OurTupelo

While I love a good political speech full of red meat (and call me crazy), I don’t think that Critical Race Theory is Mississippi’s biggest issue right now.

The post Marshall Ramsey: The Biggest Threat appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Gov. Tate Reeves in his Neshoba County Fair speech on Thursday proposed “an immediate $1,300 across-the-board” pay raise for teachers followed by $1,000 raises for the following two years – all of which would require legislative approval.

The total $3,300 teacher pay raise over three years, coupled with a $1,000 raise lawmakers passed this year, would cost the state about $51 million and fulfill a campaign promise Reeves made for a $4,300 teacher pay raise while running for governor in 2019. He caught some criticism from teacher advocates last year when he didn’t include any teacher raise in his state budget recommendation.

“I believe merit must be rewarded,” Reeves said Thursday, after praising teachers for soldiering through the COVID-19 pandemic. “… While some teachers in some other states kept kids chained to laptops or cell phones and pretended it was school, Mississippi insisted on in-person instruction. Other states said, ‘We can’t,’ but Mississippi teachers said, ‘We can.’”

Reeves said he’s fiscally conservative and “spending tax money on new things is not my nature, but education attainment is my priority.”

“I think it’s wrong for us not to demonstrate that we appreciate Mississippi teachers,” Reeves said during the annual political speakings that resumed this year after being canceled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reeves chided “local media” for saying Mississippi has the lowest teacher pay in the nation. When adjusted for cost of living, Reeves said, Mississippi’s teacher pay is only the 37^th lowest, and with the raise he’s proposing it would move to 21^st.

A recent analysis from the Southern Regional Education Board found Mississippi teachers’ beginning salary and take-home pay for early and mid-career teachers are take home pay is “extremely low” compared to other Southern states, and teachers here make about 15% less than their similarly-educated peers in other jobs in the state.

“It will help us attract the top-tier teachers that our kids deserve,” Reeves said.

Of the governor’s proposed pay raise, Mississippi Association of Educators President Erica Jones said, “We’re pleased that Gov. Reeves intends to deliver on the pay raise plan he campaigned on in 2019. We look forward to working with the governor and other state leaders to see that promise through. Facing a teacher shortage crisis and an average teacher salary that lags behind our neighboring states by between four and seven thousand dollars, we cannot afford to continue down the current path of piecemeal pay raise legislation. Mississippi’s hardworking educators deserve better.”

Many education groups have been at odds with Reeves because of his failure to advocate in last year’s budget proposal for a teacher pay raise and for his refusal to impose a mask mandate in schools this year to combat COVID-19. Reeves has held firm in his opposition to a mask mandate despite rising COVID-19 cases, including among children.

Reeves criticized the Centers for Disease Control’s new mask recommendations.

READ MORE: Back to masking: CDC recommends even the vaccinated should wear masks in public indoor spaces

“Tuesday’s change in the CDC’s mask guidance is foolish and harmful and it reeks of political panic to appear that they are in control,” Reeves said. “It has nothing to do with rational science … In Mississippi, we believe in freedom.”

Reeves praised former President Donald Trump for helping deliver vaccines through “Operation Warp Speed,” but did not make any plea for more Mississippians to get vaccinated as other governors have recently amid a new surge of COVID-19 cases.

READ MORE: Other governors use bully pulpits, incentives to urge vaccination. Where’s Gov. Reeves?

He said “1.2 million Mississippians have chosen to get vaccinated. Others have chosen a different path. I will always defend those people’s right to decide what is best for them and their families.”

Besides teacher pay, focus at the annual political event also centered in on critical race theory, which has been vehemently opposed by many conservatives nationwide in recent months.

Both Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn in their Thursday Neshoba stump speeches vowed to fight next year against critical race theory being taught in Mississippi schools.

Reeves called it “the latest, dumbest idea coming from the East and West coasts.”

“Some of these Ivy League liberals are the dumbest smart people in the world,” Reeves said. “In what world is it OK to teach children that they are born racist? In what world is it OK to tell children they will be judged by the color of their skin and not the content of their character … In Mississippi, our kids should be learning STEM education, not Dem education.”

In some parts of the country schools have come under attack because of their efforts to ensure students have a true understanding of American history, including the multiple instances of racism and oppression, and for discussing with students how racism has shaped public policy and events from past to present.

During a recent interview on conservative leaning SuperTalk radio, Mississippi Superintendent of Education Carey Wright said basic history and social studies are being taught in Mississippi schools.

“I have not heard anything about that in K-12,” she said when asked about critical race theory. “That’s not risen its head. I have not had letters. I’ve not had emails about that. We got our standards, our social studies standards which are based on the history of the United States, and that’s already been out there; it has been out for public comment. It is black and white in terms of facts.

“I have not had anybody express concern about that being taught.”

Still, Reeves said he plans to push lawmakers again next year to approve his “Patriotic Education Fund,” which failed to pass this year. He had proposed $3 million to financially reward schools that combat “revisionist history.” He said Thursday that his plan would promote teaching of “the incredible accomplishments of the American Way.”

Gunn, who focused much of his speech on the dangers of socialism, also vowed to prohibit teaching of critical race theory, which he called “an attempt to reintroduce racism back into our schools and un-do all the progress we have made.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we can’t take the chance on critical race theory,” Gunn said. “… Socialists seek to turn Americans against each other and against this country by introducing critical race theory in our schools … We cannot allow our schools to teach that one race is better than another. Those days are behind us.”

Of critical race theory, Jones of MAE said, “No matter color, background, or zip code, we want our kids to have an education that imparts honesty about who we are. We will always support the rights of educators to teach history, social studies, and civics in a way that deepens students’ understanding of the world around them and broadens their perspective.”

She said school funding is a bigger impact on the quality of education in the state.

“We hear from educators from across Mississippi all the time. And when they call our office, it’s not to take issue with the state’s history curriculum; it’s to tell us they lack basic resources and feel unheard and unsupported,” Jones said. “We’re far more concerned with educators teaching in schools that, as a result of inadequate funding, lack textbooks and paper or pencils and chalk, and deal with toilets that don’t function or window units that are broken when school starts in August.”

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Mississippi doesn’t have a clear workforce development plan yet, but the state has found its playbook’s author in Ryan Miller. 

Miller, head of a new state agency tasked with leading more Mississippians to skill training and well-paying jobs, has a monumental challenge ahead. Not only will he build an office from the ground up, but state leaders are looking to his guidance to address Mississippi’s most pressing economic problems. 

The state continues to be one of the poorest in the country with some of the lowest average wages to match. 

Mississippi may spend $350 million a year in state and federal funds on workforce development and job training, but that money is spread across a dozen agencies and within even more separate programs. Progress, or the lack thereof, has been difficult to track, stunting the state in its efforts to grow the number of Mississippians working or seeking jobs. 

“It’s not just the left hand not talking to the right hand,” said Miller, who spent the last 13 years leading the manufacturing center at The University of Mississippi. “It’s that the left hand doesn’t even know that the right hand exists.” 

While some states have had formal workforce development offices to assess labor needs and guide people to in-demand skills for decades, Mississippi didn’t pass legislation to create its own until last year. There has never been any one repository for that information and no clear structure to determine if investments are paying off and leading people to better jobs. 

Now there is Miller’s 3-month-old office, recently named Accelerate Mississippi. 

Gov. Tate Reeves has touted the importance of getting Mississipians great jobs since taking office. 

As recently as June, the governor told the crowd at the annual Mississippi Economic Council meeting in Jackson that the state’s economic focus was on job training and keeping skilled workers from leaving the state. In the same speech, he shared his confidence in the new office and in Miller.

“I think this is going to be a real game changer,” he said of Accelerate Mississippi. 

Mississippi has long struggled to raise its labor participation rate, which has remained around 56% for the last several months. That percentage accounts for how many of-age Mississippians are either working or looking for work. Mississippi’s rate, even before the pandemic, has regularly ranked in last place in the U.S. 

While lawmakers outlined some of the new office’s roles, the structure, personnel and overall reach will largely be left to Miller’s vision. With so much of the workforce and Mississippi businesses still recovering from the pandemic, a lot rides on how the state navigates its current labor shortcomings. 

“The name we came up with denotes we’re ready to run a marathon,” said Miller, 42. “And we have to start running.” 

The father of three packed up his life in Oxford and resettled his family in Jackson. Accelerate Mississippi has a temporary space in the same building as the governor’s office. 

Since assuming his role in April, Miller has racked up hundreds of miles on his Hyundai Tuscon criss-crossing the state to meet with CEOs and tour community college campuses. 

Accelerate Mississippi has launched a website and social media accounts. Miller brought on two employees and started mapping out his method of better connecting the needs of the state by separating it into eight districts he calls ecosystems. Each will eventually have their own local office.

“Right now, I’m trying to get the word out: Accelerate Mississippi is positioned to serve you,” he said. “This is designed to be a one-stop entity.” 

The office, Miller added, will be an easy contact for businesses considering expanding to the state, looking to see the state’s labor outlook; a partner for community colleges as they create programs to train for the most in-demand skilled jobs; a resource for high schoolers or Mississippians seeking pathways to a better career. 

“We need diesel technicians,” Miller said, as an example. “There are companies in Mississippi right now that would hire as many as they could get.”

Those positions require training at community colleges that can be finished within two semesters and pay upwards of $60,000 a year starting out. Yet, the pool of qualified Mississippi workers isn’t there. 

The demand for diesel technicians, who work on diesel-powered engines, is an opportunity to grow skilled workers the state has been leaving on the table, said Patrick Sullivan, the president of the Mississippi Energy Institute and chair of the State Workforce Investment Board. 

“We have been talking about it for a year now,” he said, referring to the demand for the specialized mechanics. “So the question is what are we going to do about it? Now that we have a lead office, somebody with financial resources at hand, that can work with training providers and colleges to put togethers strategies and hit set targets.” 

When Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann took office, every agency reported they were doing workforce development.

But Hosemann realized there was no accounting of those programs. Legislators and state leaders had no way of deeming which programs were successfully leading Mississippians to better jobs and which ones were failing. 

“There are a lot of different funding programs, different funding partners and employer partners,” said Sullivan, whose workforce board appointed Miller. “There’s a number of success stories but there has been a real lack of coordination across all these different parts and pieces.” 

Hosemann and legislators pushed to create a workforce development office to address that. Miller and Accelerate Mississippi will give a workforce report to the governor, Hosemann and others ahead of the next legislative session. 

“We want to coordinate program dollars to job training that is producing graduates with a positive economic life,” Hosemann said. “A lot of people are talking about workforce development. It’s become a political fixture. But we need good information about which programs are performing well.”

That report will not only cover how the several millions of dollars allocated to workforce training through Mississippi’s Workforce Enhancement Training and Mississippi Works are spent, but also whether the funded programs add value to the economy or increase the number of workers in the labor force, according to the legislation.

It will also assess how many workers the funded programs expected to train and how many were actually trained. 

“I want to follow the numbers and see where we have the gaps,” Hosemann said. 

Every state was mandated by federal law to set up a workforce investment board. Mississippi’s board is made up of 31 business leaders and public officials who meet to discuss ways to drive the state’s economic development.

Mississippi lawmakers approved funding for the board through payroll taxes in 2014 so it could support staff positions, Sullivan said. That administrative account is now what funds Accelerate Mississippi. Miller’s salary is $162,000. The funding is set up to be used to support adding positions, something Sullivan said the board and Miller will determine as the office grows. 

The executive committee was looking for a workforce office director who was a strong communicator, analytical, worked well with people, had a background in public policy and understood industry needs. 

“Also someone who has the intestinal fortitude to drive change where it’s needed,” Sullivan said. “When you consider all those requirements for the job, there are only so many people on Earth who are qualified. Ryan is one of them.” 

Miller spent his entire career at The University of Mississippi. He majored in international studies as an undergrad there and then earned a law degree. He worked in the admissions office and eventually wound up at the helm of the university’s Center of Manufacturing Excellence.

In that job, he worked closely with industry, nonprofits and other colleges to grow work opportunities in Mississippi. He also knew how to have fun, regularly pulling out his guitar to perform impromptu concerts in the campus hallways. 

“He really personifies the idea of the servant leader,” said Scott Kilpatrick, who worked alongside Miller at the university manufacturing center. “He’s not one to go out and bang his own drum. He puts others first and has that servant-first heart.” 

Miller’s toothy grin stretches across his face when he starts talking about growing the state’s workforce and helping them land better jobs. He’s proud to have spent most of his life in Mississippi. He wants to see the economic opportunities grow, for Mississippians to feel confident they can stay here and prosper. 

He is as much for celebrating the state’s successes as he is addressing its shortcomings. 

“There is always a way in which we can do things better,” Miller said. “We’re never done.” 

The post Mississippi has a workforce problem. New state agency Accelerate Mississippi aims to solve it. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Oklahoma and Texas are headed to the SEC, and college football, as we know it, faces a huge landscape change over the next few years. How does this affect Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Southern Miss? What happens to the old Big 12, which was actually numbered 10 and is not only eight? What other changes are in store?

Stream all episodes here.

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Keeping their own public health guidance in lockstep with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Mississippi Department of Health updated its COVID-19 related recommendations on Wednesday, calling on all Mississippians, regardless of their vaccination status, to wear masks while in public indoor spaces. 

Additionally, MSDH is recommending that if someone is exposed to someone with COVID-19, they should get tested regardless of their vaccination status. This is due to the presence of breakthrough cases among the vaccinated, seen at a considerably higher rate since the emergence of the Delta variant. 

Whether Mississippi school districts will follow MSDH guidance on masking in school buildings is yet to be seen. Most schools are set to begin the new school year in early to mid-August, and many districts across the state are starting the school year with masks being optional for all.

Mississippi Association of Educators (MAE), the state’s teachers union, called on Gov. Tate Reeves to mandate masks in schools in the fall on Monday. Reeves then doubled down on his opposition to COVID-19 related mandates. 

“Governor Reeves has no intention of requiring students and staff to wear masks when they’re in school this fall,” Bailey Martin, a spokesperson for Reeves, said. 

MSDH also confirmed the fourth COVID-related death of a minor on Wednesday. Two of the four were between ages 11-17, one was between 6-10 and one was between 1-5. The most recent child to die had an underlying medical issue, but State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said it was a common one. 

“It’s nothing that people don’t live with every day in the state of Mississippi commonly,” Dobbs said. “So this is a real tragedy and speaks to the importance of preventing transmission.”

The surge of Delta infections is putting an enormous amount of stress on Mississippi’s healthcare system. The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has increased 156% over the past two weeks, most of them unvaccinated. The staffing levels across Mississippi hospitals can’t meet this level of need, especially when it comes to nurses. This is due to many nurses leaving the state for higher paying jobs elsewhere, or leaving the medical field altogether due to the traumas of the past year. 

Dobbs said he hears from nurses every day who can’t believe they’re going through another wave. 

“I’m sad to say that I think we’re driving some nurses away from inpatient hospital work because it’s so exhausting… I mean, there’s only so much that we can expect for people to put up with and we’re putting a lot more stress on them now,” Dobbs said.

In some areas of the state, patients that would normally be in an ICU are having to receive care in an emergency room because there are no ICU beds available, according to Jim Craig, Director of Health Protection. 

Additionally, the number of outbreaks in long-term care facilities has increased from 19 to 95 since July 1. Dobbs stressed that most of these infections are occurring in unvaccinated staff members. Though the vast majority of residents in these facilities are vaccinated, some are being infected by these unvaccinated carriers due to the highly infectious nature of Delta and the weaker immune systems that come with old age. 

The worsening conditions for the state’s medical providers are only expected to get worse. Mississippians should expect delays and longer wait times to receive care in hospitals, according to Dobbs. One might be in the ER twice as long as usual, or be transferred to a hospital many hours away from their families. 

“That’s just the inevitability of where we are,” Dobbs said. “So, thank your healthcare heroes. Please don’t be frustrated with them. They’re doing everything they can to keep you alive and keep you healthy. Just be prepared to be patient, because it’s going to be a rough few weeks.”

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The first time Mike Dennis met Jack Carlisle was in the summer of 1961. Dennis – a remarkable running back nicknamed “Iron Mike” – was about to play his senior season at Murrah High School. Carlisle was the new Murrah head coach, a thin, wiry, man who wore thick glasses and walked with a decided limp.

Dennis’s first impression?

“Well, I thought he was a hard ass,” Dennis said Wednesday morning, the day after he learned of Carlisle’s death. “I mean, he was a hard-ass guy, a tough guy who meant business and let you know it. We had 100 players to start the season. We ended up with 34 or 35.”

Dennis paused, sighing heavily, before continuing, “Yeah, he was a hard ass, but I learned to love that man. I can’t tell you how much he has meant to me. I give him credit for whatever I became.”

It should go without saying that when a man called Iron Mike calls you a hard ass, your rear end is harder than granite. Carlisle’s was. So was the rest of him.

Murrah went undefeated that regular season before losing to Barney Poole-coached Laurel in the Big Eight Championship game. Dennis went on to star at Ole Miss and then to play in the NFL.

Carlisle would have turned 92 in September. The last time Dennis had talked to his old coach was a couple of weeks ago when Carlisle was recovering from life-threatening heart issues. Dennis asked Carlisle how he was doing.

Said Dennis, “He told me, ‘Mike, I can’t see out of one eye, I can’t hear out of one ear, and I can’t walk at all right now, but other than that I am doing pretty good.’ What a great attitude he had.”

This will tell you much about the man known as Cactus Jack Carlisle, who lost a leg in a motorcycle accident when just a teen: In 1961, when Dennis met him, Carlisle already had been coaching for seven years. He would coach for 53 more, 60 in all. He was a ball coach. He was a sometimes crusty character. And he was a winner.

It was my good fortune to know Carlisle well in his later years, when he volunteered at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, where his plaque (Class of 2004) is on display. We held a Jack Carlisle Roast at the MSHOF in 2012, which turned out to be one of the most grand events in museum history. The placed was packed to the rafters and some people stood. So many stories were told. So much love and respect were expressed. And I can’t tell you how many hours I spent listening to his coaching stories. What follow are just three of so many. These are his stories. I’ll do the typing.

We begin in 1954 with Carlisle’s first coaching job at tiny Lula-Rich High School, north of Clarksdale. Lula-Rich had 14 players. One night Lula-Rich was playing at Oakland High, south of Batesville. There was no money for a bus — and, really, with just 14 players, one coach and a manager, no bus was necessary. The team made the trip in five separate cars.

“Well, it got to be 8 o’clock, gametime, and one of the cars hadn’t made it,” Carlisle said. “Turns out, it broke down on some backwater road in the Delta. It was carrying the left side of my line.”

Carlisle was down to 11 players and the manager, a kid named Harris. Carlisle asked Harris to dress out. Harris said they’d have to ask his mom. So Carlisle asked the mother, whom he knew as Miss Polly, a science teacher. Miss Polly wasn’t keen on the idea, but she reluctantly agreed.

Sure enough, Carlisle’s best player got hurt and was carried off the field.

“So I tell my manager to go in the game and just stand off to the side and stay out of the way,” Carlisle says. “I didn’t want Miss Polly on me if the boy got hurt.”

Very first play that followed: Lula-Rich was on defense and the smallish manager, draped in a uniform several sizes too large, stood 40 yards down the field. You’ve heard of the lonesome end? Harris was a lonesome safety. But, of course, an Oakland runner broke through the line and barreled down the field with blockers ahead of him. One of those blockers took dead aim at Harris and knocked him head over heels into next week.

“Here came Miss Polly down to the sidelines,” Carlisle says. “She grabbed her boy, took him to the car, and home they went. His career lasted one play.”

Years and years later, Jack Carlisle saw the manager’s photo in the Sunday newspaper. Thomas Harris had just written Silence of the Lambs. Thomas Harris, Miss Polly’s son and Carlisle’s reluctant safety, is the creator of Hanibal Lecter.

“I had no idea he would become a writer,” Carlisle says, “but I knew he was a little bit different.”

We move ahead now to 1971. Carlisle has just moved from public schools powerhouse Murrah to Jackson Prep, taking a few of his best players with him.

News spread quickly through the academy ranks. Teams began to find all sorts of excuses of why they couldn’t play Prep.

“I only had nine games, but I finally found a team in in England, Ark., that would come play us if we would pay them $1,500 and expenses,” Carlisle says. “Heck, I was desperate.”

The Arkansans showed up with 15 players, 15 little bitty players. It was like the Packers vs. Belhaven.

Carlisle played his first team for the first quarter only, but it was 45-0 at half.

Prep came back out for the second half. The other team did not. The referee delivered the news to Carlisle: “Coach, they say they ain’t playing no more.”

Carlisle went to the visitors dressing room. The coach told Carlisle his players refused to play. Carlisle asked if he could talk to them. The coach shrugged.

So Carlisle challenged their manhood. He asked them if they had no pride.

“Are you Arkansas men scared of some itty bitty Mississippi boys?” Carlisle challenged.

Carlisle also promised he would play only his fourth team, the jayvees. That probably was what did the trick.

Finally, one Arkansas boy stood. “I ain’t scared,” he said. Others followed.

Final score: Prep 66, England Academy 0.

“I might be the only coach to ever give a pep talk to the opposition,” Carlisle said.  

Let’s move on to Ole Miss and the 1977 season. Carlisle was an offensive assistant coach for Ken Cooper, who would be fired at season’s end. The Rebels were playing mighty Notre Dame, which would go on to win the national championship that season. This was not a great Ole Miss team. The Rebels lost to Alabama by 21 the week before. They would lose to Southern Miss the following week. Notre Dame was No. 3 in the nation at the time.

“I was just hoping we wouldn’t get embarrassed. Size-wise and talent-wise, we weren’t their class,” Carlisle told me.

He felt no better when the Fighting Irish trotted out for the pre-game warm-ups in those famous, shiny gold helmets. Said Carlisle, “They were so big I thought the field was going to tilt their way. They made our guys look puny.”

Somehow – partly because of the mid-Mississippi heat and humidity and mostly because Notre Dame had yet to discover a sophomore quarterback named Joe Montana – Ole Miss trailed by only three points headed into the last five minutes. The Rebels got the ball back at their own 20. On the sidelines Carlisle and Cooper discussed strategy – somewhat heatedly.

Carlisle wanted to switch to Tim Ellis, the team’s best passing quarterback. Cooper was hesitant, to say the least. Carlisle convinced him but felt certain his job was on the line.

 “I could see them talking,” Ellis told me. “I knew I wasn’t Cooper’s choice.”

So Ellis came off the bench, passed the Rebels down the field and eventually into the end zone. Ole Miss won 20-13, one of the most memorable victories in school history. 

The post RIP Jack Carlisle, who often won, and always did it his way appeared first on Mississippi Today.

COVID has had help.

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Two-time Grammy-winning blues musician Bobby Rush joins Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large for a special edition of Mississippi Stories.

Rush, 86, talks about his incredible life, career and new biography “I Ain’t Studdin’ Ya: My American Blues Story” (written with music historian Herb Powell). From great tragedies (losing three children and suffering injuries in a terrible bus wreck that nearly cost him his life) to great triumphs (professional recognition for an incredible career), Rush tells inside stories about his life.

Known for his energetic performances, he also shares his secrets for success in show business and his passion for entertainment.

To see more Mississippi Stories episodes, click here.

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Ahead of the 2021 Mississippi Book Festival, many of us are preparing our cocktail party answers to the age-old question: Why has our state produced so many great writers?

For your consideration as you study up: Mississippi native W. Ralph Eubanks has written an entire book, A Place Like Mississippi: A Journey Through a Real and Imagined Literary Landscape, framed around that question.

Eubanks expertly uses the state’s landscape — topographical, socioeconomic and spiritual — to explore our literary lineage. That landscape, as we know, has not always been beautiful, but it does help answer that looming question in the most thorough way I’ve heard (including at those cocktail parties).

Ahead of his trip to Jackson for the Mississippi Book Festival on Aug. 21, Eubanks spent some time with Mississippi Today discussing his new book and his perspectives on the state.

Mississippi Today: What inspired you to write A Place Like Mississippi?

Ralph Eubanks: What is interesting about A Place Like Mississippi is that my editor, Will McKay at Timber Press, reached out to me to write the book. So, I have to give my editor credit where credit is due. The idea Will originally presented to me was a book that would introduce readers to the expanding Mississippi Writer’s Trail, beginning in the Delta and fanning out to other sites from there. After some careful thought, I had the idea to write a book that looked at the entire literary landscape of the state region by region, beginning on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and moving northward from there, ending in the Delta.

The real inspiration for the book was the landscape of Mississippi itself. I spent a great deal of time driving around the state, moving from four-lane by-passes to two-lane blacktops (and occasionally unpaved roads). What captivated me was how aspects of the landscape seeped into the work of the state’s writers. I thought of Richard Wright as I stood on the bluffs in Natchez, looking down at the Mississippi River. In Greenville, I thought of Ellen Douglas’s stunning short story “On the Lake” and the way that story’s power lies not just in its narrative tension but also in the way Douglas uses people and place to explore hard truths about race. And in Jackson I thought of how the city’s racial geography affected the writers who were born there, from Eudora Welty to Angie Thomas and Kiese Laymon.

MT: Are there a couple new things you learned about Mississippi during the writing process that stuck with you?

Eubanks: Perhaps rather than learning new things, I would say that I gained some new perspectives. While traveling though the Delta, I often drove past Parchman without thinking of its history or the people inside. Getting the opportunity to take part in classes for Louis Bougeouis’s Prison Writing project made me look at the lives of Mississippi’s incarcerated people in a new way. When I drive by Parchman—or any other prison in Mississippi or America, for that matter—I will not think merely of the punishment that takes place inside the prison walls and the crimes that placed the people there. Now I think of the inner lives of the men and women in prison who are seeking redemption through writing. And now the history of Parchman casts a shadow over how I look at the Delta itself.

I also gained a new perspective on the blues, which I have traditionally thought of as a musical form rather than a literary one, given my formalist education in British literature. Although I understood how the blues influenced poetry, I had never thought of how the blues as a musical form has its own poetic rhythm and meter. I came to see the blues as poetry wrapped in a struggle for survival. When you place the Delta blues together thematically, I realized that they form a Homeric, rhythmic epic poem. That’s a new way of thinking for me.

MT: You’re returning for the festival to Jackson, where you spent what, a couple years? What does Jackson mean to you?

Eubanks: Yes, I spent a year in Jackson as the Eudora Welty visiting scholar in Southern Studies at Millsaps College. Jackson and Millsaps are both special to me, since when I found myself unemployed and floundering, teaching at Millsaps and living in Jackson helped me find my footing again.

Jackson is a city that holds a special place in my heart because it not only took me in during a rough time but nurtured me while I was here. Jackson is key to Mississippi’s future, since if its citizens are thoughtful about how it grows and develops, Jackson could become a city that is an incubator of change in the state.

MT: Putting you on the spot a little bit here: Who is on your Mount Rushmore of Mississippi authors?

Eubanks: There is a statue called “The Storytellers” in downtown Jackson at the corner of Capitol and Lamar Streets that has already made that designation: it is Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, and William Faulkner. These three writers were recently the focus of the annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha conference at the University of Mississippi. Scholars see them as their own unique “Mississippi Confluence” and I am inclined to agree. Yes, Rushmore has four figures, but as someone brought up on “Schoolhouse Rock,” I believe that three is a magic number.

MT: What books are on your nightstand right now?

Eubanks: Oh, far too many. I’m balancing reading for my new writing project on the Delta as well as reading for pleasure. I’m reading Sven Beckert’s The Empire of Cotton: A Global History so that I can think about the Delta’s key crop from a more global perspective. I just finished Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others, a book that has made me think about how with images of poverty, like those documenting the Delta, heartlessness and amnesia seem to go together. Curtis Wilkie’s When Evil Lived in Laurel was a masterful piece of storytelling that filled in gaps to the story of Vernon Dahmer. I read Melissa Ginsburg’s The House Uptown in one sitting and loved the pacing of the story as well as the New Orleans setting. And I always have poetry by my side, so there is Mister Toebones by Brooks Haxton and Thomas Richardson’s How to Read. My nightstand is just like that old Betty Everett song: it’s getting mighty crowded.

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The state education department will consider a takeover of the Holmes County Consolidated School District following an investigation that found the district in violation of 81% of state accreditation standards for schools.

The results of the nearly 400-page audit include allegations of a dysfunctional school board and administration, improper spending, inaccurate record keeping and unlicensed teachers in the classroom. 

The audit, which was conducted from April to July of this year, also repeatedly refers to a lack of accurate data provided by the district, making it impossible to assess some standards or to determine the degree to which the district was noncompliant in others. 

But Debra Powell, the district’s new superintendent, said she has already begun righting the ship since being hired in May.

District officials stated in a press release that Powell has done major restructuring at both the district and school level. It also included an attachment to a 30-page internal audit of the same standards done by the department. 

“Dr. Powell credits her team’s success to a school board that is supportive of change. It is the Board’s desire to make Holmes County Consolidated School District one of the best in the country,” the release stated. “We believe we now have the team of experts to make it a reality.” 

Powell has never held a district-level position before but has touted her experience as mayor of East St. Louis.

“When people were saying that I didn’t have any experience being a superintendent, I tell them all the time that yes, I do. It was called ‘mayor.’ It’s the same thing,” Powell told Mississippi Today. “Being the mayor and superintendent is managing — putting the right people in the right place.”

The Mississippi Department of Education’s investigative audit came after a scathing report from the state auditor’s office in 2019 that found “widespread problems” in the district, which has had four superintendents in three years. Findings included a lack of background checks for employees and misappropriation of funds, including the use of funds to host a “Bring Your Own Beverage (BYOB),” adults-only event. 

The department subsequently appointed a financial adviser to oversee the district’s finances. 

The audit also refers to the recent promotion of Powell’s daughter from a $47,000-a-year position to the director of technology, a district-level job with an annual salary of $82,920. 

“This action was taken after the Office of the State Auditor cited the Board in the District’s FY19 audit report for other instances of nepotism violating (state law) related to the hiring of family members of the former superintendent,” the Department’s audit said. 

Powell told Mississippi Today that she had nothing to do with the hiring of her daughter, and she made the decision when hired to cancel the district’s technology contract with an outside vendor and bring it back in-house. 

“We had nobody to regulate and watch over our technology department … so we created a position, we had three (internal) candidates and two external candidates” for the job, Powell said. “I had nothing to do with the job description. I steered clear.”

She said when the interviews for the position took place, she left the district campus. 

“Just because I’m the superintendent does not mean you thwart a person’s ability to move – you just make sure that process is fair for everyone,” she said. 

The matter has been referred to the Mississippi Ethics Commission, according to the state education department’s audit.

Powell also refuted the findings that said the school board interferes in the daily operations of the district — including that the board president attended an administrators’ meeting on May 21.

Powell said Louise Winters, the board president, was there only to observe. 

“She was observing the administrators’ meeting to see how I acted with the staff” as part of the board’s evaluation of her, Powell said. “She didn’t say a word.”  

The department’s Commission on School Accreditation will meet on Monday to decide whether it will recommend that a state of emergency exists in the district. A state of emergency exists when the safety, security and educational interests of students are threatened.

If the commission makes that recommendation, the State Board of Education will hold a special called meeting to determine whether it will recommend that the governor declare a state of emergency in Holmes County schools. 

When the governor declares a state of emergency in a school district, the State Board of Education becomes the governing body of the school district, referred to as a “District of Transformation.” The local school board is temporarily disbanded and an interim superintendent is appointed to lead the district until it sustains an accountability rating of C or higher over multiple years. 

The state has placed a school district in a conservatorship 20 times since 1997. Current Districts of Transformation include the Tunica and Noxubee County School Districts. 

Powell hopes state officials will see she is the right leader to correct the district’s shortcomings.

“I’m feeling hopeful that we will get a fair opportunity to show we are headed in the right direction,” said Powell of the upcoming hearing.

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