OurTupelo

College baseball legend Ron Polk has told us again and again through the years: “There is no such thing as an upset in baseball.”

Polk is right, of course. Baseball contains so many variables: bad hops, sore arms, sudden wind gusts, line drives that find gloves, weakly hit ground balls that find holes, capricious umpiring, etc.  All that contributes to the fact that anything can happen on any given day in baseball. But if we don’t call them upsets, then what to call what we have seen happen again and again in the NCAA Baseball Tournament that continues today at sites other than Mississippi?

Keep in mind, we are watching college baseball in a new era when the richer schools in the elite power conferences can simply buy the best players from the smaller schools in lesser leagues. You would think the pay-for-play and the transfer portal would make it doubly hard for the Murray States, the UTSAs and the Wright States of the college baseball world to compete with the SEC and other power conferences.

But, yet, here we are. Samples:

• Closest to home, Murray State, a 4-seed from the Missouri Valley Conference, comes to Oxford, knocks off Ole Miss twice and wins a regional, probably playing in front of more fans in two games than they played before in their entire regular season. Get this: The Murray State head coach Dan Skirka reportedly makes $68,000 a year. Many power conference players make that much and more. Mississippi State just signed Brian O’Connor to a contract that will pay him $2.9 million a year. Nevertheless, the Murray State Racers came off the bus in Oxford hitting line drives and never quit. They will play a Super Regional at Duke beginning Saturday. I would not bet against them.
• No. 1 seed Vanderbilt was eliminated by Wright State of the Horizon League. Wright State eliminated the Commodores before eventually losing to Louisville in the championship game. For those who don’t know, Wright State is located in Dayton, Ohio. The Horizon League includes such name brands as Youngstown State, Robert Morris and Northern Kentucky. Vandy probably spends more money on one player than Wright State has in its entire NIL budget. Yet, here we are.
• UTSA of the American Athletic Conference stunned mighty Texas, the No. 2 seed overall, beating the Longhorns not once, but twice, in the Austin Regional. Want to know the beauty of this? UTSA lost its best pitcher and its best everyday player to the portal last year. The shortstop went to Arizona State. The pitcher went to – you guessed it – Texas. UTSA coach Pat Hallmark, asked about the players who left said this: “We’re not here if those players are still here. We’re here because they left. … If they want to get in the portal, get in the portal. We’ll go after the next guy.”
• A record 13 SEC teams made the tournament. Only four advanced. And one of those, LSU, had to rally from behind to beat Little Rock in the championship game after losing to Little Rock the day before. Little Rock of the Ohio Valley Conference entered the tournament with a losing record and an RPI of 243.

The guess here is that legions of college baseball fans, disgusted with what the transfer portal and NIL have done to college athletics, will find themselves pulling for teams such as Murray State and UTSA as the tournament continues. 

More than likely the eventual champion will come from the Big Boy leagues. Such powers as Arkansas, LSU, Tennessee and Florida State still remain. They all host Super Regionals. They have all the advantages.

Murray State? 

Wouldn’t that be something?

After nearly a year closed, Thalia Mara Hall has been cleared for reopening after a follow-up inspection from the State Fire Marshal’s Office on June 3. 

Thalia Mara Hall was closed last August due to mold remediation, to replace the heating and cooling systems and perform updates to the fire system. The building had previously failed an inspection in late January.

State Fire Marshal and Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney issued the following statement on June 6: 

“The State Fire Marshals Office (SFMO) conducted a follow-up inspection of Thalia Mara Hall on Tuesday, June 3, 2025, and determined that the building met standards to reopen. A Certificate of Occupancy will be issued to the City of Jackson (COJ). A hydrostatic test was conducted on Monday, June 2, 2025, to determine the integrity of pipes and valves in the building. The test was successful. The building elevators and escalators remain out of service pending repair and inspection. The COJ has scheduled a new fire curtain to be installed in July.

A condition of the reopening is that a third-party fire watch must be in place until the fire curtain is installed and passes inspection. A fire watch involves having someone monitor the building during events for fire hazards and to alert occupants and emergency services if a fire breaks out.

My office remains committed to working with Jackson officials to protect the health and safety of the public and important cultural structures like Thalia Mara Hall.”

Thalia Mara Hall’s closure brought with it a slew of scheduling issues for performing arts groups such as Ballet Mississippi and Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, who had to move performances to Madison Central High School Auditorium and Jackson Academy Performing Arts Center.

The city has spent nearly $3 million in repairs, with the bulk of the funding going to Guarantee Restoration Services, which was in charge of mold remediation, encapsulation and HVAC cleaning.

The city of Jackson was unable to provide a comment on when Thalia Mara Hall will reopen. 

State Sen. David Parker, a Republican from Olive Branch, announced on Thursday that he will not run in an upcoming special election, creating an open Senate seat in DeSoto County and making him the second incumbent to forgo the special election. 

Parker, who has served 13 years in the Legislature, wrote on social media that the recent death of his childhood friend and the founding surgeon in Parker’s eye-care practice weighed heavily on his decision to leave public office. 

“Their loss has served as a powerful reminder of how precious our time is, and it reaffirmed my desire to devote more intentional time to my family and to the next chapter of life,” Parker said. 

Even though Parker was elected to a new four-year term in 2023, a federal three-judge panel ruled last year that the state’s current legislative maps didn’t comply with federal voting laws and diluted Black voting power.  

The federal panel then approved a new state legislative map that redrew five House districts and nine Senate districts, one of which was Parker’s. 

Parker did not cite this as a reason for his retirement, but state officials also changed his district to a slightly majority-Black district. If the DeSoto County lawmaker drew an opponent, he likely would have spent this year facing a competitive election cycle.

Sen. John Polk, a Republican from Hattiesburg, also announced earlier this year that he will not run in the special election because of health reasons. The redistricting plan placed Polk in the same Senate district as state Sen. Chris Johnson, a fellow Hattiesburg Republican. 

The two departures come at a time when Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, the Senate’s presiding officer, has clashed politically with House Speaker Jason White and, at times, with Gov. Tate Reeves. The Republicans have battled over Medicaid expansion, the state’s public pension system, school choice legislation and crafting a state budget.  

Polk and Parker were two of Hosemann’s most loyal lieutenants in the 52-member chamber, so the two departures could create more political challenges for the lieutenant governor as he faces pressure from his fellow state leaders.

The last day candidates can qualify for the redistricting special elections is Monday, June 9. Party primaries will take place on August 5 and the general election is on November 4. 

Three more special elections in the Legislature will also take place soon, though they will happen on a different timeline, set by the governor, than the 14 special elections to account for redistricting: 

• Sen. John Horhn, a Democrat from Jackson, will soon resign after he was elected the new mayor of Jackson 
• Rep. Orlando Paden, a Democrat from Clarksdale, will soon resign because he was elected as the new mayor of Clarksdale. 
• Sen. David Jordan, a Democrat from Greenwood, recently announced he was retiring from the Legislature. 

 Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

With graduation season upon us, I can’t help but be proud of the next generation of leaders. Each cap and gown represents not just an achievement, but a hope for the future and for a better Mississippi.

But graduation season has been overshadowed when I read about the freeze of $137 million in federal funds promised to Mississippi schools. My mind drifts to the death of Harvey Montrell Johnson Jr. It may not be easy to see the connection between the shooting of a 15-year-old and a school budget cut, but for me — as a district attorney for nearly a decade — the consequences are painfully personal.

A cut in school funding isn’t just a line in a report. It means fewer resources, fewer safeguards and more young lives at risk.  Lives like Harvey’s.

Harvey was caught in a battle between the streets and the schools—and the streets won. One Sunday afternoon in Columbus in 2022, he found himself with a man nearly 15 years older than him, Tommy Flowers Jr. They were drinking and using drugs together until Tommy decided to settle a score. He took Harvey along, handed him a Taurus 9mm and had him fire round after round at a house where he had a beef with the occupants.

What Tommy failed to prepare Harvey for was that the young men in that house were armed too — “Second Amendment ready,” as people like to say. One of them had an AR-style rifle and returned fire so quickly and heavily that it didn’t take long before Harvey was hit and killed.

During the trial, my focus was on holding Mr. Flowers accountable for leading Harvey to his death. The idea that a nearly 30-year-old man would get a teenager drunk and high, arm him with a gun and take him to attack a home he knew was likely to respond with bullets so enraged me that it was difficult to think about anything else. The jury agreed. I moved on to the next case. In my work, there is no finish line.

But when I read about the freeze in federal education funding, the Harvey case came rushing back–not just the facts, but the warning it carries.

What $137 million can do for Mississippi’s schools is not hypothetical. It’s real support: school counselors who notice when a student starts slipping; after-school programs that keep kids safe until their parents are home; mentors, mental health staff and trained resource officers who de-escalate conflict instead of inflaming it. It’s guidance and structure that can help a 15-year-old imagine a future that doesn’t involve a gun.

According to Mississippi Today, about 70 school districts across the state are set to lose these desperately needed funds. The Jackson Public Schools District alone stands to lose $4.5 million. Of that, $3.62 million was set aside for urgently needed construction, and nearly $1 million was planned for instructional support. Other districts had allocated their money toward literacy programs, math tutoring, mental health services and classroom technology. That money was already budgeted—already spoken for.

The shooting that ended Harvey’s life happened on a Sunday. But the choices that led to it happened every day before that — in classrooms without enough adults to care, in neighborhoods without safe places to gather, in homes stretched too thin to fill the gaps.

If we care about liberty, if we care about life, we must care about what our schools can actually provide.

This funding freeze isn’t just a bureaucratic decision. It’s a threat to the only institutions standing between some of our most vulnerable kids and a world full of people like Tommy Flowers who see them as disposable. We may never know exactly what could have saved Harvey, but we know what didn’t: indifference, underfunding and too many missed chances.

As we celebrate graduation achievements, we must remember that the next generation deserves the opportunity to succeed. The next Harvey is already out there. We still have time to save him — but only if we give our schools what they need to reach him first. We owe that to him.  We owe it to our next generation of leaders.

Scott Colom is the district attorney of the 16th Circuit Court of Mississippi, representing Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Clay and Noxubee counties. First elected in 2015, his office has achieved over a 90% conviction rate.

CHOCTAW, Miss. (AP) — It’s a small part in a big movie, but for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, their scene in “Sinners” is a huge deal.

The horror movie blockbuster, starring Michael B. Jordan as a gangster turned vampire slayer, paints a brief but impactful portrait of the tribe using Choctaw actors and cultural experts. For some, it’s the first time they’ve seen the Choctaw way of life accurately portrayed on the big screen.

In the scene, a posse of Choctaw, riding on horseback and in an old truck, arrives at a small farmhouse to warn the couple that lives there of coming danger. When the couple refuses their help, a Choctaw man wishes them luck in his native language before riding off.

“I’ve not seen another movie that has our language, like, spoken correctly,” said Cynthia Massey, a cultural consultant for “Sinners.”

Massey runs the tribe’s Chahta Immi Cultural Center alongside Sherrill Nickey and department director Jay Wesley. All three were hired as cultural consultants to ensure a genuine depiction of the tribe in the film. Together, they sifted through archives, researching how their ancestors would have dressed, spoken and acted in the 1930s, when “Sinners” takes place.

“I was honored and humbled by the fact that they wanted a true representation,” said Wesley, who also acted in the movie.

Wesley connected the filmmakers to Choctaw actors and artifacts like the beaded sashes the Choctaw characters wear in the movie. Those sashes are now part of a “Sinners” display at the cultural center.

The movie’s introduction also features a short snippet of a Choctaw war chant, performed by Wesley’s daughter, Jaeden Wesley, who is a student at the University of California, Los Angeles. While recording, Jaeden Wesley said the filmmakers told her they wanted the Choctaw people to hear their music in the movie.

“We were catering to our own people, even in that short little second,” Jaeden Wesley said.

Shining a spotlight on often overlooked cultures and topics, like the Choctaw people, is part of the mission at Proximity Media, which produced “Sinners.” The company was founded by “Sinners” director Ryan Coogler, his wife and film producer, Zinzi Coogler, and producer Sev Ohanian.

“It was never a question for us that if we were going to portray the Mississippi Choctaw, we got to have the right people who can tell us, who can tell Ryan, what we’re not knowing, what we’re not thinking,” Ohanian said. “It was all because we’re trying to serve Ryan’s story of like putting truth on screen.”

Ohanian and his co-founders didn’t stop with Choctaw consultants; they enlisted a small army of experts who advised on the confluence of cultures mingling in the Mississippi Delta, where the film is set. The resulting cinematic world was so well received, community organizers penned an open letter, inviting Coogler and his fellow filmmakers to visit the Delta. Last week, the Cooglers, Ohanian and others took up the offer, attending a “Sinners” screening in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Clarksdale is where the film’s events unfold.

“I hope this encourages other filmmakers to find opportunities to be authentic in their storytelling and to look at this rich tapestry of culture that’s right here in America,” Ohanian said, noting the film industry has historically misrepresented nonwhite groups.

For Wesley and his fellow consultants, the hope is the film will cultivate curiosity in audiences, encourage them to learn more about Choctaw culture and visit the Chahta Immi Cultural Center.

“It’s important to be connected to this culture because this was here before the public was here,” Massey said. “Probably three-quarters of Mississippi was Choctaw land, and now we only have 350,000 acres.”

They say Choctaw participation in the film has cultivated a sense of pride among tribe members. Nickey hopes it will encourage a sort of cultural renaissance at a time when she says fewer and fewer Choctaw speak their native language.

“I know for a fact that there are a lot of kids out there that don’t even know how to speak our language. They only speak English,” Nickey said. “I hope they know it’s okay to speak our language.”

Local officials and community leaders posed to cameras Thursday morning on Farish Street as they dug their ceremonial shovels into the symbolic dirt pile in front of them. The symbolism, they hope, is the continued momentum around rebuilding the historic but largely abandoned downtown Jackson neighborhood.

Nonprofits 2C Mississippi, Farish Street Community of Shalom, and the city’s urban renewal group, Jackson Redevelopment Authority, held the groundbreaking for a new green space between Amite Street and James Meredith Drive. Organizers see the project as both a communal gathering place as well as a shelter and heat sponge.

“This is a historic moment on Farish Street,” said Dorothy Davis, executive director of the Farish Street Community of Shalom.

The groups first announced the green space project last year, building off a 2020 study they did identifying Jackson’s “heat islands,” or urban areas that are much hotter because they lack tree coverage and bodies of water. The study found that parts of downtown Jackson got up to 10 degrees hotter than outer parts of the city during the summer.

Davis said the project’s next phase will be tearing down brick walls and planting new grass and trees, which she said they’ll start in the next couple of weeks. Volunteers will continue to monitor temperatures over the next five years. Davis added they’ll hope to have a new stage built by early next year and then begin work on an amphitheater.

The groups are funding the project with a $1.5 million grant through the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

The ceremony followed another groundbreaking in April for the Leonard Court project, which will rebuild 67 old homes into new affordable housing in the Farish Street Historical District. That project is set to finish by summer 2026.

Christopher Pike, executive director of JRA, which owns and will continue to manage the space, said they’ll use the park to host events such as the neighborhood’s annual Juneteenth celebration.

“It’ll just be a park for people to come and hang out,” Pike said. “We’ve been talking to people about maybe doing yoga, that type of stuff. So it’ll be an activated space.

“Obviously there’s an environmental component, which is (tackling the) heat island, but there’s also the quality of life component because most communities you see that are really vibrant have these very activated green spaces.”

Pike teased other new projects in the works along Farish Street: in “eight to 12 months” Pike hopes to have another groundbreaking for the Soul City Market, which includes plans for a food hall, stand-alone restaurants, a Farish Street history museum, and loft apartments on the buildings’ second floors. Pike said the projects would together cost around $30 million, which JRA hopes to fund through both tax credits and rebates as well as private sources.

At the University of Mississippi Medical Center, one researcher’s full-time job for the past nine months has been to find out which clinics around the state offer different kinds of women’s health care, and whether they accept various forms of Medicaid. 

The final result is a recently-launched database aimed at helping women locate the nearest clinic that can offer the care they need. The work that went into creating it highlights a pervasive problem: Even making an appointment can be a barrier that keeps women from improving their lives. 

“We Need to Talk” is a compilation of all Mississippi clinics offering prenatal care – specifying which ones also offer family planning, and whether they take Medicaid insurance, Medicaid waivers and see women whose Medicaid applications are pending. There is also a hotline designed to give additional support to anyone having questions or feeling overwhelmed about the process.

“Having gone through the work, it was remarkable. It wasn’t easy to figure out where you should go for care,” said Dr. Thomas Dobbs, former state health officer and dean of the John D. Bower School of Population Health at UMMC, who oversaw the project. “And that should be one of the most basic bits of information we have.”

The idea was born from the recent 900% increase in babies born with syphilis, Dobbs explained, which he called a “canary in a coal mine” signaling more danger to come.

An investigation into the epidemic showed that one of the driving factors was delayed prenatal care, caused in large part by inaccessible information and concerns about cost, Dobbs said.

Finding reproductive and prenatal care can be difficult for several reasons. 

For one thing, there are many different kinds of clinics in Mississippi, making it hard for patients to know what to search for. The list includes federally qualified health centers, county health department clinics and private OB-GYNs. Another reason is that many clinics don’t specify online whether they take Medicaid, much less what their policy is on specific or temporary Medicaid coverage. Calling doesn’t always guarantee patients a comprehensive or accurate answer.

The new database is an initiative of UMMC’s Myrlie Evers-Williams Institute – housed in the Jackson Medical Mall – which is committed to eliminating health disparities by studying the intersection of health and social issues. The institute has a clinic on site that practices what’s called “social medicine,” a key element of eliminating those disparities, the institute’s executive director Victoria Gholar explained.

“If you have a patient who has asthma and they’re living in a situation where mold is in their environment, it will really be hard for them to get better,” Gholar said. “Or, if we have a patient who has to use an electronic (medical) device, and their electricity is no longer available because they weren’t able to take care of their utility bill, then we try to work with them and connect them to resources that might be able to help.”

The institute employs a wide range of professionals who work on health from a non-clinical standpoint, such as researchers, community engagers, social workers and registered dietitians. It hosts events like food drives and offers free support from budgeting strategies to meal preparation for those with conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure. 

Aside from knowing what to search for, finding clinics that accept Medicaid can also be complicated because Mississippi Medicaid eligibility is constantly changing for a woman based on her age and circumstance – what kinds of services she’s seeking, as well as whether she’s pregnant. 

Medicaid eligibility in Mississippi is among the strictest in the nation, with one exception – pregnant women. That means many low-income women only become eligible for Medicaid once pregnant. And since an application can take up to eight weeks to be processed, the chances that a woman in this situation will be able to use her newly-acquired Medicaid insurance in the first trimester are slim. 

A law that would cut out this interim period and allow low-income pregnant women to be immediately seen by a doctor passed the Legislature in 2024, but was never implemented because of legislative errors. The policy went back through the Legislature in 2025, passed overwhelmingly again, but is not yet in effect. 

Some doctors already see women whose Medicaid application is pending, and the UMMC tool specifies at which clinics that’s the case. 

Women of reproductive age seeking reproductive health care are also eligible for leniency in the typical Medicaid stipulations. These women can apply for a Medicaid family planning waiver, which allows them to access Medicaid for family planning purposes, even if they don’t qualify for general Medicaid coverage. 

The income requirement for pregnancy Medicaid and the family planning waiver is a household income of less than 194% of the federal poverty level, or about $2,500 for one person  in 2025. 

Dobbs, who has been the main point person on the project, said he hopes the online database is one more resource improving health care accessibility and women’s health metrics in Mississippi. 

“This isn’t about getting patients to UMMC at all,” Dobbs said. “It’s about empowering patients to be able to get the care they need where they live.”

The Democratic Party flipped several seats and made significant gains during Tuesday’s municipal elections across Mississippi. 

The day-to-day functions of municipal government often don’t involve partisan policy decisions. But local elections can gauge voters’ moods before congressional midterms next year and the 2027 statewide election for governor. 

The election results as of Wednesday afternoon are not official because local election workers will still process mail-in absentee votes for five business days after the election and process affidavit ballots.

The unofficial and incomplete results of some Mississippi mayoral races on Tuesday:

Gulfport 

In one of the most hotly contested municipal elections this year, Republican Hugh Keating defeated Democrat Sonya Williams Barnes. 

Keating, an attorney, led Barnes, a former state representative, by roughly 1,110 votes in a race that saw relatively high turnout, according to the Sun Herald. The election drew several prominent national figures to the coastal town, such as U.S. Sen. Tim Scott and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. 

Toward the end of the campaign, the two campaigns accused the other of skirting election laws. Republicans alleged that a group close to the Barnes campaign was offering meal vouchers to people who voted by absentee ballot, but Barnes denied any affiliation with the organization. 

Democrats then cried foul when Rick Carter, a managing partner of Island View Casino, distributed a letter to his employees encouraging them to vote for Keating. 

For years, Democratic candidates have attempted to make inroads to break up the GOP’s hold on the Gulf Coast. Polling leading up to the election showed the two candidates were close 

Despite Barnes’ loss, Cheikh Taylor, chairman of the state Democratic Party, praised the former legislator for proving Democrats can be competitive in south Mississippi. 

Jackson 

Longtime state Sen. John Horhn easily won the election to lead Mississippi’s capital city by defeating the Republican nominee and several independent candidates. 

Horhn’s general election victory was widely expected after he defeated incumbent Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba in the Democratic primary in April. The primary has historically decided who will go on to win the general election. 

Vicksburg 

George Flaggs Jr., a former state legislator who’s served as Vicksburg’s mayor for more than a decade, appears to have been defeated by Democrat Willis Thompson.  

Flaggs, an independent, trailed his Democratic opponent by 61 votes, according to the Vicksburg Post. 

Vicksburg City Clerk Deborah Kaiser-Nickson told the Vicksburg Post that results will remain unofficial until 111 affidavits are counted, along with any mail-in votes. 

Brookhaven 

Incumbent Brookhaven Mayor Joe Cox, a Republican, appears to have lost a close race to Democratic challenger Larry Jointer in Tuesday’s election, with Jointer claiming victory by a margin of 37 votes, according to the Daily Leader. 

Jointer would be the city’s first Black mayor. 

Greenwood 

Incumbent Independent Mayor Carolyn McAdams lost to Democrat Kenderick Cox, who garnered around 53 percent of the vote, according to the Greenwood Commonwealth. 

Clarksdale 

State Rep. Orlando Paden won the mayor’s race and will replace outgoing two-term Mayor Chuck Espy, who did not run for re-election. Paden defeated two independent candidates.

Horn Lake 

Democrat Jimmy Stokes defeated his Republican opponent, Danny Klein. The current mayor, Allen Latimer, did not run for reelection.

According to the Commercial Appeal, just one seat on the city’s Board of Aldermen is currently held by a Democrat. 

Now the Democrats flipped the script. A Democrat will take office as the new mayor, and Republicans secured just two seats on the board of aldermen. 

Meridian 

Former Mayor Percy Bland, a Democrat, will return to City Hall in Meridian after losing his re-election bid four years ago.

Bland won back the mayor’s seat Tuesday over Independent candidate Jimmy Copeland by less than 100 votes, according to the Meridian Star. 

The cafeteria workers knew her only as “grandma.” Every morning, the elderly woman would bring her grandchildren to Key Elementary School off McDowell Road for a free bite to eat. 

She wasn’t the only one getting kids out of the house, recalled Latosha Travis, a Jackson Public Schools child nutrition manager working with the district’s summer feeding program who oversaw the cafeteria at Key last year. 

“Kids gonna eat you out of house and home during the summer,” Travis said. 

Starting this week through June 27, anyone under 18 years old can stop by one of 12 schools in Jackson for a free breakfast from 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and lunch from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., regardless of whether or not they attend Jackson Public Schools. Adults can buy a meal for $4. 

The district’s federally funded program, now in its 33rd year, is intended to combat the rise in hunger that occurs during the summer, an issue of particular concern in Jackson, where the childhood poverty rate is just over 40%. 

“I put a little extra on their plate from time to time, knowing this is the only meal many of them will have today,” Travis said. 

JPS anticipates serving 18,000 breakfasts and 25,000 lunches this month, said Marc Rowe, the district’s executive director of child nutrition. He noted this is a different program from the one Mississippi opted out of last year due in part to a lack of funding from the state’s welfare agency. 

“Just like anything else in the climate we live in, at any point the funding could be pulled for this,” Rowe said. 

The district doesn’t track who is eating the meals, only how many are served. Travis, who has worked in the district’s cafeterias for 16 years, said schools situated in neighborhoods are more likely to serve families during the summer. 

“It depends on the location,” Travis said. “You see a lot of them come off the street with their children and cousins, little nieces and little babies and stuff. They all come through the line.” 

Many of the meals will be served to children enrolled in local daycare centers or attending JPS’s summer camps, such as one that started this week at North Jackson Elementary School near the Tougaloo community. The program is limited to June due to JPS starting its school year earlier this year at the end of July. In prior years, the district served meals through mid-July.

Around 7:45 a.m., kids walked in with sleepy faces and colorful backpacks half the size of their bodies. Teachers said good morning and asked if they were eating breakfast, which was a sausage, egg and cheese burrito with taco sauce, a Pop-Tart, and orange juice or milk. 

Diamond Harris, who had brought a group of students for breakfast from the daycare at Caiden’s Christian Academy, said she sometimes cooks for her kids, which can be a heavy lift. “So it’s definitely beneficial for us and less stressful, and we are just really grateful,” she said.

The meals are based on USDA recipes, and the district also works with a food company, Walker Quality Services, to serve children healthy meals, Rowe said. When school is out, students might have junk food as their only option, which is why research has shown that as hunger spikes in the summer, so does obesity. 

“So the meals are very attractive, appetizing,” Rowe said. 

As part of her menu planning, Travis said she tries to introduce kids to food they haven’t tried before. Each meal comes with a fruit. Today it was plums for breakfast and watermelon for lunch. 

“A lot of kids don’t really know what a plum is,” she said. 

But it can be a challenge to get children to try food they aren’t used to, Travis said. During the school year, she’s at Green Elementary School off Hanging Moss Road, but she’s managed cafeterias all over the district, including at high schools. 

“Elementary children are more easy going and sweet and they love to eat,” she said. “High school students, they are very, very picky. They like a lot of hamburgers and fries. When you put down spaghetti you have to convince them to try. They’re used to fast food.” 

She also tries to feed kids meals from different cultures, so lunch at North Jackson tomorrow will be General Tso’s chicken and rice. 

Meals are available from 7 a.m.-8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m.-1 p.m at the following JPS Summer Feeding Program schools: 

• Bates Elementary School, 3180 McDowell Road Ext.
• Blackburn Middle School, 1311 West Pearl Street
• Callaway High School, 601 Beasley Road
• Cardozo Middle School, 3180 McDowell Road Ext.
• Forest Hill High School, 2607 Raymond Road
• Galloway Elementary School, 186 Idlewild Street
• Kirksey Middle School, 5677 Highland Drive
• McWillie Elementary School, 4851 McWillie Circle
• North Jackson Elementary School, 650 James M. Davis Drive
• Pecan Park Elementary School, 415 Claiborne Avenue
• Provine High School, 2400 Robinson Street
• Shirley Elementary School, 210 Daniel Lake Boulevard