declared the winner over the white incumbent. 

That never happened, according to the lawyer who brought the case in circuit court, Ed Blackmon. The local judge dismissed the case and Fouche lost on appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court, records show. 

“I’ve never cited it,” said Blackmon, who has brought several election challenges since.

Still, anyone interested in politics in Yazoo County in the 1970s and 80s would have been enthralled by the case, which came as Black Mississippians were increasingly engaging in politics following historic enfranchisement progress made during the Civil Rights Movement.

“I could think of someone who was living in that community at that time, that would be a seminal moment in their lives,” Blackmon said.

Where Archie has had slim success in his political career — winning just one of at least nine campaigns for office and serving one term as supervisor — he’s excelled at recruiting a loyal audience.

On his podcast, a recording by an R&B singer introduces the host, “David Archie, yeah, he’s a man that will take a stand,” before shifting into an Alvin Garrett tune belting, “If you won’t fight with me, if you don’t believe in me, I’m going to walk on by myself.”

Archie has been stirring up news long before the blockbuster supervisor’s meeting: getting arrested at a protest against racial profiling, holding a demonstration against a civil rights figure or alleging excessive force against Jackson airport officials after a bloody altercation during his 20s, when he worked as a fraud prevention officer with the state’s welfare department, according to the Clarion Ledger. 

“I know some of y’all are afraid to shake the system, to challenge government, to challenge status quo,” Archie told listeners on one of his most recent broadcasts. “And then you get mad at me because I’m fighting to make it better for you.”

Earlier this year, Archie ran for mayor of Jackson, then took a job in constituent services at City Hall at the tail end of then-Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s term before getting canned by incoming Mayor John Horhn.

He’s nothing if not persistent — a quality Hetrick and Walker say they can get behind.

Walker said in the majority of her election reviews, when she has recommended candidates challenge their election, they say they don’t have the money or energy. “No one thought David would go this distance,” Walker said.

Hetrick, who left her job under former Mayor Harvey Johnson in 2001 after a local newspaper printed her address, rattling the mother of a then-middle schooler, feels similarly ready to fight now.

Smith’s attorney in the election challenge, Warren Martin, offered another perspective: “He’s convinced people to follow him no matter what, follow him through the desert to water. But it’s a mirage. They’re drinking sand.”

Hetrick said the detractors are missing the point: The case isn’t just about Archie’s supervisor’s seat. It’s about shining a light on the brazen mishandling of elections at large. She doesn’t wish for the spectacle to discourage voters from participating in elections, but to ignite them to demand better.

“Even if we lose the trial, we’re not through,” Hetrick said.

By now, Smith has served nearly half of his four-year term. Judge Ford asked lawyers in the case to agree on a hearing date in the coming days, but it’s possible another appeal could delay it further. By the time Archie’s team exposes the evidence it says it has, the next election could be underway.

So will Archie run again? 

“I hope to be in the position before then,” he said. “And I absolutely, 100%, unless I’m sick or fall off the face of the earth, will run in 2027.”