Darned if you do, darned if you don’t. Sure, it is good for kids to be in school — socially and academically. And working parents don’t want their kids left home alone. HOWEVER, we just happen to be in the middle of a huge spike of cases with widespread community spread of the disease (which will be made worse by the kids being in school.) You also have to be concerned about staff members who are at risk from the virus. So should Mississippi go ahead and start schools now or wait like some districts have done? I guess we will find out.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Gov. Tate Reeves walks out of the Governor’s Mansion in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, March 26, 2020, as he prepares to speak to media about the coronavirus during a press conference.
As students are set to return to classrooms later this week and Mississippi becomes one of the nation’s most dangerous COVID-19 hotspots, all eyes are turning toward Gov. Tate Reeves, who is expected to announce a decision this week about whether to allow schools to reopen.
Reeves’ aides say the governor spent the weekend personally assessing reopening plans of the state’s 138 public school districts, which had to submit proposals to the state by Friday. The districts, thus far, have been given free rein to decide for themselves how and when to reopen, and most have opted to resume in-person instruction within the next week.
But last week, Reeves suggested he could delay the reopenings with a statewide mandate after reading the districts’ plans — which he’s been doing while on an out-of-state trip.
“He’s with his family on the coast — avoiding crowds and poring over the school reopening plans,” Parker Briden, Reeves’ deputy chief of staff for external affairs, said in a text message on Saturday. “He brought a binder about a foot high with all of our school districts’ plans — 598 pages in total — to read through while spending a few secluded days with his girls before they return to school.”
Briden said the governor also spoke with Vice President Mike Pence this weekend about school reopening plans and the coronavirus relief package being negotiated in Washington. Asked to address why Reeves was out of the state while such a consequential decision looms, Briden added: “If you’d like to know what he has for dinner, I can report back once he is done!”
Mississippi currently has the highest COVID-19 positivity rate in the country and the third-highest daily new case rate. COVID hospitalizations continue to rise, and the daily patient rolls nearly doubled in the past month. A recent report from George Washington University shows Mississippi is one of 11 states either at or nearing a shortage of ICU providers.
State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs in a video session on Friday with the Mississippi State Medical Association said he believes in-person school reopening should wait, at least until September.
“I was off,” Dobbs said in the video. “I thought maybe it would be the right time to start in August — until about a little while ago… I think it’s a good idea to delay school. There’s nothing magic about August.”
The president of the Mississippi Association of Educators, the state’s teachers union, addressed a video to Reeves on Monday morning, pointedly asking him to delay the start of school until early September.
“Gov. Reeves, I am a second grade teacher, a public school advocate and a mom,” Jones said in the video. “I am asking you to keep our students, our educators and our communities safe by keeping school buildings closed until after Labor Day… Please understand, regardless of the decision you make this week, schools will eventually close. Those closures can happen safely now, with a comprehensive plan in place, or it can happen when the first outbreak happens, or when the unthinkable happens and we lose a member of a school community.
“This is quite literally an issue of life or death, and the ripple effects of this decision will be felt far beyond the confines of a school building,” Jones said on Monday.
Dobbs said the Health Department is also going to “recommend universal masks in schools for all age groups” and said he believes classes should have no more than half their normal capacity of students.
Dobbs said he has has reviewed school reopening plan summaries and been dismayed by some.
“A lot of them just say traditional school,” Dobbs said. “Believe it or not, ‘We’re just going back to school,’ which to me is wholly unacceptable. It’s crazy.”
“It’s impossible to imagine we are not going to pay the price for cramming kids into schools right now,” Dobbs said.
In recent days, Reeves has publicly warned of the dangers associated with children not returning to the classroom. Many parents are worried about how they’ll keep their jobs or handle childcare if their kids don’t start school on time. Parents and teachers alike have expressed concern over students’ wellbeing if they miss school and in-person interaction in a rural state where many districts lack the ability to provide adequate distance learning.
“The reopening of schools in this environment is a major challenge. I understand that,” Reeves said in a press conference on Thursday. “But to those individuals in our state who say the public health of the spread of the risk of the coronavirus is the only risk at play when making a decision about our schools are ignoring so many other risks that exist out there.”
Reeves continued: “We know that we are not going to mitigate 100% of the risk on either side of this equation. What we must do is look for innovative ways to reach what we all believe is the right outcome. And the right outcome longterm for kids is that they are in an environment that is loving and produces and provides an educational opportunity.”
As he weighs the schools decision, Reeves is also drawing scorn for not issuing a statewide mask mandate, as most other states have done, and Mississippi’s COVID statistics continue to worsen. As of Friday, Mississippians in 37 of the state’s 82 counties — representing more than half of the state’s population — were required to wear masks in public because of an executive order from Reeves.
Several medical professionals and local politicians have questioned why Reeves has ordered mask mandates for individual counties that are already seeing spikes in cases rather than being more proactive with a statewide mandate and stopping the virus spread before it begins.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann is serving as the state’s acting governor as Reeves remains out of state — the typical process spelled out in state law.
Good Tuesday Morning everyone! Temperatures are comfortable outdoors this morning and in the low 70s, under mostly clear skies. Almost everyone will stay dry & mostly sunny today, but there is a slight chance of a scattered shower/thunderstorm. Rain chances remain low for the entire work week, thanks to high pressure moving into the area. Temperatures will not be too oppressive today with a high near 87. North wind 5 to 10 mph. Tonight will be mostly clear, with a low around 66.
Today I went to I-Heart Media to meet Melonie Kight. She has a degree in commercial art and worked with U.S. Department of Agriculture. She got to help create the slides for the scientist as they studied bowevils. When she moved to Tupelo she was working with United Way. A volunteer with United Way was a manager at I-Heart media and offered her a sales position. The rest is history.
She loves meeting new people with her job and helping a clients business grow. When she meets with any client they do a Client Needs Assessment. This will help her to develop a marketing commercial specific to that customer. Her clients range from promoting events to promotions to advertising to digital sales. Her favorites are writing creative lifestyle commercials.
Melonie has learned in her years of media sales that the strangest thing can effect your economy. She has also learned that you may think you know what a business does until you sit down to interview them. She advises anyone looking to get into media sales to work hard and always be a good listener. You get out of the job what you put into it. But number 1 is to just have fun.
She believes that Tupelo is a small city with a big attitude. There are always things going on and things to do. In fact, she is involved with a-lot of the event committees including Friends of the Park and the 4th of July Committee. She would bet that people didn’t know that their I-Heart stations have stayed the same format throughout the years. She also loves when people learn that the stations they love are played here in Tupelo, MS. Their six stations include Wizard 106, KZ103, 92.5 The Beat, Big 99.3, WKMQ and The Alt 107.7. I-Heart radio is also the biggest podcaster in the country. That’s your trivia for the day.
This afternoon I met with Fire Chief Thomas Walker. Mr. Walker is from Iuka, MS but moved to Tupelo in 1998 to be an arson investigator for the Tishomingo Co Sheriff Department. He was an investigator for 6-7 years before being promoted to Fire Chief. Mr. Walker fell in love with the job of fire fighter at the age of 10. When he was old enough he became a volunteer and the rest is history.
He advises anyone looking to pursue this career to take 2 years of community college out of HS. Sign up for public service and public safety classes. Also get your EMT license. Apply for any and all departments. Don’t be picky but get your foot in the door. You have to start somewhere. He says that Columbia Southern has firefighting degrees that you can get online.
The Tupelo Fire Departments motto is “We Help People.” This is what Mr. Walker loves about his job. He knows that firefighters see people on their worst day. It is their job to help them get through this day. Part of the departments core training is teaching value and compassion to be that shoulder someone needs. Mr. Walker says that “God is in complete control and we are here to play a small part.”
Mr. Walker loves Tupelo for their opportunities and the people. His children have grown up here and excelled in school and sports. He says that when you live in Tupelo that there is no denying the Tupelo Spirit. It will inspire you all the time.
He loves his team and loves how hard they work. They work in 24 hour shifts and are constantly working on maintenance, cleaning hoses, training or running calls. Once their daily duties are done, then they can rest. I have seen in their down time they came a pretty mean grill. There are a total of 7 fire houses in Tupelo and they are all full of heroes.
Matt Laubhan is from central Kansas. He never thought he would be living in Tupelo, MS, but as he said, “Sometimes God intervenes.” He and his wife Emily both work in the news and were able to move together to the same station.
Matt loves that they were able to move to a safe and vibrant town such as Tupelo, MS. He says that is a rarity in the TV business, but says he has really enjoyed raising his family here.
Ironically, even though he grew up in Kansas, he said he was scared of tornados. (I mean, they had the most famous tornado from the Wizard of Oz!) But luckily, what started as fear turned into curiosity and respect.
He loves that his job allows him to save people lives by keeping them up to date with the weather and upcoming storms. He very much understands that people can’t always predict the weather; that is up to science and God. But the science part allows him to predict the weather in ways that we previously weren’t able to.
He has also learned throughout this job that humility is important. “About the time you think you’ve got it all figured out, God sends a curveball, reminding you how little you really do know.”
The reason for this photo location is that this was part of the path of 2014 tornado. Matt had an amazing part in that story of keeping the city informed of the tornado’s path. I will let him tell that story because it was quite remarkable:
“We moved here in April 2011. My first day on air was April 14, 2011. On April 27, 2011, less than 2 weeks later, the largest tornado outbreak in US history occurred, including an E-F5 tornado in Smithville, an E-F5 tornado in Philadelphia, and an E-F5 tornado in Hackleburg/Phil Campbell, Alabama. There is no question in my mind that outbreak was the reason why God picked us up and moved us here. Because of the absolutely massive nature of the 2011 outbreak, people often lump the Tupelo tornado in with the outbreak.
The Tupelo E-F3 tornado occurred on April 28, 2014, three years and one day later. Both outbreaks were obvious a week before and myself and our meteorologists were screaming from the rafters that bad tornadoes were possible.
When the tornado hit, some of the tornado sirens did not sound. It was clearly visible from our tower cam, and we did street by street coverage of it as it moved through the city. It cut off power throughout town including at the TV station and severed our downstream internet connection for hours, leaving us blind for an hour. It knocked out DIRECTV, Dish, and cable, yet thankfully we continued to broadcast from our over the air transmitter, and folks could watch us online because of our amazing support staff.
No one died in the Tupelo tornado, although one woman did hydroplane during the storm. It has taken parts in the city years to recover. Unfortunately others died in tornadoes that occurred in Winston County later that day.
It was not the largest or strongest tornado in Tupelo history — those descriptions go to the 1936 tornado, which is one of the deadliest on record — but the lack of fatalities was truly God’s grace, and a testament to the people of Tupelo taking the warnings seriously.”
I will leave you with this last piece of advice from Matt : “If you ask the Lord and he is willing, only you can kill your dream before it begins. People can tell you that you can’t do it, and people can shame you for it, but it’s your dream, and no one will live it and make it fly like you can.”
I met Don Knight this afternoon, the owner of Johnnies Drive-Inn. Johnnies is the oldest restaurant in town at 75 years old. Everyone knows it was one of Elvis’ favorite spots. There is even an Elvis booth. And yes they serve the peanut butter and banana sandwich.
Mr. Knight has been in the restaurant business since he was 16. He started working for his mom and dad. He learned a valuable lesson then from his friend Bill Elmore. Mr. Elmore said that it is always a 1 on 1 relationship and that you should always thank the customers to show that you appreciate them. Mr. Knight will ask you to call his hand if he doesn’t tell you thank you.
Mr. Knight loves that he gets to meet new people everyday. He will say its a very demanding business but good food and service are top key. He believes one of the main reasons they are still here is that they never forget to cater to their customer. The customer should always be first. He knows all his regulars by name and by car. He also makes sure that he never serves anything he wouldn’t eat himself.
The biggest thing he has learned from this job is that everyday is a new day. If you got mad yesterday, just forget it and start the day fresh.
He has had a lot of Elvis fans come by to see the restaurant and the booth. A lady asked him one time if they collect names of all their visitors. That’s the day they started. Anyone that stops by can sign it or write a little story. He now has 16 full books and has had visitors from all countries. He has even had a few celebrities come by like Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top and Ronnie McDowell.
Lucien Smith, chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party, speaks at a state GOP election night victory party, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Gov. Tate Reeves, as de facto head of the Mississippi GOP, plans to replace Lucien Smith as chairman of the state party, numerous Republican sources said.
The change is not because of any major political dispute, most of those sources say, and Smith has appeared to be widely respected among party leaders. It’s partly because Smith is an attorney at a major law firm that does millions of dollars in business with the state and Reeves believes that is untoward and wants a chairman with no such entanglements.
Reeves and Smith did appear to be politically crosswise recently over the Legislature changing the state flag, with its divisive Confederate battle emblem. Although the party proper didn’t take a position, Smith told Mississippi Today, “Now is the time … for Mississippi to retire its current flag and adopt a flag that unifies all Mississippians.”
Reeves, at the time, had opposed the Legislature making the change, saying that decision should be made by popular vote.
The leadership change is not likely to happen at Saturday’s state GOP convention, which is being held online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Republicans are expected to elect a 52-member executive committee, a national committeewoman and committeeman and the party’s six electors on Saturday.
A change in the state GOP chairmanship is more likely to come after the Republican National Convention that starts Aug. 24.
“I know the governor and chairman have had conversations about a change of leadership of the party,” said Reeves’ chief of staff Brad White, himself a former MSGOP chairman. “But there’s no sense of urgency and any discussion of who (a new chairman) might be is purely speculation at this point.”
White had little further comment on the issue, other than to say, “I think Lucien has been a fine chairman, and having been in that role I know how challenging it can be … He has served honorably.”
It’s typical for a sitting Republican governor, as head of the state party, to pick a new chairman. While the executive committee technically elects a GOP chairman, a governor’s choice is typically installed by acclamation. There has been no major executive committee challenge to a Republican governor’s chairman nomination in recent history.
Some party leaders said the fact that Reeves didn’t more promptly replace Smith is an indication that there’s no major conflict between the two — contrary to any rumors.
Former Gov. Phil Bryant, for instance, made it one of his first orders of business when inaugurated in 2012 to accept the resignation of then-Chairman Arnie Hederman and successfully push the nomination of Joe Nosef.
Bryant nominated Smith as the 12th chairman of the MSGOP in 2017 after Nosef abruptly resigned.
Smith, an attorney with Balch and Bingham law firm, previously served as chief of staff to Bryant and as counsel and budget adviser to former Gov. Haley Barbour. Smith ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 2011.
Smith was at the helm of the party during one of its most politically prosperous times. In last year’s elections, Republicans took all eight statewide elected seats including the the governor’s office, most districtwide seats and increased their supermajority control over the Legislature.
Smith declined a request for comment, but a party spokeswoman sent a statement on Friday.
“Mississippi Republicans have enjoyed unprecedented success in recent years, and Gov. Reeves and Chairman Smith have worked together closely to build and deliver that success,” said MSGOP spokeswoman Nicole Webb. “Likewise, they have worked jointly to develop a slate of candidates to be considered for the MSGOP executive committee. The slate will be presented to delegates at (Saturday’s) state convention ….”
While several names are floating around as possible replacements for Smith, GOP sources said they hadn’t heard a definitive short list, and noted Reeves is known to keep such deliberation and decisions close to the vest.
The state Democratic Party in recent weeks saw a contentious battle for its chairmanship that resulted in the resignation of incumbent chairman Bobby Moak and the election of former Judge Tyree Irving as new chairman.
