The federal government allotted Mississippi $18 million through the Emergency Solutions Grant COVID-19 to prevent homelessness during the pandemic. In Mississippi, the program is called the Rental Assistance for Mississippians Program (RAMP).
In an earlier relief package, the federal government offered states almost $3 billion in rental assistance grants to cover the gaps for people who found themselves unable to afford rent due to the pandemic. Mississippi initially received $8 million — which it began administering through three housing programs in northern, central and southern regions of the state in late June — and then another $10 million.
But it will take at least $100 million to meet the enormous need across the state, researchers estimate.
Mississippi’s unemployment rate jumped 2% from June to July as more people began seeking work in the fourth month of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Extended unemployment benefits — which offered an additional $600-a-week on top of Mississippi’s $235 weekly max — ended on July 31 while Congress remained in gridlock over a new relief package.
The state’s unemployment rate, which had hovered around 5.5% before the pandemic, was 10.8% in July, just above the nation’s rate of 10.1%, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Gov. Tate Reeves announced Thursday the state would apply for a $300 weekly boost offered by President Donald Trump’s recent executive order. The state must match the federal money by $100, but Reeves said it would use the existing state payments to recipients for this match, meaning Mississippi’s lowest-income earners receiving state benefits under $100 will not receive the supplement. This could apply to part-time workers who earned $866-a-month or less — $8.66-an-hour on 25-hour work weeks — before the pandemic.
Reeves said Thursday he estimated the state would start issuing payments within one to three weeks, but a release by the Mississippi Department of Employment Security said the state must wait for federal approval and then it will take three to four weeks before funds are available.
In April, almost every state, including Mississippi, recorded their single highest unemployment rate dating back to 1976, the earliest year in the publication. In Mississippi, the figure was 16.3%.
When the pandemic hit in March, Mississippi’s unemployed population rose to almost 200,000 Mississippians, or about one-sixth of the labor force, within a month. But an additional nearly 70,000, about 5% of the worker population, also left the labor force altogether in that time.
As people started returning to work in Mississippi in May and June, the percentage of jobless workers started to shrink, but as others who had fallen out of the labor force started looking for work again in July, the jobless rate ticked up.
About 133,000 people in Mississippi were still unemployed in July, almost 30,000 more than in June, but about 38,000 people also reentered the workforce in that time, according to the national monthly household survey.
Mississippi was one of 14 states whose jobless rates increased from June to July, based on preliminary figures.
Nearly 200,000 people were seeking unemployment benefits in Mississippi by early August, according to the most recent data published by the U.S. Department of Labor. To qualify typically, an jobless person must be willing and able to return to work and be searching for a job. Reeves initially waived the state’s work search requirement, but that expired in early August, which means people will have to prove they are looking for work to continue receiving benefits.
Employers that have since reopened and called employees back to work may notify the state unemployment office if a worker is electing not to return and the state will end their benefits.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Gov. Tate Reeves speaks to media about his shelter-in-place order for Lauderdale County, as Executive Director of MEMA Col. Gregory S. Michel listens during a press conference at the State of Mississippi Woolfolk Building in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, March 31, 2020.
The Mississippi Legislature is scheduled to convene at 4 p.m.Monday to try to pass a budget for the Department of Marine Resources, which has been in limbo from a fight between the Legislature and Gov. Tate Reeves over spending authority.
Passing the agency’s budget has taken on new urgency, as it would reportedly face problems making payroll by the end of the month, and as two potential hurricanes bear down on the Gulf Coast.
DMR, which provides regulatory and marine law enforcement services on the Gulf Coast, has been without a state budget since July 1 .
Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann are calling the Legislature back into session.
At issue is oversight of Gulf restoration funds Mississippi receives for oil and gas leases. The Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, or GOMESA, is a federal revenue sharing program for oil and gas producing states in the Gulf. For this year, the state has about $46 million in GOMESA funds.
Legislative sources on Friday said a deal has been made for lawmakers to leave about $26 million allocated for projects already approved or started. Of the remaining money for this year, $10 million would be left for the governor to approve the projects, as has been done since the program’s inception. For the remaining $10 million, projects would be submitted to the Legislature for its approval.
The deal would apply only to this year’s DMR budget and GOMESA funds. Moving forward, lawmakers would continue to haggle over what control the governor or Legislature has over the projects and spending.
Legislative sources said there is some urgency in resolving the issue and passing a DMR budget. The agency will reportedly have trouble meeting payroll by the end of the month, and there are two potential hurricanes bearing down on the Gulf, which could potentially make landfall early to mid next week. DMR would need budget and spending flexibility to handle emergency work in marine waters before and after a storm.
Since its inception in 2006, then-Mississippi Govs. Haley Barbour and Phil Bryant controlled approval of GOMESA projects vetted by DMR as the revenue started out small but continued to grow.
In recent years, lawmakers and others have questioned whether projects chosen are helping coastal restoration and protection, or if they are just pet political projects.
Millions in GOMESA funds have been granted to build boardwalks near casinos, a planned aquarium in Gulfport — including a tram system threatened to be “de-obligated” for not meeting GOMESA requirements — and other projects critics have said don’t meet the intended purpose.
This year, House lawmakers wanted to include legislative oversight of GOMESA spending in DMR’s budget, saying the Legislature, not the governor, controls state purse strings. Gov, Tate Reeves has called the move a “power grab” and said he should continue to control the money as his predecessors did. Coast lawmakers have been divided over the issue.
The Senate, over which Reeves presided for eight years as lieutenant governor, has balked at stripping the GOMESA spending authority from the governor.
Lawmakers set the rest of a $6 billion state budget and left town July 1 still at an impasse over the DMR budget. They had plans to return within a week and haggle out DMR’s budget, but a COVID-19 outbreak at the Capitol infected 49 legislators and had the Capitol shut down for weeks.
Lawmakers reconvened earlier in August, in large part to override Reeves’ veto of most of the public education budget. Lawmakers successfully squashed his veto, the first time since 2002 the Legislature has overridden a governor’s veto. But lawmakers remained at an impasse over the DMR budget and GOMESA spending.
Normally the Legislature would not be able to convene itself this late in the year and would be dependent on the governor to call a special session. Earlier this year, though, the Legislature approved a resolution allowing them to reconvene to deal with COVID-19 issues. The Legislature presumably could convene for the pandemic, and then take up non-coronavirus related issues.
University of North Carolina students wait outside of Woolen Gym on the Chapel Hill, N.C., campus as they wait to enter for a fitness class Monday, Aug. 17, 2020. The University announced minutes before that all classes will be moved online starting Wednesday, Aug. 19 due to COVID clusters on campus. (Julia Wall/The News & Observer via AP)
Two Mississippi universities reported COVID-19 outbreaks this week as tens of thousands of students return to campuses across the state.
Faculties are publicly urging administrators to reconsider face-to-face instruction plans.
Colleges around the country have been forced to halt their in-person reopenings, and the talk of American higher ed this week is how to keep students safe during the worsening pandemic.
But on Thursday, the 12-member board of trustees of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning — the governing body of the state’s eight public universities — held a 26-minute meeting that ended without a single mention of the coronavirus.
The IHL board’s monthly meetings are an opportunity to communicate with the public about issues facing the higher education community. Board members on Thursday, participating in a conference call meeting, however, did not discuss the most topical issue.
An IHL spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment after the meeting.
All of Mississippi’s public universities opened on Aug. 17 except for the University of Mississippi, which is scheduled to open Aug. 24.
This week, the board’s regular meeting happened the day after the state’s top health official announced that the Mississippi Department of Health was investigating two outbreaks at Mississippi universities.
“We’re extremely concerned about colleges,” State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said during a Wednesday press conference. “We’ve seen, certainly across the country, a lot of situations where people have actually had to close college right after they opened it. Certainly, that’s not something that we would want to see (in Mississippi).”
One of the confirmed outbreaks is at the University of Mississippi, and one is at the Mississippi University for Women. Dobbs did not disclose the number of confirmed cases for these outbreaks, but he said the MUW outbreak occurred after students visited the Cotton District in Starkville, home to the much larger Mississippi State University.
“Not a big surprise, right? We know when people socialize and get in groups, concentrated, not wearing masks they’re absolutely going to spread the coronavirus,” Dobbs said.
The University of Notre Dame shut down all in-person classes eight days after classes started and moved fully online for at least two weeks because of COVID-19 outbreaks. Similarly, the University of North Carolina stopped all in-person classes within a week of starting the fall semester.
As of Aug. 20, the number of confirmed Coronavirus cases on UM’s campus had risen to 161 total with 28 new cases this week.
The week before, UM faculty pressed Chancellor Glenn Boyce at a town hall meeting about why the university planned to reopen when area infection rates have significantly worsened. Boyce alluded to a system-wide decision, but faculty otherwise could not get a clear answer.
In the weeks leading up to the start of school, faculty of at least two Mississippi universities sent open letters imploring their administrations to rethink their reopening plans.
Delta State University’s letter asked that all but “essential classes” be moved online.
“The situation worsens by the day and to ignore the likelihood of a coming health catastrophe on our campus is a position morally untenable to us,” the letter reads.
Mississippi State University’s letter, signed by more than 300, proposed the same and called to conscience what returning to school would mean for the university’s most vulnerable staff members.
“Janitorial and custodial workers face the greatest risk from a large population returning to campus, and they will not be receiving hazard pay … Those facing the greatest risks of exposure through an increase of student contact have had little say in the decision-making process, have less job security, more limited benefits, and are not being compensated for their heightened vulnerability.”
Eric J. Shelton, Mississippi Today/ Report for America
University of Mississippi fans cheer during the Ole Miss-Alabama game on Saturday, Sept. 15, 2018.
No tailgating and other social gatherings will be allowed before or after college football games, and stadiums will be limited to 25% capacity under an executive order Gov. Tate Reeves announced Thursday.
Reeves acknowledged the ban on tailgating during the COVID-19 pandemic will be unpopular. In Mississippi, tailgating is often considered more popular than the game itself.
But on Thursday, Reeves touted the fact that Mississippi is scheduled to have football. Some conferences, such as the Pac-12 and Big Ten, have cancelled their fall seasons.
“This is an effort, which we worked closely with the universities on, to set the floor,” he said in a statement. “…This the minimum that each school is required to do this fall to keep players and spectators safe while allowing college football to occur.”
While some athletic conferences have opted not to compete this fall, the Southeastern Conference, of which both the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State are members, plan to start their football season on Sept. 26.
The University of Southern Mississippi is slated to kick off its football season hosting South Alabama on Sept. 3. The Southwestern Athletic Conference, of which Jackson State, Alcorn State and Mississippi Valley are members, plan to play a spring football slate.
Reeves announced the executive order Thursday during his near-daily coronavirus update.
“I have made clear to the universities that they have to work hard to make sure these guidelines are strictly enforced,” Reeves said.
The guidelines mandate six feet separation in seating for people who are not part of the same family. It also mandates hand sanitizer being provided at the stadium and the opening of all entry gates and restrooms to limit crowding. A mask mandate will also be in effect when spectators are not seated.
The current executive order limiting crowd size to 10 people indoors and 20 people outdoors will govern stadium luxury boxes, Reeves said.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Gov. Tate Reeves speaks to media during a press conference on Tuesday, March 31, 2020.
Mississippians unemployed during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to soon receive an extra $300 a week in federal unemployment aid from a Trump administration order, but the payments probably won’t last for long, Gov. Tate Reeves said Thursday.
“If you get an offer to go back to your old job, or to get a new job, please do so,” Reeves said on Thursday. “We don’t know when this will run out, but there is a set amount of money … and it’s highly likely the money will run out soon.”
If the state is approved for the program, those eligible — people unemployed by the pandemic and receiving at least $100 a week currently in state unemployment — would receive payments of $300 more a week, back-dated to Aug. 1. Reeves estimated it would take the state 1-3 weeks before it can begin sending payments to people.
Reeves announced that Mississippi is joining 19 other states that had applied for the unemployment money as of Thursday. Eleven have been approved and only one, Arizona, has begun paying the benefit. States are being approved initially for three weeks worth of payments to unemployed people. Trump’s order says the program will run through December, but experts this week said the money allocated is likely to run out long before that.
In a move that had politicians on both sides of the aisle questioning whether Trump was overstepping his constitutional authority, he announced earlier this month an executive order that would provide unemployed people with up to $400 a week in additional unemployment benefits. This comes after Congress’ $600-a-week in federal unemployment assistance ended in July and lawmakers remain in a partisan deadlock over a new relief package. Trump’s order uses $44 billion in FEMA funds for natural disaster relief to supplement state unemployment.
Trump’s order requires a state “match.” It allows states to either add $100 a week in unemployment benefits, bringing people’s total to $400, or to count unemployment benefits they are already paying out toward the $100 match.
Mississippi is choosing the latter, meaning qualified unemployed people will receive $300 a week, not $400.
Reeves said the state could not afford to provide an additional $100 a week in unemployment, which would have cost the state about $20 million to $22 million a week, roughly what the state is already spending on unemployment insurance benefits.
“We don’t have an extra $22 million a week for 8-10 weeks laying around in this state to provide an additional $100,” Reeves said.
In Mississippi, state benefits are a maximum $235 a week, with the average payment at less than $200, compared to the national average of $308 a week.
Nearly 200,000 Mississippians are seeking unemployment, according to the most recent data released Thursday, and the state’s unemployment rate was at 8.7 percent as of June.
Reeves has praised Trump for “trying to step up and help struggling workers” and criticized Congress for its inability to pass a pandemic relief plan.
Reeves said the presidential order comes under the federal Stafford Act governing emergency spending, and that by proxy his administration can apply for and implement the program without state legislative action.
Whitney Wages loads up her belongings, including a crate of journals, from her apartment outside of Oxford, Mississippi, on August 16, 2020. Her landlord chose not to renew her monthly lease, expelling her in the middle of a pandemic after she made a Facebook post critical of President Donald Trump.
‘I don’t want to rent to you anymore’
A Trump supporter kicked her tenant out after a political disagreement. In Mississippi, some renters live at the whims of landlords with little recourse.
The difference between housing stability or an expulsion can hinge on personalities and the landlord-tenant relationship.
Editor’s note: This article contains language that some readers may find offensive.
Whitney Wages first found her landlord, 77-year-old Wilma Hughes, wearing a housedress and sitting on her porch swing during Wages’ search for a new home in March of 2019.
Wages, 31, recalls the first words Hughes, co-owner of a large plot of land and several rentals off a county road outside of Oxford, said to her: “Well, shit! Took you long enough.”
Wages, who is white, disabled and depends on a patchwork of public assistance, said it was the nicest place she ever lived. So the college-educated artist and baker grit her teeth at Hughes’ offensive and racist remarks — up until Hughes forced her out of her rental last month, calling her a “welfare POS.”
“I don’t know what I did to displease her,” Wages said. “I did everything she asked but go get a fucking watermelon from the goddamn farmer’s market on a Tuesday.”
Mississippi’s housing laws heavily favor landlords, resulting in outcomes for renters that are “completely personality driven,” said Desiree Hensley, who runs the Housing Clinic at the University of Mississippi School of Law.
Because renters have little control and protections over their dwelling, experts say, the tone of the personal relationship between a tenant and landlord can play as big a role as anything when it comes to evictions and expulsions.
That did not bode well for Wages, a liberal-thinking recipient of government benefits, living in a house owned by a Trump supporter who recently said she’s “sick of everybody holding their hands out.”
Hughes sent the 30-day expulsion notice by text message about an hour after Wages shared a post on Facebook suggesting that arresting President Donald Trump, who was impeached less than a year ago, would heal the nation.
But neither political opinions nor socioeconomic class describe protected groups under the federal Fair Housing Act, so while ending a tenancy based on those biases might constitute discrimination, Hensley said, “it’s just not a type of discrimination that is unlawful if a private landlord does it.”
Hughes declined to discuss this story when reached, telling this reporter: “Kiss my ass and don’t call this number again.”
For Wages — who is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, complex post traumatic stress disorder, agoraphobia and also struggles with joint pain and sciatica — Hughes’ place was perfect.
The apartment, with its wood paneled walls and brushed concrete floors, was clean and affordable on her limited income. Being just one story, she wouldn’t have to struggle up and down stairs. It offered lots of outdoor space for her to get fresh air and even plant a garden.
And Hughes agreed to accept Wages’ federal housing voucher, a critical hurdle for her when looking for a place to live. Mississippi law does not prohibit landlords from discriminating against rent applicants who receive the housing subsidy as 11 other states do.
Wages moved there within two months, eager to leave behind a shabby house in Baldwyn filled with memories of her ex-husband.
In the following year, despite vastly different worldviews, the two women developed a relationship. Wages would run errands for Hughes, picking up buttermilk from the market, or gin and a “big ole jug” of Burgundy wine from the liquor store. Hughes brought over jarred salsas and they made Sauerkraut together. They shared progress on their home projects — Hughes’ new headboard and Wages’ tomato plants.
On July 21, Hughes asked if Wages planned to go to the market. She was craving watermelon. But Wages had developed a sore throat and was going to get tested for COVID-19 instead.
The next day, Wages shared a Facebook post that called President Donald Trump a fraud and a traitor and predicted his loss in the upcoming election.
Hughes, a staunch Trump supporter, did not appreciate it: “Well I don,t know you at all_ a lot of stuff you pass on_ I can not comprehend_ but Trump is not POS_!!!¡” she commented.
About twenty minutes later, Hughes told Wages in a text message she needed to vacate her house in 30 to 45 days. “I do not want to live with a negative person like your self,” she wrote. Wages got a formal letter a few days later.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Whitney Wages received a much needed breather when her unemployment benefits came in mid-July. She paid off some of her debts, including her vehicle, and paid upfront for future bills. The promise of stability was cut short when her landlord expelled her from her apartment, which she was renting month to month after her one year lease expired in March.
The news was a blow to the independence Wages had finally gained in her apartment over the last year, an especially important achievement for someone living with mental illness. Wages receives $794 in social security benefits due to her disability, which means she can’t earn more than $1,260 a month at any job. Despite her limited income, she never missed rent.
Wages had recently left her prep cook job at Proud Larry’s restaurant because she was planning to start substitute teaching at Lafayette County School District. That opportunity fell through when the pandemic hit in March — she didn’t have internet access to teach remotely. She also left a part-time job at local market and restaurant Chicory Market in March, fearing for her health.
But after receiving her more than $700-a-week unemployment benefits in mid-July, more money than she’d ever made before, Wages was finally able to pay off several debts, a veterinarian bill for her cat Wilson and the balance owed on her red 2013 Hyundai Tucson. She paid other bills months in advance and bought a new lens for her camera that she planned use to do freelance photography.
The benefits allowed Wages to stay safe and sheltered-in-place during the pandemic so far and offered some promise of financial comfort. They also irked her landlord.
“You get all this free unemployment money_after you Had quit your jobs_ how much of that did you pay on student loans!? None because you will never pay_ say it isn,t so?” Hughes wrote in a text message after notifying Wages she must move.
Hughes wrote: “My money pays your SSI, medicare, food stamps, unpaid tuition, etc_ can you not even try to understand??”
Wages’ reprieve from poverty was short lived. Right as she was losing her housing, her unemployment benefits also dropped to just $140-a-week. Congress has yet to determine if it will extend the benefit boost as the pandemic continues to rage, though a recent executive order by the president may lead to a $300 boost soon.
Hughes was able to expel Wages from her property in a month’s time, and for little reason, because her initial lease ended in March. Though Wages didn’t realize it, that automatically began a month-to-month agreement, which Hughes was free not to renew at any time.
“The law gives the landlords too much power over the lives of the people they rent to,” Hensley said.
Mississippi law also allows owners to start the eviction process if a tenant is just three days behind on rent. In 2019, lawmakers removed a cushion in the law that gave tenants 10 days after an eviction to vacate. Current law allows landlords to immediately request a warrant for a renters removal the day of a judge’s order. The law also does not allow tenants to withhold rent when a landlord fails to conduct a repair at the unit, a common complaint of renters.
“It’s definitely a landlord’s world,” said Allison Cox, director of the Jackson Housing Authority.
Landlords who rent to people with a federal housing subsidy, such as Wages, sign a contract with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which contains certain cleanliness and safety standards. But if a landlord violates the contract, Hensley said, the most the housing authority can do is bar the property owner from contracting with HUD again — making little difference to a low-income renter potentially facing homelessness.
Wages secured her federal housing choice voucher, sometimes referred to as “Section 8”, in 2013. It pays a portion, usually between 50 and 65 percent of her rent, depending on how much income she earns. Typically, voucher holders are reluctant to give up the assistance, remaining on the program for many years. In the Oxford area, 109 families are on the wait-list for the voucher program — it will take several years before they are accepted.
Since her landlord gave notice of her ejection, Wages has struggled to find a new apartment that fits her income level and accessibility needs and accepts the voucher. She’s contacted units only for them to fill before she receives a call back.
“If you add a physical need to a unit on top of already trying to look for a price range, that increases the difficulty in finding a place,” Cox said. “That’s a tall order for that area.”
Wages has packed most of her belongings into a storage unit and moved into her partner’s apartment, which was already cramped by a roommate and another friend crashing on the couch. If Wages doesn’t find a place to use her voucher in 60 days, she could lose it, though the Oxford Housing Authority has promised to work with her.
Johnathan Hill, director of the Oxford Housing Authority, said most of their voucher holders have a six-month or year-long lease. But he estimated at least one-in-ten are on month-to-month leases, which may benefit tenants who want more freedom to move when they want. Otherwise, they’re “terrible for residents whose landlord, for whatever reason, says, ‘I don’t want to rent to you anymore,’” Hill said.
Hill said it’s unusual for an owner to elect to remove a paying tenant for something other than a major violation. Landlords have an interest in keeping units full and rent money flowing. But that doesn’t take into account other emotional human motivations.
Anna Wolfe
Whitney Wages hasn’t been staying in the Lafayette County home that she rents, with the help of a federal housing voucher, since her landlord ordered her to leave due to her political views. On a recent trip back, Wages noticed the owner had posted new Trump signs, including one that reads, “Make Liberals Cry Again”.
Right after Wages began documenting the landlord saga on her Facebook page, Hughes took to her own post: “I do know if I own land, rental house, pay taxes and up keep_ I do not have to have a welfare POS living there. I am not against empty house_ some things you just can,t digest!”
Wages said she hears this rhetoric all the time, resigning that “there are people that obviously hate me for just who I am, being a disabled woman on Section 8.”
“They don’t even know what welfare even means. They just assume it’s free money, so therefore I live a luscious lifestyle and I’m like, ‘Do I?’” Wages said. “I’m grateful I can put gas in my car when I can … I’m grateful that I can, you know, feed myself. I’m really grateful when I can decide what to feed myself and not have to go to the food pantry.”
“Who wants to live that way, hand to mouth?” she added.
On a recent trip back to the apartment to grab some belongings, Wages noticed some new Trump signs had been posted on the property.
Herbert Davis, who suffers from stage 5 kidney failure, coaches his MRA Patriots from a mechanical lift.
It’s 92 degrees in the shade and at least 110 on the sun-baked artificial turf at Madison-Ridgeland Academy where the defending private schools football state champion Patriots sweat through a spirited afternoon workout.
The MRA offense works on its passing game, watched over by a gray-bearded, heavyset man, wearing a baseball cap and gruffly shouting orders. Those instructions, laced with both praise and criticism, rain down from a mechanical lift platform suspended 12 feet or so above the field.
Rick Cleveland
“I could use a megaphone,” Herbert Davis tells a reporter later.
On the contrary, he did not need one.
Davis, the man overhead, has the appearance – and husky voice – of a 29-year veteran coach, which he is. But, as you will learn, there’s not much else that’s typical about this 53-year-old coach.
Take the mechanical lift. Davis doesn’t coach from above because he is imitating Bear Bryant. No, he coaches from the lift because it’s not safe for him to be close to his players. You see, Davis suffers from stage 5 (complete) kidney failure. He undergoes 7 1/2 hours of dialysis every night while he sleeps. He is on the kidney transplant waitlist, waiting for a matching donor.
We read and hear these days about the danger of certain underlying medical conditions amid this COVID-19 pandemic. Google it. Chronic kidney disease is among the first that will pop up.
The MRA team already has had players test positive for COVID during the pre-season. So my first question for Davis was a fairly obvious one: Aren’t you taking a huge risk?
“I am a football coach; this is what I do,” Davis responds. “You gotta live life. Now, in my case, you gotta live it smart. I coach from the lift at practice. I don’t go in the locker room. When I am around the kids, like in the film room, I wear two masks and a face shield.”
On road trips, he will take his own car. He won’t ride the team bus. Still, it seems an awful risk…
“I love the kids, I love the game,” Davis says. “This is who I am. Shutting it down was never a consideration. Never.”
Lonnie Keys/MRA
Kenny Williams (facing camera) shares a hug with his long-time friend and boss Herbert Davis after 2019 championship victory.
Know this about Herbert Davis. He is really, really good at what he does. His overall record as a head football coach is 196-85. In six previous seasons at MRA, he is 61-19. He is believed to be the only active coach in Mississippi to have coached five different schools to state championship games. Last year, MRA won its first state championship in 15 years, defeating perennial powerhouse Jackson Prep 48-33.
Davis has loved the sport since he was a child in Brookhaven. He played football and baseball at Brookhaven Academy and then both sports again at Copiah-Lincoln Community College. He played baseball at Mississippi College where he got his undergraduate degree, and then began coaching while he worked toward his master’s at Delta State.
“I started coaching because I loved to compete and I loved to win,” Davis says. “I’ve never considered anything else. You gotta understand my idea of a perfect weekend afternoon is to kick back and watch film.”
Says offensive line coach Kenny Williams, who has coached with Davis for 13 years, “Herbert doesn’t have a hobby; his hobby is coaching. He’s constantly watching games from the 60s, 70s and 80s when he’s not watching our film. He’s football 24-7. He really, really works at it. I love football like the next coach, but Herbert’s different. Sometimes, you want to say, ‘Coach, you know there is a life outside football.’ But that’s one reason why he’s so good at it.
“Something else you need to know, he really cares about these kids,” Williams continues. “He’s tough on them. He’s demanding, but he loves them and they know it. What he brings to the table are modern football schemes and an old-school work ethic. That’s a heckuva combination, if you ask me.”
Lonnie Keys/MRA
Davis shouts instructions during MRA’s 2019 championship victory over Jackson Prep.
Richard Duease, the MRA athletic director, knows a thing or two about coaching and a thing or two about winning. Duease is also the state’s all-time winningest basketball coach. Many years ago, Duease had the chance to hire Herbert Davis as his football coach and didn’t do it.
When the job came open again, seven years ago, Duease says, “I did not make the same mistake twice.”
“Herbert’s the best football coach I’ve ever been around, and I’ve been around a bunch of them,” Duease says. “He is so organized, he has a great staff and he has such a way with the players. They love him and play hard for him. He’s been successful everywhere he’s ever been, and now he’s been here longer than he’s ever been any other place. We want to keep it that way. We’ve just got to get him that kidney he needs.”
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Herbert Davis has a birds-eye view of his team’s offense, keeping him socially distanced from his players.
Davis says he first began to experience kidney problems in the form of debilitating kidney stones eight years ago. Gradually, his kidney function has worsened. He was in stage 4 (the last stage before failure) last season when he was coaching the Patriots to the school’s first-ever state football championship.
Two months after the championship, last January, Davis learned he had moved on to stage 5, complete failure, and would need a kidney donation to live a normal life.
“Obviously, right now, I’m not the guy I used to be, but I’m better now than I was this spring before we got the medicine right and I started the nightly dialysis at home,” Davis says. “I just hook it up before I got to sleep every night and when I wake up, it’s usually done. I’d shoot myself if I had to go to the clinic and do it all the time. I’ve got more energy now, but still sometimes at the end of the day I’m as tired as an old hound dog that’s been chasing rabbits all day.”
You would never suspect it from watching him coach from the lift with the sun beating down and heat reflecting off the artificial turf on a brutally hot afternoon. He is into it, and his players are into him. When he speaks, they listen intently. If math and science teachers could command the same attention, we’d have a lot more and better engineers.
“We’re behind, we’re not very good right now, but we have a chance to get a whole lot better,” he says.
His Patriots suffered heavy graduation losses from last year’s championship team.
Davis says his rock-solid coaching staff, including several former head coaches, has allowed him to keep coaching despite his condition.
MRA opens the season at home Friday night against Trinity Christian of Addison, Texas, a team quarterbacked by Shedeur Sanders, the four-star recruit and son of Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders. Shedeur Sanders, from all accounts a special talent, has led the Trinity Christian to three straight state titles.
Clearly, this will not be the ideal opening opponent for a team replacing so many key players. Then again, Herbert Davis has faced much bigger challenges, including the much larger, more important one he faces every single day.
Mississippi, a rural state that has long lagged behind most in high speed internet access, is leading the nation in expanding that access with recent investments from the federal and state government, officials say.
“Right now in Mississippi, by most estimates we have the largest expansion of fiber to the home, broadband in America when you look at the number of customers who will be served,” Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, a four-term public service commissioner, said recently during a lengthy interview in his office in the Woolfolk state office building in Jackson.
By the end of 2020, 2,765 miles of fiber optic cable passing by 28,447 homes and businesses are slated to be installed. And in 2021, another 1,980 miles of fiber are scheduled to be installed, passing by 17,309 homes and businesses.
“Every household may not be hooked up, but it will be available in those areas,” Presley said.
This rapid expansion in Mississippi is needed since the state is at or near the bottom in internet access, according to several studies. According to a 2018 report by BroadbandNow, Mississippi led only Montana in internet access with 70 percent coverage across the state. Mississippi also is trailing most states in terms of the speed of the internet offered.
Earlier this year, the Legislature opted to appropriate $75 million of the $1.25 billion it received in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act funds to expand high speed internet. Of that pot of money, $65 million is reserved for the state’s customer-owned electric power cooperatives, and $10 million is set aside for private providers. The grants must be matched by the co-ops and the providers on a dollar-for-dollar basis.
The Legislature requires the internet that will be installed using the CARES Act funds to provide 100 megabits download and upload speeds — what Presley calls “the gold standard of internet speed.”
“This legislation brings connectivity to the world for our children, educators and parents, and is a giant leap forward for our state’s future,” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said.
The electric cooperatives, called co-ops, were founded in the 1930s to provide electricity to a large geographic area of the state, including most of rural Mississippi. A law passed by the Legislature in 2019 and championed by Presley allows the co-ops to provide internet service.
Rogelio V. Solis, AP
Former state Sen. Sally Doty
“This is similar in scope to the early 1900s when co-ops provided electricity to rural homes,” said Sally Doty of Brookhaven, a former chair of the Senate Energy Committee and the recent appointee of Gov. Tate Reeves as executive director of the Public Utilities staff, which was tasked with awarding the grants. “Fast and reliable internet is really a necessity and a lifeline to the rest of the world.”
In addition to the state grants, Mississippi is also in line to receive as much as $940 million during the next 10 years in federal Rural Digital Opportunity funds. That money comes from a small federal tax customers pay on their phone bills. The program originally was developed to help ensure landline phone service to rural areas. More recently, the funds have been used to build cell phone towers in rural areas, and now the Federal Communications Commission is expanding the program to enhance internet access.
The state is slated to get its first installment of those funds — $94 million — in 2021.
These recent actions could help Mississippi move up the list of states in offering high speed internet accessibility, many state officials hope.
“To me we could have a grand slam,” Presley said. To highlight the potential impact of the federal funds, Presley displayed a chart detailing how 223,152 homes and businesses could be eligible for high speed internet based on the money the state could receive over a 10-year period from the federal Rural Digital Opportunity program.
“We should come out of COVID-19 with lessons learned and with the capability that if we must ever transition to distance education, we should do so with the same ease as switching on a light switch,” Presley said. “It should be seamless, and the only way to do that is to make sure every home has high speed internet available if they want it.”
The push to improve high speed internet access in Mississippi began in earnest in 2019 when the Legislature — by an overwhelming, bipartisan margin — passed the Broadband Enabling Act to allow the state’s electric cooperatives to begin offering broadband services. Presley began advocating for the program in 2017 after seeing the success of a rural northwest Alabama electric cooperative in expanding high speed internet to customers in its service region.
While the legislation allowing the rural electric power associations to offer internet services was popular, most agreed that the process of the customer-owned, non-profit associations installing the equipment to provide high speed internet would be slow and expensive. And some of the cooperatives would opt not to get into the business.
The process has been sped up by the COVID-19 pandemic. The closing of schools this past spring has highlighted the need of high speed internet to provide distance learning and to allow people to work from home.
“The calendar is not in our favor when it comes to distance education,” said Presley. “That is not anyone’s fault…but that is the fact. But we should never have to debate (high speed internet) necessity again. People are going to ask us when the evidence was there what did we do.”
Despite the progress, there are areas of the state where no one applied for the state grants to expand rural broadband service. There are 26 counties where no electric cooperative or other provider applied for grants to expand broadband.
Officials hope the federal money will fill some of those gaps, or co-op customers can apply pressure on their boards to offer internet service. Thus far, 15 of the 25 cooperatives have committed to providing broadband.
Another issue is that some areas of the state — like the Wren area in Monroe County and the Holly Springs area in Marshall County — are lacking service because residents in those areas receive electricity from municipal utilities. State law does not allow municipal utilities to offer internet service, and the areas are not populous enough to attract private providers.
“There needs to be some accommodation in the law to help people who live in those areas,” Presley said. “They should not be punished because of where they live.”
Doty said in the short term, many school districts will have to install hot spots in areas lacking high speed internet to accommodate distance learners in the era of the pandemic. The Legislature appropriated $200 million in CARES Act funds to help school districts with distance learning, including funds to ensure all students have a laptop or some other WiFi device so they can participate in school from home.
“I think with the pandemic the jury has returned a verdict,” Presley said. “We should never spend another breath in Mississippi debating whether internet service is a necessity or a luxury. It is a necessity.”
