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In Senate Education Committee Chairman Dennis DeBar’s fifth and final stop on a statewide listening tour to talk with teachers about their pay, the first question he heard wasn’t about why Mississippi ranked last in the nation in average teacher pay.

It wasn’t about why Mississippi teachers must pay for classroom supplies out of their own meager paychecks, about the extra but uncompensated responsibilities teachers have had to take on during the pandemic, or about how much lawmakers planned to raise teacher salaries in the upcoming legislative session.

“How do we know this isn’t another publicity stunt?” Leslie Hebert, an English teacher at Pelahatchie High School, asked bluntly. 

Hebert’s question underscored a long-standing reality: Mississippi teachers, underpaid and underappreciated, distrust elected officials who say they want to help. They’ve been lied to too many times.

Every election cycle, statewide officials and lawmakers focus on promises that they’ll raise teacher pay. But once they’re in office, they produce few results. Since 2007, lawmakers have increased Mississippi teacher pay just four times. Those raises have hardly moved the needle.

After all these promises and all these years, Mississippi still boasts the lowest average teacher salary of any state in the nation. The state is facing a dire teacher shortage: there has been a 32% decline in education graduates from 2013-14 to 2017-18, and the out-of-state pipeline for teachers has almost entirely vanished.  Many teachers must work multiple jobs to pay their bills.

Educators fume about the lack of action at the Capitol. All they can do is hope for change or seek new professions. If things keep going in this direction, teachers will eventually be just “warm bodies in a classroom,” as Trisha Gilbreath, a teacher in the Rankin County School District, put it.

“Good teachers are competent humans, and competent humans are going to realize really quickly they can do something a lot less demanding and make more money,” she said.

Lawmakers return to Jackson on Jan. 4, 2022, with more money to spend than at any point in the state’s history. Billions in unspent state surplus — not including the billions in untouched federal coronavirus stimulus funds — are awaiting legislative negotiation.

But thus far, even as lawmakers have spent weeks discussing in detail how to spend the unprecedented money, no specific plan has been pitched to increase teacher salaries — neither long-term solutions to the decades-long problem nor short-term fixes to placate exhausted educators.

“We’ve had a lot of politicians do things like these town hall meetings, and nothing ever changes,” Hebert said. “We may get very, very small changes in teacher pay but along with those small changes are increases in insurance premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket expenses. It just feels like we’re spinning our wheels.” 

The most common refrain educators hear from elected officials is: “We want Mississippi teachers to reach the Southeastern average.”

Late in his 2019 campaign for governor, Tate Reeves emailed every public school teacher in the state and promised his plan would “get our salaries to the Southern Regional Education Board starting average within two years and the Southeastern regional average within four years.”

Reeves, during his first year as governor, left teacher pay out of his budget proposal completely. Teacher salaries have been raised just once since Reeves has been governor — a $1,000 raise passed in the 2021 session. Two years later, none of the governor’s promises have been fulfilled.

Speaker of the House Philip Gunn, speaking at a Rotary Club meeting during his election year in 2019, also cited the statistic while talking about teacher pay.

“Do we pay them what they’re worth? Absolutely not,” Gunn said. “There’s no way we can ever pay teachers what they are worth. Teachers are invaluable. They are critical to the future of this state. They are critical to the education of our children.”

“I’d love to get them up to the Southeastern average,” Gunn continued. “That, to me, is the first goal. We’re about $4,000 off from there.”

The most recent data available shows Mississippi’s average teacher pay is $46,843 — more than $8,300 behind than the Southeastern average of $55,205, according to the Southern Regional Education Board.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann took the idea about reaching the Southeastern average a step farther.

“I’ve never been held to a standard that we’ve got to meet some average,” Hosemann said in January 2020, the month he took office as lieutenant governor. “Why do we have to be average? Why can’t we be above?”

DeBar, the Senate Education chairman, conducted his five-stop listening tour in part to fulfill that promise from Hosemann, who presides over the Senate.

As teachers took turns speaking at the Dec. 9 town hall, several themes emerged — including that the recent pay raises were not only not enough to make up for increased insurance costs, but they did not keep up with the pace of inflation, as a more recent report from the Southern Regional Education Board pointed out.

“In the last 10 years, I’ve lost money every single year because I get a step increase, but the insurance and cost of living goes up,” a teacher at the event told DeBar. “$9,000 (annual pay raise) is where we need to be starting.” 

DeBar, in response, delivered a blow to the teachers in attendance and countered what the most powerful elected officials have promised time and time again.

“I don’t disagree with you that we need a teacher pay raise and it needs to be substantial,” DeBar began. “… But I don’t know that we’ll ever equal the Southeastern average because every time we do a pay raise, the other states do a pay raise.”

When pressed about how much, exactly, DeBar and lawmakers would work to raise teacher salaries in 2022, DeBar never offered any specific numbers. 

He did, however, refer to the governor’s executive budget recommendation, which included a $3,300 increase over three years. DeBar also alluded to a “competitive salary” and a “professional wage,” but when one teacher asked him to define those terms, he did not.

When pressed by teachers to define those terms, Leah Smith, the lieutenant governor’s deputy chief of staff, went on to explain Mississippi’s teacher pay scale to a room full of Mississippi teachers who are intimately familiar with the teacher pay scale.

“We’re still working out the details,” DeBar said.

Hebert, the teacher who asked the first blunt question of DeBar, described how her former coworkers in the Yazoo County School District have not seen any actual pay increase after the recent raise. 

The reason, she said, is increased health insurance costs coupled with Yazoo County’s small supplement (or an additional bump in a teacher’s pay that comes from local tax dollars) to most of its teachers. 

The Southern Regional Education Board highlighted this issue last year in a report analyzing teacher pay, which found the take-home pay of new and mid-career teachers in Mississippi is low compared to other states in the region. 

According to the report, a typical first-year teacher who does not have any family members on his or her health insurance will take home an average of $25,000 (after insurance, retirement and other costs are deducted from their pay). By their 15th year on the job and once he or she has added family members to the insurance plan, that number only rises to around $27,000. The health insurance family plan alone is close to $800 a month.

DeBar, who lives in southeastern Mississippi a few miles from the Alabama state line, said he has seen the effects of this with his own eyes.

“My teachers are leaving Mississippi to go to Alabama,” where health insurance costs for families are significantly lower because the state pays for a larger percentage of the premium, he said.

The Dec. 9 meeting did seemingly little to address another concern of the teachers: the lack of value they feel state leaders place on them and the need for increased support of educators. At times during the listening session, DeBar exacerbated that feeling.

Gilbreath, who teaches AP Calculus and Engineering at Northwest Rankin High School, told DeBar that even with a doctoral degree, 16 years of experience and National Board Certification, she still works a second job to get by.

She is currently a finalist for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, the nation’s highest honor for teachers of mathematics and science. She has received numerous awards and recognitions for the caliber of her teaching.

When Gilbreath shared that she has a doctoral degree, DeBar said: “You’re one of 400 to 440 PhDs that are still in the classroom … Do we even really need you to have a doctorate in the classroom to teach? Or is a masters degree…”

Gilbreath cut him off.

“I do,” she said. “And it makes me a better teacher. Don’t we want the best teachers in the classroom?”

Gilbreath later said his comment was a “gut punch.” 

“I think what Senator DeBar said reflects what society doesn’t understand about education,” she told Mississippi Today. “You have to be good at your content knowledge, and you have to be good at pedagogy. Those are two separate skills.” 

When lawmakers return to Jackson in January, they’ll have an unprecedented $4.2 billion in excess funds to spend. That total includes $2.4 billion in state surplus revenue, and $1.8 billion in federal coronavirus relief funds.

Much of $4.2 billion pot of cash is considered one-time money, which lawmakers avoid appropriating for recurring expenses like increased salaries. But the revenue surplus — which could be used for teacher bonuses, among countless other things — is being touted as a sign the state is in its best-ever financial shape, and ideas are being floated about how to invest in it to provide a better future for Mississippi.

Battle lines are currently being drawn between House and Senate leaders over how that money should be spent. Hosemann, the Senate leader, created a select committee to hear from leaders from many sectors of government about how lawmakers should divvy up the federal money.

One group noticeably missing from Hosemann’s federal spending hearings: teachers. The Mississippi Department of Education and school districts received American Rescue Act Plan funds directly, but they are limited in how they can spend them.

In September, the Senate Education Committee hosted a one-day hearing about teacher pay. The idea, DeBar said at the time, was “to glean, learn as much information as possible about teacher pay and the benefits that go with the salary teachers receive. We are looking at what we can do to retain teachers and entice education students to go into teaching.”

One group noticeably missing from that teacher pay hearing: teachers. Instead, they were asked to provide written comments to the committee. Senate leaders later said teachers weren’t invited to testify because there would be a statewide listening tour.

Hosemann said the goal of the state’s historic revenue surpluses should be to ensure the impact for the state “is generational, not for one or two years, but for one or two generations. I think all of the members of this committee are committed to doing that.”

But the notion of all this excess funding has sprung talks — led by Speaker Gunn and Gov. Reeves — of eliminating the state’s income tax, which accounts for about one-third of the state’s annual general fund revenue. That revenue is what funds many essential government services, including the funding formula that pays public school teachers.

“I would challenge both (legislative) chambers, let’s find a way to get rid of the income tax,” Gunn said on Dec. 7. “Now is the time to give money back to the people. We have done everything. We have funded all of the government. We have excess money. Let’s give it back.”

Many teachers fear what will happen to their own salary prospects if one-third of the state’s revenue vanishes in a tax cut. The distrust of elected officials runs deep.

“When I make a commitment, I keep it,” Reeves said in his election eve email to every Mississippi teacher during his 2019 gubernatorial campaign. “I am committed to getting this done for our teachers, our parents, and most importantly, for the kids across Mississippi who are counting on us to get this right.”

“House Republicans believe if we are going to improve our educational system, we must invest in good teachers,” Gunn said in a statement posted on his campaign website. “… Everything we are proposing is being done from the mindset that we have to invest in good teachers. Because we are making ourselves more competitive with our surrounding states, we will be better able to retain our good teachers and give those good teachers outside our state a reason to consider coming here.” 

“Our teachers are the professionals with whom we trust our children for eight or more hours a day, and their pay should reflect the critical importance of this calling,” Hosemann said when he was running for lieutenant governor in 2019. “We have more work to do on raising our teacher salaries, and we will not just focus on the issue during election years. We also have to review strategies to end the teacher shortage impacting many of our districts. Pay is also part of this equation.”

That political rhetoric rings hollow in 2021, as Mississippi teachers continue to struggle.

Leaders are touting what they call devoted attention to teacher pay, but they’re not hearing the teachers who have been clearly articulating that they need more. Elected officials can’t stop repeating that Mississippi is in great financial shape, but many teachers aren’t paid living wages. Ideas are being floated at the Capitol for how to leverage this once-in-a-lifetime pile of cash to create “generational” change, but teachers feel they’re being left out of the conversation.

During the Dec. 9 listening session, DeBar referenced a teacher who was in attendance at a previous session whose children qualified for Medicaid because of her income level.

That teacher had to leave the evening session early to go to her second job.

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On Wednesday, December 8, higher education reporter Molly Minta answered your questions about the Mississippi One Grant, a financial aid proposal, through our students text line.

Below is a selection of reader questions asked during the AMA that were answered by Molly.

Text “students” to 844-626-5588 to join future discussions.

The post Mississippi One Grant AMA with Molly Minta appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Interception! appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A coalition of groups has filed a complaint with the state Ethics Commission saying the Joint Legislative Redistricting Committee has violated state law “by deliberating, making decisions and conducting public business outside a properly noticed open meeting.”

The complaint was filed on Wednesday — the same day the Redistricting Committee approved a plan to redraw the state’s four U.S. House seats to match population shifts ascertained by the 2020 Census. That plan will be offered to the full Legislature for approval during the 2022 session beginning Jan. 4. The committee also is working on a plan to redraw the 52 state Senate seats and 122 state House seats.

Those filing the complaint include the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, League of Women Voters of Mississippi, Mississippi Center for Justice, the state conference of the NAACP, Mississippi Votes, Southern Echo and Southern Poverty Law Center.

The complaint said the bulk of the work of the committee has taken place behind closed doors, including the drawing of the congressional redistricting plan approved Wednesday in open session, the complaint said.

“The extent of the redistricting work that the Committee has performed thus far makes it apparent that the Committee has performed public business in private,” the complaint alleges. “In fact, following its November public meeting, Chairman Jim Beckett invited the Committee’s members to his office to view the U.S. congressional map that would be, and was, offered, voted on and adopted by the Committee” on Wednesday.

Traditionally the Legislature has met in public to take up legislation, but often the legislation was crafted behind closed doors. The Ethics Commission will be tasked with determining when the crafting of legislation behind closed doors violates the open meetings law.

Any ruling on open meetings and open records conflicts issued by the Ethics Commission can be appealed to chancery court.

Of the work of the Committee, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said, “Our Standing Joint Congressional Redistricting Committee, under the Senate leadership of Pro Tempore Dean Kirby, held nine hearings in 2021 in all regions of the state to hear from citizens about the map. For the first time, all hearings were webcasted and archived in the interest of accessibility and transparency. We are grateful for the Committee’s work and look forward to seeing their progress on the legislative lines in 2022.”

The complaint said there was no instance of the public comments and redistricting plans offered by the public being considered in open meeting.

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The state’s Joint Legislative Redistricting Committee, ignoring the wishes of Mississippi’s lone African American U.S. House member, approved a congressional redistricting plan Wednesday that extends the length of Black majority Congressional District 2 by about 60 miles.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat, had proposed that all of his home county of Hinds be placed in District 2 to maintain some compactness for the district. Instead, the committee opted to extend District 2 nearly the entire length of the state, adding Adams, Amite, Franklin and Walthall counties in southwest Mississippi to the district.

The proposed district would extend more than 300 miles from Tunica in northwest Mississippi to the Louisiana-Mississippi border in southwest Mississippi. The only county that borders the Mississippi River not in the district is heavily Republican DeSoto County.

(Story continues below the proposed map. The state’s current congressional map can be found at the bottom of this story.)

District 2, which has long been a majority-Black district, is the only one of the state’s four congressional districts to lose population based on the 2020 Census — more than 9% in 10 years, or about 65,000 people.

Based on federal and state law, the districts have to be redrawn to ensure near equal population representation.

Senate Pro Tem Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, who is co-chair of the redistricting committee, and House Pro Tem Jason White, R-West, who is a member of the committee, said they expect the congressional redistricting plan will be offered to the full Legislature for possible passage in the first or second week of the 2022 session that begins Jan. 4.

“But I heard of about 10 things (to be taken up) in the first week of the session,” White quipped.

The urgency to take up the congressional plan is that elections are slated earlier this year and the deadline for candidates to qualify to run for the congressional seats is March 1. Legislators are expected to take up a plan to redraw their own 174 House and Senate districts later in the session since their elections are not until 2023.

READ MORE: Lawmakers face redistricting reality: Mississippi’s non-white population is growing

The three African American members of the Redistricting Committee who were present Wednesday all voted against the plan extending District 2 further into southwest Mississippi. Others on the 20-member committee voted for the plan.

Sen. Angela Turner-Ford, D-West Point, said she voted against the plan because of the issue of compactness.

No alternative was offered for consideration by the committee. But Kirby said he expects alternatives to be offered to the full Legislature for consideration.

Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, who is the House minority leader, said that there would be an effort to amend the plan during the legislative session. Johnson’s state House district includes the area added to U.S. House District 2 in the committee plan.

“It makes it quite a large district that would be difficult to govern,” Johnson said.

White, who presented the plan to the committee, said the plan makes the other three districts more compact.

He said no incumbent congressman “got everything they wanted” in the redistricting, but that District 3 Rep. Michael Guest of Rankin County opposed Thompson’s plan to move all of Hinds into his district. Guest wanted the heavily Republican northeast Jackson area of Hinds.

In addition, White said Guest wanted to maintain a Republican area of south Madison County in his district. A proposal offered by the state chapter of the NAACP would have moved all of Hinds and that portion of south Madison into Thompson’s district.

READ MORE: Rep. Bennie Thompson wants all of Hinds Co. placed in his 2nd District

White also said it makes sense to add southwest Mississippi into the 2nd because as river counties they had many of the same interests as other counties along the Mississippi River in Thompson’s district.

Under the plan approved by the committee, the Black voting-age population of District 2 will be 61.05%, slightly higher than that proposed by the NAACP. The current Black voting-age population of District 2 is 62.27%.

Federal law most likely would mandate that Mississippi, the state with the nation’s highest Black population, maintain an African American majority district.

The post GOP lawmakers roll out new congressional map, including a sprawling majority-Black district appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Secretary of State Michael Watson issued a consent order and fined “Defending the Republic,” a nonprofit run by former Donald Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, for making false statements to solicit funds in Mississippi.

Texas-based DTR and Powell have come under federal and other states’ scrutiny after the group raised nearly $15 million primarily using baseless claims about the 2020 presidential election being stolen. Powell could face further problems in Florida — where she was also cited for using deceptive solicitations — for failing to report the Mississippi action.

Powell is facing questions about how much money DTR had solicited and where the money was going. According to the Washington Post, many members of DTR’s staff and board resigned in April, and in early December federal prosecutors subpoenaed financial documents from DTR and a PAC that Powell leads by the same name.

In June, Watson issued a cease-and-desist letter to DTR for falsely claiming it was registered with his office’s Charities Division on billboards and its website soliciting donations in Mississippi. In early December, DTR entered a consent order with Watson’s office. The group paid a $2,500 fine and is now legally registered to solicit donations in Mississippi.

Republican Watson, a Trump supporter, issued a written statement:

“After noticing a solicitation, the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office checked the charity and found it was illegally soliciting in our state in violation of the Mississippi Charitable Solicitations Act. This resulted in the imposed fine against Defending the Republic (DTR) in the amount of $2,500. In an effort to resolve the matter, DTR paid an administrative penalty and entered into a consent order providing it would comply with all of the laws regarding regulation of charitable solicitations. As always, I’m proud of my team for consistently and justly applying the law.”

Powell is a Texas lawyer who joined Trump’s legal team as it unsuccessfully attempted to prove fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election. Powell, who vowed to “release the Kraken,” a phrase from the “Clash of the Titans” movie, made claims that China, Venezuela, Cuba, Antifa, the Clinton Foundation, the late Hugo Chavez and others conspired to steal the election from Trump. None of those allegations have been found to be true.

Trump disavowed Powell after she made claims that Georgia’s Republican governor and secretary of state had been paid off to to help throw the election. Powell continued to independently file unsuccessful election lawsuits in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The post MS Secretary of State Watson sanctions former Trump lawyer over solicitation of donations appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Jackson-based HOPE Credit Union was awarded $88 million as part of a national effort to increase lending to minority-owned businesses and people with limited access to banking. 

The Treasury released a total of $8.7 billion to be split among 186 financial institutions through its Emergency Capital Investment Program, which was included in a 2021 stimulus package passed by Congress. The program is the largest community finance development program ever created.

The financing is the largest investment that HOPE Credit Union has ever been awarded since it was founded in 1994.

Vice President Kamala Harris announced the historic investment during the Freedman’s Bank Forum, which was hosted Tuesday by the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. 

“The wealth gap persists today, the homeownership gap persists,” Harris said. “Black entrepreneurs are three times more likely to report that a lack of access to capital negatively affects their profit margins.”

The program was created this year in response to economic distress caused by COVID-19, which disproportionately affected small and minority-owned businesses. Despite making up 13.4% of the nation’s population, Black Americans control just 4.3% of household wealth, according to the Federal Reserve.

The credit union had to apply to receive the financing, which comes in the form of a 30-year, low-interest loan. The access to the funds allows HOPE and the other recipients to more easily provide loans, grants and forbearance for small businesses to people in underserved and low-income areas. 

Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company, commonly called the Freedman’s Bank, was chartered by the U.S. government more than 150 years ago to help newly emancipated African Americans become financially stable. Now, the forum that carries its name is aimed at discussing the systemic wealth gaps in the U.S. 

“It is quite fitting that (Tuesday’s) historic announcement of the largest investment ever made in community development finance takes place at a commemoration of the Freedman’s Bank — an institution created to provide former slaves with fair access to the banking system,” HOPE CEO Bill Bynum said in a statement.

“As a fellow financial first responder and longtime advocate for policies, practices and investments that level the financial playing field, HOPE looks forward to building on the Freedman’s Bank proud legacy by working to ensure that Emergency Capital Investment Program resources reach those hardest hit by COVID-19, bridge gaps in the banking system and advance equitable economic prosperity, particularly in communities of color across the Deep South.”

Since its founding, HOPE has generated more than $3.1 billion in financing throughout Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana.

HOPE Credit Union was among the recipients of $10 million from Netflix after the streaming company pledged to invest 2% of its cash holdings to banks and organizations supporting Black communities across the nation. HOPE is also working with Netflix on a streaming television series that will highlight banking discrimination.

FOLLOW THE MONEY: How is Mississippi spending billions in federal funds flowing through the state?

Editor’s note: Bill Bynum serves on Mississippi Today’s board of directors.

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What this world does not need are any more obscure college football bowls. We’ve already got Tony the Tiger, the Cheezit, and two bowls scheduled for Frisco, Texas.

The Cleveland boys also discuss recruiting, the Mississippi-Alabama all-star game and the Celebration Bowl.

Stream all episodes here.

The post Podcast: Bowls and bowls and bowls and bowls appeared first on Mississippi Today.

So, it’s National Signing Day, and worried-sick college football fans across the state of Mississippi are glued to the Internet, hoping for good news for their favorite teams. 

The most zealous of these fans know how many recruiting “stars” every player has. They know who is recruiting whom. They know all that and more.

But they should remember this: Many of the greatest players in this state’s football history were not that highly recruited. Some were hardly recruited at all. Some were signed as afterthoughts.

For today’s purposes, let’s just look at quarterbacks. And let’s start with Mississippi State and the greatest quarterback in Bulldog history, Dak Prescott. Now that Prescott has become one of the most highly productive and most highly paid players in the NFL — this after breaking all the passing and total offense records at State — you naturally would assume he was considered a five-star, can’t miss prospect. And you would be wrong.

No, Prescott was a rated a three-star prospect out of Haughton, La. The popular website 247sports.com had him ranked the 23rd best prospect in Louisiana and had him ranked behind 600 other college prospects. Prescott grew up a Texas Longhorns fan. That was his dream school. But Texas would not give him so much as a sniff.

LSU, who normally gets most any Louisiana prospect it wants, recruited him, until after his senior season, as a tight end. Mississippi State was the SEC school that went after him hard. After Prescott came back and lit everyone up his senior year, LSU finally offered him as a quarterback. By then, it was too late. The rest is history, and Dak is still making it.

Oh, and the quarterback Texas signed that year? He was somebody named David Ash.

Let’s move to Southern Miss. Surely the most famous quarterback in Golden Eagle history is Brett Favre. Many long-time USM fans would argue that the best quarterback in school history was Reggie Collier. For today’s purposes, it doesn’t matter. Neither was highly recruited.

Collier’s college recruitment was overshadowed and then some by another quarterback from nearby Collier’s D’Iberville home. Ocean Springs’ Eddie Hornback might have been the most highly recruited player in the country in 1978. Nearly every football power in the country flocked to Ocean Springs to recruit Hornback. Meanwhile, Southern Miss had to fight off only Tulane to land Collier, who became one of the greatest dual threat quarterbacks ever — Lamar Jackson before Lamar Jackson. Collier numbered Alabama, Florida State, Ole Miss and Mississippi State among his victims. Hornback, a fine athlete who battled injuries, wound up playing another position at State.

About a decade later, on the other end of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, another unsung high school quarterback was even more lightly recruited than Collier. His name was Favre, and he thought he was going to Delta State until the day before signing day. That’s when Southern Miss lost a quarterback recruit to Alabama, opening up a scholarship. Favre got it. He went to USM as the seventh QB on a seven-QB depth chart. By the third game of his freshman season, he was a 17-year-old starter. You know the rest of that story.

And that brings us to Ole Miss and 1966, and the most beloved player in Rebel football history, College Football Hall of Fame and consensus All American Archie Manning. On signing day in 1966, Manning was one of six quarterbacks signed by Ole Miss — and he might have been the least recruited of all.

For certain, four of the other five were considered much more valued recruiting prizes than Manning, a talented, but rail-thin athlete from the tiny Delta town of Drew. Just consider the way Ole Miss coaching legend John Vaught handled recruiting day. He sent Tom Swayze, his recruiting guru, to Meridian to sign Bob White, the state’s most prized recruit. If there had been recruiting stars back then, White would have been awarded all five.

Vaught went himself to McComb to sign the great Freddy Brister, who played QB at McComb but would become a terrific Ole Miss linebacker. He sent trusted lieutenant Roland Dale to Gulfport to sign Don Farrar, another quarterback who would become a linebacker. And he sent John Cain, another long-time and trusted assistant off to Center Point, Ala., to sign Shug Chumbler, who would become Manning’s back-up.

Archie Manning? Vaught called on graduate assistant Roy Stinnett, a former high school coach, to sign Manning. It was a matter of convenience, really. Manning was playing in a basketball tournament at Clarksdale that weekend. Stinnett, who refereed high school basketball on the side, was officiating every game.

So you can imagine how that that went. Drew won on Thursday night and again on Friday night. With Manning leading the way, Drew won in the semifinals again on Saturday morning. That afternoon, Manning changed out of his basketball uniform, and Stinnett changed out of his referee’s uniform, and they posed for photos of Manning signing his scholarship.

That night, Manning led Drew to the championship. He might have had some help.

Fifty-five years later, what does Manning remember most about the day?

Says Manning, “I shot about a million free throws. That’s all I’m gonna say about that.”

The post History tells us we’ll have both hits and misses on today’s signing day appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Alcorn State University’s president could be getting a $55,000 raise from the nonprofit foundation that supports the school.

In June, ASU Foundation board members unanimously voted to increase President Felecia Nave’s annual salary supplement to $90,000, up from the $35,000 she currently receives, according to documents obtained by Mississippi Today. This would raise her total annual salary to $305,000.

But six months after the request, Nave has yet to receive the raise. The Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees, which must OK the pay bump, did not receive a letter seeking approval from the foundation’s chairman until late October, documents show. Caron Blanton, IHL spokesperson, wrote in an email that the board has not acted on the request. 

If approved by the IHL board, the raise would significant increase spending for ASU’s foundation, which has one of the lowest budgets in the state. 

An explanation of why the foundation voted to raise Nave’s salary supplement was not included in the resolution sent to the IHL board. The letter from the ASU foundation chairman, Robert Gage, did not account for the gap between when the vote took place and when IHL received the request on Oct. 25.

During that time, frustration with Nave’s leadership led students to call for her resignation in a letter to the IHL board — a request the IHL board also has yet to publicly act on. 

University presidents in Mississippi are state employees who are paid with state funds by the IHL, but it’s common for them to receive an additional salary from the school’s nonprofit foundation. Seven out of the eight current university presidents receive such a supplement, which vastly range in size. At University of Mississippi, Glenn Boyce receives $500,000 annually from the school’s foundation. At Mississippi Valley State University, Jerryl Briggs does not receive a foundation supplement. 

The raise would see ASU’s foundation, whose revenue has wavered in recent years, pay Nave a greater salary supplement than Thomas Hudson receives at Jackson State. Jackson State University’s Development Foundation, which brought in more than $10 million in revenue in 2019, pays Hudson a $75,000 annual supplement. The ASU foundation made $5 million that same year. 

Since 2008, no other president at ASU has received such a raise from the foundation. IHL Commissioner Alfred Rankins, who was president of Alcorn from 2014 to 2018, never received a raise in his foundation supplement. He was paid $35,000 by the foundation all four years, according to IHL data, and his total salary the year he left was $250,000. 

A private nonprofit, the mission of ASU’s foundation is “to invest restricted funds to provide general support to university athletics, academic, institutional, and scholarship programs,” according to its most recent Form 990. 

To that end, the foundation provides scholarships, financial awards to students who graduate with outstanding grades. It fundraises by soliciting donations from alumni and many faculty, who are encouraged to donate a certain percentage of their paycheck to the foundation each month. 

The foundation has 10 members, most of whom are graduates, and an executive committee of three members. Gage, the foundation chairman, did not attend Alcorn but is from Port Gibson. 

Gage and other members of the foundation did not respond to Mississippi Today’s requests for comment.

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