OurTupelo

The newest Hinds County circuit court judge is working in a courthouse where years earlier one of his family members was sentenced. 

Judge Damon Stevenson became the fifth circuit judge of one of the largest and busiest circuit courts in the state, bringing Hinds County up to the most number of circuit judges in Mississippi. 

At a Friday investiture ceremony, he said he wants his courtroom to be a place of redemption, justice and mercy, especially for troubled young people to help them become productive members of society. Sharing those goals urged him to talk about his late father, who had been sentenced in the Hinds courthouse, as an example of how people can change regardless of where they started in life.  

Stevenson also wants to play a role in making Hinds County a safe place, which is where he considers home and is raising a family. 

“I just want to do right by people. I just want to be fair. I just want a court that moves cases, that is responsible to the community,” the Clinton resident said. 

Gov. Tate Reeves appointed Stevenson, who began work Sept. 1. Stevenson’s term runs through Jan. 4, 2027, and elections will be held starting in November 2026. 

Lawmakers created the judgeship during the recent legislative session under House Bill 1544. It was part of state-mandated judicial and legislative redistricting based on the most recent U.S. Census. Population can determine whether a district gains, loses or maintains judges or chancellors. 

At the ceremony, Senior Circuit Judge Winston Kidd, who taught Stevenson at Mississippi College School of Law, said his former student has developed into a capable courtroom attorney who has the temperament to be a trial judge. 

Kidd also said that a fifth judge will help the Seventh Circuit Court District handle more cases and improve case flow – a need he and other Hinds County judges have raised. 

On Friday, city and county government leaders, former colleagues and classmates said they look forward to working with Stevenson and said they believe he would do a good job. 

U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves administered the oath of office while Stevenson stood by his wife and two daughters. Other family members also attended the ceremony. 

Prior to the appointment, Stevenson served as a judge for the Byram Municipal Court since 2018. 

Stevenson was admitted to practice law in 2008 and worked in private practice taking criminal defense, personal and family law cases. He has litigated criminal and civil cases in state and federal court. 

His work includes serving as a special master for mental health commitments in Hinds County Chancery Court and as a federal probation officer who conducted pre-sentence investigations in U.S. District Court. He also worked for the Mississippi Youth Justice Project and the Southern Poverty Law Center.  

He is a Brandon native and graduated from Tougaloo College where he studied economics. He also studied at the University of Mississippi and universities out of the state. 

CLINTON — There’s still so much James Robinson doesn’t know about the woman in the photograph.

It was always on the wall in his aunt’s house, but he never knew who she was until he found a news article about her. Now, he gets to share her story.

The woman’s name is Sally Lee, a witness and survivor of the 1875 Clinton Massacre. Robinson, a 76-year-old retiree and Clinton native, is her great-great-great grandson.

On Sept. 4, 1875, a Republican political rally in Clinton turned into a tragedy when white disruptors fired into the crowd, killing multiple people. What followed was several days of racist violence that helped bring Reconstruction in Mississippi to a bloody, tragic end.

Last week scholars, political figures and descendants of victims and survivors came together to commemorate the massacre’s 150th anniversary.

DeeDee Baldwin, an engagement librarian and associate professor at Mississippi State University, organized the commemoration events. She learned about the Clinton Massacre while researching Black state legislators during the Reconstruction era. 

“It’s a pivotal event, not just in Mississippi history but in national history, and hardly anybody knows about it,” Baldwin said.

Commemorations took place last week. On Wednesday, Baldwin joined a panel of historians to discuss the massacre during a “History is Lunch” event at the Two Mississippi Museums. On Thursday morning, there was a brief reflection at the historical markers for the massacre, followed that evening by another panel at Mississippi College. Descendents of the massacre’s victims and survivors spoke at a memorial service at Mount Hood Missionary Baptist Church on Saturday.

The events were sponsored by Mount Hood Missionary Baptist Church, Mississippi College, Mississippi State University’s Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library and Together for Hope.

Sen. Hillman Frazier, a Democrat from Jackson, authored a Senate resolution to recognize the massacre’s anniversary. He spoke at the commemoration event on Thursday morning, emphasizing the importance of political participation. 

“They didn’t have more bullets than the opposition, but they had the vote,” Frazier said. “Make your vote count.”

At the markers on Thursday, Robinson carried around a copy of Lee’s picture in a clear sheet protector. On the back of the page was a copy of an article from 1961 that The Clarion Ledger published about her life. This article, which inspired him to start learning more about her and his family’s history, retells notable stories in Lee’s life, including how she and her son survived during the Clinton Massacre.

The bloodshed occurred during the Reconstruction era. Before the partisan political makeup of today, the Republican Party was majority-Black and controlled much of state politics. Black men in Mississippi, granted voting rights and the ability to hold office by the federal government post-Civil War, had been voting for years and many held elected offices.

These post-war realities did not sit well with white Southern Democrats, who sought to restore white supremacy by any means necessary. In 1875, they devised the Mississippi Plan, a strategy to use fraud and brutal violence to suppress the Black vote and reestablish Democratic control of Southern state governments.

The fateful day in Clinton began as a political rally and picnic held by Mississippi’s Republican Party ahead of the 1875 statewide elections. 

About 1,500 to 2,500 people were in attendance, most of them Black families. Eighteen of the approximately 75 white attendees were Democrats. They were part of the White Liners, what was essentially a paramilitary unit for the state Democratic Party.

In an effort to preserve peace, the Republicans allowed Democratic Senate candidate Amos R. Johnston to speak at the event. However, when Republican newspaper owner and Union veteran Captain H.T. Fisher spoke, according to news accounts of the day, he was heckled and tensions quickly turned into bloodshed.

Gunshots rang out in the crowd. Many white Democrats fell into formation and fired into the crowd. At the rally, three white people and four Black people were dead, and six white people and 20 Black people were wounded. Black women and children frantically ran for safety. 

One of them was Lee, who ran with her son in her arms. Spotting a hollow in a sycamore tree, she placed the baby there and hid until it was safe.

Clinton’s white mayor at the time had called for assistance from towns nearby based on a rumor that armed Black people would storm the town. By nightfall, several hundred White Liners entered the town. They spent the next day hunting, beating and killing Black residents. During this time, an estimated 50 Black people had been killed.

In 1876, a congressional report debunked the Democrats’ narrative that the massacre was an attack on white citizens by armed Black Mississippians. They found instead that white Mississippi Democrats plotted to disrupt Republican political activities and “to inaugurate an era of terror.”

By 1877, Reconstruction was over and the last federal troops left the South, allowing white Democrats to regain political power and establish the most stringent of laws to suppress and endanger Black Mississippians during the Jim Crow era.

Today, 150 years later, Baldwin hopes people who learn about the story realize “the importance of participating in democracy and protecting it.”

Frazier emphasized this point when speaking at the historical marker on Sept. 4. He also spoke out against anti-DEI legislation, saying it held up progress for women and Black people. This sentiment has become particularly pronounced in recent weeks. Last month a federal judge struck down an anti-DEI guidance from the U.S. Department of Education. Another federal judge blocked Mississippi’s anti-DEI law for the foreseeable future, concerned it would violate Mississippians’ constitutional rights.

Three years prior, the state enacted a ban on teaching critical race theory in schools and universities. Mississippi Today reported last week that the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University halted funding for student organizations amid uncertainty over the law.

“They want to sanitize history,” Frazier said at the Clinton Massacre markers. “But we have to make sure we tell history the way it was.”

Robinson, still holding on to that photo of Lee, expressed hope that people attending the commemorations learned that “there’s a good side and a bad side to human beings, and you have to choose which side that you’re going to be on.”

TYLERTOWN — As an ominous storm approached Buddy Anthony’s one-story brick home, he took shelter in his new Ford F-250 pickup parked under a nearby carport.

Seconds later, a tornado tore apart Anthony’s home and damaged the truck while lifting it partly in the air. Anthony emerged unhurt. But he had to replace his vehicle with a used truck that became his home while waiting for President Donald Trump to issue a major disaster declaration so that federal money would be freed for individuals reeling from loss. That took weeks. 

“You wake up in the truck and look out the windshield and see nothing. That’s hard. That’s hard to swallow,” Anthony said.

Disaster survivors are having to wait longer to get aid from the federal government, according to a new Associated Press analysis of decades of data. On average, it took less than two weeks for a governor’s request for a presidential disaster declaration to be granted in the 1990s and early 2000s. That rose to about three weeks during the past decade under presidents from both major parties. It’s taking more than a month, on average, during Trump’s current term, the AP found.

The delays mean individuals must wait to receive federal aid for daily living expenses, temporary lodging and home repairs. Delays in disaster declarations also can hamper recovery efforts by local officials uncertain whether they will receive federal reimbursement for cleaning up debris and rebuilding infrastructure. The AP collaborated with Mississippi Today and Mississippi Free Press on the effects of these delays for this report.

“The message that I get in the delay, particularly for the individual assistance, is that the federal government has turned its back on its own people,” said Bob Griffin, dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany in New York. “It’s a fundamental shift in the position of this country.”

The wait for disaster aid has grown as Trump remakes government

The Federal Emergency Management Agency often consults immediately with communities to coordinate their initial disaster response. But direct payments to individuals, nonprofits and local governments must wait for a major disaster declaration from the president, who first must receive a request from a state, territory or tribe. Major disaster declarations are intended only for the most damaging events that are beyond the resources of states and local governments.

Trump has approved more than two dozen major disaster declarations since taking office in January, with an average wait of almost 34 days after a request. That ranged from a one-day turnaround after July’s deadly flash flooding in Texas to a 67-day wait after a request for aid because of a Michigan ice storm. The average wait is up from a 24-day delay during his first term and is nearly four times as long as the average for former Republican President George H.W. Bush, whose term from 1989-1993 coincided with the implementation of a new federal law setting parameters for disaster determinations. 

The delays have grown over time, regardless of the party in power. Former Democratic President Joe Biden, in his last year in office, averaged 26 days to declare major disasters — longer than any year under former Democratic President Barack Obama.

FEMA did not respond to the AP’s questions about what factors are contributing to the trend.

Others familiar with FEMA noted that its process for assessing and documenting natural disasters has become more complex over time. Disasters have also become more frequent and intense because of climate change, which is mostly caused by the burning of fuels such as gas, coal and oil.

The wait for disaster declarations has spiked as Trump’s administration undertakes an ambitious makeover of the federal government that has shed thousands of workers and reexamined the role of FEMA. A recently published letter from current and former FEMA employees warned the cuts could become debilitating if faced with a large-enough disaster. The letter also lamented that the Trump administration has stopped maintaining or removed long-term planning tools focused on extreme weather and disasters.

Shortly after taking office, Trump floated the idea of “getting rid” of FEMA, asserting: “It’s very bureaucratic, and it’s very slow.”

FEMA’s acting chief suggested more recently that states should shoulder more responsibility for disaster recovery, though FEMA thus far has continued to cover three-fourths of the costs of public assistance to local governments, as required under federal law. FEMA pays the full cost of its individual assistance.

Former FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor, who served during Trump’s first term, said the delay in issuing major disaster declarations likely is related to a renewed focus on making sure the federal government isn’t paying for things state and local governments could handle.

“I think they’re probably giving those requests more scrutiny,” Gaynor said. “And I think it’s probably the right thing to do, because I think the (disaster) declaration process has become the ‘easy button’ for states.”

The Associated Press on Monday received a statement from White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson in response to a question about why it is taking longer to issue major natural disaster declarations:

“President Trump provides a more thorough review of disaster declaration requests than any Administration has before him. Gone are the days of rubber stamping FEMA recommendations – that’s not a bug, that’s a feature. Under prior Administrations, FEMA’s outsized role created a bloated bureaucracy that disincentivized state investment in their own resilience. President Trump is committed to right-sizing the Federal government while empowering state and local governments by enabling them to better understand, plan for, and ultimately address the needs of their citizens. The Trump Administration has expeditiously provided assistance to disasters while ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent wisely to supplement state actions, not replace them.”

In Mississippi, frustration festered during wait for aid

The tornado that struck Anthony’s home in rural Tylertown on March 15 packed winds up to 140 mph. It was part of a powerful system that wrecked homes, businesses and lives across multiple states.

Mississippi’s governor requested a federal disaster declaration on April 1. Trump granted that request 50 days later, on May 21, while approving aid for both individuals and public entities.

On that same day, Trump also approved eight other major disaster declarations for storms, floods or fires in seven other states. In most cases, more than a month had passed since the request and about two months since the date of those disasters.

If a presidential declaration and federal money had come sooner, Anthony said he wouldn’t have needed to spend weeks sleeping in a truck before he could afford to rent the trailer where he is now living. His house was uninsured, Anthony said, and FEMA eventually gave him $30,000. 

In nearby Jayess in Lawrence County, Dana Grimes had insurance but not enough to cover the full value of her damaged home. After the eventual federal declaration, Grimes said FEMA provided about $750 for emergency expenses, but she is now waiting for the agency to determine whether she can receive more.

“We couldn’t figure out why the president took so long to help people in this country,” Grimes said. “I just want to tie up strings and move on. But FEMA — I’m still fooling with FEMA.”

Jonathan Young said he gave up on applying for FEMA aid after the Tylertown tornado killed his 7-year-old son and destroyed their home. The process seemed too difficult, and federal officials wanted paperwork he didn’t have, Young said. He made ends meet by working for those cleaning up from the storm.

“It’s a therapy for me,” Young said, “to pick up the debris that took my son away from me.”

Historically, presidential disaster declarations containing individual assistance have been approved more quickly than those providing assistance only to public entities, according to the AP’s analysis. That remains the case under Trump, though declarations for both types are taking longer.

About half the major disaster declarations approved by Trump this year have included individual assistance.

Some people whose homes are damaged turn to shelters hosted by churches or local nonprofit organizations in the initial chaotic days after a disaster. Others stay with friends or family or go to a hotel, if they can afford it.

But some insist on staying in damaged homes, even if they are unsafe, said Chris Smith, who administered FEMA’s individual assistance division under three presidents from 2015-2022. If homes aren’t repaired properly, mold can grow, compounding the recovery challenges.

That’s why it’s critical for FEMA’s individual assistance to get approved quickly — ideally, within two weeks of a disaster, said Smith, who’s now a disaster consultant for governments and companies.

“You want to keep the people where they are living. You want to ensure those communities are going to continue to be viable and recover,” Smith said. “And the earlier that individual assistance can be delivered … the earlier recovery can start.”

In the periods waiting for declarations, the pressure falls on local officials and volunteers to care for victims and distribute supplies. 

In Walthall County, where Tylertown is, insurance agent Les Lampton remembered watching the weather news as the first tornado missed his house by just an eighth of a mile. Lampton, who moonlights as a volunteer firefighter, navigated the collapsed trees in his yard and jumped into action. About 45 minutes later, the second tornado hit just a mile away.

“It was just chaos from there on out,” Lampton said. 

Walthall County, with a population of about 14,000, hasn’t had a working tornado siren in about 30 years, Lampton said. He added there isn’t a public safe room in the area, although a lot of residents have ones in their home. 

Rural areas with limited resources are hit hard by delays in receiving funds through FEMA’s public assistance program, which, unlike individual assistance, only reimburses local entities after their bills are paid. Long waits can stoke uncertainty and lead cost-conscious local officials to pause or scale-back their recovery efforts.

In Walthall County, officials initially spent about $700,000 cleaning up debris, then suspended the cleanup for more than a month because they couldn’t afford to spend more without assurance they would receive federal reimbursement, said county emergency manager Royce McKee. Meanwhile, rubble from splintered trees and shattered homes remained piled along the roadside, creating unsafe obstacles for motorists and habitat for snakes and rodents.

When it received the federal declaration, Walthall County took out a multimillion-dollar loan to pay contractors to resume the cleanup.

“We’re going to pay interest and pay that money back until FEMA pays us,” said Byran Martin, an elected county supervisor. “We’re hopeful that we’ll get some money by the first of the year, but people are telling us that it could be [longer].”

Lampton, who took after his father when he joined the volunteer firefighters 40 years ago, lauded the support of outside groups such as Cajun Navy, Eight Days of Hope, Samaritan’s Purse and others. That’s not to mention the neighbors who brought their own skid steers and power saws to help clear trees and other debris, he added. 

“That’s the only thing that got us through this storm, neighbors helping neighbors,” Lampton said. “If we waited on the government, we were going to be in bad shape.”

Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri, and Wildeman from Hartford, Connecticut.

Update 98/25: This story has been updated to include a White House statement released after publication.

Abysmally low pay is driving Mississippi’s assistant teacher shortage, State Auditor Shad White said in a report. 

His office criticizes administrative costs and “outside-of-classroom” spending in the report, and recommends diverting that money to boost assistant teacher pay, which averages $22,840 a year in Mississippi. 

While it’s the first time he’s focused on assistant teachers, White, who is weighing a run for governor, has consistently drawn attention to education spending since he took office in 2018.

White first drew attention to outside-of-classroom spending in a 2019 report that includes examples such as district office salaries, campus and building maintenance and the production of school informational material. Previous reports from the auditor’s office have similarly encouraged districts to cut spending that doesn’t directly go to the classroom, on duplicative or unused equipment and administrative salaries. His predecessor had also criticized Mississippi’s spending on education administration.

Though he has no power over policy or appropriations, White proposed a bill last year that would mandate at least half of the state’s education dollars go toward teacher salaries. White has recently received criticism that some of his reports — including one for which he paid millions to a consultant — are aimed at his gubernatorial aspirations, rather than his job as auditor.

The new report is largely aimed at the Legislature and local school districts, a spokesperson for the auditor said. That’s because state law establishes the minimum salary for assistant teachers, not the Mississippi Department of Education. Districts can add to this base amount.

Advocates and some lawmakers have said for years that teacher assistants often get short shrift even when the Legislature raises pay for teachers.

The Legislature increased the minimum assistant teacher salary from $15,000 a year to $17,000 in 2022, but White is calling on lawmakers to raise the floor again. Raising the state’s average assistant teacher salary to the regional average would mean a $6,000 pay raise — a $67.3 million cost, the report says. 

“Assistant teachers are a vital part of Mississippi classrooms … many Mississippi students will suffer without classroom support from an assistant teacher,” the report reads. “Policymakers can build on Mississippi’s educational momentum by cutting runaway outside-the-classroom spending and reinvesting those dollars directly into classrooms—where they make the biggest difference.”

Assistant teachers in Mississippi are some of the lowest paid professionals in the state, according to data tracked by the Mississippi Department of Employment Security, and their salaries lag behind assistant teachers in almost every other state. Ample research shows that low pay discourages people from becoming teachers and drives them out of the profession. 

Mississippi requires that an assistant teacher be present in every kindergarten, first grade, second grade and third grade classroom. Though their specific duties vary by grade and classroom, they generally help manage students and assist with instruction.

Mississippi Department of Education data shows that there have been at least 500 vacant assistant teacher positions in the state annually since the 2021-2022 school year. 

The report notes a discrepancy of about $62,000 between average entry-level pay for assistant teachers and entry-level school administrators. 

“I don’t make enough to cover most of my expenses,” said a Cleveland School District assistant teacher, who spoke to Mississippi Today on the condition of anonymity out of fear of losing her job. “I live from check to check.”

She supports three kids on an annual salary of $21,000. Cleveland School District does not offer biweekly pay, so her paychecks have to stretch further. The longtime assistant teacher has left other school districts in the Mississippi Delta because they offered annual salaries of less than $20,000.

Now, she’s working on a master’s degree and studying for the Praxis exam, a test that teachers must pass in order to be certified, hoping to make a livable wage.

These weary eyes watched football — all or parts of four games — morning, noon and night Saturday. I have some thoughts.

First, this: What does it say about college football when you watch game after game for nearly 12 hours, finally sleep, and your dreams are punctuated by TV timeouts?

It says, I believe, there are too dang many.

Other thoughts:

First up was San Jose State-Texas, one of any number of early season games when the visiting team, playing for a huge paycheck, is overmatched. San Jose State surely was. The attraction, of course, was Arch Manning, the young Texas quarterback with so many Mississippi connections. 

Young Manning was coming off his first meaningful college start — at defending national champion Ohio State, no less. That’s an incredibly daunting assignment for anyone, no matter pedigree and ability. Manning’s performance against the Buckeyes was uneven, as his stats showed: 17 of 30 passing for 170 yards, a touchdown and an interception, plus 38 yards rushing on 10 keeps. He showed both promise and at times uncertainty.

Fast forward to Saturday: After a slow start, Manning completed 19 of 30 for 295 yards and four touchdowns with one interception. At one point in the first half, he threw four touchdowns in slightly over five minutes of playing time. He ran for another touchdown, looking forever like his grandfather when he tucked the ball and took off. He missed some throws but hit far more than he missed.

Bottom line: He will only get better and better, as any young quarterback does with experience.

I didn’t even have to switch channels for the next leg of my football marathon: Ole Miss-Kentucky, a hard-fought 30-23 Ole Miss road victory.

Several takeaways:

• Similarly to Manning, Rebels quarterback Austin Simmons showed both promise and plenty room for improvement. Two interceptions helped dig the Rebels into a 10-0 hole on the road. But Simmons, displaying much poise for a 19-year-old, then helped them dig out of it, finishing 13 for 24 with the two interceptions and no touchdowns. Expect him to steadily improve.

• Meanwhile, running back Kewan Lacy, a sophomore transfer from Missouri, looks like the real deal. The Dallas native showed vision, speed and power in running for 138 yards and a touchdown on 28 carries.

• My biggest concern for Ole Miss was who was going to replace defensive tackle Walter Nolan, the NFL first rounder who was such a disruptive presence last season. Zxavian Harris, the Canton native and former Germantown standout, appears to be that dude. He was everywhere for the Rebels Saturday, a 6-foot-8, 330-pound force. His fourth quarter sack was one of the game’s biggest plays.

• Kudos also to backup quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, a transfer from Division II Ferris State, who filled in admirably and then some after Simmons suffered a fourth quarter injury. Playing before more partisans than he probably ever did in a full season at Ferris State, Chambliss led the Rebs to a game-clinching field goal on fourth quarter drive. His performance in the clutch was huge.

Don’t know what it is about Kentucky, but the Wildcats seem to play their best against Ole Miss. Bottom line: The 2025 Rebels did what the ’24 Rebels couldn’t, which is survive Kentucky.

Two TVs were necessitated to watch the second half of Ole Miss-Kentucky and the first half of Jackson State-Southern Miss, just the fourth time in history the two Mississippi schools have played one another. The Golden Eagles’ final winning margin, 38-20, is no indication whatsoever of how competitive this game was. Jackson State competed on even terms for most of the contest. T.C. Taylor’s Tigers appear a team that will once again dominate the SWAC and would be competitive in the Sun Belt. 

And Southern Miss, for the second straight week, appeared much improved in its first season under Charles Huff. Transfers from Huff’s Sun Belt champion Marshall team of a year ago were largely responsible for USM’s hard-won victory. Most notably, quarterback Braylon Braxton gives the Eagles a winner at the most important position on the field. Braxton threw for 214 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions, and he ran for 20 more yards. He will give the Eagles a fighting chance to win every remaining game on the schedule. On the flip side, USM could lose to any team left on its schedule. 

Jackson State battled the Eagles evenly on both sides of the line of scrimmage. Southern Miss was plus-two in turnovers — and blocked a kick for a touchdown — and that was the difference.

A crowd of more than 32,000, fairly evenly divided, attended a well-played game that, clearly, should happen more often.

We save the best for last: Mississippi State’s scintillating 24-20 victory over No. 12 Arizona State. We must wait until later in the season to know whether Arizona State, a playoff team a year ago, is as good as projected. This we do know: Jeff Lebby’s Bulldogs are a whole lot better than almost everyone thought they would be. State, winner of just two games in 2024, will be favored to be 4-0 headed into a Sept. 27 home game with Tennessee.

The Bulldogs had looked much improved a week earlier in a 34-17 road victory over Southern Miss. They proved it a week later, taking a 17-0 lead against the Sun Devils and then fighting off a furious second half rally.

Lebby dipped heavily into the transfer portal and spent millions of NIL dollars to fix what was clearly broken. All indications are that he spent wisely. It helps immensely that Blake Shapen, a terrific, resourceful player, is back and healthy at quarterback. State would not have been 2-10 last year if Shapen had remained fit throughout.

The Bulldogs benefitted immensely from a raucous, cowbell-clanging crowd that had Arizona State unnerved from the get-go.

“Awesome environment,” ASU coach Kenny Dillingham said afterward. “They were loud, really loud, but that’s what college football is supposed to be.”

Dillingham’s team had dominated the second half, taking its first and only lead, 20-17, on a chip shot field goal with 98 seconds remaining.

State needed only 68 of those ticks to respond on Shapen’s 58-yard touchdown strike to Brenen Thompson. Given the situation, it seemed hard to comprehend the Devils did not have a safety playing deep in the middle of the field on the third and nine play. But they didn’t, and they paid dearly.

Thus, it seemed the Bulldogs and their 50,000-plus fans experienced an emotional release of the frustrations of the death of a coaching legend and two long seasons of subsequent futility in a goalpost-dismantling postgame celebration. 

Yes, and a long, but eventful day in Mississippi football was done.

It wasn’t on TV, but Delta State’s 41-9 victory over North Greenville (S.C.) University deserves mention. That’s because, with the victory, Delta State coach Todd Cooley becomes the winningest coach in DSU’s 95 years of football. Cooley, the 19th coach in DSU history, has won 77 games and lost 46 as coach of the Statesmen. He passes the late Horace McCool, for whom the DSU football stadium is named, who was 76-58 over 13 seasons.

Tommy Duff, a billionaire likely candidate for Mississippi governor, again stopped short of offering many specifics on his platform at a recent speech in Rankin County.

READ MORE: Tommy Duff tries to stake out ‘outsider’ identity in first political speech

Sen. Scott DeLano, a Republican from Biloxi, says Mississippi has done little to help protect South Mississippians from storm damages and residents statewide from rising insurance costs in the 20 years since Hurricane Katrina. He says Mississippi lags behind other Gulf states, in part, because the state insurance commissioner has not pushed for a robust mitigation program. DeLano also addresses his recent social media post blasting a state Republican think tank leader’s comments that many viewed as racist.

The 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina slamming the Mississippi Gulf Coast has come and gone, rightfully garnering considerable media attention.

But still undercovered in the 20th anniversary saga of the storm that made landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and caused unprecedented destruction is the role that a worm farmer from northeast Mississippi played in helping to revitalize the Coast.

House Speaker Billy McCoy, who died in 2019, was a worm farmer from the Prentiss, not Alcorn County, side of Rienzi — about as far away from the Gulf Coast as one could be in Mississippi.

McCoy grew other crops, but a staple of his operations was worm farming. 

Early after the storm, the House speaker made a point of touring the Coast and visiting as many of the House members who lived on the Coast as he could to check on them.

But it was his action in the forum he loved the most — the Mississippi House — that is credited with being key to the Coast’s recovery.

Gov. Haley Barbour had called a special session about a month after the storm to take up multiple issues related to Katrina and the Gulf Coast’s survival and revitalization. The issue that received the most attention was Barbour’s proposal to remove the requirement that the casinos on the Coast be floating in the Mississippi Sound.

Katrina wreaked havoc on the floating casinos, and many operators said they would not rebuild if their casinos had to be in the Gulf waters. That was a crucial issue since the casinos were a major economic engine on the Coast, employing an estimated 30,000 in direct and indirect jobs.

It is difficult to fathom now the controversy surrounding Barbour’s proposal to allow the casinos to locate on land next to the water. Mississippi’s casino industry that was birthed with the early 1990s legislation was still new and controversial.

Various religious groups and others had continued to fight and oppose the casino industry and had made opposition to the expansion of gambling a priority.

Opposition to casinos and expansion of casinos was believed to be especially strong in rural areas, like those found in McCoy’s beloved northeast Mississippi. It was many of those rural areas that were the homes to rural white Democrats — now all but extinct in the Legislature but at the time still a force in the House.

So, voting in favor of casino expansion had the potential of being costly for what was McCoy’s base of power: the rural white Democrats.

Couple that with the fact that the Democratic-controlled House had been at odds with the Republican Barbour on multiple issues ranging from education funding to health care since Barbour was inaugurated in January 2004.

Barbour set records for the number of special sessions called by the governor. Those special sessions often were called to try to force the Democratic-controlled House to pass legislation it killed during the regular session.

The September 2005 special session was Barbour’s fifth of the year. For context, current Gov. Tate Reeves has called four in his nearly six years as governor.

There was little reason to expect McCoy to do Barbour’s bidding and lead the effort in the Legislature to pass his most controversial proposal: expanding casino gambling.

But when Barbour ally Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, who presided over the Senate, refused to take up the controversial bill, Barbour was forced to turn to McCoy.

The former governor wrote about the circumstances in an essay he penned on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina for Mississippi Today Ideas.

“The Senate leadership, all Republicans, did not want to go first in passing the onshore casino law,” Barbour wrote. “So, I had to ask Speaker McCoy to allow it to come to the House floor and pass. He realized he should put the Coast and the state’s interests first. He did so, and the bill passed 61-53, with McCoy voting no.

“I will always admire Speaker McCoy, often my nemesis, for his integrity in putting the state first.”

Incidentally, former Rep. Bill Miles of Fulton, also in northeast Mississippi, was tasked by McCoy with counting, not whipping votes, to see if there was enough support in the House to pass the proposal. Not soon before the key vote, Miles said years later, he went to McCoy and told him there were more than enough votes to pass the legislation so he was voting no and broached the idea of the speaker also voting no.

It is likely that McCoy would have voted for the bill if his vote was needed.

Despite his no vote, the Biloxi Sun Herald newspaper ran a large photo of McCoy and hailed the Rienzi worm farmer as a hero for the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning board of trustees is seeking proposals from executive search firms to assist with Jackson State University’s president search. 

The state’s college governing board which oversees and selects the historically Black university’s leaders said Wednesday that the firm will help identify and recruit candidates for the search process. The news comes three weeks after officials made public plans to launch a search committee, where all 12 trustee members will serve. 

Marcus Thompson resigned as university president in May, the third person to depart from that post in seven years. The state’s college governing board did not explain why he or his two predecessors left the post nor has it shared with the public details about its next steps for picking a permanent leader for the school. 

Alumni and supporters of the historically Black university have raised questions to the board about its opaque process, calling for a fair, transparent national leadership search for the university.  

The IHL board’s formal request for proposals can be viewed on its website. The deadline for submission is Sept. 12. 

In 2023, IHL hired Academic Search, an executive headhunting firm, for $115,000 after Thomas Hudson, Thompson’s predecessor, resigned. The board also paid the firm $85,000 for the Delta State search. 

The initial contract with Academic Search for Delta State was $130,000, but it was amended after the board cut the search short and chose Daniel Ennis. The board also used the firm for University of Southern Mississippi search. 

Founded in 1877, Jackson State, Mississippi’s largest HBCU, is located in the state’s capital city. The university serves more than 6,000 students with 520 faculty and offers 90 academic programs.

NEW ALBANY — After five hours in a courtroom where attendees struggled to find standing room, the Mississippi Public Service Commission voted to petition a judge to put the Holly Springs Utility Department into a receivership.

The PSC held the hearing Thursday about a half hour drive west from Holly Springs in New Albany, known as “The Fair and Friendly City.” Throughout the proceedings, members of the PSC, its consultants and Holly Springs officials emphasized there was no precedent for what was going on.

The city of Holly Springs has provided electricity through a contract with the Tennessee Valley Authority since 1935. It serves about 12,000 customers, most of whom live outside the city limits. While current and past city officials say the utility’s issues are a result of financial negligence over many years, the service failures hit a boiling point during a 2023 ice storm where customers saw outages that lasted roughly two weeks as well as power surges that broke their appliances.

Those living in the service area say those issues still occur periodically, in addition to infrequent and inaccurate billing.

“I moved to Marshall County in 2020 as a place for retirement for my husband and I, and it’s been a nightmare for five years,” customer Monica Wright told the PSC at Thursday’s hearing. “We’ve replaced every electronic device we own, every appliance, our well pump and our septic pumps. It has financially broke us.

“We’re living on prayers and promises, and we need your help today.”

Another customer, Roscoe Sitgger of Michigan City, said he recently received a series of monthly bills between $500 and $600.

Following a scathing July report by Silverpoint Consulting that found Holly Springs is “incapable” of running the utility, the three-member PSC voted unanimously on Thursday to determine the city isn’t providing “reasonably adequate service” to its customers. That language comes from a 2024 state bill that gave the commission authority to investigate the utility.

The bill gives a pathway for temporarily removing the utility’s control from the city, allowing the PSC to petition a chancery judge to place the department into the hands of a third party. The PSC voted unanimously to do just that.

Thursday’s hearing gave the commission its first chance to direct official questions at Holly Springs representatives. Newly elected Mayor Charles Terry, utility General Manager Wayne Jones and City Attorney John Keith Perry fielded an array of criticism from the PSC. In his rebuttal, Perry suggested that any solution — whether a receivership or selling the utility — would take time to implement, and requested 24 months for the city to make incremental improvements. Audience members shouted, “No!” as Perry spoke.

“We are in a crisis now,” responded Northern District Public Service Commissioner Chris Brown. “To try to turn the corner in incremental steps is going to be almost impossible.”

It’s unclear how much it would cost to fix the department’s long list of ailments. In 2023, TVPPA — a nonprofit that represents TVA’s local partners — estimated Holly Springs needs over $10 million just to restore its rights-of-way, and as much as $15 million to fix its substations. The department owes another $10 million in debt to TVA as well as its contractors, Brown said.

“The city is holding back the growth of the county,” said Republican Sen. Neil Whaley of Potts Camp, who passionately criticized the Holly Springs officials sitting a few feet away. “You’ve got to do better, you’ve got to realize you’re holding these people hostage, and it’s not right and it’s not fair… They are being represented by people who do not care about them as long as the bill is paid.”

In determining next steps, Silverpoint Principal Stephanie Vavro told the PSC it may be hard to find someone willing to serve as receiver for the utility department, make significant investments and then hand the keys back to the city. The 2024 bill, Vavro said, doesn’t limit options to a receivership, and alternatives could include condemning the utility or finding a nearby utility to buy the service area.

Answering questions from Central District Public Service Commissioner De’Keither Stamps, Vavro said it’s unclear how much the department is worth, adding an engineer’s study would be needed to come up with a number.

Terry, who reminded the PSC he’s only been Holly Springs’ mayor for just over 60 days, said there’s no way the city can afford the repair costs on its own. The city’s median income is about $47,000, roughly $8,000 less than the state’s as a whole.