Putting investigators to work.
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Mississippi Stories: Scott Albert Johnson
“There are harmonica players and then there is Scott Albert Johnson… One of the best harp players in the world.” — Cashbox Music Reviews
Mississippi Today’s Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with singer, songwriter and musician Scott Albert Johnson. Born in Jackson, Scott Albert Johnson moved around the U.S. before putting down roots back in Mississippi. A graduate of Harvard and Columbia, Johnson shares stories about his time as a kicker and then how his career as a musician took off. Ramsey and Johnson talk creativity, dreams and how to achieve them. Johnson also tells how to achieve balance in life rooted in family, friends and music.
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Redistricting gives Republicans chance to increase legislative super majorities
Republicans have a reasonable chance of increasing their much ballyhooed super majorities, at least in the Mississippi House, in the 2023 elections based on the redrawing of the legislative districts earlier this year.
It might be more difficult for Republicans to increase their numbers in the Senate than in the House. Currently, 36 of the Senate’s 52 members and 77 of the House’s 122 members are Republican.
Not so long ago, there was a belief that a Democrat had at least an even-money chance of winning a white majority Mississippi legislative district with an African American population of 35% or more.
That most likely is no longer even money. Democrats have not been able to win statewide races in recent years even though the state’s African American population is about 38%. Elections in Mississippi have become increasingly more polarized with white voters supporting Republicans and Black voters backing Democrats.
Despite that polarization making Republican majorities near inevitable, the Republican leadership has not provided many opportunities to garner evidence of whether Democrats can still win in legislative districts with Black population of at least 35%, but less than a majority. They have not drawn many districts meeting that criteria.
The redistricting plan drawn earlier his year for the 122-member House has two white majority districts with African American population of more than 35%, and both of those are barely above that threshold. Two more districts are just below 35%.
It is worth noting that in 2011, when Democrats still controlled the House, they drew a plan with 13 districts with a Black population of more than 35% but less than a majority. But that plan was never enacted. The Senate controlled by Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant refused to take it up for a vote, violating the custom of each chamber rubber stamping the plan of the other house.
In the 52-member Senate, there were six districts with Black populations of more than 35% but less than a majority before this year’s redistricting. After redistricting there are four.
Carroll Rhodes, a Hazlehurst attorney and veteran of many redistricting battles, says the NAACP and other groups are still deciding whether to file a lawsuit challenging the redistricting maps approved this session on the grounds they dilute Black voter strength.
“There are additional districts to be created for Black voters to elect candidates of their choice,” Rhodes said recently.
Rhodes and other civil rights attorneys believe strongly that districts should be drawn in such a manner to ensure that they represent the racial demographics of the state. Under the current plan, 29% of the Senate districts and 34% of the House districts are Black majority. Based on the 2020 U.S. Census, the state’s African American and partially African American population is 38%, while the white population is 59%.
Rhodes added, though, that the districts should not be drawn in such a manner “to pack Black voters” — 75%, 80% or more in many instances — into districts to prevent them from having influence in other districts.
He believes that is what the House and Senate did in the redistricting plan drawn in the 2022 legislative session.
There are currently two white Democrats in the House representing white majority districts. District 33, represented by Democrat Tommy Reynolds, has a Black population of about 44%, perhaps ideal for a rural white Democrat. Reynolds is not running for re-election and his district is being moved to the fast growing Gulf Coast where it will have a Black population of about 25%.
The other white Democrat from a white majority district in the House, Tom Miles of Forest, is something of an anomaly. He was elected from a district with a Black population of about 26%. His new district will have similar demographics, but the Republican House leadership is moving his district partially into more Republican friendly Madison County.
Miles has hung on despite long odds in past elections.
The upcoming 2023 elections will determine whether he can do it again or whether his new district will result in more growth for the Republican supermajority.
Based on the 2022 redistricting effort, there is a possibility after the 2023 elections that there will not be any white Democrats in the House representing white majority districts.
In the Senate, Hob Bryan, D-Amory, is currently the lone white Democrat representing a white majority district. Bryan’s new district actually will be slightly more advantageous to his re-election effort in terms of having a higher percentage of Black voters.
After the 2023 elections, Bryan could be the only legislator left standing, re-enforcing that old belief that Democrats have a good chance of winning white majority districts with African American populations of at least 35%.
Perhaps Democrats can find candidates to prove these numbers wrong in 2023.
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‘I want to assure you’: Letters from IHL commissioner shed light on controversial tenure changes
A pair of letters sent earlier this month by the Institutions of Higher Learning commissioner shed light on the recent controversial policy changes that faculty fear will make it harder to get and keep tenure at Mississippi universities.
In the letters, Commissioner Alfred Rankins addressed concerns that the new standards IHL added to its tenure policies, like “collegiality,” could be used by university presidents to discriminate against politically outspoken faculty or faculty members of color.
Rankins wrote that IHL thinks the new policies are “improvements to prior policy language.” Though teaching, research and service are still the main factors, Rankins wrote the board believes that standards like collegiality are valid and legal for university presidents to consider and don’t infringe on the constitutional rights of faculty in Mississippi.
“There is no prior evidence to suggest these terms have quashed academic freedom or faculty individual rights within our system of universities,” Rankins wrote. “In reviewing your concerns, I must point out that almost any criterion commonly used in evaluating faculty for tenure could be used by a bad actor as a pretext for denying tenure for impermissible reasons.”
“However, that does not mean that the criterion is not an appropriate and valuable point of consideration as part of the tenure attainment process,” he added.
Rankins sent the letters, which are similar, on May 9 and May 10 in reply to inquiries from faculty at the University of Southern Mississippi as well as two national nonprofits, PEN America and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
“I want to assure you that the protection of our employees’ constitutional rights is of utmost importance to us,” he wrote to both groups.
Jeremy Young, the senior manager for free expression and education for PEN America, told Mississippi Today that he was not assured. Young said Rankins’ letter made him more concerned about the new policies. The organizations told Rankins as much earlier this week in a reply to his letter.
“Your response assuages none of the academic freedom or free expression concerns in our original letter, and in fact strongly suggests the IHL Board of Governors neither understands the concept of academic freedom nor recognizes its central importance to the health of higher education,” the organizations wrote back on May 18.
PEN America and FIRE pushed back on Rankins’ assertion that there is no evidence IHL’s policies have violated academic freedom. They wrote that IHL and university presidents have appeared to use the tenure policies to target outspoken faculty in several cases, including in 2019 when several board members voted to deny University of Mississippi sociology professor James Thomas because they did not like some of his tweets.
Faculty are “justified in interpreting the new policy as more than an idle threat,” the organizations wrote.
IHL’s new policies gave the university presidents the final say on approving tenure applications. Previously, the board approved tenure. IHL also added new criteria for university presidents to use to determine whether to grant tenure, including a faculty member’s “collegiality,” “effectiveness, accuracy and integrity in communications,” and “contumacious conduct,” a factor that was previously only included in the board’s tenure dismissal policy.
Faculty say these new terms will weaken tenure in Mississippi by providing university presidents a guise to dismiss outspoken or marginalized faculty. Tenure is meant to ensure that faculty are only dismissed for cause.
But IHL never gave faculty an opportunity to have formal input on the new policies. When the trustees approved the tenure policies at its April meeting, they did so without discussion. The board did discuss the policies at its March board meeting, but the proposed revisions were not included on the agenda. The March meeting was held at Mississippi State University Riley Center in Meridian, an hour-and-a-half away from the complex where the board typically meets in Jackson, and was not live-streamed.
IHL’s April vote came as faculty were in the middle of the most hectic time of year, reading essays and submitting final grades. At University of Southern Mississippi, members of the faculty senate met with President Rodney Bennett to ask him about the new policy.
Shortly after, Brian LaPierre, the president of USM’s faculty senate, wrote a letter on May 3 asking Commissioner Rankins to clarify the new policies.
“This is intended to give you a sense of the confusion, anxiety, and dismay that these policies — and the lack of information and context accompanying them — have created in our campus community,” LaPierre wrote.
LaPierre appended a number of questions about the new policies: What prompted IHL to revise its tenure policies? Why weren’t faculty consulted? Is IHL concerned the policies “will impact the ability of our universities to recruit and retain talented faculty and students, as well as promote research in Mississippi?”
Rankins did not address these questions in his reply. He defended the new criteria, particularly collegiality, as a standard that is legal to consider in granting tenure and wrote that “effectiveness, accuracy, and integrity in communications are important components of effective teaching and learning.”
The changes are already having ripple effects. Under the old policies, most of the universities submitted tenure applications for the IHL to approve at its May board meeting. That didn’t happen this year because IHL’s changes went into effect immediately after the April vote.
Now some of the universities are working to figure out if they need to retroactively consider collegiality for the tenure applications they had expected the IHL board to approve this month. At USM, Denis Wiesenburg, a member of the faculty senate executive committee, said the university is sending tenure applicants back to the school level to ensure faculty members are evaluated under the new standards.
“It’s created chaos,” Wiesenburg said. “The amount of administrative burden that the IHL has added at the worst time of year.”
At a University of Mississippi faculty senate meeting earlier this month, Chancellor Glenn Boyce and Provost Noel Wilkin assured faculty that everyone who was up for tenure this year would be approved.
Wilkin also told the faculty that the chief academic officers had met prior to the board meeting but did not discuss the tenure policies, which indicated to him that none of the provosts were aware of the changes.
Boyce, who served as commissioner from 2015 to 2018, said he had “known for awhile” that IHL was considering changing its tenure and presidential search policies, but that he did not know the board was going to make the revisions this year.
“They had these two policies on their mind when I was commissioner,” Boyce said. “They just never formally sat down like they did this time around.”
“Needless to say, we got no advance notice of the changes,” he added. “We had no advance notice this was gonna be on the agenda and had no opportunity to provide input. Hopefully that’ll help you understand what we knew and when we knew it.”
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Bobby Cleveland’s greatest wish: Rename the Ross Barnett Reservoir
No one did more for or deeply loved the Ross Barnett Reservoir than Bobby Cleveland.
But those who knew Bobby best know something else: No one wished more that the name of Mississippi’s most prominent lake would one day change.
The longtime journalist and sportsman who passed away at age 67 in late April spent many hours deeply researching how to change the lake’s current name — an homage to former Gov. Ross Barnett, the stubborn segregationist whose racist biography from his time in office in the early 1960s reads longer than the lake is deep.
Bobby called his many close friends in high places, some of whom fished those beloved waters with him regularly. For years, they all told him the same thing: Successfully navigating the politics of changing the reservoir’s name would be nearly impossible.
It looks simple enough on paper. The name can be changed by a majority vote of the 14-member board of directors for the Pearl River Valley Water Supply District, a state agency that oversees all things Ross Barnett Reservoir.
But the make-up of that board makes it anything but simple. Five board members are appointed by the Mississippi governor, including the president of the board. The boards of supervisors of five counties touching the Pearl River — Rankin, Madison, Hinds, Scott and Leake — get one appointment each. The other four are state government agency appointees.
Almost all of those 14 board members are appointed by white, conservative politicians or entities who answer mostly to white, conservative constituents. Just one member of the current board is Black.
That same board is responsible for first adopting the Barnett name in 1963, on a motion of then-board president R.M. Hederman, the segregationist publisher of the Clarion Ledger newspaper who coordinated with Barnett in 1962 to block the enrollment of University of Mississippi’s first Black student James Meredith. In naming the lake after Barnett, the board ignored a resolution that the Mississippi Legislature passed in 1961 which requested they name the lake “Mary-Lynda Lake” in honor of the state’s two Miss Americas, Mary Ann Mobley and Lynda Lee Meade.
The Mississippi Legislature could change the name without the board’s approval, which rightfully feels to many like an even bigger uphill political battle.
Bobby, whose wit and humor shined perhaps brightest while blistering racist politicians over drinks with family and friends, didn’t much like hearing that the name change would be tough.
“He always said, ‘If I can’t change the name (of the reservoir), I can try to rebrand it,’” recalled Liz Cleveland, married to Bobby’s brother and longtime sportswriter Rick Cleveland.
Bobby was among the thousands of young Mississippians who, in the 1980s, partook in the notoriously rowdy nightlife at the lake — waterfront bars like The Dock, On the Rocks and Ratliff Ferry, where the booze flowed and the bands rocked late. The kids affectionately called the lake “The Rez,” and Bobby began going out of his way to refer to the lake by its nickname in his newspaper articles. The first time he published “The Rez” nickname in a Clarion Ledger headline was on April 28, 1991 — 31 years to the day before he died.
More and more, the nickname caught on. Meanwhile, Bobby served “The Rez” community well over several decades. He planned fishing tournaments and cook-offs that drew national interest, worked to raise money for a playground for kids with special needs, started a program that exposed underprivileged kids to fishing and boating, and volunteered to put on local events. He served for several years as a spokesman for the Pearl River Water Supply District board.
But Bobby, still dwelling on the lake’s name, hatched another idea.
Many Mississippi charities raise money with vanity license plate sales. Bobby wanted to help out the Barnett Reservoir Foundation, a nonprofit that raises funds for area projects, and he thought it would be cool to see “The Rez” on cars around the state.
State lawmakers approved his idea for the license plates in 2012, and in 2013 the first “The Rez” license plate went to Bobby Cleveland, who proudly displayed that #1 on his truck until he died. If you ever see one of the more than 2,000 “The Rez” license plates around the state, know that Bobby is responsible for those tag fees flowing annually to the reservoir foundation.
Bobby died on April 28 after a terrible car accident. He had driven early that morning to volunteer setting up for a sunset concert that evening at Lakeshore Park — right on the banks, of course, of The Rez.
A legendary chef and storyteller, Bobby lived an accomplished life and left his mark on countless people. But one thing he never quite achieved was changing the name of the lake.
Just a few hours after he died, hundreds of people began working to honor his goal in a way that even he probably wouldn’t believe. Today, an online petition to rename the lake the “R.H. Cleveland Reservoir” has hundreds of signatures. Naming the lake for Bobby would surely be a more than fitting tribute to the man who gave his adult life to The Rez.
“Bobby was the absolute heart and soul of the reservoir foundation,” reservoir resident Todd Macko told Brian Broom, a longtime outdoors writer at the Clarion Ledger. “He’s basically for the last decade served the entire community constantly. He was kind of like the gravitational pull for community service at the reservoir.”
When Bobby talked of renaming the lake, he floated naming it after other prominent Mississippians. Bobby affectionately called it the “Welty Reservoir,” referring, of course, to legendary author Eudora. He seemed supportive about pitches over the years of naming the lake after one of Mississippi’s civil rights pioneers like James Meredith, who was blocked entry as the first African American student at University of Mississippi in 1962 by none other than former Gov. Ross Barnett.
Those who were closest with Bobby say he wouldn’t care what the lake’s new name was, just so long as Barnett’s name and legacy was no longer officially associated with the place he loved most in the world.
If the lake is going to be renamed — and goodness, is it long overdue — it’d be a stretch to find a more deserving namesake than Bobby Cleveland.
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Marshall Ramsey: Eddie Maloney
I was shocked to hear Eddie Maloney had passed away. He, like his brothers Con and Johnny, have done so much for our community. Eddie always had a quiet smile — but made such a big difference in every organization he was part of. Some losses are bigger than others. Eddie Maloney left huge shoes to fill.
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The University of Oak Hill? Tiny West Point school has become a golf powerhouse
Most dominant Mississippi high school sports team in history?
South Panola once won 89 straight football games and five straight state championships at the state’s highest level. Those teams were so good that people began calling them the University of South Panola.
We’ve had dominant teams with sustained excellence in basketball, baseball, and track and field from time to time as well.
Don’t look now but tiny Oak Hill Academy in West Point — 364 students, grades K-12 — recently won its sixth straight state championship in the sport of golf.
Says Oak Hill principal and athletic director Phil Ferguson, formerly a head football coach at Bruce and Tupelo: “We’ve become the South Panola of high school golf.”
That’s not overstating matters – at all.
“I think it’s safe to say that these recent Oak Hill golf teams are the best high school teams in Mississippi history,” said Jackson pro and golf course owner Randy Watkins, himself a former national junior champion. “There have been some really good teams over the years, but these numbers Oak Hill is putting on the scoreboard are just out of sight.”
In the private school state 3A championship tournament at Canton Country Club, Oak Hill won by 83 shots. That’s right, 83. In fact, Oak Hill could have counted five scores — instead of the required four — and still won the event by seven shots. When Oak Hill won the Jackson Prep Invitational at Patrick Farms, the team score was 16-under par 272. Oak Hill actually discarded a score of three-under-par 69. A score of 69 is a run-away medalist in most high school golf tournaments. Oak Hill couldn’t even use it.
Crazy? It gets crazier. The last time Oak Hill played in a golf event and didn’t win it was 2018. Senior Wells Williams, the most accomplished player on this year’s team, averaged 67.7 strokes per round. Williams, also his class valedictorian, shot an 11-under par 61 in one tournament at The Refuge in Flowood and has signed a golf scholarship at Vanderbilt. Last year’s most accomplished player Cohen Trolio made the All-Southeastern Conference freshman team this year at LSU. Collins Trolio, Cohen’s younger brother and a senior-to-be, averaged 69 strokes per round and already has committed to play his college golf at Ole Miss.
No doubt, Oak Hill would defeat many lower level college teams. As for high schools, there’s little doubt Oak Hill could compete on a national level. In fact, several Oak Hill players have. At 17, Cohen Trolio advanced to the semifinals of the U.S. Amateur at Pinehurst. Just this week, Williams advanced to the semifinals of the U.S. Amateur Four Ball at Birmingham Country Club. Cohen Trolio currently is ranked the 118th best amateur golfer in the world.
Besides star power, Oak Hill has plenty of depth. Jake Blanton, just a 10th grader, averaged 72 strokes per round and seems destined to play Division I college golf. Jackson Cook, a ninth grader and another probable DI recruit, also averaged 72. Seth Lockhart and George Bryan, the team’s fifth and sixth best players statistically, would play No. 1 on most high school teams.
So how is this possible, you ask? How does such a small private school produce such a powerhouse team?
Start with this: The team’s volunteer coach V.J. Trolio, father of Cohen and Collins, is one of the most respected teachers in the land. Golf Digest named him one of the top 100 instructors in the nation. That magazine, considered golf’s bible by many, has named Trolio Mississippi’s top teacher for seven consecutive years.
When I caught up with V.J. Trolio Tuesday by phone, he was in Tulsa helping Mississippian Chad Ramey prepare for the PGA Championship, which began Thursday, while keeping up with Cohen Trolio in an NCAA Regional in California and with Williams in the USGA Four Ball Championship.
“We’ve got a pretty good thing going for such a small school,” Trolio, the team’s ninth year coach said, understating matters stupendously. “I mean, this is a little bitty school doing big stuff.”
It helps to have West Point’s spectacular duo of golf courses, Old Waverly and Mossy Oak, as your home courses. George Bryan, founder of both golf courses and one of the most prominent movers and shakers in Mississippi golf history, has two grandsons, including Williams, on the team. It helps to have Tim Yelverton, another renowned teacher, helping with the program. In any sport, it helps to have talent and the West Point area has provided plenty.
Hunter Adkins, now a standout for the Southern Miss golf team, was the first in a line of future college golfers. Then came Cohen Trolio, now Williams, and with plenty more on the way. V.J. Trolio, who played collegiately at Southern Miss and is a member of the school’s athletic hall of fame, says talented youngsters in Oak Hill elementary school already are showing definite signs of continuing the tradition.
The Mid-South Association of Independent Schools (MAIS), the sanctioning body of Mississippi private school athletics, doesn’t sponsor golf championships for girls. But an Oak Hills girls team won five of six events it competed in against all-girls teams this spring. Two of the Oak Hill girls also qualified for — and competed in — boys tournaments.
“We’ve got some players who will definitely play women’s golf in college,” V. J. Trolio said.
How long can this this dominance last?
“I don’t know, but we’ve got some fourth and fifth graders who can really play,” V. J. Trolio said. “It’s gonna keep rolling for a while.”
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