News and information about Starkville and Oktibbeha County
ASSOCIATED PRESS
STARKVILLE, Miss. — Cadence Financial Corp. said Tuesday that shareholders elected 12 company directors and voted to increase the number of company shares.
The vote clears the way for the increase in the number of authorized shares of common stock to 140 million. The directors include the company’s chairman and CEO, Lewis F. Mallory Jr.
Company shares fell 18 cents, or 8.2 percent, to close at $2 each.
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STARKVILLE – An expert on U.S. military history will speak Thursday morning at the Starkville Sportsplex as part of the Oktibbeha County Heritage Museum’s “Our Community” series.
Winona native William “Bill” Lee will discuss World War II and the German submarines that made it to the Gulf of Mexico, Oktibbeha County Heritage Museum volunteer Bill Poe said.
During 1942 and 1943, more than 20 U-boats operated in the Gulf of Mexico. They attacked tankers transporting oil from ports in Texas and Louisiana, successfully sinking 56 vessels.
“It’s something that not many people know about, that the war came that close to our country,” Poe said.
Read complete article at Commercial Dispatch.
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STARKVILLE — The Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Department Tuesday night arrested a Starkville man wanted for crimes ranging from drug dealing to contempt of court.
Sometime during the early evening hours, Sheriff’s Department deputies arrested 25-year-old Ferlando Sherrod Carpenter, of 1019 Mobley Road, on warrants for one count of sale of cocaine, two counts of sale of marijuana, one count of conspiracy to sell marijuana and three counts of contempt of court, OCSD Chief Deputy George Carrithers said this morning. The contempt charges were filed in Oktibbeha County Justice Court while the drug and conspiracy charges were filed in Oktibbeha County Circuit Court, Carrithers said.
Read complete article at Commercial Dispatch.
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Monday, May 31, is Memorial Day.
DISPATCH: Monday’s edition of The Dispatch will be delivered in the morning, instead of the afternoon. The Dispatch’s offices will be closed Monday for the holiday.
BANKS, GOVERNMENT: All local banks will be closed on Memorial Day and all city and county government offices also will be closed.
SCHOOLS, SERVICES: The Starkville Public Library, the Starkville Electric Department, 4-County Electric Power Association, Mississippi State University and area school districts will be closed Monday.
TRASH, MAIL: Trash pickups will resume on Tuesday. Post offices will be closed on Memorial Day.
TIM PRATT
For the Golden Triangle to attract new businesses, Starkville, Columbus and West Point must work together instead of viewing each other as “the competition” when it comes to economic development, Starkville Mayor Parker Wiseman told the Columbus Rotary Club Tuesday afternoon.
Prospective businesses often look at the quality of life in an entire region before locating there, Wiseman said, not just individual cities.
Starkville leaders should promote the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, but also should tout the River Walk and Burns Bottom in Columbus, Wiseman said. With events like the Cotton District Arts Festival, Bulldog Bash and countless Southeastern Conference sporting events in Starkville, coupled with Columbus’ Market Street Festival and Wings Over Columbus Air Show, local business leaders, tourism officials and others should try to “sell” the region as a whole to prospective businesses, Wiseman said.
“Then we’re selling somebody on a lifestyle and an experience that nobody can do on their own,” Wiseman said.
The three cities of the Golden Triangle are growing closer all the time, though not in a literal sense, Wiseman said. Communication and transportation have improved over the years, he said, and businesses like Golden Triangle Regional Airport, located roughly equidistant to Starkville, Columbus and West Point, have attracted workers from all three cities.
As GTRA expands and a planned aerospace megasite is constructed just west of the airport, more businesses, residences and infrastructure will appear in the vicinity, Wiseman said, which will link the three cities even more. Part of the aerospace project includes an extension of Artesia Road through Oktibbeha County to Highway 25.
Read complete article at Commercial Dispatch.
JASON BROWNE
STARKVILLE — A Starkville Police Department detective says no gang harassment had been reported by the family of murder suspect Dennis Thompson.
Sgt. Chadd Garnett responded Tuesday to allegations levied by family members of Thompson, 17, following his bond hearing Monday in Starkville Municipal Court. Garnett denied Thompson’s family filed a report with the SPD Wednesday, days prior to the Saturday morning shooting which left one man dead and three wounded, of threatening text messages sent to Thompson’s phone.
Furthermore, he says the department had “no knowledge” of any prior gang harassment and denied Thompson has received a police escort at school prompted by earlier threats.
“It’s not our policy to escort people to school,” said Garnett.
Asked whether Starkville has an ongoing gang problem, Garnett declined comment.
He did corroborate the family’s claims that Thompson may have been assaulted outside Club 124 moments prior to the shooting.
Read complete article at Commercial Dispatch.
JASON BROWNE
Bond was set at $300,000 Monday for a Starkville man accused of murder.
Dennis Thompson, 18, appeared before Municipal Court Judge Rodney Faver to face one charge of murder and three counts of aggravated assault. Favors accepted the Starkville Police Department’s recommendation Thompson’s bond be set at $150,000 for the murder charge and $50,000 for each charge of aggravated assault.
Dressed in an orange Oktibbeha County Jail shirt and wearing a bulletproof vest, Thompson stood before Faver in Municipal Court flanked on all sides by police officers. He heard charges accusing him of shooting and killing Curtis K. “C.K.” Randle, 25, with a .40 caliber pistol, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. He is also accused of shooting Starkville High School students Devier Outlaw in the arm and abdomen and Azaria Ross in the thigh. East Oktibbeha high-schooler Tony Vincent Harris was also shot in the abdomen. Each aggravated assault charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Thompson’s parents informed Faver Thompson does not currently have an attorney, but they have spoken to an attorney about retaining his services. Faver set a return date of June 7 for Thompson to appear before the court to determine if he has legal representation or needs a court-appointed attorney.
Following the hearing, Thompson’s father, Dennis Deloach, told reporters his son has been harassed by a local gang for the past five years. Deloach says Thompson was involved in an altercation with the gang following a graduation party at Club 124, at the corner of Highway 182 and D.L. Conner Drive, early Saturday morning just prior to the shooting.
Deloach said he believes one of the gang members “kicking him and stomping him” dropped a pistol, and Thompson grabbed it and began firing randomly to stop his attackers.
Kenyetta Stallings, Thompson’s cousin, said she heard a different version of the story. Like Deloach, she says Thompson has had dealings with the gang for years, but denied he is involved with a rival gang.
Read complete article at Commercial Dispatch.
TIM PRATT
STARKVILLE — Traffic is expected to return to normal on Old West Point Road this week as crews complete the reconstruction of a bridge that washed out earlier this month.
The primary bridge reconstruction work has been completed by Ellis Construction of Columbus, Starkville city engineer Edward Kemp said Friday, but inclement weather Thursday and Friday prevented the necessary work for roadway repaving and final cleanup. Work will continue on the bridge today and Tuesday, with a goal of reopening the bridge on Wednesday morning, Kemp said.
A motorist was driving on Old West Point Road May 3 when he noticed an approximately 4-by-4 foot hole had formed in the southbound lane, at the edge of a bridge about 1/4-mile south of the Highway 82 overpass. The bridge crosses an unnamed tributary of Sand Creek.
A large pile of downed trees, limbs and other debris formed a dam at the bridge, which forced rushing water into the south side of the bank. Eventually, enough of the bank washed out under the road to cause the pavement to collapse at the edge of the bridge, approximately 20 feet above.
Read complete article at Commercial Dispatch.
Daniel L. Gardner
Guest Columnist
Progressives have transformed Washington into a spending machine on steroids, and President Obama is seeking to consolidate more power in the White House. Checks and balances in Washington are neither checking nor balancing power there. Voters are the last chance to thwart Progressives’ moves to fundamentally transform America.
Would you feel more comfortable being judged by a jury of government officials or randomly selected voters?
What if our state and federal legislative bodies were selected randomly from voter rolls? What if these legislative bodies elected executive officers from their members? And, what if all terms of offices were limited to no more than 4 years per person…total?
I’d vote for that!
William F. Buckley, Jr., celebrated conservative journalist who died in 2008, once quipped, “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”
A recent Rasmussen poll found, “41% [of likely voters] say a group of people selected at random from the phone book would do a better job addressing the nation’s problems than the current Congress.”
It’s safe to say Americans are discontent with government in general and Washington in particular. The Founding Fathers did everything they could to prevent America from growing a ruling class. Their experiment with the Constitution provided checks and balances for all three branches of government, including a fourth check: voters.
Politics is about money and power, not service regardless political rhetoric. Look at how many in Washington are ‘full-time’ career politicians. Do you realize two families ruled America from the White House 20 out of the past 21 years? If Hillary had won, we’d still be counting.
Our Founding Fathers believed government closer to the people, spread out among the people – versus consolidated and centralized government – was more effective and less oppressive. Their beliefs were forged by experience.
Thomas Jefferson said, “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
James Madison opined, “There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”
Ronald Reagan said it this way: “Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.”
Abraham Lincoln said, “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”
However, we are no longer a nation governed by the people or for the people. We have become a nation ruled by political elites anointed by politicians, academics, and media alike. “Let the professionals lead us,” they say.
Progressives continually tell us ‘ordinary’ folks we’re too stupid (Bill Maher’s word) to know what we need, or how to govern. Their rhetoric is no different from Hitler’s, Stalin’s, or Mao’s Marxist-based ‘government-is-god’ philosophies.
Jefferson expressed as well as anybody how self-governed people ought to protect their freedoms.
“I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.”
Voters are the last check against government tyranny.
Daniel L. Gardner is a syndicated columnist who lives in Starkville, MS. You may contact him at PJandMe2@gmail.com
His column does not reflect the views of Starkville-Now.com.
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STARKVILLE — Starkville police are investigating a deadly shooting Saturday morning after a high school graduation party.
At 1:11 a.m. Saturday, officers with the Starkville Police Department responded to a call of shots fired in the vicinity of Club 124, where a high school graduation party was being held.
“Upon arrival, (officers) found one person down and three (had been) transported to the Oktibbeha County hospital,” SPD Sgt. Chadd Garnett said, in reference to OCH Regional Medical Center.
Read complete article at Commercial Dispatch.
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