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OXFORD — Vice President JD Vance and Erika Kirk, the widow of slain political activist Charlie Kirk, called for a generational realignment around conservative Christian values at the University of Mississippi on Wednesday.

About 10,000 attendees packed into the Sandy and John Black Pavilion on the university’s Oxford campus. It was the latest stop on a tour of college campuses across the nation by the conservative grassroots organization Turning Point USA, founded by Charlie Kirk. 

“Your generation is living at a crossroads, and we are witnessing in real time the battle raging for the soul of your generation,” said Erika Kirk.  

The event marked the only joint appearance of the vice president and Erika Kirk, the newly minted CEO of Turning Point USA.   

Charlie Kirk, one of the nation’s most famous conservative activists, was scheduled to speak at the event before he was assassinated last month in Utah. Vance was asked to speak in his place in Oxford by Erika Kirk. The vice president delivered brief remarks honoring the life of Charlie Kirk, whom he called a personal friend. 

Vance also took questions from audience members, a hallmark of the late conservative activist Kirk, who built a media empire in part based on viral videos of himself verbally sparring with college students. 

“We ought to have faith that the best way to make sure the best idea wins is to actually just have a discussion. And that is what this event is all about, that is what Turning Point USA is all about,” Vance said. “We’re going to have a discussion tonight, and that is what Charlie would want us to do.” 

Calling himself a “geriatric millennial,” Vance aimed a large portion of his remarks at young people. He said the Trump administration’s immigration policies would limit competition for new entrants to the labor market, which he said would prevent immigrants from driving down wages. 

Vance, who has in the past railed against “childless cat ladies,” also filled his remarks with appeals to college students to have children when they are young and anchor their lives around family.

“While you’re young, have those babies if you’re able to,” Vance said. 

The future of the country would be best served with a “properly rooted Christian moral order” at its core, Vance added. 

That sentiment pulsed through both Vance’s remarks and Erika Kirk’s. She called her presence on campus “a spiritual reclaiming of territory.”

She called Generation Z, which is trending rightward according to some surveys, the “courageous generation.”

“My husband believed that to his core,” Kirk said. “That’s why he went on campuses. That’s why he was trying to reach you.” 

Vance also revealed what he said was a never-before-shared anecdote about Kirk, whom he called the most effective political figure he had ever seen. The vice president said Kirk once called him with concerns about the Trump administration’s policies in the Middle East. The call reminded the administration that Kirk’s audience no longer supported sending American soldiers to fight in foreign entanglements, Vance said.     

A sea of red “Make America Great Again” and white “47” caps were worn by much of the jubilant crowd inside the arena. Seated in the front rows was a who’s who of Mississippi’s Republican political leadership. Attendees included Gov. Tate Reeves, U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde Smith, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Attorney General Lynn Fitch. 

Emily Lecler, a University of Mississippi student from Green Bay, Wisconsin, attended the event as a volunteer for the Turning Point chapter on campus. Kirk and his organization appealed to her because it counters what she sees as an “anti-American” sentiment on college campuses

“If you want the cookie-cutter model of how we should be. He is the umbrella of everything Turning Point stands for. Godly, American,” Lecler said. “I think when he died it was really hard, but it pushed people in the right direction and opened a lot of people’s eyes.”

But there was also opposition on campus. 

A coalition of student groups opposed to the Turning Point rally hosted a counter event that featured speakers such as California Congressman Ro Khanna and Tennessee state Rep. Gloria Johnson, a member of the “Tennessee Three,” a group of Democratic lawmakers who were expelled by the Republican majority over a protest over a gun-control protest in the Legislature in 2023.

The coalition also released a statement focusing, among other issues, on the Trump administration’s attempts to exert more federal control over the American higher education system. The administration has threatened to withhold federal funding from disfavored institutions and has asked universities to agree to conservative priorities such as caps on numbers of international students, limited definitions of gender and embracing the idea that “academic freedom is not absolute.” 

The student groups, which included the College Democrats, called Wednesday’s Turning Point event an attempt to “provide academic legitimacy to the hatred, suppression of free speech, and over-partisanship championed by the administration of President Trump and Vice President Vance.” 

The statement also referenced what it called a “complicated history, full of troublesome lapses in moral clarity, and this event brings just one more speaker whose legacy will not endure the test of time.”

The University of Mississippi occupies a unique status in the nation’s history of political divisions playing out on college campuses. 

In 1962, a white mob erupted in violence when James Meredith, a Black man, fought to integrate the university. U.S. marshals protected him on and off the Oxford campus. The episode became one of the most consequential confrontations over desegregation in American higher education, and the university has honored Meredith several times since. 

Decades later, against the backdrop of new political division, a heavy law enforcement presence again watched over the university after Kirk’s assassination seven weeks ago.  

Turning Point became a multimillion-dollar operation under Charlie Kirk’s leadership and was credited with helping to return Trump to office. 

Since Kirk’s killing, his podcast and social media have attracted millions of new followers. There has been an outpouring of interest in expanding Turning Point’s footprint on college and high school campuses, the group has said.

The medical examiner could not determine a cause or manner of death for Jimmie “Jay” Lee, the University of Mississippi student whose disappearance and death sparked a movement in Oxford’s LGBTQ+ community. 

Missing for more than two years, Lee’s remains were found earlier this year in a wooded gully in rural Carroll County – about an hour and a half south of Oxford – where people have been known to illegally dump trash. 

But the cause of death could not be determined in part because of the decomposition of Lee’s body, said Carroll County Coroner Mark Stiles who responded to the scene. The remains were skeletal, with no soft tissue. 

“It’s kind of hard for us as coroners when we go to a scene like a homicide or a suicide or a natural death,” he said. “We’ve got the body there, and we’ve got first-hand accounts of usually witnesses. But in this case, we didn’t have anything. It was just the remains that were found.” 

Cause of death refers to how someone died, such as a gunshot, stabbing or strangulation, while manner of death is how medical examiners classify whether a person died from a suicide, homicide or natural death. 

An “undetermined” finding does not mean the autopsy has ruled out homicide as a potential manner of Lee’s death, Stiles noted. 

“The autopsy is going to be kind of vague just from what they had to work with,” he said. “It was just some bones.” 

The discovery of Lee’s remains, aided in part by a necklace with Lee’s name on it, came after a deadlocked jury led a Lafayette County Circuit Court judge to declare a mistrial in the state’s case against Shelton Timothy Herrington Jr., a fellow Ole Miss student who was arrested and charged with capital murder a few weeks after Lee went missing in the summer of 2022. 

One of the 12 jurors refused to convict Herrington due to the lack of Lee’s body during the first trial. The prosecution had built a circumstantial case against Herrington, arguing he was the last person to see Lee alive based on cellphone data. 

Herrington is set for trial again in early December in Lafayette County, with jurors to be drawn from Madison County – a similar setup to last year when jurors were drawn from Forest County. 

The judge, Kelly Luther, has taken several steps to insulate the case from intense media attention. Earlier this week, he granted an oral motion from Herrington’s defense attorney, Aafram Sellers, to file pre-trial motions under seal. Sellers did not respond to an inquiry from Mississippi Today.

“The Court has conducted a balancing test to weigh the competing interests of the public’s right of access and the Defendant’s request to seal certain pre-trial motions,” Luther wrote in the Oct. 27 order. “The circumstances do not warrant sealing the entire file; however, the Court finds no less restrictive alternative to protect the integrity of this matter.”

Last year, Luther denied a joint motion from the prosecution and Herrington’s defense to seal the entirety of the filings in the case. Legal experts had called the joint motion “highly unusual.” Instead, Luther said he would consider sealing some filings containing evidence that could prejudice a jury if requested to do so by the defense. 

In other filings this week, Sellers asked Luther to exclude the photographs of the crime scene and Lee’s autopsy as well as expert testimony the state plans to submit from a clinical social worker who has researched behavior in the LGBTQ+ community.

The prosecution’s theory of the case last year was that Herrington killed Lee to preserve the secret of their sexual relationship. 

“Relevance requires more than tangential connection to broad social categories,” Sellers wrote in an Oct. 28 motion. “It demands a meaningful relationship between the expert’s opinion and the specific facts in dispute.”

Herrington’s case is still considered an open investigation, Stiles said. But he noted the autopsy report from the state medical examiner’s office could be changed pending the outcome of Herrington’s trial. 

“If the boy was found guilty or if he has a change of heart and admits to everything, then they could change it,” Stiles said. 

When Stiles responded to the scene the night that Lee’s remains were found off a dirt road, he said investigators laid the skeleton on a tarp, the bones arranged anatomically. Several were missing, likely due to animals. 

“You could see that some of the hands, the appendages were missing, the phalanges and the toes were missing, the smaller bones like that,” he said. 

Stiles then photographed the remains and collected them to be sent to the state Crime Lab in Jackson for analysis. He was not involved in the autopsy, but Stiles said medical examiners can take certain steps to form a conclusion in the absence of soft tissue. 

The skeletal remains can be X-rayed, which could help determine if broken bones were due to gunshot wounds. Stiles said the autopsy report ruled out blunt or sharp force trauma or firearm injuries as the cause of death. 

Other DNA that can point to a perpetrator can be collected, but Stiles said the only DNA on the autopsy report was for the identification of Lee’s body. 

In the case of strangulations – a theory the prosecution had offered for Lee’s death – sometimes a neck bone can be broken. Stiles said that was not the case with Lee’s remains. 

“You can strangle someone, and it still not be broken,” he said. 

The heat, humidity and water in Mississippi means bodies can decompose faster here than in other places. In Carroll County, Stiles said water running down the hills causes erosion to the point that people have for decades been known to throw objects like washing machines into ditches and gullies to form a blockade.

“In the desert, (a body) would dehydrate and be mummified,” Stiles said. 

Because the county is so rural, Stiles said it’s common for bodies to be found years after a death, in advanced stages of decomposition. He began serving as the county coroner in 2016, and his first case was that of a missing person who was found as skeletal remains. There was no foul play, he said. 

“Ever since I became coroner, I’ve always said, you can get away with murder but you’ve got to do it yourself and not tell anybody.”

HEIDELBERG, Miss. — Three monkeys were still on the loose Wednesday in Mississippi after a truck carrying the research animals overturned, but it remained unclear who owns the monkeys, who was transporting them and where they were being taken.

The monkey mystery has left a host of unanswered questions for authorities.

Officials said at midday Tuesday that all but one of the escaped Rhesus monkeys had been killed. But the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department later said officials from Tulane University got into the trailer Tuesday evening and determined three monkeys had escaped.

Sheriff Randy Johnson said Tulane officials reported the monkeys were not infectious, despite initial reports from the truck’s occupants warning that the monkeys were dangerous and harboring various diseases. But Johnson said in a statement that the monkeys still needed to be “neutralized” because of their aggressive nature.

The truck was carrying Rhesus monkeys, which typically weigh about 16 pounds and are among the most medically studied animals on the planet. The 21 monkeys on board had recently received checkups confirming that they were pathogen-free, Tulane said in a statement Wednesday. The university said it wasn’t transporting the monkeys and didn’t own them, but sent a team of animal experts to help with their care.

The monkeys were being housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center, which routinely provides primates to scientific research organizations, according to the New Orleans school. The research center is about 40 miles north of New Orleans in Covington, Louisiana.

Video from Tuesday shows monkeys crawling through tall grass on the side of Interstate 59 just north of Heidelberg, Mississippi, with wooden crates labeled “live animals” crumpled and strewn about.

The truck was no longer at the scene Wednesday, but people wearing white coats, gloves and hair nets were searching the area along with law officers.

University officials will be in the area looking for the missing monkeys, the sheriff said. All other monkeys were being transported back to Louisiana.

Dr. James Watson, Mississippi’s state veterinarian, verified that the animals had the proper documents and “certificate of veterinary inspection” for legal transport across state lines, he said in an email to The Associated Press. The state’s Board of Animal Health wasn’t involved in the response to the crash, and additional information would need to come from Tulane’s primate center, he said.

If anyone sees monkeys, they should call the authorities and shouldn’t approach the animals, the sheriff’s office warned.

The Mississippi Highway Patrol said Wednesday that it was investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred about 100 miles from the state capital, Jackson.

Associated Press Writer Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed.

Mississippi’s first skilled pediatric medical center celebrated its opening Tuesday with a ribbon cutting in Jackson. 

The Alyce G. Clarke Center for Medically Fragile Children will provide long-term care for patients younger than 19 years old with complex medical conditions and training for others’ families to care for them at home. It is a part of Children’s of Mississippi, the pediatric arm of the University of Mississippi Medical Center. 

“The Alyce G. Clarke Center is so much more than a building,” Dr. Mary Taylor, the Suzan B Thames Chair and professor of pediatrics at UMMC, said in a press release.

“It represents hope, and we are so proud that this is going to be a new home for children with special needs. The medical care they need will be provided here, and also supportive care for their families.” 

The facility has already admitted its first patient, UMMC spokesperson Annie Oeth told Mississippi Today. 

The $15.9 million, 20-bed facility is located about two and a half miles from the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s main campus on North State Street. It has two wings, each with a shared area that serves as a living room. 

“It took a whole team of people from the entire state of Mississippi to come together to get this beautiful building built,” said Dr. Alan Jones, UMMC’s associate vice chancellor for health affairs, in a press release. “This building and the people who staff it will deliver life-changing care.” 

The pediatric facility’s opening comes after several delays and scrutiny over funding and location. 

The center held its first groundbreaking in 2019 and planned to begin construction in 2021. But the COVID-19 pandemic slowed the project due to rising costs and supply chain issues, Jones said in a previous press release. 

UMMC awarded the contract to Mid State Construction Co. Inc. in February 2024, and construction of the facility began in August 2024. 

The project was funded with $14.5 million in bonds awarded by the state Legislature in 2019 and 2020. However, the project was originally intended to be paid for by private funders and constructed, owned and operated by a nonprofit. 

The nonprofit that would spearhead and fundraise for the project, Mississippi Center for Medically Fragile Children, was set up by then-First Lady Deborah Bryant’s chief of staff. Nancy New, the Families First leader who pleaded guilty in 2022 for her role in channeling Mississippi welfare grant funds for illegal projects, served on the nonprofit’s board. 

After New was arrested in 2020, she was removed from the board, the nonprofit dissolved, and Children’s of Mississippi assumed responsibility for the project. The nonprofit transferred its remaining funds to UMMC. 

The center is named for former Rep. Clarke, the first African American woman to serve in the Mississippi Legislature and a longtime advocate for the project. 

She became involved when Calvary Baptist Church in west Jackson, the area Clarke represented, planned to renovate its building to house the center. The church was ultimately left out of the plan after years of working on the proposal. Some lawmakers argued that state leaders hijacked the church’s proposal in order to place the center near the wealthier neighborhood of Eastover in Jackson. 

Children’s of Mississippi has provided long-term care to patients in an acute-care hospital setting for years. The new building will serve as a bridge from pediatric inpatient care to home for patients and parents. 

“This center will be able to provide medical care for these special children and education for their families in learning to care for them, but it will be a safe, warm place that will feel like home,” Taylor said. 

Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

A small-business owner in our district (the 2nd U.S. House District) is alive today because of the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits.

Before the ACA, he faced a life-or-death situation. Insurance companies either denied him coverage outright or quoted $2,000 to $3,000 a month for coverage he could never afford. Without health insurance, even a routine doctor’s visit could have been impossible.

It is because of the ACA tax credits that he finally found a plan he could afford, received life-saving heart surgery and regained his quality of life.

Today, he runs his business, supports his family and provides insurance for six employees. His story is proof of what affordable health care means for real people and real communities. Now, Republicans in Washington want to take that away.

We are living through what could be the longest government shutdown in U.S. history because Republican leaders are trying to end these very same ACA tax credits. If they succeed, Mississippi families –  especially in the 2nd Congressional District – will pay the highest price.

These credits are the only reason many Mississippians can afford health insurance. Without them, average premiums in our state would rise by 314%. 

That means 338,159 Mississippians, including more than 81,000 people in the 2nd District that I represent, would be at risk of losing coverage.

One 54-year-old small business owner in my district now pays $268 a month for ACA Marketplace coverage. Without the credits, her bill would jump to nearly $900 a month. That’s money she needs for her mortgage, groceries and medication. Hardworking Mississippians should never have to make those choices. 

Republicans are also promoting the $50-billion Rural Health Transformation, RHT, Program, created under H.R. 1 – their so-called ‘Big Ugly Bill’ – as a one-time pool of  money meant to help rural hospitals and attract doctors and nurses.

To be clear, H.R. 1 was not designed to save rural hospitals. It was written to strip away sustainable funding streams – like Medicaid expansion and Affordable Care Act  subsidies – and replace them with a short-term band-aid, the $50 billion RHT Program. Dividing that one pot of money across 50 states over five years doesn’t come close to filling the funding gap needed to stabilize rural hospitals and communities. 

Take Mississippi as an example. Had our state approved Medicaid expansion, we would have collected nearly $15 billion in federal funds to date – the very money our  hospitals and communities need to remain sustainable.

Instead of creating stability, H.R. 1 pushes 338 rural hospitals across the U.S. closer to closure. Eight of these hospitals are in Mississippi and are barely hanging on financially. Four of them are in the 2nd District: Delta Health – Northwest Regional (Clarksdale), Greenwood  Leflore Hospital (Greenwood), Panola Medical Center (Batesville) and Baptist  Medical Center – Yazoo (Yazoo City). They are weighed down by the cost of treating  patients who can’t pay, and government programs like Medicare and Medicaid don’t make up the difference.

If ACA premiums rise, more families will skip checkups, cut medicines and show up sicker in emergency rooms. That costs all of us more in the long run. 

Now, the Republican shutdown makes this health crisis even worse. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has warned that SNAP benefits to nearly 42 million Americans could stop in November if the shutdown continues. That includes over 357,000 Mississippians left without the means to put food on the table. Nutrition and health are inseparable, and in Mississippi, both are at risk. 

As members of Congress, we have health insurance. Who are we to deny the same opportunity to the people we serve? That is hypocrisy, plain and simple. 

The government could reopen tomorrow if Republicans would work with Democrats to make sure Mississippi families have access to health care and food assistance.

In our community, we take care of each other, and our government should do the same. I will continue to fight for fairness, and I won’t stop until every family has the  support they deserve.

Keep the faith.

Bio: Bennie Thompson has represented Mississippi’s 2nd District in the U.S. House since 1993.

There’s so much going on in the sports world, including an epic World Series, a memorable Mississippi college football season, an incredible turn-around at Lanier High School and so much more. All that and the Clevelands, in a generational argument, disagreeing on Shohei vs. the Babe.

Stream all episodes here.

This fall, Deep South Today partnered with Murmuration, a nonprofit that strengthens community-driven change at the local level, to understand how people across the Deep South stay informed: where they go for information, what sources they rely on and which stories stay with them. Together, we surveyed more than 5,000 residents across Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. 

Across people in the Deep South, about half said they still turn to local television, newspapers or regional websites for political and civic information, almost as many as those who rely on national broadcasts. Social media was just as common, with roughly 55% using platforms like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram to keep up. Around 1 in 5 listen to podcasts or talk radio, and many said they also learn about current events from friends, family or people they follow online.

In a world where national headlines dominate feeds, this mix of sources reveals something important: People in the South still look for news that feels close, familiar and relevant to their lives. 

The Story is Local

When asked to name a story that had recently caught their attention, 1 in 4 people pointed to something local — a shooting in town, a new policy in Baton Rouge, a school event in Memphis, or a community initiative nearby. That’s a couple points higher (+2.6pp) than in other parts of the country (the range across all 50 states was 12% to 29% local story recall). About 14% of stories were multiclassified because they spanned levels of geography (e.g. “I saw a news story covering Trump and China suspending tariffs for 90 days that caught my attention.”).

Certain patterns stand out. Women were significantly more likely than men to remember local stories (+11pp). Younger adults were far more attuned to community happenings than older residents (+9pp). Urban dwellers remembered more than suburban or rural ones (+7-8pp). Black Southerners remembered more than white Southerners (+5pp). People without college degrees (+7pp), and parents with children at home (+5pp), were also more likely to recall a local event.

Most of those local stories, however, focused on violence or tragedy. Nearly 6 in 10 covered crime, 4 in 10 addressed violence, and 1 in 10 involved both. By contrast, only about 1 in 10 mentioned government, policy, or civic action. In the Deep South, people remember what they feel and often, what they feel most sharply are the moments of loss.

Local news REALLY matters 

At the same time, local story recall was stronger in Mississippi (25%) and Louisiana (24%) where local outlets like Mississippi Today, Verite News and The Current continue to invest in community-based reporting. It was similarly solid in Arkansas (26%). On the other hand, in Alabama and Tennessee, recall lagged behind (20% and 21%, respectively). 

Access to credible local information is critical because people who regularly consume local news are more than 13 percentage points more likely to say they feel informed about social and political issues in their community.

Why does that matter? Because access to information doesn’t just shape what people know. It shapes what they do. Among those who feel knowledgeable about local life, roughly two-thirds say they vote in every local election (66%). Among those who do not feel informed, the number drops by half (35%).

Final thoughts

This partnership between Deep South Today and Murmuration began as a simple idea: to bridge real-time data with local storytelling and see what we might learn about civic life in a part of the country often written about, but rarely written with.

What we found is that local news still carries real power — not because it’s nostalgic or small, but because it’s near. It is the heartbeat of trust and participation. It shapes whether people feel seen, whether they show up, and whether they believe what happens next is still up to them.

We uncovered so much, yet the deeper questions are still unfolding:

• How do we rebuild local information networks so that everyone can see what’s happening in their own backyard?
• What would it look like to invest in stories that strengthen belonging, not just break news?
• How can researchers and journalists work together to make local truth-telling more visible, more trusted, and more lasting?

If democracy begins with knowing your neighbors, then the future of civic life may depend on something easier said than done: keeping the story close to home.

Thank you to Murmuration!

ABOUT DEEP SOUTH TODAY

Deep South Today is a nonprofit network of local newsrooms that includes Mississippi Today, Verite News, and The Current.

Founded in 2016, Mississippi Today is now the largest newsroom in the state, and in 2023 it won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. Verite News launched in 2022 in New Orleans, where it covers inequities facing communities of color. The Current is a nonprofit news organization founded in 2018 serving Lafayette and southern Louisiana.

With its regional scale and scope, Deep South Today is rebuilding and re-energizing local journalism in communities where it had previously eroded, and ensuring its long-term growth and sustainability.

ABOUT MURMURATION

Murmuration is a nonprofit that strengthens community-driven change at the local level. By equipping local organizations with powerful data, technology, and insights, Murmuration helps them amplify community voices, build collective power and drive solutions that reflect the lived realities of the people they serve. murmuration.org

While the school-choice debate continues to simmer in the Mississippi House, the Senate Education Committee is focusing on raising teacher pay and combatting chronic student absenteeism.

The Senate panel on Tuesday heard from a charter school researcher and others during a seven-hour meeting, the committee’s second hearing this month. The hearing also centered around the challenges facing traditional public schools — which superintendents said would only get worse if “school choice” is expanded in Mississippi.

“School choice” refers to a number of policies that give parents more educational options outside of traditional public schools, including private schools, often funding those opportunities with taxpayer dollars. House leaders have vowed it’ll be the key issue of the 2026 legislative session and are already working on a draft bill. 

That bill could spell disaster for Mississippi schools, the four superintendents warned the Senate committee. 

The school leaders from Oxford, Jackson, Greene County and Scott County said they feared school choice would siphon money and resources away from traditional public schools. Instead, they asked lawmakers to consider investing in the state’s existing education system by continuing to support early education, career and technical education opportunities and student mental-health resources.

“On the surface, it does sound like a good idea to give families dollars to choose the school their child should attend,” said Superintendent Bradley Roberson from Oxford. “But if we look at it, it’s not that appealing for families across our state.”

Last week, the executive director of the regional private school association told lawmakers on the House committee selected to study school-choice policies that private schools were not willing to support school choice unless the dollars came with no strings attached. He said private schools under no circumstances would make their students take state tests or change their curriculum, regardless of whether they received state funds. 

Roberson said that’s what sets traditional public schools apart. 

“I can assure you public schools aren’t afraid of competition, but I do want to hit on something about competition,” he said. “True competition only exists when everyone plays by the same rules. Our private school friends have made it clear they have no interest in doing that. And why would they? They get to choose the students they serve.

“We open our doors to every child every day regardless of background, income, ability, or circumstance. And y’all, that’s not a weakness … That’s a promise,” he said.

The superintendents lauded the hard work of their teachers and students that’s led to the state’s academic turnaround in recent years, and questioned why lawmakers would threaten to disrupt their progress.

Increasing teacher pay emerged as a top issue during the meeting. 

Roberson reminded lawmakers that many of Mississippi districts that struggle academically also struggle to recruit and retain certified teachers. Both Alan Lumpkin from Scott County and Charles Breland from Greene County told lawmakers about challenges recruiting their own daughters to their school districts because of low salaries. 

“If we want to sustain the Mississippi miracle, we have to retain teachers and we have to recruit teachers into this profession, and the current salary is not recruiting teachers into the profession,” Lumpkins said. “That’s the struggle that we’re having. I’m having it with my own daughter who wants to be a teacher one day, but she also wants to be able to provide things for her children and her future family.”

Their accounts lined up with data presented by Megan Boren, the Southern Regional Education Board’s director of educator workforce policy. 

Mississippi’s teacher pay is among the lowest in the nation, according to SREB data. The state trails its neighbors in average top salary, average salary and starting salary, and generally sits thousands below national averages in those categories. 

Another challenge unanimous across schools: chronic absenteeism. Boren encouraged school leaders to build a positive culture at school to incentivize attendance and build relationships with families to establish community-wide the importance of consistently going to school. 

Boren said interest in teaching among high school students in the South is down to an average of 4%, an alarming statistic in a region experiencing major teacher shortages. Boren suggested raising pay, creating a “residency year” for teachers and establishing an “induction” process in which teachers are extensively supported during their first few years in the classroom. 

Errick Greene, superintendent of Jackson Public Schools, had a unique point to take up with lawmakers. He said the district was challenged by the local presence of charter schools. The Jackson Public Schools board of education last week voted to deny a local charter’s request to expand into high school grades, but the charter authorizer board said the school doesn’t need JPS approval. 

Greene encouraged legislators to take a closer look at charter accountability measures and funding.

“We’re required to cut a lump sum check to charter schools but we don’t get paid in a lump sum,” he said. “We’re paid in increments throughout the year … As you might imagine, given that we’re now at about $12 million in payment annually to charter schools just from our district, that’s a huge hit to our schools.”

Greene’s comments were in stark contrast to remarks given earlier in the day by Lisa Karmacharya, executive director of the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board. 

Karmacharya, in the meeting’s opening presentation, implored senators to loosen charter school laws to allow the sector to grow and make it easier to establish charter schools across the state. Currently, charter schools can be established in areas where the local school district is rated A, B or C if the district’s board approves, and without board approval in areas rated D or F. 

She said current state law has created a charter system parallel to the state’s traditional public school system, and for the two to be successful, they need to work together. Aimee Evan, an education researcher from WestEd, said charter school systems need to be given time to show results. 

But several senators were skeptical. 

“I question whether this 10-year experiment has worked,” said Sen. David Blount, a Democrat from Jackson and vice-chairman of the education committee. The state’s first charter school was established in 2015.

Sen. Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford, asked Karmacharya why the authorizer board hasn’t closed low-performing charters. Most of Mississippi’s charter schools are failing by the state’s accountability measures, which lawmakers noted are set to get even more rigorous next year. Karmacharya told the panel that her board needs more freedom in legislation to act more quickly to renew and close schools, which Sen. Dennis DeBar, a Republican from Leakesville and chairman of the education committee, said he was happy to consider. 

But DeBar left her with a stern warning.

“I am concerned that the charter schools have not progressed to where they need to be … I would like to see more charter schools but it’s hard to justify that when the performance that we have just isn’t up to snuff,” he said. “Hopefully next year when we come back ratings will be better. If they’re not, there need to be drastic changes by the Legislature.”

The developer behind a controversial proposed asphalt plant announced on Tuesday he will seek to build it in the Lafayette County Industrial Park, not next to the small community of Taylor as originally planned.

The developer, J.W. McCurdy, announced this change after residents and the owners of a nearby farm vocally opposed the plans, and fought rezoning efforts before the Lafayette County Board of Supervisors.

“Our (original) site on (Mississippi) 328 is an outstanding industrial node, and that’s not changing, but I’m also happy to change for the sake of peace,” McCurdy said in a press release, adding, “We’re going to make this work, just in a new location.”

During public meetings over the last month, locals showed up in droves to protest the proposal to rezone the land from agricultural to heavy industrial use, arguing the plant would threaten the sanctity of neighboring Falkner Farms and the “bucolic” nature of Taylor. 

McCurdy said he will withdraw the rezoning application. The Lafayette County Board of Supervisors will not vote on the proposal which was previously scheduled to take place on Monday. During an Oct. 20 meeting, the board had tabled its decision after hours of public comments. 

Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson visited the Falkner family last week and shared photos of the visit on social media. In a letter to the Lafayette County Board of Supervisors, Gipson asked the Board “to consider the agricultural impact the zoning change could have.”

McCurdy maintains the site on Mississippi 328 is “still superior,” and that there are increased costs and risks to the new location. He and others have stated that the utility capacity of the industrial park has been a challenge. 

McCurdy, whose company JWM Development LLC owns the land along the highway, said he’s still planning projects there.

“Our neighbors all along said that all they objected to was an asphalt plant, not development in general,” he said. “So we are full speed ahead to bring new commercial, manufacturing, and industrial tenants to the county.” 

Taylor residents were concerned the development would increase runoff into the Yocona River, produce air pollution and increase noise and traffic in the quiet area.

They’ve also spoken to how recent expansion around Oxford has started to erode the rural identity of surrounding areas.

But McCurdy and some county officials said the area’s recent growth has caused a higher demand for asphalt to pave roads and build subdivisions.

District 5 Supervisor Greg Bynum said, “(McCurdy) has been patient and professional throughout all this, and, knowing him, I’m not at all surprised that he would sacrifice all his work for the betterment of the county.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the original planned location of the asphalt plant.

After Jackson installed some listening devices as part of a trial aimed at detecting the location of gunfire, city leaders found that the program never got far enough off the ground to evaluate if the technology would aid in crime prevention. 

The Jackson City Council voted last week to end a contract with Atlanta-based Flock Safety, the company that provides the gunshot detection devices. Flock must now remove the devices that were installed in south Jackson as part of the city’s 180-day trial period.

The Jackson Police Department requested the council terminate the contract out of concern the city would be charged $250,000 for further use of the devices, according to documents in the city’s meeting agenda packet. 

But several snafus prevented the department from fully testing Flock’s devices, designed to use acoustic sensors and machine learning to detect the sound of gunshots and provide the police with an exact location of the shots in under 60 seconds. 

“We were told that they did not have any data,” Ward 7 Councilman Kevin Parkinson said.

A Flock representative referred all questions to JPD. In a statement, JPD spokesperson Tommie Brown said the technology performed as intended but that some devices had to be removed in response to resident concerns. 

“We were never able to deploy all the devices, so we were never able to get a full evaluation,” Brown said. 

Brown said 57 devices were installed, covering 1.5 square miles, out of a planned 216. He added that the devices were live and Flock collected the data, but he did not respond to a question about whether the company shared the data with the city.

The company and JPD had sought to install the devices on light poles, but Entergy wanted to charge the city $500 a pop, which JPD did not want to pay, multiple council members told Mississippi Today.

“We ought to be able to use those poles for listening devices if the city wanted to,” Ward 1 Councilman Ashby Foote told Mississippi Today. 

An Entergy spokesperson told Mississippi Today in an email that the utility may require cities to pay an upfront fee to install public safety equipment, such as cameras, license plate readers and gunshot detection systems, “to cover administrative and engineering costs, such as site visits and inspections to ensure the proposed location can accommodate the device.” 

Some devices, then, were placed on freestanding poles in residents’ lawns without their permission, several council members told Mississippi Today. They said they learned this from JPD Capt. Michael Outland during last week’s work session. Outland did not respond to an inquiry from Mississippi Today, and the council’s work sessions generally are not recorded. 

Foote said he thought the technology could be useful for south Jackson, a more sprawling part of the city where residents say they often hear gunshots and experience slow police response times. 

“You could drive around for hours,” he said.  

The city of Jackson also has a contract with Flock for license plate readers, as do other cities around the state, including Ocean Springs and Pontotoc. 

Similar crime-detecting technology has been criticized for violating civil liberties and for the accuracy of the machines, with some failing to distinguish between gunshots and fireworks. Cities across the country have recently cancelled contracts with similar companies, outlets have reported, citing the recording devices as a “Band-Aid,” not a solution, to crime. 

As part of the “Project Prove It” trial period, an order form in the council’s agenda packet shows the department had requested “Raven” devices to cover 3.5 miles of the city. When the council initially OK’d the contract with Flock earlier this year under the previous mayoral administration, then-Chief Joseph Wade said the devices would be installed in south Jackson, WLBT reported.

A picture of Flock’s “deployment tracker” that was included in the council’s agenda packet depicts seven south Jackson addresses where devices were placed near the McDowell Square Shopping Center, including the Fourth Episcopal District CME Church on Robinson Road. On Monday, a black pole carrying Flock’s Raven device was still stuck into the grass in front of the church’s street sign.

A few months ago, Beverly Dixon, the church secretary, said she pulled into work to see a man who did not appear to be a police officer installing the black pole. She didn’t know what it was until speaking to a Mississippi Today reporter. 

“I don’t ask any questions, because I consider this part dangerous,” she said. 

It’s not gunshots that worry Dixon, though – she says she never hears them. Instead, it is the homeless people who sleep on the church’s steps. Dixon said she calls the police, but the last time she did, she was stuck in her car on a rainy day for an hour waiting for them to respond. 

“They take their time,” she said. 

The Flock test period was supposed to begin at the date the first device was installed, which was Aug. 4, but JPD counted the 180-day grace period from the date the city signed the contract, April 23.

JPD said its partnership with Flock remains and the department will continue to evaluate the company’s devices for future use. 

“Our decision to pause the Flock Raven project reflects our commitment to balancing technological advancement with the concerns and expectations of our residents,” JPD interim Chief-Sheriff Tyree Jones said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing our partnership with Flock Safety and will evaluate this system in the future as we work toward sustainable, community-driven public safety solutions.”

The Jackson City Council wants to try again with a different company when a new police chief is put in place, multiple council members told Mississippi Today. 

“Going forward, I think they got lessons learned,” Ward 5 Councilman Vernon Hartley said of JPD. “We’ll still be dead set on getting those things in place.”

Lashia Brown-Thomas, the Ward 6 councilwoman and a former JPD officer, said in her experience, the police have a 50-50 chance of catching the perpetrators when they respond to a “shots fired” call. 

“By the time the officers get there, (the shooters) will be gone,” she said.