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.”
Do you thrive on the unexpected? Are you waiting for the next fire to crop up?
Have you ever noticed that you can plan something so intricately and you are still going to catch the glitches when life throws you a curve ball? It is one of the beauties of life that we can never prepare for. The unexpected. The only difference is our response to the unexpected. Do we have a knee jerk reaction that finds us swerving to gain back control of our life? Or do we instead just go with the flow and decide to embrace the scenic route life decided to take us on? Our response to life can cause us more stress or we can just enjoy it for what it is in that moment of time. I used to thrive on the unexpected. It was part of my career for many years. The never knowing what “fire” was going to sprout up that day and how I was going to need to put it out. Even this week as we launched our newest book in my publishing company. I thought I had it all planned out only to run into major “hiccups” within 72 hours of the launch. I could either stress out or take it in stride.
Slow and Steady
As my dad retired I watched him take a different approach to life than I had ever seen him take before. I mean, all you have to do is climb up in the cab of his king ranch Ford pick-up and see he is a changed man. He drives slower than anyone should even be allowed to drive out on the roads these days. He knows how to drive, so don’t go yelling at him next time you are stuck behind him. Trust me, my mom does enough yelling for all of us at him about that! He just takes life these days. His sentiments are that he lived in the fast lane his whole life. Rushing to be on time to work, rushing to come home to his family, the constant busy we get entangled with as adults…now, he doesn’t have to be busy and he is going to enjoy that. Truth is, I can’t even be mad at him for that. Now that I am an adult out here rushing from one thing to the next, I totally could use some driving twenty miles per hour in my life some days. Took me getting to nearly forty to even be able to say that though.
The lesson in his wisdom can be heard by all. Some things we lose it over won’t even amount to anything five years from now, yet we gave them so much energy in the moment. All the things we think are so important that we must do and do now. Most will not really matter years from now, yet we poured our soul into them. What would change if we took the time to just enjoy life? To just flow with things as they happened? When hit with something we didn’t expect, we embraced it instead of fighting it? What would happen? I dare say we might have more peace? I probably would be a lot calmer. I probably wouldn’t lose my temper near as much. I probably wouldn’t have anxiety or stress on the daily. I would probably take time to enjoy life more. I certainly wouldn’t yell at the slow driver in front of me.
What about you? Next time you get behind someone driving slowly…take back the name calling and curse words. Maybe take back all of the assumptions that they don’t know how to drive. Maybe use it as a reminder to take a moment, roll down your window, soak in the sunshine. I can promise you that wherever the heck you are going, you will still get there. Maybe that person figured out life and you can use their wisdom too. If they are driving a blue king ranch Ford truck, I can assure you that he is just enjoying his day and he would want you to enjoy yours too. Matter of fact, I wish I had listened to his wisdom a lot more in my earlier days instead of waiting until now.
The Mississippi state flag was the last in the nation containing the Confederate battle emblem until lawmakers officially voted to retire it to a museum July 2020.
The law removing the state flag required the creation of a commission to select a single new design by September for Mississippi voters to approve or reject on the November 2020 ballot.
The Mississippi Flag Commission will print the five final designs on flags and fly them in front of the Old Capitol in downtown Jackson on Aug. 25, when it next meets. The commission will select a single design on Sept. 2 to put before voters on the November ballot. Read our latest story here.
Mississippi Today wants to know which flag design our readers prefer. Please take a couple of minutes to fill out the below survey:
Less than a week after a Lauderdale County elementary school opened its doors for the new school year, district officials closed the school after a COVID-19 outbreak occurred.
The outbreak occurred at Southeast Elementary School in the Lauderdale County School District, forcing officials to shut down school buildings and transition to distance learning until Sept. 2, according to a letter from the superintendent.
This is the first known Mississippi school to close due to a COVID-19 outbreak after reopening earlier this month.
“Due to the safety of all, and following our Return to Learn closure protocol, we have decided to provide continuity of learning via distance learning,” John-Mark Cain, superintendent, wrote in an Aug. 17 letter to parents and guardians. “Students will not report to school and will move to a virtual setting immediately.”
It is unclear how the outbreak happened and how many students, teachers or staff were affected. Cain and the school district office did not return a request for comment.
The Mississippi Department of Education left the decision of how and when to open up to each individual school district, with only three options to do so: virtual, in-person or a mixture of the two. The state’s 138 districts were required to submit their plans to the state by July 31.
Earlier this month, Gov. Tate Reeves assessed the reopening plans of all districts and announced he would let most of them commence as planned. Reeves ruled that schools in eight counties that were deemed hotspots — representing just 7% of the state’s total student population — should delay two weeks until Aug. 17.
In doing so, Reeves bucked the advice of education advocates and the state’s top medical professionals, who’d publicly urged leaders to delay the start of school to at least early September. Minutes after Reeves announced he would allow schools to reopen on time, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, sitting next to Reeves in a live press conference, said of reopening schools: “I think it’s nuts.”
“It’s impossible to imagine that we are not going to pay the price for cramming kids into schools right now,” Dobbs said earlier this month. “There’s just no plausible scenario where it’s just not going to be bad.”
Schools in the Lauderdale County School District returned to classrooms on Aug. 10. Students showed up in-person on certain days depending on the first letter of their last names, according to the district’s Return to Learn plan. For example, students with the last names starting with A-K participated in traditional learning on Monday and Tuesday with virtual learning on Wednesdays.
“Some schools will have to close temporarily. It’s inevitable. Just be prepared for that,” Dobbs said in a Wednesday afternoon press conference.
A Neshoba County School District student looks out the window of a school bus after the first day of school on Wednesday, August 5, 2020.
Teachers at a school in the Rankin County School District were given two masks, a small bottle of hand sanitizer and a spray bottle of chemicals marked “hazardous to humans and domestic animals” by the district to last them the semester.
At a school in the Jackson County School District, teachers received so few cleaning supplies from the district that they’re having to tear off-brand Lysol wipes in half just to have enough to wipe down desks between classes. A little more than a week since students returned to the district, teachers are already spending their own money to buy additional cleaning supplies for their classrooms.
At a school in the Itawamba County School District, administrators are not enforcing mask mandates on students in hallways or other common areas, and students and teachers are regularly pulling masks below their noses. In the Poplarville School District, administrators have told teachers that students are allowed to remove masks in classrooms if they are just two feet apart, directly countering recommendations of state health officials that everyone wear masks and stay six feet from other people.
As most schools across the state have reopened for in-person instruction, dozens of teachers are sharing horror stories of not being provided the resources and protections they were promised by district and state leaders when reopening plans were finalized.
Educators whose stories were shared with Mississippi Today for this article feared losing their jobs or retaliation from district leaders. Teachers in Mississippi — the lowest paid in the nation on average — sign annual contracts that include broad termination clauses, and many districts disallow teachers to speak directly with journalists without permission from district offices. For these reasons, the teachers cited or quoted in this article are not named.
Teachers across the state have reason to be concerned as early COVID-19 data for schools paints a bleak picture. As of Tuesday — less than two weeks since the start of school in most places — at least 589 teachers across the state are quarantining because of possible exposure. At least 245 teachers have tested positive.
There are at least 2,035 students quarantined in the first few days of the school year, and at least 199 across the state have tested positive.
On Friday, 38 of the state’s 82 counties reported confirmed cases in public schools. By Monday, 71 counties reported confirmed cases in schools. Health officials have said it’s likely that many students and teachers already had the virus before school started and brought it with them with classes resumed.
Earlier this month, Gov. Tate Reeves assessed the reopening plans of all 138 school districts and announced he would let most of them commence as planned. Reeves ruled that schools in eight counties that were deemed hotspots — representing just 7% of the state’s total student population — should delay two weeks until Aug. 17.
In doing so, Reeves bucked the advice of education advocates and the state’s top medical professionals, who’d publicly urged leaders to delay the start of school to at least early September. Minutes after Reeves announced he would allow schools to reopen on time, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, sitting next to Reeves in a live press conference, said of reopening schools: “I think it’s nuts.”
“It’s impossible to imagine that we are not going to pay the price for cramming kids into schools right now,” Dobbs said earlier this month. “There’s just no plausible scenario where it’s just not going to be bad.”
Without statewide mandates and limited standards for reopening, districts were tasked with deciding for themselves how and when to reopen and how to handle safety concerns. This has caused even neighboring school districts to respond differently to confirmed cases — a point of frustration for many teachers who spoke with Mississippi Today.
For example, more than 100 students at Gulfport High School were quarantined last week after a choir teacher tested positive. A teacher at a neighboring school district told Mississippi Today that her district is choosing not to quarantine in similar ways.
“We’re hearing that a couple students in my school have tested positive,” the teacher told Mississippi Today. “But we didn’t do like Gulfport and quarantine everyone who possibly came in contact with those students. It just begs the question: Why isn’t there something uniform? Why isn’t the state making everyone do this the same way? It doesn’t feel like anyone has a good grasp on best practices, and it’s making us feel unsafe.”
And the stories of unsafe school activities or districts not adhering to their announced reopening plans are stacking up.
Seniors at Oak Grove High School in Hattiesburg participated in their annual, school-sponsored senior celebration event the first week of school. Photos of the event on social media showed students on the school’s football field in very close quarters while wearing no masks. A few hours later, Lamar County School District officials sent parents of the seniors a text that read: “If your student participated this morning in Sr. celebration, we are notifying that a positive Covid case has been identified.”
In the Grenada School District, janitors haven’t been given enough cleaning supplies to clean classrooms at the end of each day as their district leaders promised in their reopening plans signed off on by state leaders.
“It’s honestly just a disaster waiting to happen,” a Gulf Coast teacher told Mississippi Today. “We’re doing the best we can, but it feels like there’s just no way to keep everyone safe. That’s not a good feeling.”
