On this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Stacey Spiehler for an incredible story of trauma, addiction, collapse, resilience, sobriety, recovery and success. After suffering crushing life challenges, Spiehler sank into the world of addiction. After nearly losing everything, she clawed her way back to sobriety and success.
First, by working as a waitress and then restarting her education, Spiehler now is chasing her dream of being a journalist. To help make that dream come true, she recently was awarded one of 15 prestigious Lyceum Scholarships from the University of Mississippi, allowing her to attend college tuition-free. The Lyceum Scholarship is awarded to transferring community college students on the basis of community service, academic excellence, leadership abilities and perseverance. As you will discover, Spiehler has plenty of perseverance.
CANTON — Last school year, Krystal Williams’ son Ca’Marion was named a “star student” in first grade at McNeal Elementary School in Canton Public School District.
In September of 2020, he was honored as a “high flying” second-grader, which recognizes students who are active in class, complete their assignments and are top performers.
But the longer his school stayed exclusively virtual, the more his grades suffered. By this spring, the end of a full academic year of distance learning, he had failed the second grade despite attempts by his mom to get him help along the way. The principal recently informed Williams her son is reading on a preschool level.
Canton Superintendent Gary Hannah declined to answer Mississippi Today’s questions about the district’s decision to remain virtual, but said in a statement the decision to was made “after careful consideration of the well-being of our students, staff, and community.”
There are countless stories like these in the six Mississippi public school districts that never returned to in-person learning during the 2020-2021 school year. The districts include Canton Public School District, Sunflower County Consolidated School District (with the exception of kindergarten through fifth graders at the end of the year), Holmes County Consolidated School District, East Tallahatchie School District, and West Tallahatchie School District.
All of the districts, with the exception of the C-rated Sunflower County, were rated “D” or “F’ in 2019, the most recent year for which data is available. Their students are overwhelmingly Black — a group of people who were disproportionately affected by the spread and fatality of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Parents in these districts, especially those with younger children and those with disabilities, described the year to Mississippi Today as “rough,” “horrible” and a “nightmare.” The mother of a 5-year-old autistic boy in Greenville said both she and her child would become so frustrated she would sometimes just take the pencil from him and do the work herself.
A mother of six in Sunflower County Consolidated School District said her kids got As and Bs before the pandemic, but their grades dropped drastically this year. Now, they’re doing virtual summer school, but she said attendance is a big issue. Sometimes teachers don’t even show up.
“I got one, his teacher hasn’t been in class all week. And the school don’t know (what’s going on),” said Lakita Richard. “It’s been chaotic.”
Education experts say that even a short period of virtual learning during the pandemic could have profound negative effects on generations of students – especially if access is an issue or they were already struggling. In the coming weeks and months, the experts predict data will bear that out.
Denise Soares, director of graduate studies at the University of Mississippi’s School of Education, said while there’s not much quantitative research available yet about the effects of extended virtual learning, qualitative studies point to virtual learning’s major challenges.
“We see across the board technological issues being the most significant, and a lack of student engagement and social interaction,” Soares said. “Also, these additional responsibilities are falling on the parent” to supervise and even teach their children.
And virtual learning may have a disproportionately negative impact on students with disabilities. Soares said special education students rely on individualized instruction, as evidenced by the individualized plans they receive in school often referred to as an IEP.
“Individualization is really hard when you have a virtual program that’s trying to serve everybody,” she said.
Cedrikia Johnson’s daughter Deniyah, a second grader at Goodloe Elementary in the Canton district, struggled with virtual learning. Her dyslexia made it hard for her to keep up at the same pace as the other students, and her mom, who was battling health problems, couldn’t be by her side at the computer.
“There were days she would sit in class crying for hours,” said Johnson, who would overhear her from the next room. She was limited with what she could do to help after suffering a stroke early this year and suffering subsequent heart problems.
Johnson had a family member come sit with Deniyah to try and help her with her schoolwork, but in April, they all contracted COVID-19. Johnson also developed pneumonia and was in and out of the hospital, and Deniyah missed school for almost a month — pushing her even further behind her classmates.
Despite the fact she struggled and missed almost all of May, she won’t have the option to attend summer school, her mother said. The principal told her the spots were already filled.
Fallout in Canton
Eight-year-old Ca’Marion Williams at home in Canton. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Krystal Williams and other parents in Canton are being told their children have been selected to attend summer school, or what is referred to as “extended school year,” during the month of June. But they must also repeat their current grade next year.
Terricas Travis’ fifth grader at Goodloe Elementary has always been an average student, but after this year, he is failing, she said. He, along with Ca’Marion, was receiving extra help through a virtual after-school program funded by federal dollars called the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Grant Program.
But in November, Travis and Williams said the program abruptly stopped without explanation. “Due to unforeseen circumstances. We are not able to service second graders at 21st Century After-School! We apologize for the inconvenience,” a Nov. 9., 2020, message from one of Ca’Marion’s teachers read.
The 21st Century grant program funds activities that provide academic and other support for students in low-income and low-performing districts. There was no disruption in the program’s funding during the 2020-2021 school year, according to the Mississippi Department of Education, and it’s unclear why the program apparently stopped being offered to Williams and Travis’ children.
The district told the state education department it ran the after-school program at every elementary school through March of 2021.
Williams never stopped working as a certified nursing assistant at a nursing home during the pandemic, so she was never able to stay home with Ca’Marion and her three other children. Her children and her mother, who stayed home with her kids during the day, depend on her income, she said.
Williams said she reached out to teachers, the principal and called the district office about getting extra help for her son, who had been on honor roll in kindergarten and was regularly recognized for his academic performance. She ramped up her efforts in the spring, but got no response.
She kept messages and emails showing she asked for tutoring help, but one of his teachers told her she couldn’t tutor him because he was her student.
After speaking with the principal at the end of the year, however, Williams was told Ca’Marion was being tutored by that same teacher twice a day in areas of reading comprehension, further adding to Williams’ confusion.
“I reached out to the principal in February… I specifically said my biggest fear is that my 8-year-old will have to sit back in the second grade, and she said she would help me, she was going to come up with a strategy to help, and she never did,” said Williams.
Kendria Plummer, a parent of three children in Canton, has a similar story. She said the way all of her children’s grades dropped was “unbelievable.” She ended up paying for private tutoring for her 9-year-old both during the school year and now for the summer after he wasn’t offered a spot in the district’s summer school program.
“My children ain’t never had no F, no D … but since virtual learning they’ve had awful grades,” she said. She said she called the high school and elementary school throughout the year but would never hear back.
Ca’Marion Williams poses with his kindergarten teacher after being presented with an honor roll certificate.
When the school year ended, Williams said she finally began receiving information about Ca’Marion — including an email from the principal telling her her son reads on a preschool level and would have to repeat the grade.
“Well, my question to her was: how did you allow my child to get to second grade” if he’s reading at a preschool level, said Williams.
Frustrated and upset, she took to Facebook Live to talk about her issues with the school district. She wanted to connect with other parents so they could get together and figure out what to do, she said.
“Something is wrong,” she said after receiving comments from other parents whose previously well-performing children were facing a similar situation. “They hurt our kids.”
Several parents also point to the fact that at the same time children were struggling behind computers at home, Canton and other districts, despite the fact they kept the school doors closed, allowed athletics to resume.
Canton High finished its boys’ basketball season with a 6-10 record and its abbreviated football season with a 2-4 record. And just north, Holmes County Consolidated Public School District, the high school boys’ basketball team played a total of 30 basketball games and even won its first ever state basketball championship — all while its students remained at home in their rural and under-connected district.
Officials with Canton Public School District, along with school board members, ignored questions from Mississippi Today about the parents’ grievances, the discontinuation of the after-school program for these students and its decision to allow athletics to resume while not resuming in-person learning. Recordings of past school board meetings offer no answers, either; they are mostly inaudible.
But benchmark testing data, or the tests given to students at the end of each nine weeks by the district to monitor progress, shows a decline in every end-of-the-year subject area test for high schoolers last school year compared to the previous year. There was also a decline in every subject except Biology compared to the 2018-2019 school year for the same assessment.
What’s next
Other school districts that operated virtually saw similar trends. The same data for Sunflower County Consolidated School District shows the district fell from an overall grade of “C” two years ago to an “F” this year.
The latest wave of federal COVID-19 relief funding sent a huge amount of money, referred to as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER), to all schools in Mississippi. Law requires 20% to be spent addressing learning loss created by the pandemic, and many are implementing summer school, or an “extended school year.”
Canton, for example, received around $13 million for its district of about 3,000 students, while $22.3 million went to Sunflower County and $19.7 million to Holmes County schools. Districts are funded based on Title I allocations, which are federal dollars given to schools with a high number of low-income students enrolled.
These districts, along with others in the state, will use this money to safely return to in-person instruction if they have not already done so and to address students’ knowledge gaps. Officials don’t know the extent of the gaps at this point statewide, as state assessment results won’t be available until later in the summer.
Immediate intervention for students who need it most is critical to mitigate learning loss, Soares said.
“Every instructional minute that students are in a classroom or online needs to be effective, no matter the delivery,” she said. “… We’ve got to have students engaged in learning and able to access learning.”
Next year, students must return to the buildings. The state education department has said it expects in-person learning to be “the primary delivery model” for all schools by the beginning of the upcoming school year.
But students will bring with them the losses they experienced the prior year. Those include not only learning loss but other losses – loss of family members, loved ones, or even the loss of the routine, structure and social interaction found in school.
“It’s very hard to understand the level of stress in our children from not having that consistent school schedule and the impact that’s going to play in their knowledge and regression,” said Soares. “(We need to figure out) how do we teach children to adjust to that new reality as we’re asking them to handle more stress than they ever have before?”
There isn’t necessarily a bad time to win a Pulitzer Prize, but the middle of a global pandemic certainly isn’t ideal.
Jericho Brown lived this reality in May 2020. He had been on tour for almost a year when he came home to Georgia in March as COVID-19 swept across the U.S. At first, locked up in his home, he had been secretly glad to have the break. But winning the world’s top prize for poetry made that feeling a little more difficult.
“I was like, ‘Where is everybody? I want to have a party!’” he said.
Brown, the 45-year-old Louisiana native who won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection “The Tradition,” will be a featured guest at the Mississippi Book Festival on Aug. 21. Ahead of his visit to the state, Brown spoke with Mississippi Today about his life and the weight of his recent success.
The pandemic was just one disruption from the American norm when Brown won the Pulitzer last summer. After the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, tens of millions marched the streets the next few weeks in what would become one of the nation’s most profound reckonings on racism.
Brown’s work met that moment perfectly. The Pulitzer Board heralded “The Tradition” as “a collection of masterful lyrics that combine delicacy with historical urgency in their loving evocation of bodies vulnerable to hostility and violence.” As a gay, HIV-positive Black man in the Deep South, Brown knows these kinds of bodies intimately.
“I sort of knew my entire life that folks would be upset about the fact of my existence,” Brown said.
Asking people hard questions, to Brown, is the job of a poet. In an environment where you can’t state basic facts about institutional racism in America without upsetting people, Brown said he can’t allow himself to worry about how people will perceive any particular poem.
“My ability to do my work means that I have to tell the truth, and the fact that people are turned off by that is going to have to be their business because it can’t be mine,” Brown said.
Still, Brown doesn’t think of himself as bravely taking on topics others are too scared of or would like to ignore. Instead, he thinks it’s the reality that some people just run from the truth.
“Jesus is a really good example. There’s absolutely no way you would think that people would really enjoy hanging out with Jesus in 21st century America,” Brown said. “He was anti-capitalist, quite interested in the rights of women and spent a good deal of time with sex workers.”
Brown has been inspired by poetry since he was a little boy. Drawn by poems because they were short and approachable, he spent a lot of time reading them at his local library in Shreveport, where he and his sister would spend much of their time because their mother couldn’t afford child care.
Poems were all around Brown as a child, and he attributes much of his early appreciation for poetry to Black church tradition. The church he attended was a place where you could hear a child read Psalm 23 before another recited Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise.”
“It put me in contact with the fact that words can have a powerful effect on emotions,” Brown said. “That the well said thing could very well lead to shouting and clapping and crying.”
Being in church taught Brown that there was an order to things, but that didn’t mean it had to be predictable or boring. When he was in church, he always knew what would happen, he just didn’t know how it was going to go about.
“You know when it’s time for a song, you know when it’s time for the sermon, you know when it’s time for the offering,” he said. “But you don’t know what it’s going to be like Sunday to Sunday… You want that to be the case in your poems because you want to be in a position where you can surprise yourself.”
That was the case with “The Tradition.” Writing the poems that would become “The Tradition” steered Brown’s life for a few years and became the most important thing to him.
“I became vulnerable to it… And I know that as I was writing the poems, I was moved by them, and I was excited by them,” Brown said.
Brown thinks that opening himself up to the work in this way translates to the reader and makes that space safe for them to be similarly vulnerable. Winning the Pulitzer brought a lot of the attention to “The Tradition” at a time when people needed it, Brown says, and that cured any bouts of sadness related to not being able to celebrate the award normally.
“I realized, you know, you are where you’re supposed to be,” Brown said.
Another claim to fame Brown possesses is the invention of his own poetry form, the duplex. Its invention is tied back to that inextricable link formed in his youth between the church and poetry.
“Poems are like prayers. And, of course, because they’re like prayers, they’re also like chants and spells,” Brown said.
So Brown invented a form that would allow for that chant, that spell casting, if the line is musical enough. He describes it as a form of repeated lines and juxtaposition, where you take couplets that seem to have nothing to do with each other, but because they are next to each other, you begin to understand that they do go together.
People sometimes approach poems like they’re mysteries and get too in their heads about it, Brown said. They see a line break and get scared. He doesn’t think you have to approach poems that way.
“I think people should read poems from sentence to sentence, like they read everything else,” Brown said. “And I think if people were to do that, without trying to figure things out as they go, and just enjoy what they were reading, they would have a much better time with poetry if they’re having a bad time with it at all.”
Brown doesn’t know why “The Tradition,” in particular, has garnered levels of success that his previous work hasn’t. He thinks part of it is tied to a level of appreciation that poets are given in especially tumultuous periods.
“The poets are often neglected. It’s not until we have a pandemic or an all out open fight for racial justice, that people get to calling on the poets,” Brown said. “People don’t realize sometimes how much they need the poets until a certain circumstance arises, or until the poets are missed, for some reason.”
That’s why poetry is written with being immortal in mind, Brown says. Poets understand that their work might not be appreciated in their lifetimes, as evidenced by many poems being shared and posted online about pandemics that are helping cope during COVID were written a century ago about some other illness or virus.
“I think the wonderful thing, if there is such a thing, about this moment is the hope that I’ll be able to look back on it and say that I survived it,” Brown said. “I think we’re looking forward to telling people who haven’t even been born yet about these times so that they can be prepared to live in a world where they can stop times like these from happening.”
Looking forward, Brown is excited about the coming summer. He hasn’t written much over the past year, but he’s trying. We’re all trying, he said. He was sure to mention he remains excited about the work of younger poets, from whom he gets his own energy.
He said he’s misplaced his vaccination card — that golden ticket granting a return to normal life — and needs to find it.
“I think this particular summer will be the summer that I feel a little more free,” Brown said. “And I’ll finally be able to get back in the rhythm of things.”
A new poll says a majority of Mississippi voters not only want the Legislature to create a medical marijuana program like the one the state Supreme Court nullified, but they favor allowing recreational use of pot.
Nathan Shrader, chair of government and politics and director of American studies at Millsaps, said the poll shows a vast divide between Mississippi voters and politicians on marijuana and other issues.
The latest State of the State survey by Millsaps College and pollster Chism Strategies reports that 63% of those polled want the Legislature to enact something “mirroring” Initiative 65 — a medical marijuana constitutional amendment that voters passed overwhelmingly last year but the state high court shot down. It reported that 52% of those polled support recreational marijuana legalization, with 37% opposed.
The poll reported that 20% said legalizing medical marijuana is the most important issue in how they’ll vote in the next statewide election.
The poll also reported that 52% of Mississippians support expanding Medicaid to cover roughly 200,000 working poor Mississippians. A move to put this before voters was also derailed by the recent Supreme Court ruling that declared the state’s ballot initiative process constitutionally flawed because of outdated signature gathering rules.
Despite years of debate and fizzled attempts, lawmakers have balked at allowing medical use of marijuana or at accepting federal dollars to expand Medicaid despite growing movements to do both. The divide has typically fallen along partisan lines, with the supermajority GOP leadership thwarting both efforts.
“Mississippi voters overwhelmingly support legalizing medicinal marijuana, which was actually done by the electorate last November,” Shrader said. “They also favor legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes and expanding Medicaid by healthy margins. If you look closely at what the voters are expressing in terms of their policy preferences, you will see they do not appear to be anywhere near the same ideological positions as the majority of the state’s elected officials. The coming months, including the 2022 legislative session, will be a test of how long the state’s elected leaders can hold positions that are greatly at odds with the majority of Mississippi’s voters.”
The poll, part of a continuing quarterly survey since 2017, was conducted May 26-28 with a sample size of 659 via cell phone and landline, weighted to reflect voter turnout in 2020 elections. The margin of error is reported at 3.82%.
The poll also reported:
38% of voters believe the state is heading in the wrong direction, while 34% think the state is moving in the right direction. Just over 28% are unsure.
A 28-point gap exists between those who approve and disapprove of the state Legislature’s performance, with 49% disapproving and 21% approving of their work. 30% are unsure.
48% disapprove of the performance of Gov. Tate Reeves, while 35% approve and 17% are undecided.
64% of voters who favor expanding Medicaid do so because they believe too many Mississippians are unable to get access to the healthcare coverage they need.
Opponents of Medicaid expansion are almost evenly split between their concern of becoming overly dependent on Washington, D.C., and those who think expansion is too expensive for taxpayers.
55% support Gov. Reeves’ decision to opt out of federal unemployment benefits that provided an additional $300 to help Mississippians who lost their jobs due to the pandemic. 35% oppose the decision, while 10% are unsure.
Less than a quarter of those who have not already received the COVID-19 vaccination say they are likely to get vaccinated, while 61% of those who are unvaccinated say there is nothing that will convince them to get the vaccine.
Nearly 40% of voters want the census-driven congressional and legislative redistricting process this year to be conducted by a non-partisan commission of citizens and experts. 24% would like a hybrid panel of citizens and elected officials, 15% think redistricting should continue to be handled by the state legislature, and 22% are unsure.
60% support the job police are doing in their local communities, and nearly 75% believe police should have pay raises.
OXFORD — Tim Elko (AKA, the legend) did it again. And again. The big dude with one fewer ACLs than most every human being needs to compete launched two more towering home runs, including another grand slam. He scored three runs, knocked in five runs and lifted his Ole Miss Rebels to a 12-9 slugfest victory over Southern Miss Monday.
The win sends Ole Miss to next weekend’s Super Regional round of the NCAA tournament.
“The legend continues,” Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco. “Holy cow. It’s legendary. What looked like it could be a tragedy (when Elko suffered a torn ACL in his right knee) in April has turned into one of the biggest legends that will be talked about around here for decades.”
Yes, and people will be talking about the last two games of the Oxford Regional for years as well. Two in-state rivals, who because of COVID did not meet during the regular season, played two epic games.
Rick Cleveland
After coming back from a 4-0 deficit to defeat Ole Miss 10-7 Sunday night, the pitching-depleted Golden Eagles fell behind 9-0 in the second inning Monday. They fought back to make a serious game of it and keep Ole Miss faithful on the edge of their seats. Consider this: Southern Miss hit six home runs Monday. And lost.
They lost because of Elko’s heroics. They lost because All-American Doug Nikhazy came back to pitch in relief after only two days of rest to get the biggest out of the game with a bases-loaded strikeout in the sixth inning. And the Eagles lost because Ole Miss closer Taylor Broadway came on to finally silence their bats with a two-inning save.
Sound familiar? Elko, Nikhazy and Broadway have been the three most crucial elements in this 44-20 Ole Miss season. All three are at their best when it matters most — and it never mattered more than Monday.
Elko was voted the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, and Nikhazy and Broadway were the two pitchers selected for the all-tournament team. But this will tell you much about this Oxford Regional: The 12-player all-tourney team consisted six Rebels and six Golden Eagles. They were that evenly matched.
Consider, again: Southern Miss switch-hitting centerfielder Reed Trimble, in four regional games, hit safely in 14 of 25 at bats, slammed three home runs and two doubles, scored eight runs and drove in 14 more.
Said Southern Miss coach Scott Berry of Trimble: “He’s probably going to play in the big leagues some day. He’s a five-tool guy, an electric ball player.”
There was a lot of gushing by both coaches in post-game media sessions — about their own teams and their opponents.
USM’s Scott Berry on Ole Miss: “They are such a high quality club. They play with so much energy.”
Bianco on the Golden Eagles: “Congratulations to Southern Miss. What a tremendous season, tremendous team. … This wasn’t easy.”
Ole Miss pitcher Doug Nikhazy played a key role on short rest in Ole Miss’ win over Southern Miss on Monday.
There were so many heroic efforts in the error-less finale. Pitchers on both teams — Nikhazy and Derek Diamond for Ole Miss and Hunter Stanley and Walker Powell for Southern Miss— valiantly pitched on short rest. Jack Dougherty, normally a reliever, gave the Rebels four solid innings to begin the game. Stanley and Powell, two senior starters, covered a combined five innings or the game might still be going.
Besides Trimble, Reece Ewing, Danny Lynch, Will McGillis and Blake Johnson all homered for Southern Miss. McGillis homered in each of USM’s four tournament games. Besides Elko, Peyton Chatagnier, Justin Bench and Calvin Harris all hit homers for the Rebels.
Southern Miss finishes 40-21 with plenty promise for the future. Ole Miss advances at 44-20, and keep in mind that the Rebels lost their Friday night starter Gunner Hoglund in early May. They lost Max Cioffi, who was going to be a key bullpen ingredient, in the first two weeks of the season. They were without the legend (Elko) while the swelling in his wrecked knee subsided.
“Every time we faced adversity this season, we have bounced back,” Elko said. “That’s a good trait.”
Bouncing back is a fine trait for anyone who competes. And it is a trait both Mississippi teams showed a lot of in this Oxford Regional. It takes one terrific college baseball team to win an NCAA Regional. It takes two to make it memorable.
Ole Miss defeated Southern Miss on Monday, sending the Rebels to the super regionals of the NCAA Tournament. (Photo credit: Bruce Newman)
Ole Miss defeated Southern Miss on Monday, sending the Rebels to the super regionals of the NCAA Tournament. (Photo credit: Bruce Newman)
Ole Miss defeated Southern Miss on Monday, sending the Rebels to the super regionals of the NCAA Tournament. (Photo credit: Bruce Newman)
Ole Miss defeated Southern Miss on Monday, sending the Rebels to the super regionals of the NCAA Tournament. (Photo credit: Bruce Newman)
Ole Miss defeated Southern Miss on Monday, sending the Rebels to the super regionals of the NCAA Tournament. (Photo credit: Bruce Newman)
Ole Miss defeated Southern Miss on Monday, sending the Rebels to the super regionals of the NCAA Tournament. (Photo credit: Bruce Newman)
Ole Miss defeated Southern Miss on Monday, sending the Rebels to the super regionals of the NCAA Tournament. (Photo credit: Bruce Newman)
Ole Miss defeated Southern Miss on Monday, sending the Rebels to the super regionals of the NCAA Tournament. (Photo credit: Bruce Newman)
Ole Miss defeated Southern Miss on Monday, sending the Rebels to the super regionals of the NCAA Tournament. (Photo credit: Bruce Newman)
Ole Miss defeated Southern Miss on Monday, sending the Rebels to the super regionals of the NCAA Tournament. (Photo credit: Bruce Newman)
Ole Miss defeated Southern Miss on Monday, sending the Rebels to the super regionals of the NCAA Tournament. (Photo credit: Bruce Newman)
Due to the low demand for COVID-19 vaccines in Mississippi, the state has returned 871,950 of the doses it was allocated to the federal vaccine pool, sent them to other states or rejected the federal allotment.
This startling figure underscores the problem facing health officials and vaccine advocates across the state: getting people to take the shots that are now widely available for anyone 12 and older.
Mississippi continues to rank last in the nation in the share of its population that has been vaccinated. Less than 30% of Mississippians have been fully vaccinated despite significant gains made in recent months in vaccinating the most vulnerable and making vaccine access moreequitable.
The issues of vaccine access that existed during the early stages of the vaccine rollout have largely been eliminated over the past few months. The Mississippi State Department of Health will now come directly to the homes of people who want to get vaccinated but don’t have reliable transportation. They’re also offering this option to businesses or other local organizations that want to host vaccination drives. People are simply declining to take the shots and that’s keeping the state’s vaccination rate low.
Over the past two weeks, only 26,710 Mississippians got their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The 15,073 shots given last week represent a decrease of over 88% from February’s peak.
Beyond the doses that have been returned to the federal government, just because a dose stays in Mississippi doesn’t mean it will be used. A total of 7,850 doses have been wasted because a vaccination site couldn’t get enough people to get vaccinated before the remainder of an open vial expired. A majority of this dose wastage has occurred in smaller clinics, vitally important to the states vaccination efforts, but also at a higher risk of leaving allocated doses unused.
Mississippi is also the state furthest behind in reaching President Joe Biden’s goal of getting at least one COVID-19 shot into the arms of 70% of adults by July 4. If trends hold, only 46% of Mississippi adults will have received a shot by then. If vaccination rates don’t improve significantly, the state wouldn’t reach that 70% threshold for well over a year.
The Department of Health reported on Monday that 1,043,030 people in Mississippi — over 35% of the state’s population — have received at least their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. More than 911,00 people have been fully inoculated since the state began distributing vaccines in December.
If the Mississippi Legislature does set the date for a special election this year to reinstate the ballot initiative process that was invalidated last month by the Supreme Court, it would cost the state or local governments and perhaps both.
In a statement to Mississippi Today, a spokesperson for Secretary of State Michael Watson, whose office oversees elections on a statewide basis, said she could not provide an estimate of the cost because it is normally borne by local governments. But in an interview last month on SuperTalk Radio, Watson estimated the cost statewide between $1 million and $1.5 million.
After contacting multiple local circuit clerks, Mississippi Today estimated an average cost of $20,000 each for the state’s 82 counties to conduct a special election for the sole purpose of voting to fix the ballot initiative process.
That would be an estimated total of $1.64 million or, if one million people voted in the special election, about $1.65 per voter.
The Mississippi Constitution and precedent confirm that a vote to reinstate the initiative would not have to be delayed until the next statewide general election in November 2022 as some have maintained. But it would be less expensive to delay the vote until the next regularly scheduled general election.
In November 2022, Mississippi already has elections scheduled to vote on judicial candidates and on the state’s four U.S. House members. So the cost to add a constitutional amendment to reinstate the initiative process should not add much — if any — to the cost of the election.
There would be a cost, of course, to schedule an election this year just to vote on a fix for the ballot initiative.
Even after Watson’s comments on the radio two weeks ago, the Secretary of State’s office said it could not provide an estimate statewide of a special election cost.
“Since Mississippi is a bottom-up state where the counties are in charge of administering elections, county election officials would be the best resource in determining an estimated cost for a potential statewide special election,” said Kendra James, a spokesperson for Secretary of State Michael Watson. “Our office cannot speculate on an estimated cost, and we do not have the necessary information available to provide an accurate cost estimate.”
Mississippi has 82 counties. The cost would vary, of course, depending on the size of the county. Through a spokesperson, Harrison County Circuit Clerk Connie Ladner estimated the special election would cost about $50,000 in the Gulf Coast county — the second most populous in the state.
Wayne County Circuit Clerk Rose Bingham estimated the cost at $20,000 in her rural southeast Mississippi county that has 22 precincts.
Prentiss County Circuit Clerk Michael Kelley in rural northeast Mississippi and Washington County Circuit Clerk Barbara Esters-Parker in the Delta both estimated the election would cost their counties about $10,000.
“There would not be a lot of workers with just one issue on the ballot,” said Esters-Parker. The main cost for the counties would be the poll workers.
Kelly said Prentiss County has 14 precincts and it is mandated that each precinct has three poll workers, though he said having four was more realistic. The poll workers normally make $100 or $125 per day.
The proposal to fix the ballot initiative process would be an amendment to the state Constitution. Since voters approved the initiative process in 1992, there had been two methods of amending Mississippi’s 1890s Constitution.
The first is the traditional method, where legislators approve a proposal amendment by a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate. It then must be approved by voters in a statewide election. This is the method that would have to be used to fix the initiative process.
The governor plays no official role in amending the Constitution, though he would have to call a special session for the initiative fix to be considered this year, In 2022, legislators could take up the issue as part of the regular session.
Before the Supreme Court ruled in May that the initiative language process in the Constitution was unconstitutional, the Constitution could be amended by gathering the mandated number of signatures to place an issue on the ballot for the voters to decide.
In a lawsuit filed to thwart the medical marijuana initiative approved by voters in November, Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler argued the initiative language in the Constitution should be struck down. The language requires the initiative signatures to be gathered equally from five congressional districts. The state now has four districts, losing one based on the 2000 Census.
The Supreme Court in a 6-3 landmark decision agreed with Hawkins Butler’s argument.
In 1991 the Legislature set a date for a special election on whether to keep the 1890s flag that included the Confederate battle emblem in its design or to adopt a new banner. The election, held in April, was not to amend the Constitution but to potentially change state law. The Legislature provided $724,144 in state funds to help with the cost of the election where the only item on the ballot was the flag.
And then in 2020, the Legislature appropriated $250,000 for a vote where people had the option to adopt or reject a flag design proposed by a specially appointed commission. The Legislature had earlier in the year retired the 1890s flag. The flag election was part of the regularly scheduled November election where multiple items, including the presidential candidates, were on the ballot. The $250,000 was appropriated because the flag issue required the ballots to contain color, which added to the cost of printing.
The flag election in 2020, like in 2001, was to change state law, not the Constitution.
Mississippi Today’s Editor-in-Chief Adam Ganucheau discusses the newsroom’s latest project to dig into why young people are leaving Mississippi in droves or are stuck here wanting to leave. He joined WJTV’s Byron Brown on their Sunday political show “Mississippi Insight” to explain the rationale behind the new project.
Southern Miss pitcher Tanner Hall (28) pitches shut out Ole Miss over five innings, allowing only one hit . (Bruce Newman)
OXFORD — Trailing Florida State 4-1 Sunday afternoon in the third inning of an elimination game, their season on the brink, the Southern Miss Golden Eagles needed some relief — and, man oh man, did they get it.
Then, trailing Ole Miss 4-0 in the first inning and facing elimination again, the Golden Eagles needed still more relief. They got it — in spades — again.
The bullpen delivered for the Golden Eagles in a 7-4 victory over Florida State and then a 10-7 victory over Ole Miss. Thus, the Golden Eagles and Rebels will play again Monday at noon with the Oxford Regional Championship and an NCAA Super Regional berth at stake.
Rick Cleveland
For one Mississippi team, the road to Omaha will reach a dead end Monday.
Last weekend, in the Conference USA Tournament, the bullpen failed Southern Miss. Otherwise, they would have hosted a regional this weekend instead of playing on the road. But first Ryan Och and then true freshman Tanner Hall provided two of the best long relief performances you will ever see Sunday. This is no exaggeration.
Och, a hard-throwing sophomore lefty, struck out 11 Florida State Seminoles in 4.2 innings of one-hit, shutout relief to get the win and move to 8-0 on the season. As his record and a 1.47 earned run average will attest, this was nothing new.
Ryan Och dominated Florida State hitters for Southern Miss, striking out 11 over 4.2 innings of one-hit relief. (Bruce Newman)
But then came Hall, seemingly out of nowhere, when the Eagles needed him most. Hall pitched five innings of one-hit, shutout baseball, striking out five Rebels to pick up a five-inning save. You just don’t see many of those.
So, if you’re keeping score, Och and Hall pitched a combined 9.2 innings of scoreless baseball, striking out 16 batters. Throw in fireballing right-hander Hurston Waldrep, who closed out the FSU game, the Eagles got 11.1 innings of shutout relief from pitchers who fanned 18 batters.That’s impeccable relief work.
And that was the story of the day, even when Southern Miss batters pounded out 12 hits against Florida State and then 13 against Ole Miss.
Said Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco, “Man, they were on fire offensively, especially early. We ran into a buzzsaw. Give them credit. It was a long day for them and they played incredibly.”
The Southern Miss pitching plan against Ole Miss was to throw several guys, an inning or two at a time. Hall changed that plan when he took over to start the fifth. Understand, Ole Miss had already roughed up three previous pitchers for seven runs on six hits. Hall not only stopped the bleeding, he stitched the wound. He did it mostly with a two-seam fastball that moved all over the place.
Southern Miss centerfielder Reed Trimble had a great view from behind. “It’s fun to watch 90 and 91 mile per hour fastballs that are moving a foot,” Trimble said.
Hall’s performance had more value than numbers. Said Berry, “What he did was keep us from having to use a lot of fresh arms in our bullpen.”
That might prove critical.
What Hall also did was keep the huge Ole Miss crowd from ever getting into the game the way it had the night before against Florida State. You can’t put a value on that.
Neither Bianco or Berry wanted to discuss their pitching plans for Monday night. I’m guessing that Ben Ethridge, normally the Golden Eagles’ No. 3 starter, figures prominently in Berry’s plan. He threw 40 pitches in a Friday loss to Florida State. Two days rest after 40 pitches should be plenty.
Cody Adcock (0-0, 5.12 ERA), a freshman right-hander, would appear the most likely starter for Ole Miss. He pitched well against Arkansas at the SEC Tournament last week.
But here’s the deal: Win, you advance. Lose, the season’s over. It’s all hands on deck.
The momentum would appear to be with Southern Miss, which has scored 38 runs in three straight victories. The home field advantage, of course, goes to the Rebels.
Said Ole Miss catcher Hayden Dunhurst: “We’ll get it going and we’ll win tomorrow. There’s no doubt in my mind about that.”
