The Chapel, one of the iconic buildings at Alcorn State University in Lorman.
Alcorn State University received the largest gift from a single donor in its history.
MacKenzie Scott, an author and philanthropist, made a $25 million donation to the university, the school announced on Tuesday.
“This gift is truly transformational and we are humbled by Ms. Scott’s generosity,” Alcorn President Felecia M. Nave said in a release.
The gift doubles the size of Alcorn’s endowment and allows the university to enhance its academic offerings.
Scott announced this week that she gave $4.1 billion to 384 organizations in all 50 states, just four months after donating $1.7 billion to 116 organizations.
Scott also donated to Tougaloo College and the Mississippi Food Network, according to a list she released this week. It is unclear how much those entities received.
Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is the 18th richest person in the world, with a net worth of over $60 billion. She is also the richest woman in the world.
Ronnie McGehee, executive director of the Mississippi Association of School Administrators.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann announced Wednesday his appointment of Ronnie McGehee, former superintendent of Madison County School District, to the State Board of Education.
McGehee, who has more than 40 years of experience in education, will serve an eight-year term pending confirmation by the Mississippi Senate.
He is currently the executive director of the Mississippi Association of School Administrators and Mississippi Association of Secondary School Principals. While superintendent in Madison County, the district achieved and maintained an “A” rating and transitioned to one-to-one technology, meaning each student was equipped with their own device.
Prior to serving as superintendent he taught and coached in both public and private schools.
“My parents were not formally educated, but they always instilled in me and my brothers the determination to achieve the best education possible, and then go out and help others do the same,” said McGehee. “I am looking forward to working with the Lieutenant Governor, the legislature and others to continue working toward that goal.”
Hosemann said quality education is the key to a successful future for Mississippi.
“Dr. McGehee will do an excellent job in this position because he has vast experience in the field, he has the trust of our public educators across the state, and he has the heart to do the hard things we have to do to help our students and schools achieve,” said Hosemann in a press release announcing the appointment.
The Board oversees the Mississippi Department of Education and meets monthly to discuss policy and adopt rules for the state’s public schools.
The nine-member board is appointed by state officials. The governor appoints five positions: one school administrator, one teacher, and one individual from the state’s North, Central, South Supreme Court districts, respectively. The lieutenant governor and speaker each get two at-large representatives, meaning they have no residential or occupational requirements on who to choose. The board appoints the state superintendent, who serves as the board secretary, and two student representatives who also serve on the board as non-voting members. Members serve nine-year terms.
There are currently several vacancies on the board, including the speaker’s at-large appointment (formerly Sean Suggs) and the teacher representative, appointed by the governor, is also vacant.
The term of John Kelly, who fills the Southern Supreme Court District spot, expired in July, though he has continued to serve on the board.
Joe Moorhead’s buyout was between $4 million and $7 million, depending on what he’s making at Oregon.
Ralph “Shug” Jordan famously coached football at Auburn for 25 years, winning 67.5% of his games, including 60% of his SEC games. The nearly 90,000-seat Auburn football stadium bears his name. A statue of Jordan has been commissioned.
Gus Malzahn, Auburn’s most recent football coach, won 66% of the games he coached, 59.1% of his SEC games, nearly mirroring Jordan’s win percentages. For Malzahn, there will be no statue and certainly no renaming of the stadium. No, he has been fired.
Rick Cleveland
And get this: Auburn must now pay Malzahn $21.4 million not to coach. That’s right, Auburn must pay Malzahn more than $10 million in the next 30 days, and then $2.68 million a year for the next four years. For that king’s ransom, Malzahn must do exactly nothing.
Malzahn just completed the third year of a seven-year contract that called for him to make $49 million. Keep in mind, we are in middle of a pandemic that has affected college sports, just as it has every facet of our society. Across the country, colleges and universities are cutting sports and scholarships. Athletic departments, even entire conferences, are taking out loans to stay in business.
And, amid all this, Auburn is going to pay a guy more than 21 million semolians not to coach.
This is just one more sign of the times — albeit, a gigantic marquee — in big-time college sports. Everywhere you look, schools are paying coaches not to coach. In fact, Arkansas is paying two. Chad Morris was bought out for $10 million, two years after Bret Bielema was bought out for $11.9 million.
What was it Sen. Everitt Dirksen once said? “A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money…”
Dirksen was talking about government waste. The government has nothing on college sports, especially since the government prints money and the universities don’t. At South Carolina, the Gamecocks’ buyout of recently fired Will Muschamp is just north of $13 million. Muschamp is good at this. Before that, he got $6.1 million from Florida — not to coach.
Tennessee reportedly paid Butch Jones, recently hired at Arkansas State, approximately $8 million not to coach. Texas A&M bought out Kevin Sumlin reportedly for $10 million. LSU negotiated out of its contract with Les Miles for a paltry $1.5 million. But — and, boy, this is a big BUT — LSU would have to pay Ed Orgeron $27 million if it fired him this year.
Last year, Ole Miss bought out Matt Luke and Mississippi State bought out Joe Moorhead. Compared to the likes of Auburn and Arkansas, the Mississippi schools got off cheaply. Luke’s buyout was reportedly $6 million. Moorhead’s was between $4 million and $7 million, depending on what he’s making at Oregon. Still, in Mississippi, that’s real money.
There are reports that the Rebels’ Lane Kiffin is among the people Auburn considering as a replacement for Malzahn. Kiffin reportedly makes $3.9 million at Ole Miss. And we must wonder if Auburn is willing to pay someone over $5 million a year not to coach, what would they pay someone to really coach? The Rebels might not like the answer.
But let’s get back to Auburn and Malzahn. You might ask — and it would be a good question — how Auburn got into a situation where it would have to pay a football coach $21.45 million not to coach. Here’s the short version: In 2017, Malzahn led Auburn to 10 victories and the SEC West Championship. In one three-week stretch, the Tigers defeated Alabama and Georgia, both ranked No. 1 at the time.
At the same time, Arkansas was about to fire Bielema and hire a new coach. Malzahn, who had played and coached at Arkansas and had been a highly successful high school coach in Arkansas, was reportedly No. 1 on the Razorbacks’ list. So Auburn renegotiated its contract with Malzahn to keep him. The new contract called for $49 million over seven years. Real money.
And now let’s get back to Shug Jordan. Remember him? The most Jordan ever made at Auburn was $42,500, and that was at the end of his career in 1975. That computes to $203,000 today when coaches make ten times that — and even more — and they don’t even have to blow a whistle, much less call a play.
We are bringing you the latest COVID-19 Mississippi trends with daily case, death and hospitalization updates, as well as testing data charts and other helpful interactive maps and graphs.
This page was last updated Wednesday, December 16:
New cases: 2,343| New Deaths: 42
Total Hospitalizations: 1,319
Total cases: 185,643|Total Deaths: 4,294
Mask Mandates | On Sept. 30, Gov. Tate Reeves ended the statewide mask mandate order, originally issued Aug. 4. Since then, he has added a total of 61 individual county mask mandates, covering half of the state. State health officials encourage widespread masking and credit the original mandate with helping cases improve after a steep summer spike. View the full list of COVID-19 orders here.
On Tuesday Mississippi hit a new record with the seven-day average for cases, reaching 2,196. After going nine months without reporting 2,000 cases in a day, the state has reached that point nine times in just the 16 days of December so far.
On Dec. 9, Mississippi also hit a new high for total hospitalizations on the rolling average, surpassing the summer peak. The state had already reached a new high for confirmed hospitalizations at the end of November, but hadn’t yet for the total tally, which includes suspected cases as well.
As seen in MSDH’s illness onset chart, the record for most illnesses in a day — Dec. 11, with 2,442 — is within the last two-week period, meaning those numbers could still go up.
Mississippi’s present rise in cases mirrors the national surge, as the state currently has the 26th most new cases per capita. According to the Harvard Global Health Institute tracker, every state except Vermont is now in the “red zone” (recording over 25 daily new cases per 100,000 people).
The health department reports that 148,466 people are presumed covered as of Dec. 13.
Click through the links below to view our interactive charts describing the trends around the coronavirus in Mississippi:
State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, right, listens as Gov. Tate Reeves discusses updated COVID-19 orders on Dec. 11. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Gov. Tate Reeves, who has received broad public criticism in recent weeks over his COVID-19 response, asked his followers on social media to help him decide when he should get the vaccine.
“Interesting debate… I get endless posts from skeptics like ‘If you want us to take the vaccine, why won’t you take it?’” Reeves tweeted and posted on Facebook Tuesday morning. “I’m ready — but don’t want to be accused of cutting in line. What do you think is the better action by leaders? Show confidence or let others get access first?”
Interesting debate… I get endless posts from skeptics like “If you want us to take the vaccine, why won’t you take it?”
I’m ready—but don’t want to be accused of cutting in line. What do you think is the better action by leaders? Show confidence or let others get access first?
The first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines arrived in the state this week, and many leaders have volunteered to publicly take the vaccine to quell any doubts about the effectiveness or perceived dangers among Americans.
While many people — including in Mississippi — doubt whether the vaccine is safe or effective, health experts and scientists have reiterated the vaccine is safe and has been subjected to comprehensive trials.
State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the top health official in Mississippi, became the first person in the state to take a vaccine on Monday. He and two other top Mississippi State Department of Health officials were inoculated in a public press conference.
COVID-19 spread continues to set new peaks both nationally and statewide. Health officials have warned that ICU capacity in Mississippi is “full and many hospitalizations on the way.”
Reeves, who is solely responsible for issuing statewide orders like mask mandates and crowd size limits, has received criticism in recent days for appearing at fundraisers and hosting Christmas parties, despite those events seemingly violating many of his own orders.
Meanwhile, Dobbs and the health department have warned Mississippians to avoid holiday gatherings beyond closest family and to avoid any groups beyond school, work or “essential gatherings.”
Dobbs called the holidays a “perfect storm” for “explosive outbreaks” of COVID-19 and warned, “We will see deaths, absolutely, around holiday gatherings.” Health officials warn that Mississippi hospitals are overloaded with patients as pandemic cases spike to record levels.
In response, Reeves has said that his parties “allow us to send a message to the people of Mississippi that you can return to life as somewhat normal, but you’ve got to do it in a way that minimizes risk.”
We are bringing you the latest COVID-19 Mississippi trends with daily case, death and hospitalization updates, as well as testing data charts and other helpful interactive maps and graphs.
This page was last updated Tuesday, December 15:
New cases: 2,205| New Deaths: 48
Total Hospitalizations: 1,255
Total cases: 183,300|Total Deaths: 4,252
Mask Mandates | On Sept. 30, Gov. Tate Reeves ended the statewide mask mandate order, originally issued Aug. 4. Since then, he has added a total of 54 individual county mask mandates, covering half of the state. State health officials encourage widespread masking and credit the original mandate with helping cases improve after a steep summer spike. View the full list of COVID-19 orders here.
After a record reporting of 2,457 new cases on Wednesday, the current seven-day average of 1,605 is now far past Mississippi’s summer peak.
During a news conference yesterday, Gov. Tate Reeves denied that Mississippi had hit a new record for case spread, even though the rolling average had already surpassed the previous high of 1,381 in the summer.
On Wednesday, the state health department issued new guidelines on distancing, recommending that people avoid all social gatherings with people outside of their home or nuclear family.
Mississippi also hit a new high for confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations on both Sunday and Monday, with the rolling average having increased 68% since the start of November. The rolling averages for ICU patients and people on ventilators are up 45% and 88%, respectively, in that time. Total hospitalizations, which includes suspected and confirmed cases, are still below the record set in August.
Thirteen major hospitals are without ICU capacity, according to this week’s health department numbers. Currently, 86% of the state’s ICU beds are full — including 96% capacity among the highest level COVID-care centers — and COVID-19 patients are filling 30% of those spots.
On the county level, Choctaw (17% increase in the last week), Kemper (15%), Rankin (14%), Jefferson (12%) and Stone (12%) counties saw the sharpest rise in cases this last week.
The Delta continues to accumulate the most cases per capita out of anywhere in the state. Of the 15 counties with the highest rates, 11 are in the Delta.
The state health department reported 128,746 people have recovered.
Click through the links below to view our interactive charts describing the trends around the coronavirus in Mississippi:
Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, right, wears his “Trump” mask as he waits while Secretary of State Michael Watson tends to the official duties overseeing the casting of Mississippi’s votes in the electoral college at the state Capitol in Jackson on Dec. 14, 2020. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Gov. Tate Reeves and Secretary of State Michael Watson defended the presidential electoral college and questioned the validity of election results in other states Monday morning as Mississippi’s six electoral votes were cast for incumbent Republican President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
Watson, the state’s chief election officer, referred to the electoral college as “a shining example of the brilliance of our founding fathers” as Mississippi joined the nation’s other states and the District of Columbia in meeting Monday to solidify the results of the Nov. 3 general election in which former Vice President Joe Biden defeated Trump.
Both Reeves and Watson were in attendance Monday as the electors voted in a Capitol committee room known for being the location of a statue of Theodore Bilbo, a former governor and one of the state’s most notorious segregationists.
Under the electoral college process, each state gets the number of electoral votes equaling their two United States senators and their U.S. House members. In Mississippi, like most states, all of its electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who wins the state’s popular vote.
Watson and Reeves both touted the electoral college for ensuring smaller, less populated states like Mississippi have a larger say in the election of president. Detractors say the electoral college is counter-intuitive to democracy since in recent years the candidate who won the popular vote has not often won the presidency.
For instance, the Democrat has won the popular vote in seven of the last eight elections, but the Republican won the electoral college and thus the presidency in two of those elections.
This year, Biden defeated Trump by more than seven million votes, but was on pace Monday to win the same number of electoral votes — 306 — as Trump won in 2016 when he lost the popular vote by almost three million to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“For those individuals around this county who want to change the electoral college because they believe it will benefit them, I argue… they fundamentally misunderstand the principle we live in a republic not a true democracy because our founding fathers recognized the importance of not only the big states, but the small states as well,” Reeves said. Reeves said elimination of the electoral college would “disenfranchise” Mississippi voters.
Reeves and Watson both defended a lawsuit entered into by state Attorney General Lynn Fitch to throw out millions of ballots in four key swing states in an effort to throw the election to Trump. The lawsuit was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.
After the electoral college vote, Reeves cited “a safe and fair election here in Mississippi — not upended by last-minute schemes to radically alter voting methods. Election integrity is vital.”
Reeves and Watson voiced frustration with the judiciary for putting in place election changes to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic that violated the Constitution. But they offered no examples that would have changed the results in any of the swing states that gave the election to Biden.
Mississippi’s vote of the electors — all white males — was uneventful. The six electors, all chosen by the state Republican Party since Trump won Mississippi, were Frank Bordeaux, John Dane III, Francis Lee, Terry Reeves, E. Bruce Martin and Johnny McRight.
Bordeaux is the newly elected chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party. Lee is one of Reeves’ largest individual political contributors. Terry Reeves is the governor’s father.
The governor said it was a testament to the country that his father, who grew up one of 11 children in a two-bedroom home in Lincoln County, could be an elector for the president.
Sandra Lindsay, left, a nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, is inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine by Dr. Michelle Chester on Dec. 14, 2020, in New York. Lindsay was the first American to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, Pool)
Mississippi’s top health officials, including State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, received the first COVID-19 vaccines in the state in a press conference on Monday.
Dobbs, State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers and Director of Health Protection Jim Craig were the first in the state to receive the vaccine.
“Proud and privileged,” Dobbs tweeted on Monday, adding in a press conference that the shot “felt like a butterfly with a little sting.”
Dobbs said last week that 25,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be delivered to the state this week. Frontline workers and those most at risk and long term care facilities will be the first to receive the vaccine. He said he expects the state will have enough vaccines for all nursing home residents and employees by next week, and many of the state’s largest hospitals will receive vaccine shipments this week.
But the vaccine is not expected to be widely available to the general public until the spring or summer of 2021.
Phase 1a: Front-line health care workers, including first responders, pharmacists and the national guard (90,000 doses estimated)
Phase 1b: long-term and home care residents and staff (55,000 doses)
Phase 2: those over the age of 65; essential workers, including workers in: education, public health, dentistry, funeral homes, transportation, postal workers, grocery stores, meat packing; homeless people; people with obesity, heart disease, CPOD, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, asthma; and people incarcerated in prisons and jails (2.7 million)
Phase 3: general public (200,000 doses)
Meanwhile, COVID-19 spread regularly sets new peaks both nationally and statewide. Health officials have warned that ICU capacity in Mississippi is “full and many hospitalizations on the way.”
