On Tuesday, June 23 Mississippi Today Circle Members were given exclusive access to a Zoom conversation between sports great Archie Manning and Mississippi Today’s Rick Cleveland. Intimate conversations with celebrated Mississippians is just one perk of Circle Membership. To learn more or join, click here.
It has been more than 50 years since Archie Manning’s final football season at Ole Miss, yet he remains one of the most beloved athletes in Mississippi history. Archie and his family transcend athletics, with a generational generosity that has elevated them as celebrated philanthropists, and golden-hearted community leaders.
In this live, virtual event, Archie and Rick swap stories of the times they’ve spent together on the sidelines, in the locker room and everywhere in between, including a discussion about the recruitment of Archie’s grandson, Arch Manning, who is the top high school quarterback in the nation. They also explore why it is that 50 years after his graduation from Ole Miss, he remains one of the most beloved – if not most beloved– athletes in Mississippi history.
In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with a true Mississippi storyteller, acclaimed investigative journalist Jerry Mitchell. Mitchell, who founded the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting in 2018 after a long career at the Clarion Ledger, talks about his recent book Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era and the cases he has covered in his illustrious career, including how his reporting convicted serial killer Felix Vail to justice. Ramsey and Mitchell also talk about current state of journalism and why investigative journalism is more important than ever. Mitchell shares why he has chosen to stay in Mississippi after all these years.
Rusty Thoms, right, with Judd Merkel and his long lost cap.
Twenty-four years ago, Mississippi State’s Rusty Thoms won the hearts of Omaha and fans of the College World Series.
Twenty-three years ago, on a memorable return trip, Thoms paid tribute to those Omaha fans in his own special way.
This week, in Omaha, one College World Series fan paid Thoms back still again.
Warning: This is a neat story. If you don’t want to feel a little bit better today, stop reading now.
Omaha is a college baseball player’s heaven on earth. It is the place every college baseball player aspires to be. Another pack of Mississippi State Bulldogs are there again this June. So far, the trip has been just heavenly. The ‘Dogs have won two straight games in dramatic fashion. They are three victories away from a national championship.
Here’s the short version: Thoms played the best baseball of his career in the 1997 and 1998 College World Series. At bat, he hit nearly everything they threw him. In the field, he made diving catches all over left field. Fans in the left field bleachers adopted him as their MBP (Most Beloved Player) in ’97. They remembered him in ’98 and showered him with love.
“RUSTY! RUSTY! RUSTY!” they cheered. They made up signs. They made up T-shirt designs. They painted their bodies to spell out his name. It was marvelous.
And when the Bulldogs finally bowed out of the ’98 CWS, Thoms paid those fans back. After the final out, with fans still chanting his name, Thoms emerged from the dugout and trotted out to left field. First, he took off his sweatbands and threw them to the fans. Then, he threw his batting gloves. Then, he tossed his cap. And then, he threw his mitt to some lucky fan.
“Why?” this sports writer asked Thoms later that night.
“I’m not going to need them anymore,” he replied.
Thoms, a superb and clutch college baseball player, wasn’t Major League material and he knew it. He didn’t have quite the arm or the foot speed or the power. This was his ultimate baseball moment and he understood it. He had given his all and now he was giving more. Rusty Thoms got it. All of it. Intuitively, it seemed, the fans did, too. This old sports writer’s eyes become moist just thinking about it.
The Merkel and the Thoms families outside Ameritrade Park in Omaha.
So this week, this old sports writer used social media to tweet out a link to the story I wrote three years ago about Thoms’ CWS experience. And here’s more proof of how the Internet has made this a so much smaller world. In Omaha, a fan read it. That fan’s name is Judd Merkel. He was 16 years young and sitting in those left field bleachers in 1998. He emailed me. He was the guy who caught Rusty’s cap.
“I remember the guys that spelled out Rusty across their chests in paint, the chants of Rusty that I was a part of,” Merkel wrote. “I remember the diving catches that sent us all to a new level of cheering. I have three young kids now and I tell them the story every time the CWS comes to town.”
Merkel said he wanted to give Thoms his cap back. He sent me his phone number. Meanwhile, Lindsey Dugas Thoms, Rusty’s wife, sent me a note of thanks for linking the old column on social media and re-kindling the memories. She said Rusty and two of their sons were en route to Omaha to root on the Bulldogs. This was Rusty’s first trip back to Omaha since 1998. You can guess what happened next.
Lindsey sent her husband Merkel’s phone number. Rusty called him. They — and their children — met outside the ballpark before the game. Merkel gave Rusty his old maroon cap. The bible verse Thoms had inscribed on the cap was still there.
“I’m not gonna lie, I got emotional seeing that,” Thoms said. “They (Merkel and his family) were so nice. To think, they had had my cap and taken care of it for all these years. And to share this with my sons, who had heard the story all these years, but this really made it real for them. The whole thing is just surreal.”
Rusty Thoms had the cap sitting beside him for much of the game, as the Bulldogs trailed 4-0 and were hitless. Then, it started raining, and he put it on his head.
Then came the eighth inning, and you know what happened next. For Rusty Thoms and Mississippi State, this is a story that keeps on giving.
Rusty Thoms’ old baseball cap, which he was gifted all these years later.
Kellum Clark circles the bases after hitting a two-run homer in the eighth inning, cutting Virginia’s lead to 4-2 and propelling the Mississippi State Bulldogs to a 6-5 victory in the College World Series Tuesday night. (AP Photo/John Peterson)
Down 4-0 and hitless for seven and two-thirds innings, Mississippi State Tuesday night somehow found a way to victory. SEC Player of the Year Tanner Allen surely helped. So did some splendid relief pitching. And a questionable decision by the opposing coach surely didn’t hurt.
The Bulldogs came off the mat with a six-run eighth inning to defeat Virginia 6-5 and climb snugly into the driver’s seat of its bracket in the College World Series. The Bulldogs, who now have two days off, are one victory away from playing in the best-two-of-three national championship series that starts next Monday.
Rick Cleveland
“We just believe in each other,” Allen said afterward. ”We keep playing no matter what.”
Allen’s three-run home run in the top of the eighth inning was the game’s biggest blow and put the Bulldogs on top 5-4. The thing is, Virginia didn’t have to pitch to him.
Here was the situation: The Bulldogs, trailing 4-2, had runners at second and third and one out. First base was open. Yeah, I know, you never want to put the go-ahead run, which Allen represented, on base. Then again, do you really want to pitch to Allen, he of the .387 batting average, the 10 home runs and 62 RBI — he who bleeds clutch?
I wouldn’t have. Said so at the time. Would you? Virginia coach Brian O’Connor did. And Allen blasted a laser of a home run well over the right centerfield fence.
“Obviously, he’s a tremendous player,” O’Connor said of Allen. “He’s the kind of player that you could sit there and say, ‘You don’t want him to beat you.’ But you also don’t want to walk him because his run takes the lead. So you want to make him earn it. And to his credit he did. He made us pay for it.”
Allen wasn’t expecting much to hit.
“We had a base open and I knew he wasn’t going throw me a fastball, so I sat on the slider,” Allen said. “He threw it and I put a good swing on it.”
State had put precious few good swings on any pitch through the first seven innings. Virginia pitcher Griff McGarry was masterful, painting corners with a 97 mph fastball and keeping the Bulldogs honest with a quality slider. McGarry had struck out eight Bulldogs and had held the Bulldogs hitless entering the eighth.
But then Kellum Clark’s two-run home run, State’s first hit, cut the lead in half at 4-2. Josh Hatcher singled and Rowdey Jordan doubled, setting the stage for Allen’s heroics.
The Bulldogs had the lead but they weren’t finished. Scotty Dubrule added a run-scoring single for State’s sixth run of the inning and what would prove to be the winning run. Chris Newell’s opposite field home run off State’s Stone Simmons cut the Bulldog lead to 6-5. Simmons was the seventh State pitcher. The Bulldogs would need an eighth to seal the deal. And you can probably guess who Chris Lemonis went to with two out in the eighth inning. Yes, he called on Landon Sims, who had thrown 52 pitches Sunday night, saving State’s 2-1 victory over Texas.
Sims didn’t have his best stuff, but he had enough. He threw more breaking pitches than usual. His fastball, normally in the mid-90s, topped out at 89-90. But he gutted it out. Really, all the Bulldogs did.
“I felt good,” Sims would say. “I wanted the last three outs no matter what.”
He got the last four, retiring all four batters he faced, the last on a strikeout.
Said Allen of Sims, “That guy gives it all he’s got every time he goes to the mound. … That guy’s unbelievable.
And so it is that the Bulldogs have two days off. The two teams they have already beaten, Texas and Virginia, will play Thursday night, for the right to play the Bulldogs on Friday. That Thursday winner would have to beat State twice.
In other words, the Bulldogs are right where they want to be: just three victories from a national championship.
Mississippi farmers are losing the catfish wars against their foreign competitors with the very weapon they saw as their salvation.
The domestic catfish industry along with representatives like the late U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi lobbied to move oversight of catfish processing from the Food and Drug Administration to the U.S. Department of Agriculture five years ago with the expectation the USDA’s stricter eye would limit the foreign imports that had decimated domestic production throughout the Mississippi Delta.
Instead, imports of siluriformes – the larger category of catfish and catfish-like fish sometimes referred to by their family name “pangasius”– have only increased since the switch to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service in 2016. Meanwhile, domestic prices and production, mainly in Mississippi and other Southern states, have continued to decline.
Almost 65,000 additional tons of catfish were imported in 2019 than in 2015 before the FSIS took over according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service.
The Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce lists recent processing volumes at 5 million pounds per month less than in 2015 during FDA oversight. As domestic prices have declined, the average value of imports has grown with the added USDA label.
Proponents who lobbied to move oversight to USDA had argued Vietnamese pangasius farms were packed gill-to-gill, tainted with excess antibiotics and dyes, and the FDA wasn’t testing enough. A 2011 peer-reviewed article in the journal Food Policy described Vietnamese swai as grown under “the single most intensive high volume commercial food production system on the planet.” A 2016 report by the environmental nonprofit Oceana listed pangasius as the most common substitute used in seafood fraud. The assumption was USDA’s tighter inspection protocols would lead to a safer product that would limit the lower quality imports flooding the market.
Bill James, previously chief public health veterinarian with the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, said the agency’s program is the superior inspection system, and the USDA label with its certification and accompanying legend of ingredients makes products much more attractive to consumers.
Catfish is the only fish handled by FSIS, which otherwise handles processing of beef, pork and poultry, and the decision to have an exception just for catfish aquaculture was contentious. Yet, most of the concern stemmed from the duplication of efforts, bureaucratic waste, potential trade repercussions and the attempt to stifle imports.
The Government Accountability Office released 10 reports against the move with one in 2012 simply titled “Responsibility for Inspecting Catfish Should Not Be Assigned to USDA.”
The 2012 GAO report noted the food-borne bacteria salmonella, a major concern that led to the switch, was rarely found in catfish. The report lists only one instance of a salmonella outbreak in the U.S. in 1991, and it may not have been related to catfish.
In a World Trade Organization complaint, Vietnam contested the USDA move as not being based on scientific research or a risk assessment. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, despite the extremely high farming density, large disease outbreaks among pangasius are rare.
But the increased oversight and its accompanying costs have taken their toll domestically. A major Alabama processor and feed producer, SouthFresh, filed for bankruptcy in 2019, claiming stricter protocols, lower prices and increased imports hastened its demise.
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, who represents the Delta in Mississippi’s second district, said if imports are still eating away at the domestic industry, “then the move to USDA fails to meet the purpose of the congressional motion, which was to set a standard for health concerns and to protect U.S. industry.”
Chad Causey, representative for the trade organization Catfish Farmers of America, said the move to USDA oversight was never about limiting imports and was solely about stopping unsafe products from entering the market. In his view, the industry is confident in these inspections, which is far and above FDA’s oversight. While he wouldn’t speak to how much imports are affecting the industry, he said the industry “is fine with competition.”
In 2020, Catfish Farmers of America asked NOAA’s Seafood Trade Task Force to “require imported seafood to meet our standards” to level the playing field and help domestic industry compete with “unfair competition.” The group has been involved in numerous lawsuits over a U.S. trade enforcement investigation against Vietnamese importers that has resulted in millions in compensation and legal fees.
Mississippi’s U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who holds Cochran’s previous seat, said the USDA program is working exactly as intended to ensure all catfish is “safe, wholesome, and unadulterated.” She pointed to numerous large rejections of imports from China because of chemical additives as evidence the program is working.
While most of the domestic catfish industry supported the move, criticism has come from wild-caught producers like those trying to take advantage of the invasive blue catfish in the Chesapeake Bay.
Often small operations, they rely on individual fishermen and smaller processing facilities and are unlikely to afford the USDA standards and inspections, despite fewer risks of added chemicals that compromise the food’s safety. While major processors in Vietnam can afford USDA inspections with the help of government capital, the small, wild-caught catfish operations in the U.S. cannot.
Mike Mitchell of Acari Foods, producer of a jerky made from wild-caught catfish, said the switch to USDA has limited his own business and caused a detrimental effect almost across the board. “It’s not helping U.S. consumers, mom and pop operations, or most producers,” he said. “Only a few large operations are surviving.”
Origins Of The Import Flood
The original concern for imported siluriformes goes back to 2000. Back then, domestic catfish producers dominated the market. But a flood of imports began to take over. The share of catfish consumption supplied by domestic producers went from 80% in 2002 to 24% in 2019. Imports from Vietnam grew more than five-fold.
The increased competition from foreign markets decimated domestic producers. Production capacity was cut in half. The industry saw large declines in employment and hours worked. That trend continued through the USDA takeover as a glut of catfish on the market depressed prices into 2018.
Early on, catfish farmers may have been hit the hardest. The flood of imports came as prices for catfish food peaked at the same time. Farmers saw steady declines in almost every metric: total sales, total inventories, net profits.
Farmers may have been buffered by the price on catfish fry and fingerlings – small fish below 2 and 6 inches in size respectively – according to data from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. Farmers saw an increase in price that offset the large collapse in sales volume. Prices in 2018 are more than double what they were in 2005.
FDA vs. USDA Oversight
The switch from FDA to USDA oversight was not a small move. The agencies have different systems for hazard analysis and critical control points, where imported food products are inspected and tested for safety.
Since the move to USDA in 2016, there have been declines in average price, total acres of water in production and inventories of food-sized fish.
Under FDA oversight, the agency tests a certain portion of imports as they come into the country – sometimes less than 2 percent.
But USDA oversees all products and tests imports as they come into approved facilities from USDA-equivalent processing facilities in other countries. Both the foreign processing facilities and the U.S. import facilities undergo an approval process that can be revoked.
According to Acari’s Mitchell, funding that oversight falls to the processor, a huge capital investment. “We would need a new, bigger plant, to hire our own inspector, and be able to coordinate a schedule with the inspector. That’s not so easy for fishermen who make their catch based on the weather,” he said.
Despite, or potentially because of, the increased scrutiny, import refusals of siluriformes because of chemical additives have dropped by half since the move to the USDA. From 2012-2016, the FDA rejected 106 imports for “adulterants,” while 45 were rejected by the USDA from 2016-2020 based on laboratory analysis of residual chemicals.
Most USDA rejections were over torn packaging, defects or invalid labels. Of those rejected for laboratory tests, few were from Vietnam, with others coming from the U.S. or countries without establishments eligible to export to the U.S., like Brazil.
Bill James, previously with Food Safety and Inspection Service, believes fewer rejections from chemical testing are a result of exporters needing to send their best product to get it past the rigors of USDA inspection.
While less is being rejected under USDA, the agency tests substantially more for chemical additives. In 2020, it tested 649 samples — more than what FDA tested over the course of five years between 2010 and 2015.
While the standards for catfish processing under the Food Safety and Inspection Service is robust, there may still be some outlying discrepancies.
FSIS has not made Vietnamese farm visits routine. Without farm visits they may not know if they are testing for the right antibiotics and if there are other issues with how the fish are raised.
There are also ongoing discrepancies between what the FDA tests for in all types of finfish, what the FSIS tests for, and what other countries test for. The list of potential additives regularly changes.
In 2019, the USDA listed returning siluriformes oversight back to the FDA in its 2019 budget proposal based on a request from Congress, but that recommendation disappeared in the following year’s budget.
The catfish industry is mum about the increased imports of Vietnamese pangasius. None of the major processors or farms contacted for this story would comment about the trend.
Catfish Farmers of America, the only industry group willing to speak, wasn’t fazed by the continuing flood of Vietnamese pangasius that inspired federal action. According to CFA’s Causey, catfish farmers are more concerned about the effects of the pandemic.
Because of its restrictions, farms and processors have struggled to find workers to keep up with demand and some are turning to temporary visas for migrant workers to fill in the gap.
In their view, he said, the demand for catfish is there whether imports are growing or not, “it’s just a matter of finding enough employees to provide it.”
First Lady Jill Biden will visit COVID-19 vaccination sites in Jackson on Tuesday as part of the Biden Administration’s nationwide tour to reach Americans who haven’t been vaccinated and promote vaccine education.
The visit comes as Mississippi continues to rank last in the nation in the share of its population that has been vaccinated. Only 32% of Mississippians have been fully vaccinated despite significant gains made in recent months in vaccinating the most vulnerable and making vaccine access more equitable.
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. Just over 36% of Mississippians are currently vaccinated, providing no hope the state will reach even 50% by Independence Day. If vaccination rates don’t improve significantly, the state wouldn’t reach that 70% threshold for well over a year.
No significant improvement is on the horizon as the state’s vaccination rate continues to tank. The 15,073 shots given last week represent a decrease of over 87% from February’s peak.
As the state’s vaccine rate continues to sputter, Gov. Tate Reeves announced last week that the last remnants of COVID-related government policy in Mississippi — the state’s COVID-19 emergency orders — will expire on Aug. 15, more than a year after the orders were first enacted.
“While a State of Emergency should no longer be necessary after August 15, all Mississippians should remain vigilant, get vaccinated, and follow public health guidance,” Reeves said in a statement.
Even though Mississippi has remained under a state of emergency order due to the pandemic, there have been virtually no safety protocols in effect formonths.
Reeves also announced that emergency COVID-19 operations with the Mississippi National Guard will end on July 15. The guard’s involvement has been an essential component of the state’s vaccine rollout, assisting the Mississippi State Department of Health with the logistical challenges of operating vaccination sites and putting shots in the arms of thousands of Mississippians.
“The governor’s timeline to lift Mississippi’s State of Emergency declaration on August 15, 2021, ensures our over 1,500 service members complete all necessary out-processing requirements and receive the benefits and entitlements they have earned during their dedicated service to our state,” Maj. Gen. Janson Boyles, the adjutant general of the Mississippi National Guard, said in a written statement.
The Mississippi Department of Health reported on Friday that 1,071,623 people in Mississippi — about 36% of the state’s population — have received at least their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Nearly 953,00 people have been fully inoculated since the state began distributing vaccines in December.
A neighbor has been charged with arson for burning the trailer where former state Rep. Ashley Henley’s sister-in-law’s body was found around Christmas — the same property where authorities say Henley was gunned down on June 13.
Assistant District Attorney Steven Jubera said that Billy Brooks, 42, who lived across the road from the burned trailer, was arrested Friday on an arson charge from the Dec. 26 fire. He has not been charged in the death of Kristina Michelle Jones, whose body was found inside the burned mobile home.
Jubera said investigation into the deaths of Jones and Henley is continuing and no further details are currently being released.
Henley, who along with her husband had said Jones was murdered and publicly criticized what they said was lack of investigation by the Yalobusha County Sheriff’s Department, was herself shot and killed while cutting the grass at the property where the burned trailer was at 12 Patricia Drive in Water Valley. Henley and her husband had vowed to continue to push for justice in Jones’ case.
Henley, 40, a former school teacher and community college professor, served as representative of District 40 in DeSoto County from 2016-2020 and was vice chair of the House Military Affairs Committee and a member of the Education, Tourism, Workforce Development and Youth and Family Affairs committees. She lost her reelection bid in 2019 by 14 votes.
Jubera said Henley’s homicide is being investigated by the Yalobusha Sheriff’s Department, Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, District 17 District Attorney’s office and other agencies.
Mississippi State’s 2021 College World Series experience began Sunday night with a pitching performance for the ages in a thrilling 2-1 victory over Texas. First Will Bednar and then Landon Sims mowed down Texas batters as if the Longhorns were swinging with holes in their bats.
It was astonishing. That’s what it was. Astonishing.
Rick Cleveland
Bednar threw 108 pitches but plate umpire Steve Mattingly might be the guy who wakes up Monday morning with a sore right arm from punching out Texas batters with his animated “strike three” calls. Bednar struck out 15 of the 18 batters he retired, and then Sims came on to fan six of nine. That’s 21 total strikeouts, a record for a nine-inning CWS game.
Making the stellar pitching all the more amazing was the fact that the wind was blowing straight out to center field at Ameritrade Park. Of course you have to hit the ball for the wind to become a factor, and Texas so rarely touched either Bednar or Sims.
Bednar’s stuff was nothing short of electric. He utilized a 95 mph fastball that he located on both sides of the plate and up and down in the strike zone. His slider was evil, breaking sharply and downward. A fourth inning slider broke all the way across the plate and actually hit a Texas batter Eric Kennedy, a left-handed batter, on his left leg. It was as if Bednar was throwing a Wiffle ball.
If a Longhorn batter tried to key on Bednar’s fastball, he was helpless against Bednar’s slider. If the Longhorn looked for slider, he was tardy on the fastball. Bednar, 21-year-old draft-eligible sophomore, surely made himself some money this night. He dominated Texas, a red-hot team, and he did it before an announced crowd of 23,885 fans in college baseball’s Valhalla, Omaha. When Bednar left the game in the seventh inning, seemingly all those fans stood and applauded.
Yes, Bednar said, “It was probably my best ever” performance, “especially on this big a stage.”
Had to be. He allowed only one hit, a fourth inning single up the middle. That was one of only four fair balls the Longhorns managed off Bednar. The others were an infield pop up and two routine fly ball outs.
Meanwhile, Texas starter Ty Madden, a sure-fire first-round draft pick, pitched heroically in a losing effort. He went seven innings, allowing only four hits while striking out 10 and walking two. State got to him for two runs — all the Bulldogs would need — in the fourth inning. Kamren James walked to lead off the inning and then took third on Luke Hancock’s sharp single to right field. James later scored on Scotty Dubrule’s sacrifice fly. And then Hancock scored on Brad Cumbest’s wind-blown triple down the right field line.
Texas did not score until the ninth, but that’s when things got really hairy for State. Sims had retired all six Longhorns he faced in the seventh and eighth innings — five on strikeouts, one on an infield popup. In other words, he had been dominant. And then up stepped Mike Antico to lead off the ninth and he slammed a Sims fastball well over the fence in right centerfield. After Sims retired the next two batters, Ivan Melendez and Cam Williams both singled, putting runners at first and third. That’s when Sims used a slider to get the last out on a grounder to second base. Appropriately, Bednar led the charge out of the State dugout to congratulate Sims.
And so, on their third straight visit to Omaha, the Bulldogs won their CWS opener for the third straight time. That wasn’t lost on State centerfielder Rowdey Jordan, who has been a key member of all three of those Bulldog teams.
“That’s going to be something we talk about,” Jordan said afterward. “We’ve come up short the other times. So I think you celebrate a little bit, but then you put it behind you and that’s what we’re going to tell younger guys: look, guys, we’ve been here, we didn’t get it done, so let’s keep playing good.”
State next plays Tuesday at 6 p.m. against Virginia, which defeated Tennessee 6-0 earlier Sunday. The winner of that game will be in the driver’s seat to advance to the best-two-of-three championship series.
