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.
READ MORE: Leach did it his way, changed football in the process
Stream all episodes here.
The post Podcast: Mike Leach, remembered. appeared first on Mississippi Today.
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.
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.
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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.
Life is less interesting now. RIP to a legend.
The post Marshall Ramsey: Mike Leach appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Lisa Darracott recently found her 2000 yearbook from her junior year at Itawamba Agricultural High School with an entire page reserved for her best friend since kindergarten, Leesa Gray.
In half a page of writing, Gray thanked Darracott for being a great friend who supported her and made her laugh, but Gray didn’t get the opportunity to finish the message.
The final bell let students out for the summer. Weeks later in June, members of the Dorsey community and students learned that Gray was murdered.
“For those of us who were around when it happened, it still feels like it just happened,” Darracott said. “It doesn’t feel like 22 years.”
On Wednesday, Darracott will travel to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman for the lethal injection execution of Gray’s killer, Thomas Loden Jr., who received the death sentence for Gray’s rape and murder.
Family members, including Gray’s mother Wanda Farris, are expected to witness the execution.
Darracott remembers Gray as a friendly person with a nice smile who liked to do makeup and style hair. They could look at each other and know what was on each other’s mind, she said.
Gray finished the school year as junior class vice president and had just left work at her family’s eatery, Comer’s Restaurant, when Loden abducted her.
She was a member of groups that reflected many interests: chorus, juniorettes and Future Educators of America, according to her obituary. Gray explored a future in business as a member of Future Business Leaders of America and secretary of DECA, the competitive student entrepreneurship organization.
“She was a sweet Christian girl, loved the Lord, had a lot of life ahead of her,” Wanda Farris told the Associated Press last month.
Gray left behind her mother, stepfather Mike Farris, father John Gray and younger brother James Farris. Mississippi Today reached out to several family members, but they were not available for comment.
The Dorsey community was left reeling after Gray’s death on June 23, 2000, the Daily Journal reported at the time. A day earlier when she went missing after work, her family, community and law enforcement launched a search before finding her body in Loden’s van.
Loden, a gunnery sergeant and Marine Corps recruiter, was arrested and pleaded guilty.
Over 1,000 people attended Gray’s funeral services at her high school.
The senior class of 2001 and senior youth group at her church, Bethel Baptist Church, were honorary pallbearers.
Finishing high school without her was hard, Darracott said, and Gray’s absence was felt at milestones like prom and graduation.
When Darracott married, she pictured Gray there as her maid of honor. If Gray were still alive, Darracott wondered what kind of career her friend would have, the person she would marry and whether she would have children of her own.
“There was always a hole where she should have been,” Darracott said.
Over the years, Gray’s family, friends and community members have kept up with developments in Loden’s case, which has included state and federal appeals over the last two decades.
Last month, Farris and several friends traveled to Jackson for a hearing before U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate, who is hearing a case challenging Mississippi’s use of a three-drug mix for lethal injection.
Loden joined that case and the judge considered whether to grant Loden a stay until it was decided, but Wingate ultimately denied that request, a week before the scheduled execution.
“I forgave him a long time ago,” Farris told the news outlets last week. “You need to forgive to move on. You can’t keep all that bitterness inside.”
A prayer vigil is scheduled for Wednesday, 5 p.m. the day of the execution, at Bethel Baptist Church in Fulton. People are asked to wear purple to show support for Gray.
The post ‘It doesn’t feel like 22 years,’ says friend of murder victim as killer’s execution nears appeared first on Mississippi Today.
As I write this, Coach Mike Leach is in critical condition at UMMC. The outpouring of love and respect for him is coming in from all corners of the nation — and Mississippi. Coach Leach is a Mississippi and national treasure. My heart and prayers go out to him, his family and his medical team. Today, we’re all Team Leach.
The post Marshall Ramsey: Team Leach appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Occasionally, but not nearly often enough, an item crosses your desk that seems perfectly appropriate.
Here’s one: The United States Tennis Association (USTA) and Southern Tennis Foundation (STF) have seen fit to create an annual college scholarship to honor the late Jim Warren, former president of USTA-Mississippi.
It is difficult to imagine a more appropriate way to honor Warren, a Ripley native and long-time Jackson resident. Warren, a graduate of Southern Miss and Ole Miss law, dedicated much of his adult life to tennis and higher education.
“That’s just perfect,” Southern Miss President Joe Paul, a close friend of Warren’s, said. “Jim donated so much of his adult life to the sport of tennis and in support of higher education. Jim would be tickled about this scholarship.”
Malinda Warren certainly is. Malinda and Jim Warren married in May of 2004 after a one-year courtship. Malinda was a devoted, competitive tennis player. Jim had never played. He took up the game at age 41.
“Because I was obsessed with tennis, Jim wanted to learn to play,” Malinda Warren says. “So he took up the game, took a lot of lessons and became skilled enough to enjoy playing. We played a lot of mixed doubles together. But he often joked that his skill set was such that he was much more adept at the administrative part of the sport than the actual playing.”
So, as Jim Warren was wont to do when he became involved with any pursuit, he dove head-first into the governance of the sport.
“Someone asked Jim to be on some committee and pretty soon he was running the committee,” Malinda Warren said. “He just kept moving on up.”
Boy, did he. When Jim Warren died suddenly at his home in August of 2021, he was serving on the USTA’s Southern Board of Directors. In 2015 and 2016, he served as president of USTA-Mississippi. He was a member of the USTA’s national Constitution and Rules Committee. He chaired the USTA Southern Constitution and Rules Committee. No telling how high he might have risen up the USTA’s administrative ladder. And all that is just touching the surface. He also served as a tennis official at various competitions.
The USTA also has honored Warren with a plaque on the Avenue of Aces, the walkway just in front of Louis Armstrong Stadium at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where the U.S. Open is contested. The fully endowed Jim Warren Scholarship, worth $1,000 a year, will go to worthy students who have been involved in tennis during their high school years. Primary criteria will be academic achievement and promise, civic involvement and character. Selection will be made by the STF’s College Scholarships Committee.
Jim Warren’s friends – and this writer is one – are not at all surprised that he would take up a sport so late in life and then become a driving force within it. That was Jim.
One spring day as a high school senior at Ripley, he decided to visit Southern Miss, where he had never been. That’s a 550-mile round trip from the top end of the state to nearly the bottom. He went by himself, driving his little Toyota pickup truck. Once in Hattiesburg, he met a co-ed who showed him around the campus and he immediately took a liking to the place. Indeed, he liked it so much that he decided to go meet the president, who was then Aubrey Lucas. Warren had no appointment.
But Warren walked into Lucas’s office, introduced himself, shared his high school credentials and his vision for his future. He left Lucas’s office with a USM Presidential Scholarship, and, Lucas will tell you, “a friend for life.”
Warren became president of the student body and president of his fraternity (Kappa Sigma). He later would serve on the USM Foundation’s Board of Directors and as president of the Southern Miss Alumni Association.
He was a do-er and a leader, Jim Warren was. Besides his law firm, he also held leadership positions in the Mississippi Bar Association, River Hills Club and his church and Sunday school. You see, if Jim Warren was going to be involved in anything, he was going to have a say and an influence.
The post The Jim Warren Scholarship: A perfect way to honor this guy appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Mississippi Today political reporter Bobby Harrison talks to House Constitution Chair Fred Shanks, R-Brandon, about the state’s initiative process and why the Rankin County lawmaker is optimistic that legislation will pass during the 2023 session to revive it. Shanks also weighs in on other issues, saying the Legislature can both cut taxes again in 2023 and provide one-time rebates to Mississippians.
The post Podcast: House Constitution Chair Shanks hopes new initiative wins 2023 legislative approval appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Mississippi’s historic growth in state tax collections is slowing — at least for a month.
This past month the state collected $518.8 million in taxes and other revenue compared to $531.9 million in November 2021.
Does the November revenue report represent the start of a slowdown in Mississippi tax collections that have grown at an unprecedented rate for more than a year?
It is a fair question? After all, Gov. Tate Reeves, House Speaker Philip Gunn and others are citing the unprecedented growth in state revenue as a reason to enact a tax cut that will take about $2 billion yearly out of state coffers.
The November report recently released by the staff of the Legislature Budget Committee represents the first slowdown in monthly revenue collections for the state since July 2021 when tax collections were less than the amount collected a year earlier in July 2020.
Granted, folks who study Mississippi revenue collection trends are fond of saying that one month does not a trend make. The state saw increased collections for 16 months after that slowdown in July 2021. So, there is a good chance that the collections will bounce back in December.
But as sure as night follows day, the slowdown in Mississippi tax collections eventually will occur. History tells us that.
Revenue grew by 9.54% during the fiscal year that ended on June 30 and by an unprecedented 15.9% the previous year.
The result of the strong growth is that the state has a revenue surplus of $3.9 billion going into the 2023 legislative session that begins in early January. Having $4 billion in reserves is staggering considering the total state support budget, which consists primarily of general tax collections, such as the sales tax on retail items and the income tax, is $7.86 billion for the current fiscal year.
A small portion of those reserve funds, about $450 million, are COVID-19 federal relief funds and money from lawsuit settlements, but most of the funds are the result of a boon in state tax collections.
The net result of those large reserves is that state political leaders are feeling pretty good and bragging on their governance prowess.
“We are in a great financial position,” Gunn, R-Clinton, said recently, echoing similar comments of Reeves.
“We can’t neglect or ignore the fact that conservative spending led to this type of financial situation,” Gunn continued. “We have rejected the attempts to grow government over the last many years and this (revenue surplus) has been the result of that.”
That is all well and good except for the fact most states have had similar unprecedented surpluses. California, for example, a state that Mississippi politicians like to criticize for its liberal policies, had a whopping $98 billion surplus, though, it appears that the West Coast state’s tax collections already are slowing.
But before slowing, California provided one-time rebates of between $200 and $1,500 to individuals earning less than $250,000 and to households earning less than $500,000.
Multiple states, controlled by Republicans and Democrats, have provided rebates.
In Mississippi, the taxpayers have not yet reaped any direct cash benefits from the massive surplus. In the 2022 session, legislators approved the largest tax cut in state history – a $525 million cut to the income tax. But that tax cut will not be fully phased in until 2026. Taxpayers can receive a small monthly benefit from the tax cut starting in January if they change their payroll deductions. Otherwise, taxpayers will receive no benefit from the tax cut until they file their tax returns in early 2024.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has proposed the Legislature provide a rebate in the 2023 session. Reeves and Gunn are proposing the complete elimination of the income tax. Such a cut will take an additional $2 billion out of the state treasury on top of the $525 million tax cut made last year.
During much of the 1990s, thanks to the start and incredibly rapid expansion of casino gambling, Mississippi experienced a prolonged period of historic revenue growth.
But by the early 2000s, as a recession hit the country that was especially bad in Mississippi, the Legislature and then-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove were having to cut budgets.
That is not to say that the Legislature and governor should not look for innovative ways to spend the surplus for the betterment of the state and its citizens.
A reasonable debate can be had on whether it is better to return funds to citizens or use the surplus to address the litany of problems facing the state. But it is safe to assume tax cuts that take more than $2.5 billion yearly out of state coffers will have a lasting impact, especially when revenue collections slow as they most assuredly will.
The post Are revenue collections already slowing as state leaders consider massive tax cut? appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Politicians have the power to change history through leadership and solid public policy. They shouldn’t try to rewrite it.
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In my first week at Mississippi Today in September of 2018, I sat on the floor in the middle of the newsroom, federal financial reports from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program splayed in front of me. “I am investigating our state’s TANF program,” I wrote in an email to my editor. “Where is the money going and where is it not? We know the TANF program has not improved our rate of poverty: is that an unfortunate reality or the result of negligence? Even by design?”
Over the last four years, I’ve sought that answer.
What followed was the largest public fraud case in state history.
Officials stole or misspent tens of millions of these federal dollars that could have been used to provide food, child care, workforce training or cash assistance to tens of thousands of vulnerable families. We first broke the story in 2020 about the role that former NFL quarterback Brett Favre played in two pet projects that received welfare funds.
But it wasn’t until I got my hands on some private text messages earlier this year that Mississippians learned just how involved their governor was at the time.
“I will open a hole,” then-Gov. Phil Bryant texted Favre, days before millions of welfare dollars began flowing to the athlete’s pharmaceutical venture.
Our series, The Backchannel, provided a groundbreaking glimpse into the inner workings of state government and altered the course of the ongoing investigation, pressuring officials to acknowledge just how high up the corruption went.
Mississippi Today is relentless in its pursuit of answers. But the reporting isn’t cheap. In the last four years, I’ve filed more than 140 public records requests, which have cost thousands of dollars, and traveled everywhere from Marks to Kiln to tell Mississippi’s story.
You can help us continue this work:
Most of all, keep reading. You keep reading, and we’ll keep going to uncover the truth.
Now through December 31, the Maddox Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s education program, and additional supporters will match your new recurring donation dollar-for-dollar, combined up to $54,000. That means your $25 turns into $100 to continue telling your stories.
Maddox Foundation was founded by Dan Maddox in 1968. He and his wife, Margaret Maddox, had a commitment to young people, a love of nature and a vision for making their corner of the world a better place. Maddox Foundation President Robin Hurdle has continued their legacy, which lives on through the current work of the foundation.
Maddox Foundation, located in Hernando, has made many signature investment grants into youth development. These investments include renovating and supporting the Margaret Maddox Family YMCA; putting an internet-connected computer in every public classroom in Mississippi; creating innovative places for children to learn and play; establishing the Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi; and funding the Education Director position and the MTV exhibit at the Grammy Museum Mississippi.
The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation (JLFF), based in Berkeley, CA, supports organizations that advance social justice by promoting world-changing work in investigative journalism, the arts, documentary film and democracy. As a small foundation, JLFF’s investment in NewsMatch allows the Foundation to make a difference across the entire field of local investigative journalism.
The Hewlett Foundation’s Education program supports media outlets that strengthen the information ecosystem around our country’s K-12 education systems. They believe that local communities are a key part of improving teaching and learning opportunities for every student.
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