More than 20 years after his conviction for murder and rape, Thomas Loden Jr. was put to death by lethal injection Wednesday evening at the Mississippi State Penitentiary.
Loden, 58, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain said the execution had no problems and went as expected.
“I’d like to express to the Gray family and anyone else I hurt how deeply remorseful I am for everything I did,” Loden said in his last words. “I know these mere words mean nothing and cannot erase the damage I did. For the last 20 years, I’ve tried to do a good deed every single day to make up for the life I took from this world. If nothing else, I hope you get peace and closure.”
At the end, he said the words “I love you” in Japanese, said Deputy Commissioner Jeworski Mallet.
In June 2000, Loden, a Marine Corps recruiter, kidnapped 16-year-old waitress Leesa Gray and sexually assaulted her for hours in his car before killing her.
The crime verberated throughout the Dorsey community in northeast Mississippi. Over 1,000 people attended Gray’s funeral held at Itawamba Agricultural High School, where she had just finished her junior year.
Loden pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to death. He went on to spend the next 20 years trying to appeal his conviction in state and federal court.
As of Wednesday morning, he didn’t plan to seek further delays in his execution. Loden’s last attempt to stop the execution was last week when he sought a stay from U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate in an ongoing lawsuit challenging the state’s use of a three-drug cocktail for lethal injections.
At an afternoon news conference, Parchman Superintendent Marc McClure said he spent most of the day with Loden and found he was in good spirits and seemed accepting about the execution.
“He was genuinely concerned about what he had done [and] ready to do what he had to do,” McClure said.
Members of Gray’s family, including her mother Wanda Farris, previously said they would witness Loden’s execution. Lisa Darracott, Gray’s best friend from childhood, also came to Parchman to support Gray’s family but not as a witness.
A Department of Corrections spokesman said there were two witnesses from Gray’s family and two for Loden, but their names were not provided.
Thomas Loden, convicted of rape and murder,was executed Dec. 14, 2022. Credit: MDOC
Loden had requested daily visits from the Department of Corrections chaplain Maurice Clifton and a mental health professional leading up to the execution, prison officials said.
Loden’s last meal was fried pork chops, fried okra, a baked sweet potato and biscuits, prison officials said. Dessert was peach cobbler with French vanilla ice cream and a Lipton sweet tea for a drink.
Several people who are against the death penalty demonstrated outside the Governor’s Mansion in Jackson in the early evening and at Parchman right before the execution.
In Fulton, community members gathered at Bethel Baptist Church in the evening wearing purple in remembrance of Gray, who attended the church.
On Tuesday, advocates from Death Penalty Action delivered a petition signed by about 3,500 people to Gov. Tate Reeves, asking him to stop Loden’s execution. The Catholic Mobilizing Network circulating a similar petition online.
I have never given anyone more than one obituary cartoon. Even Mother Teresa only got one. However, I felt like yesterday’s cartoon reflected our shock and sadness. So wanted to draw one that reflected Coach Leach’s wonderful inquisitive nature and very funny storytelling ability. I sat up last night watching videos of his stories and captured some of my favorite ones here (except for his wedding advice, which I think it is brilliant.) Also, make sure you sign up for my newsletter. I’ve written a column on my thoughts about why his passing stung so much.
Members of the Mississippi Ethics Commission by a 5-3 vote Wednesday reiterated their belief that the state Legislature, which appropriates more than $20 billion annually in state and federal funds, is not bound by the open meetings law.
In reaching the conclusion, the majority said the Ethics Commission, a state agency, could not rely on guidance from the Mississippi Constitution.
The constitution states in Section 58 “the doors of each house in session or in committee of the whole, shall be kept open.”
Five members of the Ethics Commission said they were required by law to rule only on issues related to the state’s open meetings law and the law, they claimed, does not include the Legislature as a public body.
Wednesday’s meeting was the third one this month where the commission grappled with the issue. The order adopted Wednesday saying the Legislature is not a public body as defined by the open meetings law was a final order.
The issue arose from a complaint filed by the Mississippi Free Press saying House Speaker Philip Gunn was violating the open meetings law when the Republican Caucus, which includes 75 members of the 122-member House, meets routinely behind closed doors. The constitution mandates that a majority of either the House or Senate is a quorum or enough members to conduct business.
Mississippi Today has documented, based on multiple accounts, that the House Republican Caucus often discusses policy issues and legislation during the closed-door meetings. When other public bodies have met behind closed doors to discuss policy issues, it has been deemed to be a violation of the open meetings law by the courts.
The Free Press and Mississippi Center of Justice said Wednesday it would appeal the Ethics Commission ruling.
“Although the (state) Constitution requires the Legislature to keep its doors open when in session, the Open Meetings Act is even more comprehensive and would require that other meetings of legislators, like the Republican Caucus, be open to the public when they constitute a quorum and are discussing public business,” said Rob McDuff, a Center for Justice lawyer. “We are appealing because we believe the Ethics Commission got it wrong, but the Legislature could easily fix this by requiring itself to live up to the standards it requires of other public bodies.”
Commissioner Maxwell Luter of Tylertown offered a proposal that said while the commission does not have the authority to rule on constitutional issues, it could not ignore what the state constitution said. For that reason, he said, the commission should not rule and leave it to the courts to make a final decision.
Luter said the public perception of the Ethics Commission was at stake. He said it “is very important to know we (Ethics Commission members) make just decisions.”
Commissioner Ron Crowe of Brandon, the former executive director of the Ethics Commission, also opposed the finding that the Legislature is not a public body. He said the issue is “eerily” similar to an issue that arose with the state constitution’s conflict of interest provision. In the 1980s the commission interpreted the provision as prohibiting certain people, such as public school teachers, from serving in the Legislature.
Instead, of making that ruling, Crowe said the commission opted to allow the Legislature to address it. Ultimately, the courts sided with the Ethics Commission.
Commissioner Robert Waites of Brandon, a former House attorney in the 1980s, also opposed the finding that the Legislature is not a public body under the open meetings law.
The five commissioners who passed the motion saying the Legislature is not a public body are long-time Chairman Ben Stone of Gulfport, Vice Chair Sean Milner of Clinton, Stephen Burrow of Pascagoula, Erin Lane of Ridgeland and Samuel Kelly of Madison.
Most of the five said they believe the Legislature should be a public body, but that the open meetings law is ambiguous on whether it applied to the Legislature. And if the law is ambiguous, then they had no choice but to rule that the Legislature is not covered.
But Milner said, “I don’t believe it is ambiguous. I think the law is clear (that it does not apply to the Legislature) once we apply proper interpretation.”
The law says most legislative committees are bound by open meetings requirements, but does not specifically list the Legislature among those public bodies that are included. McDuff, the Center for Justice attorney, pointed out the law says the open meetings mandate also applies “to any other policymaking entity.” Since the Legislature is the state’s primary “policymaking entity,” the law, of course would apply to lawmakers, McDuff said.
But a majority of the commission said the phrase “policymaking entity” referred to various executive boards, not the Legislature.
Under the nation’s and state’s system of checks and balances, legislators, including the Mississippi Legislature, generally make laws or policy and the executive agencies carry out those policies and laws.
The Ethics Commissioner members are appointed by the governor, speaker, lieutenant governor, and chief justice of the Supreme Court.
BILOXI — Most voters would say that a politician switching parties in the middle of a term is the ultimate betrayal of their trust.
Elected officials are, indeed, entrusted by voters to make decisions for them based on a set of shared, usually partisan principles. District lines are drawn, laws are passed, and judicial opinions are written to honor this cornerstone of American democracy. It’s intended to ensure all people are adequately represented in our government — one of the most important ideals to everyday Americans who feel that trust is their only connection with the leaders who serve them.
That’s why a midterm flip-flop at any level feels like a blindside to those who live within those representatives’ districts. The feeling is especially fresh on the minds of many East Biloxi residents this week.
Biloxi City Councilman Felix Gines recently had one word for his recent flip from the Mississippi Democratic Party to the Mississippi Republican Party: relief. But many constituents in his ward are using much different words for his decision: disappointment, anger and, yes, betrayal.
Gines is the latest in a string of Democratic defections as state party dysfunction continues to cede power to Republicans. Mississippi Republicans wield immense political influence at the state, local and federal levels thanks, in large part, to flips.
But this latest conversion has turned more heads than usual because of its racial dynamics: Gines is the first GOP pick-up since state Republican Party leaders announced an initiative to attract Black candidates.
Biloxi City Councilman Felix Gines
“Coming into a predominantly Black district and making a bold change like this will allow people to not take their vote for granted,” Gines told Mississippi Today in a lengthy interview last week. “So often, we’ll give our votes away for whatever reason. Well who’s going to be best for our community? That’s what it’s got to come down to. This bold move will serve as a wake-up call to not just the Black community, but all communities across the state. And particularly in Biloxi.”
He was right about at least one thing: His constituents here in Biloxi are wide awake following his party switch — just not in the way he was hoping.
About 20% of Biloxi’s 50,000 residents are Black. Gines was elected as a Democrat to the city council to represent East Biloxi, a predominantly Black neighborhood. For years, he has been the city’s only Black elected official — the beneficiary of the codified notion that all Americans should be adequately represented in government.
Civil rights history in Gines’ district runs deep. A series of wade-ins at Biloxi Beach in the 1960s helped integrate the Mississippi Gulf Coast and make it a vacation destination for Southern Blacks — a reality that continues to bolster the local economy. The main stretch of Highway 90 along the beach is named in honor of Dr. Gilbert R. Mason, who led the wade-ins and fought his whole life for voting rights and equal representation in government. Murals and other visible signs of the area’s commitment to political activism remain, and the Biloxi NAACP chapter is among the most active in the state.
Needless to say, Gines’ decision to pledge allegiance to the virtually all-white Mississippi Republican Party is not sitting well with many of his constituents.
“The Republican Party is the party that is everything anti-Black,” said Bill Stallworth, a community leader who formerly held Gines’ city council seat. “It’s the party of Strom Thurmond, of the Southern Strategy, of policies intended to keep Black folks down. To win, they’ve redrawn lines, disenfranchised so many voters and created lies about massive voter fraud. The effects are real, and they are deep.”
Putting Gines’ party switch bluntly, Stallworth said: “If we have to start throwing away our principles, if this is what we have to do to get elected, maybe we shouldn’t get elected.”
Gines told Mississippi Today no one factor led him to flip. When asked how he squared many of the modern Republican Party’s policies and principles that have worked against Black people, he harkened back to 19th century America.
“I’ve been using the term ‘going back home’ because this was once the party of Blacks,” Gines said. “Blacks once called the Republican Party the party of Lincoln. Look at the history: the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment. When you start talking about civil rights and freedom, one of the first groups to push civil rights in America was the Republican Party. Now what it’s become versus what it was is two different things.”
When pressed about the more modern policies of the Republican Party, Gines deflected and said, “I don’t think that there’s anything that everyone believes in 100% in either party.” When asked which Republican Party platforms he agreed with, he mentioned just one theme.
“I grew up in a conservative household,” he said. “There were 11 kids, and we had to stretch a dollar. My dad knew how to budget his household. If he didn’t budget his household right, his kids would’ve had to go without. That is what we call true conservative living. Fiscal responsibility. That jumps right out.”
He did not directly answer a question about whether he felt he had properly managed the city of Biloxi’s spending during his previous two terms as a Democrat.
Just a few hours after he announced the party flip, there were broad talks of unseating Gines. For more than a week now, callers to WJZD owner Rip Daniels’ popular radio show “It’s a New Day” have blistered Gines for his party switch.
“Felix Gines’ values are just the same as all Republicans trying to move up — that is, they’re out for themselves,” Gwen Catchings, a retired professor and business owner who lives in Gines’ district, told Mississippi Today. “They’re willing to sell their soul to the devil in order to get where they want to go. What they fail to realize is that once you go down that slippery slope, you’ve lost all your integrity.”
The recent effort of GOP officials to attract Black elected officials may have flipped Gines, but it could prove difficult to sustain come election time. While generations of Black Mississippians have fought and even died for better representation, Mississippi has never elected a Black candidate to statewide office. No legislative Republican is Black, and virtually all of the state’s Black elected officials are Democrats or independents.
GOP officials, though, say they will double down on their currently held values to try to appeal to a more diverse set of candidates.
“We know our plans and policies to reduce inflation, lower taxes, cut wasteful spending, secure our borders, invest in national defense, and restore American energy are appealing to all Americans,” Mississippi GOP Chairman Frank Bordeaux said in a statement. “We’re taking that message to communities where Republicans have not traditionally been as successful in order to recruit, train, and elect a more diverse group of candidates and bring thousands more freedom-loving Mississippians into our party. Felix Gines making the decision to join our party is a major win for us.”
But Black voters in Gines’ district do not appear moved to join him in the Republican Party — “the party of Donald Trump and insurrectionists,” as Daniels recently put it on his radio show.
“I know Dr. Gilbert R. Mason is turning over in his grave today,” Catchings said of Gines’ GOP flip. “If the Republican Party really wants to do something for Black folks in Mississippi, it wouldn’t be important if Felix Gines or anyone else was Republican or Democrat. They would already be doing it. If they didn’t do it while he was a Democrat, they aren’t going to do it when he’s a Republican. It’s just so obvious. Why should we fall for that? What we have is just like Georgia and Herschel Walker. The white folks have found them a Black boy. That’s all this is, and we aren’t going to fall for it.”
Dr. Gilbert R. Mason led the Biloxi Beach wade-ins and fought his whole life for voting rights and equal representation in government.
In 2019, Gines ran as a Democrat for a Biloxi-based House of Representatives seat as a Democrat. He came within about 150 votes of unseating incumbent state Rep. Randall Patterson, a Republican who himself was a Democrat until he flipped to the Republican Party midterm in 2014. Gines decried the lack of support from the Mississippi Democratic Party in the 2019 race and blamed his loss on state party dysfunction.
When Mississippi Today asked if Gines planned to run for that House of Representatives seat in 2023, this time as a Republican, he let out an extended laugh before responding, “Right now, my job is to serve my constituents and do the best I can to serve them. But I won’t rule out any future runs.”
Patterson told Mississippi Today on Dec. 13 he had not yet decided whether he’ll run for a sixth term in the House, but he praised Gines for “having a good heart” and “doing a good job as Biloxi councilman.”
Regardless of Gines’ future plans, many of his council ward’s constituents are fuming. Stallworth, who served on the Biloxi City Council for 10 years and lost to Gines in the 2013 Democratic primary, said he was approached several times by the Republican Party with incentives to flip.
“All I had to do for more power was give up my integrity, to be loyal to the party, to be loyal to the money,” Stallworth said of those offers. “I didn’t do it because I’d rather be loyal to principles and to what my God says to be. I don’t plan on losing my soul. My integrity is the last thing I’ve got, and I’d fight with everything in my power to maintain that. I don’t have a lot to leave my children. But if I can leave them with a sense of integrity and honesty and fair play, if I can give them that, I will have done well.”
Stallworth continued: “I don’t mind anyone being a Democrat or Republican, but I do mind people being liars and cheats. I’d say that to Mr. Gines or any other politician. You’ve got to be honest with yourself at the end of the day. Anything less than that just isn’t acceptable.”
Editor’s note: This story contains references to suicide. If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or dial 988. Local resources include the Mississippi Department of Mental Health DMH Helpline at 1-877-210-8513.
Today’s scheduled execution of Thomas Loden Jr. may bring some closure to his victim’s family but also, barring any last-minute stays, end to a troubled life.
While no justification can be made for Loden’s assault and murder of a 16-year-old waitress, what brought him to that point may be found in his past.
In court documents, attorneys for Loden have told the story of a man who was physically and sexually abused as a child and experienced post-traumatic stress disorder from his military deployment.
The 58-year-old has been on death row for over 20 years for the 2000 murder and rape of Leesa Gray in Dorsey in Itawamba County.
He had no criminal record prior to Gray’s murder, his attorneys said.
Loden was born to a mother who married his father at age 17 to escape a difficult home life, according to court documents.
His father was physically and sexually abusive toward his mother, and it is likely Loden witnessed the abuse, court documents say.
His parents divorced when he was a toddler, and Loden bounced between living with his parents. Court documents say his step parents physically abused him.
Loden also experienced sexual abuse from a church staff member at Bible school.
As a result of trauma, he had attempted suicide several times and had substance use problems, according to court documents.
Loden gained stability when he went to live with his grandparents on their farm in Itawamba County, according to court documents.
After graduating from Itawamba Agricultural High School in 1982, Loden joined the Marine Corps.
His commanding officer described Loden as “a poster Marine” and the “hardest charging Marine I have ever had work for me,” according to court documents.
He sought promotion opportunities, eventually reaching the rank of gunnery sergeant. Throughout his career, he received several awards and medals such as the Combat Action Ribbon, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal and the Good Conduct Medal, according to court documents.
Loden served in the Gulf War where his unit was often attacked. He witnessed deaths, including that of a close friend.
That friend’s death experience changed him, Loden’s wife said in court documents, and she said he was different after the war. He drank heavily, took drugs, had nightmares and flashbacks and picked fights. He became less social, distant from loved ones and felt anxious in crowds.
A psychologist who worked with Loden’s attorneys diagnosed him with chronic PTSD from combat, complex PTSD from his childhood and borderline personality disorder.
After deployment, Loden was transferred a number of times, including in 1995 to Virginia to be an instructor for the Marine Corps’ Anti-Terrorism Security Team – a prestigious and high pressure assignment.
In Virginia, he met his third wife. His two previous marriages ended when his wives were unfaithful, according to court documents. He had a daughter with his third wife, and the family moved to Vicksburg for him to work as a recruiter.
His third marriage also turned out to be troubled.
Loden’s attorneys argued their strained relationship, paired with drugs and alcohol, influenced how he acted the night of Gray’s death.
Days before the murder, Loden traveled from Vicksburg to his grandparent’s farm to care for his grandmother. He was also stressed from the recruiting quotas at work, according to court documents.
He had been drinking and took drugs throughout the day when he received a call from his wife, who claimed she had telephone sex with a partner from the law firm where she worked, and that she planned to have sex with him while Loden was away, according to court documents.
That evening he went to Comer’s Restaurant where Gray was his waitress and tried to flirt with the teenager. Loden waited until she was off work and found her parked by the side of the road with a flat tire.
He offered help and told her he was with the Marines. He asked if she ever thought about joining, and Gray gave a response that angered him, according to court documents. Loden forced her into his van, where he repeatedly raped and murdered her.
The psychologist said Loden experienced a localized episode of dissociative amnesia when he killed Gray, according to court documents.
When her body was discovered in his car, law enforcement found Loden lying by the side of the road with self-inflicted wounds on his wrists and the words “I’m sorry” carved into his chest, according to court documents.
During his 2001 trial, Loden admitted to killing Gray, as opposed to letting her go, because it would “tarnish [his] image as the perfect Marine.” In later appeals, mitigation evidence became a focus of his attorneys’ argument that Loden had ineffective assistance of counsel.
Loden pleaded guilty to all counts and waived his right to a jury for trial and sentencing, hoping to spare Gray’s family and friends a long trial.
“I hope you may have some sense of justice when you leave here today,” he said during his trial.
For much of its 98-year existence, Delta State University enjoyed prosperous growth, educating more and more students in pursuit of becoming the “educational and cultural center” of the Mississippi Delta.
But in the last eight years, enrollment has plummeted at the regional college in Bolivar County faster than at any other public university in Mississippi. Headcount has dropped 29% percent since 2014, with just 2,556 students enrolled this year, raising questions about Delta State’s ability to meet its mission and provide higher education to a region that’s rapidly losing population.
Administrators have tried – and so far, largely failed – to reverse the decline. Enrollment dropped all but three years under the university’s former president, William LaForge. Over the summer, the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees suddenly removed him, citing the lack of improvement in the university’s financial and enrollment metrics. The board is now on the hunt for Delta State’s next leader with the goal of filling the position in spring 2023.
Whoever takes the helm will face significant challenges. Years of plummeting enrollment, along with deep cuts to state funding, have strained Delta State’s budget. This has forced the administration to cut programs, layoff faculty and staff, and delay much-needed maintenance and repairs. The pandemic hasn’t helped.
And it’s unclear if Delta State’s two biggest budgetary strategies — raising tuition and cutting institutional scholarships — are even working or simply making the university unaffordable for the very community it’s supposed to serve.
The administration knows that’s a possibility. In 2019, the former provost warned that increasing tuition “still doesn’t help cover the increasing cost of expenses due to a downward enrollment trend,” according to meeting minutes.
“Delta State may soon reach the saturation point of how much tuition Delta area students can afford to pay,” he told the president’s cabinet.
In 2014, tuition at Delta State cost $6,012 a year before room and board. Now, it’s up to $8,435, a quarter of the median household income in Bolivar County.
Delta State is also looking to hire a director of admissions, a search it closed in August 2022 because it was unsatisfied with the applicants.
Eddie Lovin, the vice president of student affairs, is overseeing enrollments in the meantime. In an email, he did not say if the administration thinks Delta State has reached the forewarned “saturation point” yet but wrote that “affordability is always a concern for all students, not just Delta students.”
Even though headcount declined again this fall, Lovin told Mississippi Today in an interview that he is “cautiously optimistic” enrollment will improve by 2024, citing an increase in the numbers of freshmen, transfer students and re-admitted students compared to last year.
The community is less sure. Last month, IHL trustees hosted a listening session on campus to gather input on the presidential search. The board also asked attendees to fill out an online survey. The majority of the 97 anonymous respondents identified enrollment as the biggest challenge facing Delta State. In written feedback, many said they wanted the next president to have a plan to bring more students to campus – even if that means recruiting beyond the Delta.
“How can we recapture the DSU of old and drive students from all over the state not just the Delta to DSU?” one respondent submitted.
Delta State has long had a complicated relationship with the region it serves. The historically white college was the last public university in the state to admit Black students in 1967.
While Delta State now enrolls a far higher percentage of Black students than the University of Mississippi or Mississippi State University, its demographics don’t line up with the Delta’s. In 2020, 33% of students at Delta State were Black and 55% were white, according to federal data – a near inversion of the demographics of Bolivar County, which is 65% Black and 33% white.
In 2013, the former president, LaForge, said he would focus on recruiting — he vowed that on his first day on the job, he would personally visit all the high schools in Cleveland. He also promised to fix the budget.
“For too long, Delta State’s expenses have continued to rise while enrollment has decreased,” he said at his first convocation in 2014. “Both those trains have to stop, and we are committed to halting both and turning them in the right direction.”
LaForge had to repeatedly reduce the budget, often by $1 million or more. He closed the university’s golf course at the recommendation of his cabinet and shuttered a slew of programs from athletic training to journalism.
In 2000, Delta State received roughly $21 million in state appropriations. If state funding had kept pace with inflation, the university would have received about $36 million from the Legislature this fiscal year. Instead, it got $20 million.
These state budget cuts have hamstrung the administration’s ability to fund new programs or strategies to increase enrollment. But there were tactics the university could have pursued without more funding.
At a meeting in July 2015, the former dean of enrollment management, Debbie Heslep, told cabinet members that the university needed an enrollment plan crafted with input from the whole campus.
The plan should be led by a faculty member, not admissions, Heslep said, and provide a “clear direction and a unified decision on where to take our enrollment management efforts” like targeting National Merit semi-finalists, emphasizing particular majors, or increasing scholarships.
It's unclear from the meeting minutes if that ever happened. Interim Director of Communications Holly Ray told Mississippi Today via email that “Admissions has undergone restructuring quite a few times since then, so there isn’t any one person who was there during that time to speak to it.”
By 2018, meeting minutes show the administration discussing how dire the financial situation had become. That July, Vice President for Finance and Administration James Rutledge told cabinet members there were three ways the university could improve its cash on hand: delaying infrastructure repairs, increasing tuition and cutting scholarships.
Each strategy, Rutledge warned, came with a “caveat … that shows it will be damaging to the university,” according to minutes.
“IHL Commissioner Al Rankins has seen the Financial Sustainability report, and he knows our three strategies can’t be accomplished without terrible consequences,” Rutledge told the cabinet.
The reason Delta State was considering pursuing that latter strategy — reducing scholarships — was somewhat ironic. The university had routinely overspent its scholarship budget by $1 million, largely because of increased tuition.
For students, the reduction in scholarships can mean they’re taking on more debt to go to college.
At Delta State, 60% of students take out federal loans to attend, according to the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard. After graduation, the median debt is a little over $21,000 – a significant amount compared to median earnings of about $37,000.
It remains to be seen if these strategies will meaningfully improve the school’s budget. The influx of federal dollars during the pandemic has helped Delta State stay afloat the last two years. And while the university's cash on hand increased to 40 days in 2020 – the highest in 10 years – that’s still nowhere near IHL’s goal of 90 days.
But Delta State has a plan to improve enrollment now. At LaForge’s direction, Lovin, the vice president of student affairs, prepared one for IHL last year. The plan emphasizes recruiting in nearby high schools so that Delta State can once again “own its own backyard” but also says the university must “expand its reach” to meet its needs.
The plan does not discuss Delta State’s affordability. Lovin said he thinks the primary reason enrollment has declined is subpar recruiting efforts, not cost.
When he took over admissions, Lovin said he learned “we hadn't been to Cleveland High School in several years,” he said. “It's a block down the street.”
Correction 12/14/22: A quote in this story has been updated to reflect DSU has not been to Cleveland high in several years, not seven years.
Mississippi State football coach Mike Leach, who died last night at the age of 61, was nothing if not authentic. There was only one of him. He was unique. He was special.
I wish I had known him better. But here’s what I do know: Leach was remarkably bright, intellectually curious, and an innovative person who just happened to coach football. He would have been successful at whatever he chose to do. He just happened to choose football. His life story reads like something out of Ripley’s Believe it or Not.
Rick Cleveland
Start with this: He never really played football, but he changed the way the sport is played at every level. He and Hal Mumme devised the Air Raid offense at a little NAIA school called Iowa Wesleyan. Now, nearly everybody uses some version — or at least some of the principles — of that spread-the-field, no-huddle offense.
I loved the way Leach put in his book — “Swing Your Sword” —when he was writing about what he and Mumme were doing at Iowa Wesleyan: “We were changing the geometry of the game.”
They were. Nearly everybody else was lining up their offensive linemen shoulder to shoulder, Leach and Mumme were splitting their linemen at least a yard apart. Nearly every other team was huddling between downs, as teams had done since the sport was invented. Iowa Wesleyan skipped the huddle all together. Everybody else was running the ball most of the time and passing occasionally. Leach and Mumme threw it on almost every play, often using crossing patterns that had the defense running into one another like The Three Stooges. Most coaches called plays from the sidelines and the quarterback, if he wanted to remain the quarterback, ran those plays as ordered. Iowa Wesleyan gave the quarterback the freedom to change the play at the line of scrimmage.
Iowa Wesleyan was 0-10 the year before the arrival of Mumme and Leach. They were 7-4 in their first season and then won 17 over the next two years. As Leach put it, “I was the offensive line coach, the offensive coordinator, the recruiting coordinator, the equipment manager, the video coordinator and the sport information director. I also taught two classes.”
His salary was $12,000 a year. Keep in mind, he could have been a lawyer making many times that. Also keep in mind, when Leach died, he was making $5.5 million a year to coach at Mississippi State.
Mumme and Leach won at Iowa Wesleyan, then Valdosta State, then Kentucky. Leach then went to Oklahoma for one year before becoming a head coach at Texas Tech. His head coaching career consisted of three stops: Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State — places where you are the underdog competing against the likes of Texas, Oklahoma, Southern Cal, Washington, Alabama and LSU. Despite that, his teams won 158 games and lost 107 and went to bowl games in 18 of his 22 years.
It’s funny: I can remember, years ago, many discussions about whether Leach’s offense would translate in the Southeastern Conference where teams primarily ran the ball and won with ball control and defense. Hell, by the time Leach finally came to the SEC nearly everybody in the league, including Alabama, was running some version of his offense.
No, Leach has not, to use the hackneyed phrase, “set the world on fire” during this three seasons at Mississippi State. But his Bulldogs surely were trending in the right direction, from 4-7 in year one, to 7-6 in 2021, to 8-4 this season. He was getting there.
Leach’s arrival at Mississippi State coincided with the pandemic, the biggest reason why I didn’t get to know him better than I did. It’s difficult to really get to know someone in zoom meetings. Indeed, the most time I ever spent with him was in 2011, when he was on a book tour between his stints as Texas Tech and Washington State. We met at Lemuria and drank several cups of coffee over three hours outside at Broad Street Baking Company and Cafe. Funny thing: He was a football coach, and I was a sports writer and we talked about football for maybe five minutes total. Another funny thing: It was Houston Nutt’s last season at Ole Miss, and Vanderbilt had just blasted the Rebels 30-7. Many folks were mentioning Leach as Nutt’s possible replacement. We could see passers-by putting two and two together and whispering.
I remember talking to Leach about going from Pepperdine law school (where he accumulated $45,000 debt from student loans) to a $3,000 a year coaching job.
“I was going to give it two or three years then get back to being a lawyer and make some money,” he said, chuckling. “I got hooked.”
We can all be thankful he did. He has made football far more fun. The outpouring of respect and admiration these past few days speaks volumes.
Mississippi State – and, really, the football world, lost a legend overnight when Mike Leach died. The Clevelands discuss Leach, his authenticity and his legacy. Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger joins the podcast again to join the discussion.
The bronze statue of one of the state’s most notorious racists, Theodore Bilbo, is being moved from its utility room in the Capitol to storage in the basement of the Two Mississippi Museums.
Katie Blount, executive director of the state Department of Archives and History, confirmed that the Department of Finance and Administration is moving the 5 feet 2 inches tall statue to a basement underneath the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History.
Blount said there is no plan to publicly display the statue that for decades was on display in the Mississippi Capitol. The statue was secretly moved in late 2020 from Room 113 to a secret location that was later revealed to be in a closet or storage room behind the elevator on the House side of the Capitol.
House Clerk Andrew Ketchings later confirmed that he acted on his own to move the statue from its public display. Ketchings, a former Republican House member who was elected to his position managing the day-to-day operations of the House by the members of the chamber, said he moved the statue because he did not believe it was appropriate for such a divisive figure to be on display in the Capitol.
State Rep. Fred Shanks, R-Brandon, said he was considering filing legislation to do just what is in the process of happening with the Bilbo sculpture.
“After the Bilbo statue was moved I had a (Bilbo) family member/friend who reached out to me to bring forth legislation this upcoming session to move the Bilbo statue. The plan was to move the statue to the Two Museums. He felt that it was would be a good way to move his family name as well as the state of Mississippi forward,” Shanks said.
All former governors have portraits on display on the first floor of the Capitol. But at the time Bilbo was moved, the only other statue in the building was a bust of former Lt. Gov. Evelyn Gandy — one of a handful of women elected to statewide office in Mississippi.
A Memphis company, Art Logistics International, moved the sculpture to the storage area on the first floor of the Capitol on a Saturday when the building was not in use. The company also will be moving the statue to the Two Mississippi Museums. The first move, by the company which specializes in moving pieces of art, cost between $4,000 and $5,000. It is not known at this time what the upcoming move will cost.
The statue is owned by the DFA, but Archives and History has agreed to store it.
Theodore Bilbo, shown in 1939, was a known Klansman who served as Mississippi’s governor and a U.S. senator. Credit: Harris & Ewing/Library of Congress
Bilbo served two terms as Mississippi governor in the 1920s and 30s and was later elected three times as U.S. senator. Among his many egregiously racist actions, he advocated for the deportation of Black Americans to Africa and fought national efforts to pass anti-lynching legislation.
Bilbo died of throat cancer in 1947 in the midst of efforts by his colleague to not seat him in the Senate after his most recent election victory. Soon after Bilbo’s death, a joint resolution adopted by the Mississippi Legislature in 1948 established a commission to memorialize the former governor who, according to the resolution, “worked unceasingly and often alone to preserve Southern customs and traditions and in so doing sought to preserve the true American way of life … and particularly his efforts to preserve this state and nation by his successful fight against the enactment of national legislation, which would have destroyed the United State of America, if the same had been enacted.”
The resolution called for the statue to be placed “in a prominent place on the first floor of the new Capitol building.”
For decades the statue was displayed prominently in the Capitol rotunda. But in the early 1980s while the Capitol was closed for renovations, then-Gov. William Winter ordered the statue to be moved to Room 113 – at the time a seldom-used room in the building.
In more recent times, Room 113 has become the location for meetings of multiple House committees and caucuses, including the Legislative Black Caucus.
I’m sitting in the waiting room of a car garage, talking to a man about Mike Leach and his life. The man, who is an Ole Miss fan, said, “I liked Mike Leach. He was an original.” I agree. Coach Leach was an original — and a legend. He mastered the very rare art of feeling comfortable in his own skin. And in the short time he coached at Mississippi State, he and Lane Kiffin made the rivalry better. Heck, they made the state better.
This one hurts.
Why? We both came to this conclusion. After so much loss over the past couple of years, we just lost someone who brought joy to the world. Whether it was his Air Raid offense or some off-the-wall comment about the state of the world, he made life interesting.
