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COLUMBIA, S.C. — Democratic leaders in a handful of southern states are lobbying for South Carolina to reprise its role as the party’s first-in-the-nation state to cast primary ballots in 2028, arguing that the state best represents the initial playing field for presidential candidates to build the coalitions needed to win.

The state party chairs of five Democratic parties, including Mississippi’s, wrote a letter Thursday to the Democratic National Committee calling on party leaders “to do everything in your power to ensure South Carolina continues to serve as the indispensable first proving ground for Democratic presidential nominees.” The DNC is currently debating the order in which states will vote in the next round of presidential primaries.

The state should hold the first presidential balloting in 2028, they argued, in part because it “is not simply a geographic starting point. It is a moral and political compass for our party and our nation.”

The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting this week, hearing presentations from the dozen states seeking to lead off its 2028 calendar. Other Southern states, including Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, are in the mix.

South Carolina chair Christale Spain, who is set to make her argument on behalf of the state later Thursday, has said she believes her state has “more to offer than other states do,” including “the role of Black folks.”

“The fight for voting rights is no longer just a courtroom battle, it is an electoral one,” the Democratic chairs from Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia wrote in the letter, provided to The Associated Press ahead of its release. “And it begins in South Carolina.”

“Any effort to diminish South Carolina’s role in the primary process would be a step backward for the Democratic Party’s stated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” they wrote. “It would signal to Southern Democrats and to Black voters in particular, that their loyalty to this party is taken for granted. We refuse to accept that, and we will stand firmly against it.”

In a separate letter to DNC leaders, Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus Institute — which has partnered with the South Carolina Democratic Party on several presidential debates in the past — reiterated those sentiments.

“To remove or diminish South Carolina’s standing in the primary calendar would send precisely the wrong message to Black voters and to every voter who has been told their voice does not matter until after the outcome is already decided,” Thompson wrote.

For years, South Carolina has held one of the earliest Democratic primaries in the country. As the first Southern state to hold its primary, South Carolina has been the initial gauge of a candidate’s ability to appeal to Black voters, who play an outsized role among the state’s Democratic voters.

In 2020, Joe Biden’s ability to make that appeal — along with a coveted endorsement from Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state’s lone congressional Democrat and for a time the top Black Democratic lawmaker on Capitol Hill — helped him revive a flagging primary campaign, win a resounding victory in South Carolina, and go on to secure the nomination.

For the 2024 cycle, Biden led a DNC effort to have South Carolina go first overall in the party’s primary, citing the state’s more racially diverse population compared to the traditional first-in-the-nation states of Iowa and New Hampshire, which are overwhelmingly white. New Hampshire, which rejected the DNC’s plan, held a leadoff primary ahead of South Carolina anyway, and Biden — who didn’t campaign or have his name on the ballot — still won by a sizable margin after supporters mounted a write-in campaign on his behalf.

Biden, who also handily won South Carolina’s 2024 contest, pushed for a revamped primary calendar that saw Nevada go second. He also pushed the Democratic primary in Michigan — a large and diverse swing state — ahead of the expansive field of states voting on Super Tuesday, the date in early March when multiple states hold primaries and the largest number of delegates needed to win the nomination are up for grabs.

Although the calendar won’t be set until later this summer, Democrats likely to be among their party’s 2028 slate have been making the rounds in South Carolina for months

If Mississippi ever decides to move away from from its official nickname – The Magnolia State –  here’s a suggestion: The Diamond State.

No, we don’t produce diamonds – not the gemstone kind. We lack the ancient volcanic structures required to form and bring natural diamonds to the surface. We do specialize in diamonds, the baseball and softball kind. Our diamonds produce terrific baseball and softball players and therefore teams that often go elsewhere and win championships.

Banner season for baseball

This has been a banner spring. I am going to try not to leave out anyone, but probably will. There’s so much. Herewith a recounting:

• Look at the national Division I baseball rankings heading into this weekend’s NCAA regionals. All three of the state’s largest universities are ranked in the D1 Baseball top 20 with Southern Miss at No.7, Mississippi State at No. 17 and Ole Miss at No. 18. No other state has that many. Only Texas and Florida, with much larger populations and far more colleges, have as many as two. Ole Miss and State already have won national championships this decade and Southern Miss has now been to 10 straight NCAA Tournaments. Only Florida (18) has been to more.
• Special mention here to Southern Miss, which recently won both the Sun Belt regular season and tournament championships and now has a record of 44-15, marking the 10th straight season the Golden Eagles have won at least 40 games. No other NCAA Division I baseball program in the country has done that. And USM does it with less. Of the 16 college teams hosting regionals, 15 have athletic budgets of more than $100 million – most much, much more. Southern Miss operates on about $30 million a year.
• Special mention also Hattiesburg, which is home to two outstanding college baseball programs: USM and William Carey University (41-18), one of only two undefeated teams remaining in the NAIA World Series being played at Lewiston, Idaho. The Crusaders have won their first three World Series games and play Taylor University (Indiana) Thursday night. Little wonder, Hattiesburg has two nicknames now: the Hub City and Baseburg.
• Mississippi’s baseball excellence is not limited to four-year schools. Pearl River Community College, down in Poplarville, is fast becoming the Los Angeles Dodgers of junior college baseball. The Wildcats (48-11), down 4-1 after seven innings, rallied for a 6-5 victory over Madison College (Wisconsin) Wednesday night. The Wildcats have now won their first two games of the DII Junior College World Series at Enid, Oklahoma. Pearl River, under Coach Mike Avalon, won the national championship in 2022.

Success in softball

It’s not just baseball, either. Mississippi’s softball excellence has become a thing. Witness:

• Mississippi State has come seemingly out of nowhere in this postseason to win an NCAA Regional in Oregon and a Super Regional at Oklahoma. The Bulldogs lost 8-0 to Texas Tech on Thursday in the NCAA Softball World Series at Oklahoma City. Ole Miss’ softball team advanced to to the finals an NCAA Regional this season, finally losing to Texas Tech, the powerhouse team State plays first.
• Belhaven University was playing Trine University (Indiana) in the NCAA D-III World Series at Salem University on Thursday after winning a Super Regional last week in Jackson. The Blazers (42-10) are making their second World Series appearance over the past three seasons.
• William Carey plays softball, too, and plays it very well. The Crusaders finished the season 41-14 with a roster chock-full of Mississippi natives. They won the Southern States Conference and made it to the championship game of the NAIA opening round tournament, losing by one run.
• Pearl River plays softball, too. Boy, do they play softball. Pearl River won the junior college national championship at Boiling Springs, North Carolina, on Monday night, defeating Des Moines Area Community College 2-1 in the championship game. The Wildcats won five straight games in the national tournament under Coach Christie Meeks. Anna Grace Garcia, the winning pitcher in four of those five victories, was the World Series MVP.

Update, 5/28/2026: This article has been updated to show Mississippi State lost to Texas Tech on Thursday in softball.

GREENVILLE — Former Greenwood Police Officer Jamario Sanford, 38, will serve seven-and-a-half years in federal prison for conspiring to transport cocaine through portions of the Mississippi Delta. He is now in federal custody.

Sanford approached the bench Wednesday with the aid of a cane to make a final plea for mercy from Debra Brown, chief judge for the Northern District of Mississippi. He stood from the office chair where he had been allowed to sit before standing to address the court in light of his ailments, and clutched the podium to tell of the bad choices and misfortunes that led him to participate in a drug run that was really an FBI undercover operation.

“I was in need at the time,” Sanford told the court. “I had just lost my job. My wife was about to have a child.”

He recounted a past suicide attempt, being shot eight times and other near-death experiences while working in law enforcement agencies in the Delta. He also spoke of childhood traumas and longstanding mental health conditions that have required counseling. He also brought the court’s attention to upcoming eye surgeries.

“I do belong here. And I’m asking for the mercy of this court … I’m standing against my flesh now. I’m standing myself here because I’m tired,” Sanford said.

Sanford was indicted for providing armed police escort for what he believed was the transportation of 25 kilos of cocaine through Leflore, Sunflower and Washington counties. He took bribe payments totaling $12,800 from a local drug dealer turned government informant as part of the run.

He convinced Tyquana Rucker of the Greenwood Police Department to provide police escort for a transport of narcotics on June 22, 2022. Sanford later told federal investigators that Rucker wasn’t well-informed about the circumstances of the fake drug run. Although indicted, Rucker’s charges were dropped on Oct. 30. 

The story of law enforcement-assisted drug trafficking was complicated by new revalations in court. Sanford had been fired from the Greenwood Police Department by the time of the run, although he did accept bribe payments while employed as an officer. No evidence suggests Sanford or Rucker carried a gun on the night of the staged drug transport, which still garnered Sanford an enhancement as part of his probation office pre-sentence report.

Sanford also said he did not know his co-conspirator, former Sunflower County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Marvin Flowers, and he only met Flowers on the day of their arrests in October. Flowers pleaded guilty to conspiring to attempt to aid the transport of the drugs through Sunflower County. He is scheduled to be sentenced in July.

In all 14 former and current officers were arrested as part of the federal crackdown on drug trafficking in the region. Six former Delta law enforcement officers have pleaded guilty. A jury found Greenville Police Officer Chaka Gaines not guilty in May for conspiring to attempt to aid the transportation of narcotics through Greenville. Two additional trials of former officers are scheduled this summer. 

Four additional police officers are scheduled to be sentenced this summer.

The officers were charged in six indictments. At the outset of the operation, a local drug dealer and FBI informant convinced Delta officers to participate in fake drug runs simulated by federal agents as part of multiple stings.

In determining Sanford’s sentence, Brown considered his recent charges and behavior since his arrest. She was concerned that he was charged with aggravated assault while on bond for the conspiracy charge. Goodloe Lewis, his defense attorney, reminded the court that the incident from which the charge stemmed happened prior to securing his bond.

Brown also expressed concern regarding an incident at a local pool hall. A video of Sanford pushed to the ground and kicked by unknown assailants surfaced on Facebook in March. The incident took place in the parking lot near The Rack and Cue pool hall in Greenville.

Although the sentencing guideline called for between 10 years and life in prison, a pre-sentence report altered Brown’s calculation. 

Lewis asked the court to have mercy on Sanford due to his health issues. He also mentioned that former police officers “don’t hold up well” in custody. He told Brown that Sanford would be “a poor candidate for prison.”

Brown said she could not get past the gravity of Sanford’s crime and its implications for civil society.

“The unchecked corruption of law enforcement is a big problem,” she said. “It makes me concerned which direction this country is headed honestly.”

The U.S. marshals then put Sanford in cuffs as he faced the gallery. Cuts and red bruises shone under his tired eyes. The marshals led him through a wood-panelled side door. He ambled into custody with their assistance. 

Sanford asked to be booked in a prison near his family in Greenville.

“I don’t know if you’ve been an unlucky person in this world,” Brown told Sanford before court adjourned. “I know there’s something that got to you this day.”

“I wish you peace as you move forward.”

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled for a Black death row inmate from Mississippi who claims there was racial bias in the makeup of the jury that convicted him.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices sided with Terry Pitchford, who was sentenced to death for his role in the killing of a grocery store owner.

“In this case, whether due to confusion, oversight, an overly hurried jury selection process, or some other cause, things broke down,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the court. Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberal justices joined with Kavanaugh.

READ MORE: A Mississippi death penalty jury was seated. With one Black juror.

There were 11 white jurors and one Black juror in a trial with similarities to that of another Black man on Mississippi’s death row, whose conviction the high court overturned seven years ago.

It’s unclear what happens next in Pitchford’s case. Justice Neil Gorsuch, who dissented, suggested the state still could argue Pitchford’s conviction should be sustained. If his conviction is overturned, the state could seek to retry him.

“Mr. Pitchford is now entitled to a fair trial in the state court,” Joseph Perkovich, who argued the case for Pitchford at the Supreme Court, wrote in an email.

Doug Evans, a now-retired prosecutor with a history of dismissing Black jurors for discriminatory reasons, had excused four other Black people at Pitchford’s trial. Black people make up more than 37% of Mississippi’s population.

The Supreme Court ruled 40 years ago in Batson v. Kentucky that jurors could not be excused from service because of their race and set up a system by which trial judges could evaluate claims of discrimination and the race-neutral explanations by prosecutors.

Pitchford’s case focused on whether his lawyers did enough to object to Judge Joseph Loper’s rulings and whether the state Supreme Court acted reasonably in ruling they had not.

Pitchford’s lawyers made the necessary arguments and the state high court acted unreasonably, Kavanaugh wrote.

In dissent, Gorsuch wrote that Pitchford had to show that no fair-minded judge could rule as the Mississippi court did and that the record in the case was crystal-clear in his favor.

“As I see things, Mr. Pitchford has failed to satisfy either of these standards,” Gorsuch wrote, joined by Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas.

In 2019, the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence and conviction of Curtis Flowers, because of what Kavanaugh then described as a “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals.” Evans was the prosecutor in that case, and Loper presided over the final two of Flowers’ six trials.

Pitchford, now 40, was 18 when he and a friend decided to rob the Crossroads Grocery, just outside Grenada in northern Mississippi. The friend shot store owner Reuben Britt three times, fatally wounding him, but was ineligible for the death penalty because he was younger than 18. Pitchford was tried for capital murder and was sentenced to death.

The case has been making its way through the court system for 20 years. In 2023, U.S District Judge Michael P. Mills overturned Pitchford’s conviction, holding that the trial judge did not give Pitchford’s lawyers enough of a chance to argue that the prosecution was improperly dismissing Black jurors.

Mills wrote that his ruling was partially motivated by Evans’ actions in prior cases. A unanimous panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling.

Evans did not respond to The Associated Press’ attempt to reach him for comment when he retired.

Update, 5/28/2026: This article has been updated with additional details, including a comment from an attorney who represented Terry Pitchford in Supreme Court arguments.

A frenzied redistricting effort ahead of the November elections has reshaped congressional voting districts for millions of Americans — and it isn’t over yet.

Since President Donald Trump urged Texas Republicans to redraw U.S. House districts last year, Republicans in Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee also have enacted new maps that could help the party win additional seats in the midterm elections. Louisiana is expected to join those ranks soon, and Alabama Republicans are appealing a court decision blocking a map they support.

So far, Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from their redistricting efforts while Democrats think they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah.

Trump hopes the unusual mid-decade redistricting can help Republicans retain control of the closely divided House, despite negative approval ratings and historical tendencies for the incumbent’s party to lose seats in the midterms.

Here’s a look at the latest developments in the redistricting battle:

Louisiana House to vote on redistricting

The U.S. Supreme Court in April struck down Louisiana’s congressional map, which contains two majority-Black districts held by Democrats, as an illegal racial gerrymander. That prompted Republican Gov. Jeff Landry to postpone Louisiana’s May 16 congressional primary until later this summer to allow time for redistricting.

The state House is expected to consider a revised congressional map this week that gives Republicans a better chance of winning one of those two seats. The Senate already passed a different version of the new map. The two chambers are trying to agree on a redistricting plan before the June 1 end of their legislative session.

Alabama seeks permission for new map

Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the state to use a Republican-drawn congressional map in the midterm elections. Marshall wants to set aside a preliminary injunction issued Tuesday against the map by a federal judicial panel.

The lower court judges said the plan, which includes only one majority-Black district, “intentionally discriminated based on race.” They ordered the state to continue using a court-imposed map containing two districts where Black residents compose a majority or close to it. Both of those seats currently are held by Democrats.

Missouri court upholds new map — again

The Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a legal challenge from the NAACP that claimed no extraordinary occasion existed for Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe to call lawmakers into a special session on redistricting last year. The court ruled unanimously that the state constitution gives governors discretion in calling special sessions.

The Supreme Court already has rejected two other challenges to a new U.S. House map that gives Republicans an improved chance to win another seat by reshaping a Democratic-held district based in Kansas City. Opponents have one more possibility to stop the plan, with an initiative petition to put it to a statewide referendum.

South Carolina pulls the plug on redistricting

As early in-person voting began Tuesday in South Carolina’s June 9 primaries, the Republican-led state Senate ended efforts to redraw the state’s congressional districts this year. A plan previously passed by the House sought to redraw the state’s only Democratic-held district to give Republicans a better chance at winning it.

But some Republican senators said it was too late to make changes. Others expressed reservations that the plan could backfire by adding too many Democratic voters in districts held by Republicans.

Florida judge lets GOP map stand

Voting rights groups contend Florida’s new congressional districts should be struck down for violating a state ban on intentional partisan gerrymandering. But a state judge on Tuesday declined to issue a preliminary injunction against using the map in the midterm elections.

The judge said the plaintiffs hadn’t shown their claims of partisanship are likely to succeed. Voting rights groups said they would quickly appeal to a higher court and would continue pursuing the case all the way to the state Supreme Court, if necessary.

Tennessee map faces several challenges

A state court panel dismissed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging the Republican-led legislature went beyond the special session agenda set by Republican Gov. Bill Lee when it passed a new congressional map. Meanwhile, a federal court on Tuesday declined to issue a temporary restraining order in a separate lawsuit contending that Tennessee’s new U.S. House districts are racially discriminatory.

The new Republican-drawn map carves up a majority-Black district in Memphis — a city where more than half the population is Black — giving Republicans an improved chance to win the state’s only Democratic-held seat. Several lawsuits are still pending in federal courts.

A rezoning hearing for a potential data center in Jackson has been postponed until June. 

The applicant, Saxum Investment Company, asked to delay the hearing until a city Planning Board meeting on June 24. Robert Ireland, an attorney with Watkins and Eager representing Saxum, said the company wants more time to engage with the community and city. 

Because the request was made less than five business days before Wednesday’s meeting, Saxum had to go before the Planning Board on Wednesday to ask for the postponement.

“The city has committed to presenting data center specific standards to address the city’s concerns about noise, emissions, utility burdens and other issues. Saxum encourages the adoption of these standards and wants to pursue a project that meets the concerns of Jackson citizens and its city leaders,” Ireland said to the board. 

Saxum is asking to rezone about 190 acres of mostly undeveloped land in northwest Jackson from residential and commercial to heavy industrial use. There is currently a horse track on the proposed site, which is close to the Presidential Hills neighborhood. 

In a packed conference room, residents from the surrounding area and across Jackson loudly voiced opposition to the project or any data center in Jackson. 

“Even if we wanted a data center here, even if we decided to do something like that as a city, this process has not been transparent,” said Matt Casteel, whose 2-acre family farm, WurmWorks, sits in the middle of the proposed site. 

Council considers data center regulations

This comes as the City Council debates a six-month moratorium on new data center projects in Jackson. Last week, the council voted to table a proposed ordinance until members have a clearer picture of the moratorium’s impact. 

According to the city attorney’s office, such a moratorium impacts city zoning ordinances, and passing it without the proper public notice process could create a due-process violation. Council President Brian Grizzell, who introduced the measure, disagreed, arguing the idea was just to study the impact of data centers ahead of time.

“This is a six-month cooling period to give us time to put our heads together, figure this out, to work with zoning, work with planning,” Grizzell said at last week’s City Council meeting. 

At the meeting, Ireland pointed out that if the data center is the size of one proposed for Clinton, it would bring in about $60 million to the city and over $80 million to the school district over 10 years. But he warned that there is a “finite window of opportunity” for Jackson to attract a data center project. 

Data centers in Mississippi

Tech companies are racing against one another to build more data centers. According to Pew Research, there are currently 3,000 operational data centers and an additional 1,500 in development in the United States. There are around 750 planned data centers in the South. 

Data centers vary in size but the advent of artificial intelligence has accelerated the need for large data centers, called hyperscalers. These centers, such as Amazon in Madison and xAI in Southaven, can meet the large computational power needed to train and run AI models. 

In Mississippi, there are seven confirmed data centers in various stages of development. While some have welcomed the data centers and their historic investment, others have pushed back against them citing their high energy usage and concerns over water consumption and noise and air pollution.

There will be a public hearing at 6 p.m. on June 22 in City Council chambers to discuss data centers and a zoning ordinance. Members of the crowd on Wednesday promised that they’d be there.

This history-making Mississippi State softball team already has written a fascinating story, lifting an often largely ignored sport in the Magnolia State’s headlines. Win or lose at the Women’s College World Series, which begins Thursday in Oklahoma City, that story is about to get all the more intriguing. At this point, State is playing with house money. Nobody expected this.

Problem is, Texas Tech, the Bulldogs’ first opponent, is playing with real money – West Texas oil money. Millions. We’ll get to that.

First, what the Bulldog softballers have achieved: State, which entered the NCAA Tournament with a 38-18 record (just 9-15 in the murderous SEC), traveled cross-continent to Eugene, Oregon, and swept through an NCAA Regional there, winning three straight games while allowing only two runs. The Bulldogs blanked host Oregon, the nation’s 12th ranked team, 4-0 behind pitcher Alyssa Faircloth’s no-hit, 10-strikeout performance, They were just getting started.

Next, State traveled to Norman, Oklahoma, to take on the second ranked Oklahoma Sooners in a best-of-three Super Regional. It appeared a mismatch: No. 2 vs. unranked, 20-4 in the SEC vs. 9-15. Furthermore, Oklahoma has tradition as a softball powerhouse, having played in the previous nine Women’s College World Series. This will be State’s first.

It gets better. State trailed the Sooners 5-1 early in the opener before storming back for nine runs over the last two innings for an 11-9 victory. It was Oklahoma’s first Super Regional loss since 2015.

Understand: The Sooners play in a softball Super Regional every year. After dropping a 7-1 decision in Game Two, the Bulldogs shocked the Sooners and their packed stadium of 4,250 fans by winning Game Three 6-0 on Delaney Everett’s three-hit shutout. Get this: It was the first time proud Oklahoma had been shut out in 399 games.

You want some added spice? State coach Samantha Ricketts is a former Oklahoma softball All American and graduate assistant coach. Nobody knows better than she what her team had achieved winning a Super Regional at Norman. 

Now then, let’s jump ahead to what the Bulldogs face Thursday at Oklahoma City. This is where a good story becomes captivating. State plays Texas Tech in the eight-team, double elimination tournament’s first game at 11 a.m.

And I know what many non-softball fans are thinking: Hmmm, Texas Tech softball, where have I heard about them before?

Well, it was probably on July 24, 2024, when Texas Tech made front page news, the lead story on ESPN Sportscenter, signing former Stanford pitching star NiJaree Canady to a $1 million contract to switch schools and lead Tech to college softball’s promised land.

Canady, a phenomenal talent, had led Stanford to two straight Women’s College World Series as a dominating pitcher. She had achieved a 41-10 overall record, a 0.66 earned run average, 555 strikeouts and 9 saves in her freshman and sophomore seasons. But she also wanted to hit. She wanted to become softball’s Shohei Ohtani. That was Texas Tech coach Gerry Glasco’s recruiting pitch to her – that she could play first base and hit when she wasn’t pitching if she came to Tech. Glasco also enlisted Patrick Mahomes, the NFL superstar and Tech alum, in the recruitment of Canady, a native Kansan and a devoted Kansas City Chiefs fan.

And, oh yes, there was the NIL deal, and this is where West Texas oil money comes into play. Tech offered a one-year, $1,050,024 contract (a million for Canady, $50,000 for living expenses, $24 for her jersey number). She apparently is a smart young lady. She took it. Who pays a cool million for a softball player, you ask? Billionaire couple John and Tracy Sellers, both former Texas Tech athletes, that’s who. John played football. Tracy played softball. They have donated millions upon millions to Tech, including to Canady’s NIL deal.

Softball, you see, is different than other sports. One player – one great pitcher – can make a mediocre team a national contender. In softball, a pitcher can pitch nearly every game. We saw it in Mississippi back in 1999-2000, when Courtney Blades transferred to Southern Miss from Nicholls State  and proceeded to take the Golden Eagles to two consecutive Women’s College World Series. Blades had a two-year record of 95-13 for USM. She was the national player of the year. She is the only softball player in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. Alas, Blades did get not millions playing college softball. Not back then.

But this is now. Texas Tech is getting their money’s worth. Canady took Texas Tech, which had never been much good at softball, to the Women’s College World Series last season. The Red Raiders advanced to the championship game before losing to Texas in the finale. She then signed a $1.2 million contract to return to Tech in hopes of winning it all.

And now the first obstacle to Tech’s multi-million dollar dream is Mississippi State. I have no way of knowing what State’s total NIL package for softball is, but I know it probably not even 20% what one player makes at Texas Tech. 

But I also know the Bulldogs have three quality pitchers to throw at Tech, including Californian Delaney Everett, the Super Regional hero. You talk about a Cinderella story. Everett pitched a three-hit shutout in Game Three of a Super Regional in her first start of the season. And I know that, despite losing, Florida scored 34 runs against Texas Tech in last week’s three-game Super Regional, including 12 runs against Canady.

State was highly competitive in a three-game series at Florida back in early April, losing 2-0 and 5-4, sandwiched around a 9-5 victory over the Gators. What’s more, State is playing much better softball now than the Bulldogs were then. This should be fun.

These Bulldogs are surely underdogs, but they have proven they can play against top level teams winning at Oregon and at Oklahoma. Besides, money isn’t everything, although, as we’ve seen at Texas Tech, it sure does make it easier.

Softball joins baseball in the Mississippi sports spotlight this week. Mississippi State stunned proud Oklahoma to reach the College World Series for the first time. Belhaven won its Super Regional and will play in the Division III World Series. Southern Miss, State, and Ole Mis all play in NCAA Baseball Regionals this weekend. All that and lots more, including a visit from Southern Miss athletic director Jeremy McClain who is on the NCAA Baseball Committee.

Stream all episodes here.

The family of Clifton Walker Sr. is appealing to the Wilkinson County Board of Supervisors to rename the road where the World War II veteran was gunned down in what is believed to be the first killing by the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

His family wants to see the name changed from Poor House Road to Clifton Earl Walker Road. 

“This request represents more than a road name: It is an effort to honor the life, military service and memory of a man whose family and community have carried his legacy for decades,” Walker’s granddaughter, Rosabell Hall, told supervisors on Tuesday. 

After an executive session, the supervisors sent the family a statement saying they want to “hear from the residents who live on this road and would be most affected by any change of name. The Board intends to reach out to these residents over the next few weeks, and then take their views into consideration before making a final decision.”

It was nearly midnight on Feb. 28, 1964, when 37-year-old Walker turned his cream-colored 1961 Impala onto Poor House Road, six miles north of Woodville. The Black man had just finished his shift at integrated International Paper in Natchez and was headed home to his wife and five children.

Three hundred yards after he pulled onto the gravel road, a mob of Klansmen and perhaps other white men stopped his car and opened fire with their shotguns. The pellets tore Walker’s face apart. 

When he was found the next day, he was dead, all the windows had been shot out, and part of the steering wheel had been blown off.

Catherine Walker Jones was 14 when she saw her father’s body in the blood-soaked Impala with holes in the driver’s side door and holes in the passenger’s side door. “He had been dead 14 hours,” she said. “That’s a bittersweet memory in my mind.”

FBI and congressional records show the Mississippi Highway Patrol wanted to arrest then-Wilkinson County Constable Gordon “Bud” Geter and Klansman Ed Fuller, but then-District Attorney Lennox Forman refused to charge them.

The killing of Walker was part of a series of attacks on Black men in southwest Mississippi. Dozens of Black men had been whipped, beaten and robbed by white men wearing hoods or masks. Some injuries were so severe the Black men had to be hospitalized.

The attacks were believed to be the work of the White Knights, the most violent white supremacist group in the nation at the time. The White Knights are believed to have killed at least 10 people in Mississippi.

The FBI began to review the Walker case in 2009, thanks to the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. After a rehash of the 1964 Highway Patrol investigation, the Justice Department closed the case again in 2013, saying all known suspects were dead.

“The tragedy is no one was prosecuted,” Wright said. “That’s really a hard pill to swallow.”

The family moved to Louisiana, and their mother raised them, Jones said. “We had a strong mom who made us safe. We had a good life because of her.”

Although there were three suspects named in the killings, authorities never interviewed any of them, she said. “Are you kidding me?”

Jones said naming the road after her father “would be part of his legacy passed on to the next generation. He’s the reason I am who I am.”

Journalist Ben Greenberg, who investigated the case, said the FBI did not speak to anyone in the Walker family until an agent in 2013 delivered a letter to Jones, notifying her that the Department of Justice was closing the case. 

“During this time, I published articles with new leads that the FBI could have used,” he said, “but virtually none were explored.”

In a letter, Greenberg urged supervisors to adopt the name change and honor Walker “to help make sure that the injustice he and his family suffered is not forgotten. In 1964, a mob of Klansmen treated Mr. Walker as a disposable Black target of their racist hate.”

He told supervisors they could “transform Poor House Road from being a forgotten crime scene to a memorial to one of the county’s citizens whose life was violently taken when he was just 37 years old. … They can give Clifton Walker’s family some closure where all else has failed him.”

Authorities are investigating the crash on Tuesday afternoon of a training jet from Naval Air Station Meridian in Noxubee County.

Two pilots ejected before the crash and were being evaluated at a local medical center, according to a press release from the Naval Air Training Command in Meridian. The cause was not immediately known.

“Local emergency services and military first responders are currently on the scene to secure the site,” the statement said.

“The public is asked to avoid the area to allow emergency personnel to conduct their operations safely and preserve the site for investigators.”

The crash occurred on the border between Noxubee County and Kemper County, on private land off U.S. 45 near Shuqualak. 

The plane was a U.S. Navy T-45C Goshawk assigned to Training Air Wing One.

The crash Tuesday was the second this month for military aircraft taking off in Mississippi. 

A T-38 Talon II from Columbus Air Force Base crashed in western Alabama on May 12. The two pilots in that crash also ejected safely and the military is investigating. 

The Air Force has indefinitely paused use of its entire T-38 Talon fleet out of caution.