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News of the death of baseball’s Doug Shanks earlier this week brought back several vivid memories, including the one that follows.

This was a bluebird Delta day, in February in 2010. The previous day’s rainstorm had passed. The ground was soggy, but the sky was cloudless and a deep blue. The bright sun brought warmth, but the air was crisp and cool. It was a splendid day to be alive. Opening Day always is. And, as opening days go, this one was extra special.

Shanks and his Mississippi Valley State baseball assistant coaches were busy, helping their one-man “grounds crew” prepare the soaked field for the season opener. The Delta Devils, who called themselves the Ragamuffins, were scheduled to play Notre Dame. Yes, that Notre Dame, the one that spent more money on its slick baseball media guide than Shanks had in his entire MVSU baseball budget. Notre Dame had spent $60 million on football the previous fall. Valley’s entire athletic budget was $3 million. 

The one-man Valley grounds crew wore a green and white striped uniform, but it wasn’t because green and white are two of the MVSU school colors. No, he was on loan from a nearby prison.

“Hardest worker you ever saw,” Shanks told me. “But we have to have him back at the farm by 4.”

Shanks and his coaches had worked through the night and all morning to make Magnolia Field playable. They stopped only to watch Notre Dame’s luxury bus pull up, and the strapping Fighting Irish players step off in their navy blue jerseys, with gold lettering and green shamrocks on the sleeves. Some wore those bright gold batting helmets. 

Yes, Shanks brought Notre Dame to Itta Bena. I remember telling Shanks it could go on his tombstone.

Notre Dame won that day, 12-4, but there were no losers. 

I remember asking Irish coach Dave Shrage why he would bring his proud program to Itta Bena and a baseball field that guaranteed standing room only crowds because there was almost no place to sit. Shrage said that before he took the Notre Dame job he had been at Evansville and had made a trip down south to play games in Memphis. Rain spoiled that so he called Shanks at MVSU looking for a place to play. Long story short: The two team buses met in Grenada and headed south on I-55 with Shanks promising that he knew every baseball field in Mississippi and would find a dry one.

They wound up playing a double-header at Smith-Wills. Shrage never forgot the effort or the hospitality. That had been the real reason for Notre Dame coming to Itta Bena. Shrage was repaying a favor.

Interesting – isn’t it? –those Valley-Evansville games were played at Smith-Wills Stadium. Shanks, himself, was largely responsible for the stadium being built. As a young Jackson City Commissioner, Shanks had spearheaded the plan to build the stadium and bring a minor league franchise to Jackson, which led to the Jackson Mets coming to Jackson in 1975. What’s more it was Shanks’ idea to bring all Dizzy Dean’s memorabilia to Jackson and create the Dizzy Dean Museum adjacent to Smith-Wills.

Many long-time readers will know the rest of that story: The Dean Museum was a huge part of the genesis of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Museum being built across the parking lot from Smith-Wills. The Dizzy Dean wing of the MSHOF on the second floor remains the highlight of any visit to the shrine.

Shanks was a huge part of all that. Selling Dizzy Dean on the idea of moving his stuff from Wiggins to Jackson was not hard, Shanks once told me. But Pat Dean, Diz’s wife, ran the show. Shanks convinced them both that so many more people would see Diz’s treasures in the state’s biggest city. And they have.

He was a baseball man, Doug Shanks was. His daddy, Fred Shanks, had been the great Boo Ferriss’s catcher at Mississippi State. Doug Shanks was active in youth baseball before and after his successful 15-year stint at Valley as the SWAC’s first White baseball coach. He began the Jackson 96ers, a summer, high school-aged travel team, that became a national powerhouse.

“Doug loved baseball and he lived it,” was the way Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame baseball coach Hill Denson put it, “Mississippi baseball is a whole lot better because of Doug Shanks.”

The post Doug Shanks loved, lived baseball, and his contributions will live on appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Republican Rep. Jason White, heir apparent to the House speakership, said Medicaid expansion, long a bugaboo for the state GOP, will be on the table and at least thoroughly vetted as a solution to Mississippi’s health care crisis next year.

“I think we as Republicans have probably earned a little bit of the bad rap we get on health care in Mississippi,” White said in a Thursday interview with Mississippi Today. “Part of that is that we haven’t had a full-blown airing or discussion of Medicaid expansion. We’ve just said, ‘No.’

“Now, I’m not out here on the curb pushing Medicaid expansion, but we are going to have full discussions on that and on all facets of health care in Mississippi,” White said. “… Right or wrong, we have been wearing the yoke of, ‘Y’all haven’t even considered this or dug down into the numbers.’ And that’s true.”

Mississippi is one of 10 states to refuse federal tax dollars to expand Medicaid coverage to the working poor. Meanwhile, leaders in one of the poorest, unhealthiest states are leaving more than $1 billion a year in federal funding on the table with the refusal, even as people and hospitals statewide struggle. More than half of the state’s rural hospitals are at risk of closure, and even larger hospitals have been forced to slash services for budget reasons.

For a decade, even as hospitals, other state leaders and growing numbers of lawmakers and voters clamor for Medicaid expansion, state Republican leaders have adamantly opposed it, often without giving empirical reasons for their stance against “Obamacare.”

Gov. Tate Reeves and outgoing House Speaker Philip Gunn have been two staunch opponents in recent years, with Gunn refusing even to hold hearings on the proposal.

READ MORE: Former Gov. Steve Beshear: Medicaid expansion changed course of Kentucky history

READ MORE: ‘A no-brainer’: Why former Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe successfully pushed Medicaid expansion

READ MORE: Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards: Medicaid expansion ‘easiest big decision I ever made’

Incumbent Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has expressed openness to discussing expansion, but has not pushed the idea with Gunn and Reeves poised to block it. During a tough GOP primary reelection bid this summer, Hosemann was loath to even say the words Medicaid expansion.

But Hosemann, who won his primary and is expected to sail to reelection in the general, plans to hold Senate health care hearings before next year’s legislative session and has also said all issues “will be on the table.”

White, of West, is currently serving as speaker pro tempore and is expected to be elected speaker by his House colleagues in January. He said that as he’s traveled the state this summer helping fellow Republicans get reelected, health care questions and questions about Medicaid expansion have been common from voters.

READ MORE: Poll: 92% of Mississippi voters concerned about hospital crisis, 72% favor Medicaid expansion

White said openness to discuss Medicaid expansion or other ideas does not signal a retreat from conservatism in the ruby red Magnolia state.

“We are about to elect 75-80 Republicans to the (122-member) House of Representatives,” White said. “So whatever comes out on health care will have a conservative spin on it. That doesn’t mean Medicaid expansion is off the table, but it might look different, might smell different if it were done … We all agree that we don’t want to see hospitals closed. We’re fixing to have what I hope is a real, real discussion on changes for health care in Mississippi.”

White said he also wants lots of input from the state’s business community, including the Mississippi Economic Council, on health care issues.

“This is supposed to be about the working poor, right?” White said. “These are people that are getting a paycheck. They have employers, and I want to hear what those employers think … The question is also going to become what are Mississippians, taxpayers, going to demand or expect on health care from the state side of things?”

White said: “We are not going to do something or not do something for lack of discussion and consideration of what’s best.”

READ MORE: Few Mississippi lawmakers outright oppose Medicaid expansion

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Veteran state Rep. Nick Bain, R-Corinth, admitted defeat late Wednesday in his House District 2 reelection effort, becoming the seventh incumbent legislator to lose thus far in this year’s election cycle.

Bain, who was first elected in 2011 as a Democrat, lost by 26 votes — 2,357 to 2,331 — to small business owner Brad Mattox. The Republican primary runoff election was held Aug. 29, but Bain waited to concede the close election until all the late arriving mail-in ballots and affidavit ballots were counted.

Among the issues in the Bain-Mattox contest was the fact that Bain voted along with a large majority of his legislative colleagues in 2020 to remove the old state flag, which included the Confederate battle emblem in its design.

“While these results are not what I wanted, I am grateful that I had the opportunity to serve the people of District 2…,” Bain said on social media. “It was my intent from the beginning to create a legacy that would make my children proud, that would offer all Mississippians an opportunity to rise to the opportunities of the 21st Century, and as it is said, to leave the campground cleaner than I found it.”

Bain switched to the Republican Party before his 2019 reelection campaign and served the past term as Judiciary B committee chair.

Other House incumbents who lost in the party primary elections are:

• Republican Brady Williamson of Oxford who lost in District 10 to Josh Hawkins.
• Republican Perry Van Bailey of Calhoun County who was defeated in District 23 by Andrew Stepp.
• Seven-term Democratic legislative veteran Rufus Straughter of Belzoni who was upended in District 51 by Timaka James-Jones.
• Republican Doug McLeod of Lucedale who was toppled in District 107 by Ronald Lott.
• Republican first-term incumbent Dale Goodin of Richton who was defeated in a District 105 runoff election by Elliott Burch.

Three-term incumbent Philip Moran, R-Kiln, was the only Senate incumbent to lose, being defeated by Philmon Ladner.

Multiple incumbents will face opposition in the November general election. Democrats, though, are not challenging in enough legislative seats to garner a majority in either chamber. Democrats are running enough legislative candidates to erase the Republican two-thirds supermajorities in both chambers, though they are not likely to win enough seats to achieve that goal.

The post House chairman Nick Bain loses by 26 votes, becoming seventh incumbent legislator defeated appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Leaders of the Mississippi Democratic Party are actively courting current U.S. Senate candidate Ty Pinkins to be the party’s nominee for the ongoing secretary of state’s race, according to a source with direct knowledge of the deliberations.

The source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the party’s internal conversations, said details with Pinkins would likely be finalized within the coming days.

Pinkins is an attorney, Army veteran and native of Vicksburg. He spent much of the last two years aiding Black farmer workers in the Delta who were being paid less money for their work than white visa workers from South Africa doing the same jobs — a legal case that garnered national attention and spurred congressional hearings.

Since January 2023, Pinkins has been actively campaigning as a Democratic opponent against incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, who is up for reelection in November 2024.

READ MORE: Ty Pinkins, Army veteran and Delta advocate, announces U.S. Senate run

A representative for Pinkins did not return a request for comment. Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Cheikh Taylor, the person who would likely be leading discussions with Pinkins, also did not respond to a request for comment.

The state party is being forced to find a replacement for the office because its previous nominee, Shuwaski Young, withdrew his candidacy from the race because he recently experienced a sudden medical event. 

The State Board of Election Commissioners on Wednesday afternoon formally approved a request from the Democratic Party to replace the vacancy left by Young.

READ MORE: State election board allows Democratic Party to pick new candidate for secretary of state

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The State Board of Election Commissioners voted Wednesday to allow the Mississippi Democratic Party to replace its candidate for secretary of state after its previous nominee, Shuwaski Young, announced he was withdrawing from the race. 

The three-member commission, comprised of Gov. Tate Reeves, Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Secretary of State Michael Watson, also voted to accept Young’s reason for exiting the race. 

Young announced last month that he intended to drop out of the race because he experienced a “hypertensive crisis” that would have made campaigning over the next several months difficult. 

State law allows for party nominees to withdraw from a general election if the reason is non-political, including medical reasons.

But shortly before the Democratic candidate revealed his place to withdraw from the race, an election official with the secretary of state’s office wrote Young a letter questioning if the candidate met the statutory requirements to run for office, as previously reported by Mississippi Today.

Young claimed the letter questioning his qualifications had no bearing on his final decision to exit the race. Still, it was up to the commission, made up of all Republicans, to determine if Young’s sudden exit was truly medical and not political. 

Watson, the incumbent secretary of state, sent a proxy to the meeting, but his representative abstained from voting because the issue involved Watson’s political opponent. Fitch and Reeves approved Young’s request without any major discussion.

The next step is for the Democratic Party’s executive committee to name a substitute nominee to appear on November’s general election ballot. State law does give the party a deadline for submitting a replacement, but the secretary of state’s office is required to publish a sample of the general election ballot by September 13.

Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Cheikh Taylor did not immediately respond to a request for comment on when the party intends to announce its replacement candidate. 

The post State election board allows Democratic Party to pick new candidate for secretary of state  appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Brandon Presley, the state’s Democratic nominee for governor, stood in front of the gates of the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion last week to lob two major accusations at his Republican opponent, Gov. Tate Reeves, over his connections to the state’s welfare scandal. 

The first allegation was Reeves has accepted nearly $1.7 million in donations from people who have personally benefited from the state’s welfare scandal that Mississippi officials have labeled the “largest public embezzlement scheme in state history.”

The second major claim was that University of Southern Mississippi-affiliated donors began to quickly donate to Reeves after he approved the firing of Brad Pigott, the state’s attorney who initially handled a civil lawsuit to recoup misspent welfare dollars. 

READ MORE: State fires attorney probing former Gov. Phil Bryant in welfare scandal lawsuit

“Today, our campaign is revealing that his rich friends who have benefitted from the largest public corruption scandal in state history and Tate’s efforts to stifle that investigation gave his campaign nearly $1.7 million in return,” Presley said. 

The Democratic nominee claimed most of the contributors who had profited from the scandal were affiliated with the USM Athletic Foundation, which landed $5 million in federal welfare funds to help construct a volleyball stadium. This project and its welfare funding source, reporting has shown, was shepherded by NFL legend and USM alumnus Brett Favre.

To support his corruption claim, Presley’s campaign team distributed a spreadsheet to reporters that listed 54 individuals and companies who were purportedly affiliated with USM and who have donated to Reeves. But a review of those groups and people by Mississippi Today shows that at least 20 of them have no apparent ties to the scandal and have not served on any leadership panel at USM’s athletic foundation.

Presley’s math on the donations is accurate, but his claim that Reeves accepted $1.7 million from people who directly “benefitted from the scandal” is misleading and lacks evidence.

For example, the spreadsheet lists Joe Frank Sanderson Jr., CEO of Laurel-based poultry producer Sanderson Farms, as someone who has benefitted from the welfare scandal and who has donated over $300,000 to Reeves since he first ran for public office in 2003. 

Sanderson is a major USM donor and a top campaign donor to Reeves, but there’s no public evidence to show that he has profited from the scandal that involves at least $77 million of questionable spending, most of which was funneled through the Mississippi Department of Human Services during former Gov. Phil Bryant’s administration.

The campaign’s other serious charge is that donations from USM-affiliated donors spiked by $244,000 after the governor signed off on cutting Pigott loose as the lead attorney in the civil litigation. 

On Presley’s distributed spreadsheet, Mississippi Today tabulated 32 total donations that those contributors made after June 22, 2022, the date Pigott was fired. 

But only about half of those donations occurred between the day after Pigott was fired to the end of the calendar year — a five-month window that would most clearly show if a correlation between Reeves’ campaign donations and Pigott’s termination existed.

The rest of those donations occurred in 2023, when Reeves announced he was running for reelection, arguably the time when any candidate’s donations would spike.  

READ MORE: What exactly is Gov. Tate Reeves’ involvement in the welfare scandal?

While the campaign’s list of donors with known ties to the scandal is inflated, Presley’s decision to highlight the USM Athletic Foundation appears timely and warranted. The state’s civil lawsuit to recoup misspent TANF funds is ongoing, and just last week, DHS attorneys subpoenaed almost 30 current and former members of the athletic foundation, the USM athletic department and the alumni association.

The latest subpoenas, which Front Office Sports first reported, include a handful of names or businesses that also appear in the Presley campaign’s distributed spreadsheet of donors who have allegedly benefited from the scandal.

Without a doubt, there are any number of welfare scandal-related questions Presley could publicly ask of Reeves. Just last week, text messages released by the governor’s campaign to preempt Mississippi Today reporting show that his brother, Todd Reeves, coordinated a damage control strategy with State Auditor Shad White over part of Favre’s early role in the scandal.

Additionally, why does the governor continue to hold on to political donations from Nancy and Zach New, two people who have pleaded guilty to federal crimes connected to the welfare scandal? And what, exactly, was the extent of Reeves’ involvement in his personal trainer receiving more than $1 million in welfare funds?

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves inspired welfare payment targeted in civil suit, texts show

To be fair, Presley has raised many of these questions during the campaign cycle. But why would he put forward a half-baked accusation on USM donors, especially when many of the college’s alumni are part of a crucial voting bloc he needs to win in November? 

Instead, Presley chose to stand in front of the Governor’s Mansion and potentially undermine his long-standing strategy of pairing the governor with the scandal. To outright claim, without evidence, that many USM-affiliated donors are pulling the levers of Reeves’ campaign stretches the truth about a widespread scandal that, no doubt, deserves more facts and answers.

The post Fact check: Brandon Presley’s claim on USM donors benefiting from welfare scandal appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging House Bill 1020 are looking for a workaround to prevent the appointment of judges to the Hinds County Circuit Court and a separate court system within the county. 

Under the law, passed during the past legislative session, Supreme Court Justice Michael Randolph is tasked with appointing four temporary judges to the circuit court and one to the Capitol Complex Improvement District court. A lawsuit filed on behalf of Jackson residents argues HB 1020 violates the U.S. Constitution for race discrimination. A temporary restraining order in place since May has prevented Randolph from making those appointments, but Randolph was dismissed from the lawsuit in June, putting into question whether the court can continue to block his appointments. 

If the restraining order is lifted, Randolph will be able to immediately appoint judges, the plaintiffs argue. Attorneys are asking U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate to approve motions that would still block appointments without focusing on the chief justice. 

Plaintiffs are requesting a temporary restraining order against four yet-to-be-known circuit court appointees to prevent them from taking oath and assuming office. Although the identities of the judges are not known, the plaintiffs plan to give them notice of the restraining order through a legal notice in the Clarion Ledger, attorneys said. 

“A continuous and seamless prohibition is further necessary to maintain the status quo and avoid possible irreparable harm from any violation of constitutional rights to equal protection of the law,” plaintiffs wrote in the Aug. 3 motion for a temporary restraining order. 

Another motion by the plaintiffs asks to amend the lawsuit complaint to add defendants: two state officials, the five unknown court appointees and two yet-to-be-known prosecutors appointed to the Capital Complex Improvement District court by the attorney general.  

Plaintiffs are also asking Wingate to clarify that Randolph was dismissed at the plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief but not remaining claims for other forms of relief. 

Attorneys for the defendants – state officials such as Department of Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell, Capitol Police Chief Bo Luckey and the attorney general – have opposed the motions in writing and in court Tuesday. 

Wingate did not rule on any pending motions from the bench. He plans to prepare a written order addressing Randolph’s presence in the lawsuit by next Wednesday, when he will hold another hearing. Remaining motions will likely be addressed in writing in the coming weeks. 

A separate state challenge to House Bill 1020 is ongoing. The Supreme Court has not ruled in that case. 

On Tuesday, Wingate also heard from the U.S. Department of Justice about why it wants to intervene in the lawsuit and whether its presence would prolong the case. 

The Civil Rights Division argues the appointment of judges to the Hinds County Circuit Court and creation of a new separate court system in Jackson is racially discriminatory and unconstitutional, according to court records. 

The state argues that the federal government is attempting to sue the state of Mississippi to get around the court’s dismissal of Randolph in the lawsuit and his ability to appoint judges. 

Wingate also asked whether this was the DOJ’s driving force behind the department’s intervention. 

Attorney Bert Russ said circumventing his order was not the driving force behind the department’s intervention, nor would its presence prolong the case. 

“Our interest is to ensure the residents of Hinds County are free from discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause,” he said.

The post HB 1020 opponents try back-up plan to block judicial appointments in Jackson appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Oak Grove Warriors last week became the first Mississippi football team to ever knock off perennial Alabama powerhouse Hoover. Oak Grove coach Drew Causey joins the podcast to talk about the victory and his talented Warriors. Also, the Cleveland boys remember Jimmy Buffett, the Mississippian who parlayed his passion and his talent into billionaire status and made people smile all along the way.

Stream all episodes here.

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