The USA Today college football coaches poll is out. Texas is ranked No. 1, defending champion Ohio State is No. 2, Ole Miss is 15th, and nine SEC teams are ranked in the Top 25. Now then, what all this means is…

…absolutely nothing. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

Seems like we could at least wait until Texas and Ohio State square off later this month to rank one team higher than the other or to rank any team at all for that matter. Preseason college football polls are about as meaningful as a politician’s promise, which is to say, not at all.

We ought to wait at least a month into the season to have rankings, which has been my rant forever, even back when, for several seasons, I voted in the Associated Press poll. Today, when college football rosters change faster than Trump’s tariffs, the preseason polls mean less than ever before. Ole Miss may well be the 15th best team in the country, but how in the heck anybody would know that is beyond me. Lane Kiffin lost eight terrific players to the NFL and about 30 more players in the transfer portal. Yes, the Rebels brought in a bunch of talent, too, but they will be practically a whole new team. The same is true for most teams around the country. College football has become one ridiculously huge game of musical chairs.

Given Kiffin’s track record — and what I saw from quarterback Austin Simmons in his brief appearances last season — it wouldn’t surprise me if the Rebels eventually become one of the best 15 teams in the country. But it also wouldn’t be all that surprising if they lost their second game — and first road game — Sept. 6 at Kentucky.

Honestly, where Ole Miss is concerned, my biggest concern would be all the talent that must be replaced on the defensive side of the ball. For all the hype Kiffin’s offense gets (much of it deserved), Pete Golding’s defense was every bit as effective last season. And Golden will be replacing nine starters.

The truth is, preseason polls exist to give us something to talk about or, in my case, something to write about before they start playing games.

Some other college football observations:

• It won’t get that much attention outside of the Magnolia State, but the Aug. 30 season opener between Mississippi State and Southern Miss is as intriguing as any in recent memory. Both will be playing with largely revamped rosters. Both badly need some early season success after terrible seasons last year. My only gripe: an 11 a.m. kickoff time? In August? On artificial turf? In Hattiesburg, Mississippi? If it’s a sunny day, the temperature down on the field will be about 120 degrees, if not hotter. Temps in the stands won’t be much cooler. The average “feels like” temperature for that time of the day at that time of the year in Hattiesburg is about 114 degrees. Football was not meant to be played when it’s that hot. Hell, football was not meant to be watched when it’s that hot. TV doesn’t care about any of that, and TV pays the bills and calls all the shots. I have often said that if TV told teams to play at midnight, they’d do it. In this case, that would be preferable.
• Jackson State is ranked No. 17 in something called the Stats Perform Preseason FCS football poll. Stats Perform? Glad you asked. I looked it up. Stats Perform is a Chicago-based AI company that is involved in sports data collection and predictive analysis for use across various sports sectors including professional team performance, digital, media, broadcast and betting. Artificial intelligence quite likely is at least as accurate as coaches polls or media polls. And T.C. Taylor’s Tigers probably deserve the high rating coming off last season’s 12-2 finish, which included a SWAC Championship and 28-7 victory over South Carolina State in the Celebration Bowl. JSU opens with a home game Aug. 30 against Hampton before heading to Southern Miss Sept. 6.
• Did you see where John Hartwell, formerly associate athletic director at Ole Miss (2012-2015) resigned Monday as athletic director at Louisiana-Monroe? Apparently, Hartwell resigned after being instructed to drastically cut an athletic budget that was already among the lowest in the country. On Tuesday, ULM football coach Bryant Vincent was named the interim athletic director. So now, besides preparing for a Sept. 6 football game at Alabama, Vincent must also deal with beach volleyball, cross country and balancing an impossible-to-balance budget. Good luck with that.

With complete but unofficial numbers, it appeared incumbent Sen. Michael McLendon of Hernando, incumbent Sen. Chris Johnson of Hattiesburg and incumbent Rep. Kabir Karriem of Columbus all won their special primaries on Tuesday night. 

However, it appears incumbent Sen. Robin Robinson of Laurel was defeated in the election, ending her brief tenure in the Senate. Donald Hartness, a retired Ellisville resident, appeared to be on track to capture the GOP nomination. The winner of the primary will take the seat because no Democrat qualified to run.

McLendon, a Republican, will go on to compete against Chris Hannah, the Democratic nominee, in the November general election. Johnson, a Republican, will go on to compete against Shakita Taylor, the Democratic nominee. 

Karriem, a Democrat, will win the overall House race because no Republican candidate qualified to run. 

READ MORE: 2025 Mississippi special election guide

A federal three-judge panel ordered Mississippi to conduct special elections for 14 legislative seats this year because the court determined the Legislature diluted Black voting strength when lawmakers redrew legislative districts.

Ten of the 14 seats are contested. Of those 10, seven had a contested primary election on Tuesday. After party leaders certify the election results, the Republican and Democratic nominees will compete in the general election on November 4.

Mississippi Today will have complete, official election results as they become available. 

Valerie Martin-Davis stood in the Willowood Community Center Monday evening, hand to her chest, pleading with law enforcement to hear her out.

It was just two nights earlier that five young men allegedly engaged in a shootout on her street which left one injured, shattered car windows and left bullets lodged in homes. 

“I don’t want to move to Madison. I don’t want to move to Ridgeland. I want to stay right here in Jackson,” Martin-Davis said to a round of passionate claps. “I’ll be doggone if they make me move. This is home for me. You’re not going to mess with my folks.”

Martin-Davis has lived in Will-O-Wood for 36 years. In recent years, she said she’s seen her neighborhood become overrun with crime and gang activity. She’s called the police multiple times and left complaints with an operator about young men walking the streets with guns. 

“We’ve been dealing with this for five years. We see the boys come outside shooting the guns in the air. They’re shooting at each other like they’ve got cap guns, like the guns aren’t real,” Martin-Davis said in an interview with Mississippi Today.

On Monday evening, dozens of concerned residents packed out the community center to hear from Chief Joseph Wade with the Jackson Police Department, Chief Bo Luckey of Capitol Police, and other elected officials, and offer their concerns about crime in their neighborhoods. 

Some voiced complaints about long wait times when calling 911. Assistant Chief of Police Vincent Grizell, who oversees the 911 system, said that JPD received over 8,000 calls last week.

“We’re hoping that things can be more efficient. We’re talking to Hinds County and AT&T about our 911 system,” Wade said. 

Officers offered up their personal phone numbers to residents to call if they needed assistance. Wade also laid out plans to increase police presence in the community.

“Not only are we looking at installing some blue light surveillance like we did in Presidential Hills. We’re looking at installing some license plate readers in your community, as well, to catch these bad actors coming in and out, and taking photos of them as they come in and out,” Wade said. “We’re also looking at installing some of our stealth covert cameras where they don’t even know that we’re there and recording things.”

Jackson Mayor John Horhn also spoke to the crowd, pointing to recent statistics that show the murder rates are declining across the city.

“All of our stats right now are trending downward in Jackson,” Horhn said. “We had 71 murders this time a year ago. We have 35 now. So we’re moving in the right direction, but not fast enough.”

Violent crime in Jackson is down 12.35% from 2024 to 2025, and property crime is down 17.28% in that same time frame, according to data provided by Tommie Brown, JPD’s public information officer.

Still, Horhn said that the court systems need to apply a bit more pressure in trying criminal cases. Some cases take years, he said, which bogs down the system.

“We’ve got to move those cases forward, and we’ve got to go ahead and expedite the building of this new jail, but I’m talking it might be 2029,” he said. 

Horhn also points to creating and investing in mentorship programs and workforce development programs as an alternative for people who are vulnerable to gang activity.

“We’re not going to police and jail our way out of this problem. We don’t have enough jails. We don’t have enough policemen to fight the problem everywhere it’s manifesting and showing its face. So we’ve got to come up with some opportunity to provide an alternative to the criminal element,” he said.

Outside after the community meeting, Martin-Davis said she’s hopeful that the police will work together with community members to protect their neighborhoods. She doesn’t want to leave Jackson, and she said she shouldn’t have to.

“I could have moved anywhere. I came back home. This is home for me. We’ve had a house over here for 36 years,” she said. “There is no way anyone is going to make me leave my neighborhood.”

Mississippi’s Public Service Commission scheduled a “show-cause” hearing over Holly Springs’ troubled utility department for Sept. 4 at 9 a.m. at New Albany Municipal Court.

The PSC announced the hearing during a docket meeting Tuesday, a week after it released a third-party report detailing the struggles of the power provider. The report echoed previous criticisms from state lawmakers, the PSC, the Tennessee Valley Authority and others blaming Holly Springs officials for not investing in its power supply system over the years and allowing it to deteriorate to a point where customers have seen constant outages.

Holly Springs, which buys power through a contract with TVA, serves about 12,000 customers in Marshall, Benton and Lafayette counties as well as a small part of Tennessee.

The PSC, which regulates utilities in the state, initially tried to schedule a hearing for Jan. 7 in Jackson. But Holly Springs successfully appealed after arguing one of its lawyers, Sen. Bradford Blackmon, needed to be with the state Legislature then. The PSC then agreed to delay the hearing until after the legislative session.

The state initially had no jurisdiction over the Holly Springs Utility Department, but a 2024 bill that became law gave the PSC the power to investigate the utility and recommend, if it decides the utility doesn’t provide “reasonably adequate service,” that a court put the department into a receivership.

“We strongly encourage public participation in the upcoming show-cause hearing, emphasizing that this is more than a procedural requirement — it is critical for HSUD to address the issues raised in the report and to clarify its actions,” the commission said in a press release Tuesday. “By working together, we can ensure that the outcome serves the best interests of the people who rely on HSUD services.”

The company behind last week’s report, Silverpoint Consulting, wrote that it may be hard to find a receiver willing to take on the utility, and instead recommended one of three options: selling the utility to another city or cooperative utility; converting it into a cooperative to open up access to low-interest loans; or seeking eminent domain and condemnation.

Holly Springs is also facing a lawsuit from TVA, which alleges the city mishandled funds from the utility and failed to raise rates when needed. On June 9, though, a federal judge ordered a 90-day stay in the case. Then on July 24, court filings show, both parties told the court they would meet on Aug. 15 to “discuss a negotiated resolution of this action.”

Editor’s note: This Mississippi Today Ideas essay is published as part of our Brain Drain project, which seeks answers to Mississippi’s brain drain problem. To read more about the project, click here.

Back when I was a kid in 1988, my mama and I had an argument about what I wanted to major in at college.

I had dreamed of being a journalist since the age of 8. To me, that meant that I was going to Ole Miss, which had the journalism department.

My mama said I could only go away from home to Ole Miss if I was going to major in law.

So I settled on going to Mississippi State University just down the road and majoring in communication. She told me I should major in engineering since that’s what State was known for.

I said, “That’s even dumber than me going to law school. I hate math.”

“Well, you could at least try,” she said.

I said no. Then she told me I was wasting my education and turned her back on me.

I get it. She knew and I knew that I couldn’t stay in Choctaw County where I was raised and earn a living with that degree. I would have to go somewhere else — probably to the Jackson metro area and work for Gannett or the Associated Press. Or to Memphis. Or Biloxi. Or even New Orleans. She never really forgave me for moving to the Jackson metro, working in my field and raising her grandchildren so far from her.

After a while, I got used to the pace of life around here. I knew I probably wouldn’t ever move anywhere else because I noticed that people who left Mississippi often came back, whether due to family obligations or a realization that “somewhere else” wasn’t quite all it was cracked up to be.

I also noticed that a lot of people played up how they were from Mississippi while making a very good living being someplace else. I decided I wanted to prove you could be from Mississippi, live in Mississippi, work in Mississippi and make something of yourself without leaving Mississippi. 

But I noticed something else over the years, too. Most of the kids in Brandon dreamed of going off from home to cities like Atlanta, Nashville, Dallas, DC, New York or Orlando. They didn’t seem to have reasons — just a desire to get away from the state as fast as they could. 

Then my three daughters and I started having conversations about what they wanted to major in when they went to college. My oldest wanted to be a chef. My middle one was undecided between chemical engineering and landscape architecture. And my youngest was fascinated with roads and bridges.

I was all too aware of what had happened in the job markets in Mississippi since I had come up. Companies closed operations in a globalized economy and fled to cheaper labor markets. The advent of the internet meant employers could hire from all over the world. Longtime business leaders retired and sold out to big corporations that reduced investments in local communities that had supported those businesses for decades and then complained that those towns didn’t offer enough amenities for their employees to want to relocate there. 

But the reality really set in when my chef daughter chose her first internship — in historic Williamsburg, Virginia. 

I would never have dreamed of driving that far from home to try out a place to work when I was her age. Then after her senior year, she interned at Walt Disney World and got hired full-time before the internship was over. She was off to live in Orlando where now with her husband and young son she’s creating community and loves going to work every day with a pretty enviable benefits package, too, a thing unheard of in the culinary world in Mississippi.

My middle one finally settled on chemical engineering and was picked for a co-op job in her first semester at age 18 at a company in Georgia. When she graduated four years later, we packed her off to Indiana for a research and development job, and she now lives in New Hampshire with her husband, making six figures a year at 26 years old and looking forward to partaking in the cultural offerings in New York City when she can.

The youngest is currently in college for civil engineering, and I’m bracing myself for the inevitable. She doesn’t want to work for state government, so she’s likely going out of state as well. Her comment about coming back to Jackson metro was the most damning of all. “There’s nothing to do here,” she says.

A lot of people ask me questions: How often do you see your daughters? How can you stand being so far from your grandson? Don’t they at least come home for Christmas?

The answer to all of those questions is that we do the best we can. We text, we message on Facebook, we talk on the phone at least once a week, every Sunday. We arrange visits; sometimes it’s us driving to them while other times they drive to us. 

I can’t imagine making my children as miserable as my mom made me over my life choices. We are flexible, understanding, and very, very proud of our daughters, who are grappling with enough in their lives without us loading them down with guilt over when they are coming home. 

The calculus may change in the future. We may have declines in health and need to move closer to one of our children if we need assistance. Or we may need to be in assisted living care here in Mississippi where such care may be marginally cheaper than wherever our girls land.

But I don’t wish our girls had settled for life in Mississippi. 

What I wish is that Mississippi could find a way to live up to its potential — to be a place more worthy of my daughters’ loyalty, affections and investment in themselves. 

Maybe it will be someday. I hope so, for all of our sakes.

Julie Liddell Whitehead lives and writes from Mississippi. An award-winning freelance writer, Julie covered disasters from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina throughout her career. Her first book is “Hurricane Baby: Stories,” published by Madville Publishing. She writes on mental health, mental health education and mental health advocacy. She has a bachelor’s degree in communication, with a journalism emphasis, and a master’s degree in English, both from Mississippi State University. In 2021, she completed her MFA from Mississippi University for Women.

Voters in several areas of the state can participate in special primary elections today to decide who will represent them in the state Legislature.  

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today. Anyone in line to vote by 7 p.m. will be allowed to cast their ballot beyond the 7 p.m. closure.

2025 Mississippi Special Election Guide: See the candidates, find your Senate or House legislative district

​​A federal three-judge panel ordered Mississippi to conduct special elections for 14 legislative seats this year because the court determined the Legislature diluted Black voting strength when lawmakers redrew legislative districts.

The federal panel specifically ordered the state to have special elections for House districts in the Chickasaw County area, Senate districts in the Hattiesburg area and Senate districts in the DeSoto County area.

Four seats are not contested, which means only one candidate filed paperwork to run in the race. But 10 of the legislative seats are being contested. 

Tuesday is primary election day, where voters must choose to participate in either the Republican primary or the Democratic primary. If no candidate in a primary election receives an outright majority of the votes cast, then the two candidates who received the most votes will participate in a primary runoff on September 2. 

However, only Senate District  42, which includes portions of Forrest, Greene, Jones and Wayne counties, allows for the mathematical possibility of a runoff election because three Republican candidates are running. 

After party primaries, the Republican and Democratic nominees will compete in a general election on November 4. 

If voters have any questions about voting on Election Day, they can contact their local circuit clerk or the secretary of state’s elections hotline at 1-800-829-6786. For more voter information, visit to the secretary of state’s Elections and Voting portal.

Behind Bars, Beyond Care:

A Mississippi Today investigation into suffering, secrecy and the business of prison health care

Susie Balfour, diagnosed with terminal breast cancer two weeks before her release from prison, has died from the disease she alleged past and present prison health care providers failed to catch until it was too late. 

The 64-year-old left the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in December 2021 after more than 30 years of incarceration. She died on Friday, a representative for her family confirmed.   

Balfour is survived by family members and friends. News of her passing has led to an outpouring of condolences of support shared online from community members, including some she met in prison. 

Instead of getting the chance to rebuild her life, Balfour was released with a death sentence, said Pauline Rogers, executive director of the RECH Foundation.

“Susie didn’t just survive prison, she came out fighting,” Rogers said in a statement. “She spent her final years demanding justice, not just for herself, but for the women still inside. She knew her time was limited, but her courage was limitless.”

Last year, Balfour filed a federal lawsuit against three private medical contractors for the prison system, alleging medical neglect. The lawsuit highlighted how she and other incarcerated women came into contact with raw industrial chemicals during cleaning duty. Some of the chemicals have been linked to an increased risk of cancer in some studies.  

The companies contracted to provide health care to prisoners at the facility over the course of Balfour’s sentence — Wexford Health Sources, Centurion Health and VitalCore, the current medical provider — delayed or failed to schedule follow-up cancer screenings for Balfour even though they had been recommended by prison physicians, the lawsuit says.

“I just want everybody to be held accountable,” Balfour said of her lawsuit. “ … and I just want justice for myself and other ladies and men in there who are dealing with the same situation I am dealing with.”

Rep. Becky Currie, who chairs the House Corrections Committee, spoke to Balfour last week, just days before her death. Until the very end, Balfour was focused on ensuring her story would outlive her, that it would drive reforms protecting others from suffering the same fate, Currie said.  

“She wanted to talk to me on her deathbed. She could hardly speak, but she wanted to make sure nobody goes through what she went through,” Currie said. “I told her she would be in a better place soon, and I told her I would do my best to make sure nobody else goes through this.”

During Mississippi’s 2025 legislative session, Balfour’s story inspired Rep. Justis Gibbs, a Democrat from Jackson, to introduce legislation requiring state prisons to provide inmates on work assignments with protective gear. 

Gibbs said over 10 other Mississippi inmates have come down with cancer or become seriously ill after they were exposed to chemicals while on work assignments. In a statement on Monday, Gibbs said the bill was a critical step toward showing that Mississippi does not tolerate human rights abuses.

“It is sad to hear of multiple incarcerated individuals passing away this summer due to continued exposure of harsh chemicals,” Gibbs said. “We worked very hard last session to get this bill past the finish line. I am appreciative of Speaker Jason White and the House Corrections Committee for understanding how vital this bill is and passing it out of committee. Every one of my house colleagues voted yes. We cannot allow politics between chambers on unrelated matters to stop the passage of good common-sense legislation.”

The bill passed the House in a bipartisan vote before dying in the Senate. Currie told Mississippi Today on Monday that she plans on marshalling the bill through the House again next session. 

Currie, a Republican from Brookhaven, said Balfour’s case shows that prison medical contractors don’t have strong enough incentives to offer preventive care or treat illnesses like cancer.  

In response to an ongoing Mississippi Today investigation into prison health care and in comments on the House floor, Currie has said prisoners are sometimes denied life saving treatments. A high-ranking former corrections official also came forward and told the news outlet that Mississippi’s prison system is rife with medical neglect and mismanagement. 

Mississippi Today also obtained text messages between current and former corrections department officials showing that the same year the state agreed to pay VitalCore $100 million in taxpayer funds to provide healthcare to people incarcerated in Mississippi prisons, a top official at the Department remarked that the company “sucks.”

Balfour was first convicted of murdering a police officer during a robbery in north Mississippi, and she was sentenced to death. The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the conviction in 1992, finding that her constitutional rights were violated in trial. She reached a plea agreement for a lesser charge, her attorney said. 

As of Monday, the lawsuit remains active, according to court records. Late last year Balfour’s attorneys asked for her to be able to give a deposition with the intent of preserving her testimony. She was scheduled to give one in Southaven in March. 

Rogers said Balfour’s death is a tragic reminder of systemic failures in the prison system where routine medical care is denied, their labor is exploited and too many who are released die from conditions that went untreated while they were in state custody. 

Her legacy is one RECH Foundation will honor by continuing to fight for justice, dignity and systemic reform, said Rogers, who was formerly incarcerated herself. 

Former interim Hinds County sheriff Marshand Crisler is appealing bribery and ammunition charges stemming from his 2021 campaign, arguing that the federal government played on his relationship with a former supporter to entrap him. 

Crisler had asked Tonarri Moore, who donated to past campaigns, for a financial contribution for the sheriff’s race. Moore said he would donate if Crisler helped with several requests. Without the previous relationship, Crisler would not have acted, his attorney argues, and Crisler had no reason to believe he was being bribed. 

“The government, having concocted a bribery scheme to entrap Crisler, then had to contrive a corresponding quid pro quo to support the scenario with which to entrap him,” attorney John Holliman wrote in a Saturday appellant brief. 

Crisler is asking the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse his conviction and render its own rulings on both counts. 

He was convicted in federal court in November after a three-day trial and sentenced earlier this year to 2 ½ years in prison. Crisler is serving time in FCI Beckley in West Virginia. 

The day before Crisler reached out to Moore to ask for support for his campaign for sheriff, Drug and Enforcement Administration agents raided Moore’s home and found guns and drugs. An FBI agent called to the scene looked through Moore’s phone and saw Crisler had called. 

According to the appellant brief, the agent asked Moore what Crisler would do if offered money, and if Moore was bribing him. Moore said he wasn’t bribing Crisler, and the agent asked if Moore would do it. 

At that time, there weren’t reasonable grounds to start a bribery investigation into Crisler, his attorney argues, nor was there reason to believe he was seeking a bribe. 

Moore agreed to become an informant for the FBI, in exchange for the government not prosecuting him for the guns and drugs. 

The FBI fitted him with a wire to record Crisler during meetings, which began that day. The meetings included one inside Moore’s night club and a cigarette lounge in Jackson. Agents provided Moore with the $9,500 he gave to Crisler between September and November 2021.

Crisler’s 2023 indictment came as he campaigned again for sheriff and months before the primary election. He remained in the race and lost to the incumbent who he faced in 2021. 

At trial, the government argued the exchange of money were attempts to bribe because Moore made several requests of Crisler: to move his cousin to a different part of the Hinds County Detention Center, to get him a job in the sheriff’s office and for Crisler to let Moore know if law enforcement was looking into his activities. 

In closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Kirkham pointed to examples of quid pro quo in recordings, including one where Moore said to Crisler, “You scratch my back, I scratch yours” and Crisler replied “Hello!” in a tone that the government saw as agreement. 

The appellant’s brief argues that without Moore’s requests, the government lacked a way to show quid pro quo, a requirement of bribery charge: that Crisler committed or agreed to commit an official act in exchange for funds. 

Moore also asked Crisler to give him bullets despite being a convicted felon, which is prohibited under federal law. The brief notes how the government directed Moore to come up with a story for needing the bullets and to ask Crisler to give them to him.

In response, Crisler told Moore he could buy bullets at several sporting goods stores. Moore said they ran out, and eventually Crisler gave him bullets. 

Crisler also argues that the government prosecuted routine political behavior. Specifically, accepting campaign donations is not illegal, and can not constitute bribery unless there is an explicit promise to perform or not perform an official act in exchange for money. 

“Our political system relies on interactions between citizens and politicians with requests being made for this or that which is within the power of the elected official to do,” the brief states. “This does not constitute a bribery scheme. It is the normal working of our political system.”

PERKINSTON — In the embrace of a cheerfully chittering spider monkey named Louie, an Army veteran who grappled for decades with post-traumatic stress disorder says he finally feels at peace.

“Being out here has brought a lot of faith back to me,” said John Richard. “There’s no feeling like it.”

The bond began last fall when Richard was helping two married veterans set up the Gulf Coast Primate Sanctuary, volunteering his time to build the enclosure that’s now Louie’s home in rural southeastern Mississippi.

During a recent visit, Louie quickly scampered up Richard’s body, wrapping his arms and tail around him in a sort of hug. Richard, in turn, placed his hand on the primate’s back and whispered sweetly until Louie disentangled himself and swung away.

“He’s making his little sounds in my ear, and you know, he’s always telling you, ‘Oh, I love you,’” Richard said. “‘I know you’re OK. I know you’re not going to hurt me.’”

Richard said his connection with Louie helped more than any other PTSD treatment he received since being diagnosed more than 20 years ago.

It’s a similar story for the sanctuary’s founder, April Stewart, an Air Force veteran who said she developed PTSD as a result of military sexual trauma.

“It was destroying my life. It was like a cancer,” she said. “It was a trauma that was never properly healed.”

Stewart’s love of animals was a way to cope. She didn’t necessarily set out to create a place of healing for veterans with PTSD, but that’s what the sanctuary has become for some volunteers.

“By helping the primates learning to trust, we’re also reteaching ourselves how to trust, and we’re giving ourselves grace with people,” she said.

Her 15-acre property, nestled amid woods and farmland, is filled with rescue dogs, two rather noisy geese and a black cat. It’s also now home to three spider monkeys, two squirrel monkeys and two kinkajous, a tropical mammal that is closely related to raccoons.

The sanctuary in Perkinston, about 30 miles north of the Gulf Coast, includes three large enclosures for the different species. Each has a smaller, air-conditioned area and a large fenced-in outdoor zone, where the primates swing from platforms and lounge in the sun. Checking on the animals — changing their blankets, bringing food and water — is one of the first and last things Stewart does each day.

However, she can’t do it alone. She relies on a group of volunteers for help, including several other veterans, and hopes to open the sanctuary to the public next summer for guided educational tours.

Stewart and her husband, also a veteran, decided to open the sanctuary in October after first rescuing and rehoming monkeys. With the help of two exotic-animal veterinarians, they formed a foundation that governs the sanctuary — which she said is the only primate sanctuary in Mississippi licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture — and ensures the animals will be cared for even when the Stewarts are no longer able to run it themselves.

All the animals were once somebody’s pet, but their owners eventually couldn’t take care of them. Stewart stressed that primates do not make good or easy pets. They need lots of space and socialization, which is often difficult for families to provide.

The sanctuary’s goal is to provide as natural a habitat as possible for the animals, Stewart said, and bring them together with their own species.

“This is their family,” she said.

READ MORE: GOP leaders make ‘school choice’ a focus at Neshoba County Fair