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In 2020, Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed two criminal justice reform bills which would have provided parole eligibility for thousands of people in prison and helped them reenter society through workforce training programs.

The governor said last year’s measures — House Bill 658 and Senate Bill 2123 — were “well-intentioned” but “went too far.”

Between overcrowding, violence, an ongoing Department of Justice investigation and the coronavirus pandemic, Mississippi’s prison crisis still persists. If the Legislature doesn’t take action soon, the state is facing potential federal intervention. In Alabama, a similar prison crisis has resulted in taxpayers facing a $1 billion bill to meet federal mandates to fix the system.

In Mississippi, the Legislature is trying this year to pass new criminal justice reform measures to expand parole eligibility and reentry programs for people in the state’s prisons.

Rep. Kevin Horan, D-Grenada, authored two criminal justice reform bills currently moving through the Legislature — House Bill 525, the omnibus criminal justice reform bill, and House Bill 465, the Compassionate Parole Eligibility Act.

Horan, who is chair of the House Corrections Committee, said HB 525 primarily focuses on “reentry and programming of inmates prior to release and uniformity in parole,” particularly aiming to streamline the differences in parole eligibility for those who were convicted and sentenced before and after 1995.

“Prior to 1994, nearly everyone sentenced to prison in Mississippi was eligible for parole after serving 25% of their sentence or 10 years. In 1995, Mississippi joined the ranks of states who moved to abolish parole and mandate that everyone serve at least 85% of their sentence in prison,” according to a January 2021 report by FWD.us, a bipartisan criminal justice reform advocacy organization.

Horan said his legislation hopes to address this.

“I’m looking to make those individuals that have (parole) eligibility prior to ‘95 for those individuals after ‘95 to have the same or similar parole eligibility. That would be the goal, just like Senate Bill 2123 last year,” Horan said. “It treated everybody the same, and I think that’s a fair way to approach parole eligibility.”

Horan said his parole reform bill would incentivize good behavior for people in prison, considering they may have the opportunity for parole, but it would only impact people in prison convicted of certain offenses.

“(HB 525), like last year, won’t have any additional provisions allowing sex offenders or those convicted of capital murder to gain any type of consideration (for parole),” Horan said.

Horan’s other bill, HB 465 — the Compassionate Parole Eligibility Act — would allow people in prison who were not convicted of a sex offense, capital murder or sentenced to death to be eligible for parole if they have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and have a life expectancy of a year or less or are completely disabled. 

With over 17,000 people incarcerated in Mississippi, the state has the second-highest incarceration rate of all 50 states in the U.S., which is “due in large part to Mississippi’s parole laws, which are among the most restrictive in the nation,” according to the FWD.us report on parole in Mississippi.

The report also said the state’s prison population “more than doubled between 1994, the final year in which most people in prison were eligible for parole, and 2008.”

Today, more than 12,000 incarcerated Mississippians, or about two-thirds of the prison population, are not eligible for parole, according to FWD.us. 

Four of the 109 people who died in MDOC facilities last year — O.D. Washington, 74, Melvin Thomas, 66, Owen Nelson, 57, and Bobby Vance, 54 — would have been eligible for parole if the governor had not vetoed last year’s criminal justice reform measures, according to FWD.us.

“It’s heartbreaking because it didn’t have to be that way,” said Alesha Judkins, FWD.us Mississippi director for criminal justice reform. “I think the lesson learned is that what we’re doing right now isn’t working, and we can’t continue to do it at the expense of losing people’s lives.”

Tuesday is a deadline day at the Legislature and HB 465 — the Compassionate Parole Eligibility Act — hasn’t been taken up yet, meaning it will likely die in committee. But Horan told Mississippi Today some of what the bill entails would likely be folded into other criminal justice reform bills later in the session. 

“I haven’t decided that I will bring that out of committee yet because those code sections are in the omnibus bill, but as far as the compassionate care provisions, we’ve worked on language with the Senate,” Horan said. “Those policy positions regarding compassionate care release eligibility will be in the bill, but it may not be in the same form as (it is in HB 465).”

Judkins said expanding parole eligibility could restore a sense of hope for people in prison and their families, alluding to a possibility of decreased violence in Mississippi’s prisons.

“I think that’s a huge part because I feel like a lot of violence is from desperation and lack of hope,” Judkins said. “I think people living in those situations feel hopeless, and there’s this huge sense of despair, like what’s the point? Why should I care? And I think we’re able to expand parole to people, you will see a lot of change.”

Horan said the omnibus criminal justice reform bill focuses on reentry and workforce training for people in prison who may be eligible for parole, increasing the potential of a decreased prison population and more partnerships with Mississippi’s business community and people in prison.

“I think we need to give the opportunity to those individuals that can earn some type of (parole) eligibility that don’t have it now, or to give them eligibility where they can prove the case that they’re worthy of it,” Horan told Mississippi Today said. “Percentage-wise, we have an extremely large number of (parole) ineligible inmates disproportionate to our population in MDOC…compared to other states.”

The post ‘What we’re doing right now isn’t working’ — Lawmakers take another swing at criminal justice reform appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A recent poll showing Gov. Tate Reeves underwater with voters at his one-year mark in office had something of a political blood-in-the-water effect, prompting much discussion among politicos in recent days of potential GOP primary challengers when 2023 rolls around.

Last month’s poll reported Reeves is “hemorrhaging support among voters at the close of his first year in office,” with 34% of Mississippi voters approving of his performance and nearly 50% disapproving. This shows a sea change — his net approval declined from +28 points in June 2020 to -15 in January 2021 — mostly driven by low marks for his handling of the pandemic.

Now in politics, the saying goes that a week is a lifetime. Two and a half years? That’s like a millennium. Pandemics end. Voter attitudes change. Challengers get cold feet. And at this point, talk is cheap. Challenging an incumbent, well-funded Republican governor in a primary is a heavy lift.

“If you go back and look at the history of all 50 states, you will find maybe one, two or three incumbent Republican governors who lost in their primary,” said Austin Barbour, a national and state GOP strategist. “A sitting governor is almost impossible to beat in a Republican primary. Whether someone thinks Tate Reeves is popular or unpopular — it’s a long time until election day, and history is on his side.”

Some of the GOP gubernatorial primary speculation is the result of the state Democratic Party not being much of a going concern in recent statewide election cycles. Serious internecine Republican challenges for top offices at this point appear more likely than serious general election ones.

Given that most prognosticators’ crystal balls are still cloudy on 2023, here are names most frequently mentioned as potential Republican GOP gubernatorial challengers:

Bill Waller Jr.

Could there be a rematch between Reeves and Waller, a former state Supreme Court chief justice who lost to Reeves in a primary runoff in 2019? It’s possible. Waller ran strong in several, mostly urban areas last time, but he got shellacked mainly on the Coast and in rural areas, largely because of Reeves’ support from President Donald Trump’s voters. Trump may still be a factor in 2023, but likely far less a factor in statewide Mississippi races. Waller has decent name recognition, but he would face challenges raising money. And if he were going to make a serious run again, he’d have to get started working on it soon.

Robert Foster

With little campaign funding or name recognition, Foster in 2019 managed to tap into more right-wing dissatisfaction with the frontrunner GOP candidates and pulled a respectable 18% of the primary vote, serving as a spoiler that helped force Reeves into a runoff with Waller. Foster remains active in politics on social media and has been pointedly critical of Reeves’ handling of the pandemic and of his concessions on changing the state flag. Foster, when interviewed by Mississippi Today recently, wouldn’t rule out another run, adding, “I would be very surprised if Tate Reeves does not receive a strong primary challenge. Very surprised.”

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann

Hosemann would be a formidable candidate, can raise campaign money and has nearly universal name recognition thanks to the “Dilbert … Filbert … Egbert” ads he ran during his long stint as secretary of state. But he’s in a powerful position now — arguably more powerful than the governor’s office. He was widely discussed as a possible gubernatorial candidate in 2019 and instead ran for lieutenant governor. At 73, if Hosemann has eyes on the Governor’s Mansion, 2023 would be his most likely shot.

House Speaker Philip Gunn

Longtime Speaker Gunn is frequently mentioned for statewide/higher office, and would be another formidable candidate in terms of fundraising and name ID. He already has close relationships with the state’s big money donors and has done well with fundraising, at least by House speaker measures. In the past, Gunn’s early and unwavering support for changing the state flag was seen as a major impediment for a Republican primary. But with a large majority of voters endorsing the new flag on the ballot in 2020, and that issue likely far in the rear view mirror by 2023 — or being as big a drag on Reeves and it would be him — Gunn appears more viable.

Attorney General Lynn Fitch

After serving a long hitch as state treasurer before being elected last cycle as attorney general, Fitch has built up name recognition. She’s long struggled with fundraising, but serving as an incumbent AG makes that task easier, and she’s shown an ability to put her incumbency in office to good public relations use for the state’s Republican base. With her name recognition and the bully pulpit the AG’s office provides, Fitch wouldn’t have to make a decision or move until later — say the end of 2022 — for a gubernatorial run.

Billionaire Thomas Duff

Businessman Thomas Duff, who’s listed by Forbes as the richest Mississippian along with his brother James, is frequently mentioned as a possible GOP gubernatorial candidate. Duff reportedly considered a run against Reeves in 2019, although he has been a big financial supporter of Reeves’ campaigns in the past. Duff could easily self-fund a serious campaign. Oddly, hosts of the nationally syndicated Walton and Johnson morning comedy and commentary radio show have been critical of Reeves and urged Duff to run for governor against him.

Secretary of State Michael Watson

Former longtime state Sen. Michael Watson’s name has been floated for years for higher offices, including governor. He’s in a fairly safe, high-profile spot as secretary of state and probably more likely to wait on such a move. Once an impediment to running for statewide office, being from the Coast and having strong support there has become more of a boon, particularly in a statewide GOP primary. If Watson could generate broad support on the Coast, he could pose a challenge for Reeves, who enjoyed large support there.

Auditor Shad White

White is considered a young, rising Republican star in Mississippi politics and is making a name for himself and headlines busting public servants with their hands in the till. He’s obviously ambitious and a likely candidate for higher offices. But at 35, he also has time to wait and build name recognition.

Other names are oft mentioned in any GOP higher office discussions in Mississippi: state Sen. Chris McDaniel, who’s made a couple of unsuccessful though high-profile runs at U.S. Senate; U.S. Rep. Trent Kelly of North Mississippi; wealthy and politically active businessman Gerard Gibert; and former U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering, who’s had a long hiatus from politics. These would all seem long shots for a GOP primary challenge that would in itself appear a long shot.

Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Frank Bordeaux said speculation about primary challenges this far out is common but often just that — speculation. He doesn’t at this point foresee any major GOP primary gubernatorial battle or downticket for other statewide offices for that matter.

Bordeaux, who was backed by Reeves to become MSGOP chairman, said the recent dismal polling of Reeves “doesn’t match what we’re seeing.”

“I don’t believe that Mississippians are that opposed to the current leadership in this state, from the governor on down,” Bordeaux said. “… I think the further we get out of the (COVID-19 pandemic), the better things are going to be in the state of Mississippi, compared to states that did not have our same policies … I’ve been traveling the state, meeting with grassroots groups in every large and small county, and I don’t hear complaints about the governor. I hear complaints about Washington, D.C.”

Again, challenging an incumbent governor — even one who sometimes struggles with favorability and has a penchant for making political enemies — is not for the faint of heart nor shallow of pocket.

“… And 2023 is a lifetime away in state politics,” Bordeaux said.

The post Will Gov. Tate Reeves, polling poorly after one year in office, draw a serious GOP challenger in 2023? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The last time I talked at length to the Mississippi State football legend Art Davis was in September 2014. Art was living in Oregon, but his heart was in Mississippi where his old friend, Jack Cristil, had died.

We talked the morning of Jack’s funeral.

“Days like today, I miss Mississippi the most,” Davis told me, speaking softly. “I live in Oregon and have for 13 years, but Mississippi is my home. It hurts not to be there today to celebrate Jack’s life. He meant so much to Mississippi and Mississippi State.”

Conversely, Art Davis, who died Jan. 29 at the age of 86, meant so much to Jack Cristil. It is a matter of fact that big Arthur Davis scored the first touchdown Cristil ever called at State. This was 1953. Dudy Noble had just hired Cristil to do State’s radio broadcasts for a whopping $25 per game. Noble told Cristil: “You tell that radio audience what the score is, who’s got the ball, how much time is left, and you cut out of the bull.”

So State opened the season at then-Memphis State, where Cristil dutifully told the audience how big Arthur Davis, so fast and so strong, ran 38 yards for a touchdown to give the Bulldogs an early lead en route to a 34-6 State victory. Who could have guessed: Cristil would go on describing State touchdowns for 58 years. He never forgot the first touchdown or the man who scored it.

Years ago, Cristil talked about the man who quite possibly was his favorite Bulldog of all-time, saying Arthur Davis “was an All-American on the field and a true gentleman off it.” Cristil said he had never felt closer to any individual, that Davis personified the best of Mississippi State.

Davis, who stood 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighed just under 200 pounds and ran a 9.8 100-yard dash, was named the Southeastern Conference’s Player of the Year in 1954 and was a first team All American in 1955. He starred on both offense and defense. Once, at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Davis scored all four touchdowns – three on runs and one on a pass interception – in a 25-0 State victory. Look Magazine named him college football’s Player of the Year in ’55. He was the fifth player taken overall in the 1956 NFL Draft, despite a crippling knee injury suffered as a senior at State. In 2018, Art Davis was inducted into State’s exclusive Ring of Honor.

The death of Art Davis follows by 34 days the death of his older brother, Harper Davis, another Mississippi State football legend and Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer. Harper was nine years older. Amazing that so much football talent could come from one Clarksdale family. Harper was once considered the fastest player in pro football. Turns out, his little brother was equally as fast, was three inches taller, and weighed 20 pounds more.

As a child in Clarksdale, Art was nicknamed “Honeybee.” A nurse in his pediatrician’s office said the little boy was “as cute as a honeybee.” The name stuck, even as he grew into a big, strapping man.

He entered his senior year at Clarksdale High as one of the most highly recruited players in the country, then suffered a broken leg in the first game of the season. Many of the out-of-state college suitors backed off, but State and Ole Miss still offered him a scholarship and Art chose State.

There, he played for a young Darrell Royal. Years later, he would help Royal coach a national championship team in 1963 at Texas. Before that, he also coached with Paul Dietzel at LSU and Bobby Dodd at Georgia Tech. After the national championship at Texas, he retired from coaching and came back to Mississippi where he worked, at various times, in Cleveland, Clarksdale and Starkville.

He moved to Oregon in 2001 to be closer to his grandchildren.

But he never quit missing Mississippi, says his son Doug Davis, who still lives near Portland.

Last year, Art made the decision, as son Doug Davis, describes it, “He wanted to end his life on home turf.”

So Art Davis moved back across the continent to Starkville, where he will be buried today not too far from where he scored so many touchdowns and where his name appears on the huge stadium.

I remember, almost hauntingly, what Art Davis told me more than seven years ago when we talked on the morning of Jack Cristil’s funeral.

“I miss Mississippi,” Art said, still speaking ever so softly. “You know people out here hear my accent and ask me where I am from and I tell them Mississippi. Invariably, the people screw up their face and say something like, ‘Really?’

“So I tell them, ‘Yes I am from Mississippi, just like Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, Archie Manning, Brett Favre, William Faulkner, B.B. King, Elvis Presley, John Grisham and Eudora Welty. They are always surprised when they hear those names. And then I’ll always tell them: ‘There’s no place like Mississippi.’”

Today’s (Feb. 2) memorial service for Art Davis will be held at Odd Fellows Cemetery on University Drive in Starkville with a visitation at noon, followed by a short service at 1 p.m. Memorials can be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and/or the Parkinson’s Foundation.

The post Art Davis loved Mississippi so, he came home to die ‘on home turf’ appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In honor of Groundhog Day (the day and the amazing Bill Murray movie), I figured I’d draw Mississippi’s own State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs trapped (like the rest of us) in the pandemic. Now cue Sonny & Cher…

The post Marshall Ramsey: Groundhog Day appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The all-Black board in charge of running Holmes County, one of the consistently poorest and blackest communities in the United States, didn’t have a problem voting unanimously to remove the Confederate soldier monument outside the courthouse last July.

They did, however, have a problem allocating $80,000 — the amount contractors estimated it would cost to remove it — within a paltry budget made up mostly of property taxes on the average $56,000 lot.

The statue honors the men who fought to keep roughly 12,000 Black people in Holmes County — nearly 70% of the county’s population in 1860 — enslaved.

And it’s still standing, drawing protestors Monday.

Representatives from the Freedom Democratic Party, originally co-founded by civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer in 1964, Black Lives Matter Mississippi and other activists groups gathered by the statue on a 40-degree morning, the first day of Black History Month, to demand its removal.

But the residents of Holmes County, named for Mississippi’s first governor David Holmes and built on a plantation economy, are fed up with much more than the stone sculpture.

“It’s time for these statues to come down. It’s time for them to do better by our kids. It’s time for them to do better by our community,” Dolecia Cody, a single mother of three and the president of the Tchula chapter of the Freedom Democratic Party, said outside the courthouse Monday. “I’m tired of seeing our kids standing on the corner with nothing to do.”

Cody and almost three-fifths of people in her town, the part of Holmes tucked inside the Delta, live in poverty. Cody receives meal assistance, but just like 96% of Mississippians living in poverty, the mother doesn’t receive the welfare check, a benefit of just $170-a-month for a family of three.

“We have nowhere to work. You have to go so far to get a job and you don’t have transportation because you don’t have a job,” Cody told Mississippi Today. “You know, they’re always saying, oh, we’re on welfare; we’re on food stamps. The thing of it is, if y’all will make jobs available in our community, a lot of us wouldn’t have to be on welfare or food stamps.”

Already concerning unemployment in the county rose as high as 28% at one point during the pandemic, nearly twice the state’s highest monthly rate last year. On the state’s prized job search engine Monday, there were 31 openings in Holmes — mostly for farmworker positions paying $11.83-an-hour — but there are roughly 700 people looking for a job.

Rainwater leaks through the roofs of the public schools and while residents failed to pass a bond issue in November 2019 to fund new buildings, the larger disinvestment in education for Mississippi’s poor Black children is evidenced by the state’s historic shortchanging of its own statutory education funding formula. The loss totals $15 million over the last decade in Holmes County alone.

Eradicating a symbol of white supremacy is just a first step in addressing the larger inequities resulting from systemic racism, said president of Freedom Democratic Party’s Holmes County chapter Cardell Wright. “Symbols do matter,” he said.

“Taking a statue down ain’t hard,” Wright said into a mic outside a brick building, partially patched with unfinished plywood, where supervisors were meeting. “Maybe dealing with poverty and trying to bring in jobs — maybe that’s difficult. But this right here? This is not difficult. It just takes a decision.”

Wright and Cody say they believe that while Holmes County’s leadership is all-Black, the local politicians are intimidated by the powerful white figures who control most of the area’s wealth.

“So behind the scenes, they’re calling the shots. And we who live here, we understand that. And we know it. So that’s why its important to fight it,” he said.

Holmes County Supervisor Leroy Johnson, co-founder of low-income advocacy group Southern Echo, is a member of the Freedom Democratic Party, though he was not included in the group’s demonstration. Johnson told Mississippi Today that to fund the relocation of the statue, the county would have to make cuts elsewhere.

“What services are you not going to provide?” he said.

The board has solicited bids from two companies but has yet to submit a plan for approval by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, a required step in moving the monument.

Meanwhile, solutions to the area’s opportunity desert remain elusive. Johnson said the board lacks connections needed to recruit promising industry to the area, such as Hinds County luring Continental Tire to build a $1.45 million plant in Clinton — a deal that hinged on generous state tax incentives and the blessing of the state’s white leaders.

“Sometimes it’s not Holmes County leadership’s fault, it’s a race problem,” Johnson said.

Set on Interstate 55, Johnson says while Holmes County has the right geographical access and connection to transportation to support business investment, what it lacks is “the connections with the right white folks who still control economics in the state.”

Johnson continued: “The reality is those connections are based on race and based on class and Board of Supervisors cannot change race or class. It just cannot.”

The white flight and rural decay characteristic of parts of the Delta today do not erase the area’s significant contributions to the state’s economy, Johnson said. “We built this state, dadgummit.”

“There’s some belief that if the Delta didn’t exist, Mississippi would be a different place,” Johnson said. “And the answer is that if the Delta didn’t exist, Mississippi wouldn’t even be Mississippi.”

The post These Black residents are led by an all-Black local government. But there’s still a ‘race problem.’ appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Home Corporation has opened a waitlist for tenants seeking some of the $200 million allocated in the latest stimulus package from Congress for rental assistance in Mississippi.

To get on the Rental Assistance for Mississippians Program (RAMP) Emergency Rental Assistance waitlist, renters may fill out an application on ms-ramp.com.

The program hasn’t officially launched, but the Home Corporation announced that Gov. Tate Reeves had chosen the organization to administer the funding from the U.S. Department of Treasury.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control eviction moratorium will remain in place until March 31 under an extension the agency announced last week. To avoid eviction, a renter must provide a declaration to their landlord or property manager, certifying that the order applies to them.

Kentucky Equal Justice Center developed a tool that allows people facing eviction to fill out and sign the CDC document online and email it to their landlord. Click here to use the tool.

Whereas the existing RAMP program, funded by an Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, included strict eligibility guidelines that caused several thousand to be denied, the treasury money is more flexible. For one, it raises the income limit for eligibility from 50% to 80% of the area’s median income.

In Hinds County, families of four would qualify if they earned under $56,700, instead of the previous $35,450.

Mississippi has also yet to begin pushing out its additional $38 million in Community Development Block Grant funding, which Reeves committed entirely to rental assistance in October, Mississippi Today reported.

By last week, HUD had yet to provide guidance to states for how to use those funds to pay off past rent debts, according to a spokesperson from the federal agency. “That component is expected soon,” an email read.

The post Behind on rent? The waitlist for $200 million in assistance is now open. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today’s Geoff Pender and Bobby Harrison quiz state Sen. David Blount about a wide range of legislative issues including education, tax policy, elections and sports betting. Blount, chair of the Senate Gaming Committee and vice chair of Senate Education Committee, also discussed his proposal to help fight the state’s public school teacher shortage.

Listen here:

The post Sen. David Blount discusses his proposal to offer loan repayment to Mississippi teachers appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Prominent Mississippi businessman and two-time state economic development director Leland Speed passed away last week after a long life of community service and job creation. Speed, founder of Parkway Properties, Inc. and EastGroup Properties Inc., helped development on the state and small-town level. Many Mississippians can thank having a job to Speed. He lived a long and fruitful life and Mississippi benefitted because of him. Rest In Peace.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Leland Speed appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In the 1990s, legislators passed innovative proposals to forgive student loan debt for college graduates who agreed to teach in Mississippi schools.

The proposals, shepherded through the Legislature by then-education committee chairs Billy McCoy in the House and Grey Ferris in the Senate, were the first of many similar proposals passed by legislators over the decades to deal with the shortage of educators.

Today, those proposals have a couple of things in common: None of them are currently funded, and they put the state in the position of having to be a collection agency when the teachers – often for legitimate reasons – don’t complete their commitment to teach in Mississippi.

And, oh yeah, the teacher shortage still exists.

Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, the vice chair of the Senate Education Committee, believes there is a better way to help pay for a new teacher’s college education. Blount has proposed the William F. Winter and Jack Reed Sr. Teacher Loan Repayment Program.

Blount’s proposal is different. The other programs help fund students’ college education as they progress toward their degree in exchange for a commitment they will teach so many years in the state’s public schools after graduation.

Blount’s proposal would pay off a portion of the loan over a three-year period as the new graduate teaches in Mississippi schools.

“Things change,” Blount said. “People’s life plans change. Instead of teaching in Mississippi, a person for whatever reason might move (out of state) or never teach. That puts the state in the position of having to collect that debt.”

The numbers are still being worked out, but Blount envisions, if the program is approved and funded by the Legislature, that a person would receive a payment of $2,000 toward the loan debt for the first year he or she teaches, $3,000 for the second year and $4,000 for the third year. Such payments would go a long way toward paying off the loan.

Some of the programs passed by the Legislature have focused on providing financial aid for people to teach in geographic areas or in subject areas where the shortage is more prevalent. The current proposal would provide financial assistance for teaching anywhere in the state, though the final bill could provide additional help for teaching in certain geographic areas or subject areas.

The bill also would repeal the about a dozen similar programs on the books.

“We are not taking anything away because those programs are not being funded,” Blount said.

Many long-term observers of public education would say it is appropriate Blount chose to name the legislation after former Gov. Winter and Tupelo businessman Reed. The pair, both deceased, are inextricably linked when it comes to public education.

“They were good friends and both were great Mississippians,” said Blount who grew up in Jackson but whose mother – the former Martha Lynn Means – is from Tupelo where he said he got to know Reed.

It was Reed who served as the chair of the blue ribbon education commission Winter formed, leading to the historic passage of the Education Reform Act of 1982 that created public kindergarten, school accountability and other items. And it was Reed whom Winter appointed to the newly formed state Board of Education in the 1980s. Reed was the panel’s first chair.

Reed’s willingness to speak up for public education as a leader in the Mississippi Economic Council in the 1960s, when many politicians were talking about closing schools to avoid integration, will go down as a profile in courage.

In 2006, Winter and Reed led a rally of more than a 1,000 at the state Capitol in favor of fully funding education. Reed, with his dry sense of humor, proclaimed to the crowd he and Winter were octogenarians for public education. As Reed spoke, Winter displayed a grin as if showing appreciation for his longtime friend.

And of course, prior to that episode, Winter and Reed were tapped by then-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove to serve on a commission that worked to replace the state flag, which prominently displayed the Confederate battle emblem. Even their genuine good-natured disposition could not diffuse the hostility that manifested itself at the commission’s public hearings.

Former Rep. Steve Holland of Plantersville, who served on the flag commission, described it “as the most never-wrecking experience any of us had ever had, but Gov. Winter and Jack both were calming influences.”

He added, “I would ride to Jackson with Jack. We literally had our lives threatened. We would be riding back and he would just about laugh and say the world is full of fools.”

The Mississippi Association of Partners in Education annually honors someone involved in education with the Winter-Reed Partnership Award.

Blount’s legislation being considered this year could further Winter’s and Reed’s long legacy in public education.

The post Mississippi senator proposes new teacher loan repayment program while honoring Winter and Reed appeared first on Mississippi Today.