Slim Smith

Oh yeah, you probably don’t remember the point that I was trying to make when I last wrote for The Commercial Dispatch.

That’s understandable. It was 30 years ago, after all.

This week I am returning to The Dispatch where I will cover the city of Starkville and its neighboring communities.

My association with The Dispatch began in 1980 where I spent the falls covering high school football while studying (I am using the broadest possible term here) at Mississippi State.

I left MSU a semester into my junior year at State (January of 1982) to work full-time at The Dispatch. Allegra Brigham was the managing editor. Dan Davis was news editor. Kyle Steward was city editor. David Putnam was sports editor. Winston Thompson was a photographer and tennis partner.

That stay at The Dispatch was brief – I left in August of 1982 for job at the Biloxi Sun Herald, where I stayed 14 years, becoming sports editor in 1990. In 1996, I left Mississippi for northern California for jobs in Santa Rosa and soon thereafter, the San Francisco Examiner.

I left San Francisco in 1998 to become sports editor at the East Valley Tribune in suburban Phoenix, where I stayed until 2007, the last two years as the paper’s Metro Columnist, an abrupt change of direction after spending 25 years of watching people kick, catch, hit, throw, drop and bounce various sorts of objects, mostly balls of various sorts.

I knew it was time to get out of sports journalism when I began to find the people in the stands infinitely more interesting than the people on the field. Plus, I wouldn’t have to interview naked people anymore. My goal is to never have to interview a naked person again. So if you drop by looking for news coverage, please, put some clothes on first.

In January of 2011, I returned to Starkville and MSU to finish that degree I didn’t think I needed 30 years ago. I graduate in a few days, which means it took me 35 years to get a B.A. I do not intend to get a Masters or PhD, pretty much on the theory that I am not likely to live that long, given my, ahem, “deliberate” approach to academics.

My return to The Dispatch reminds me of something British newspaper essayist G.K. Chesterton wrote more than 100 years ago. There are two ways to get home, Chesterton mused. One way is to leave home and travel all the way around the world until you arrive back to where you began. The other way is to never leave home to start with.

My journey has been more of the former than the latter, obviously, and while it wasn’t the most practical method of reaching “home,” I feel as though I am better for the journey.

Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.

Dispatch Staff Report

After a 30-year absence, Slim Smith is returning to the Dispatch.

Smith, who worked as a sports reporter at the Dispatch in 1982, now will be covering Starkville and surrounding communities at the Starkville bureau of The Dispatch.

A Tupelo native who this month will graduate of Mississippi State University, Smith previously worked as sports editor at the Biloxi Sun Herald, then in northern California and at The San Francisco Examiner in San Francisco, Calif. He left San Francisco in 1998 to become sports editor at the East Valley Tribune in suburban Phoenix, where he stayed until 2007, the last two years as the paper’s metro columnist.

“We’re delighted to have Slim back at The Dispatch,” said Peter Imes, operations manager. “His experience and writing skills will go far to enhance not only our Starkville coverage but the newspaper as a whole.”

Smith can be reached at our Starkville bureau at 662-323-2424 or via email at ssmith@cdispatch.com.

Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.

Special to The Dispatch

STARKVILLE — Eleven-year-old Laura Carson loved Camp Lake Stephens. Eating in the dining hall, canoeing, kayaking in the lake, flying down the zip line, playing Capture the Flag or just hanging with her friends, she loved every part of the camp. From the time she was seven years old, she visited Camp Lake Stephens every summer.

The daughter of local developer Lee Carson and real estate agent Jennifer Carson, Laura Carson was killed January 1 in a go-cart accident in Athens, Ala. But her spirit will live on at Camp Lake Stephens, located outside Oxford, through the building of a high ropes course at the camp in her memory.

First United Methodist Church in Starkville will host a dinner show fundraiser May 6 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the church’s Christian Life Center to raise $10,000 to help fund the course in Laura’s memory. The course will be used during summer camps and youth events and will be a potential future fundraiser for the camp, because groups can rent the course for leadership training and trust-building exercises.

The dinner show will feature dancers from the Academy of Competitive and Performing Arts, formerly Dancing Feet Academy, where Laura was part of the competition dance team. Dinner will be homemade lasagna (meat or vegetarian), salad, bread, and tiramisu. The event also will feature a silent auction to raise additional funds. Tickets are available for a $10 minimum suggested donation through the office at First United Methodist Church.

Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.

The Associated Press

STARKVILLE — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has named a new manager for a national wildlife refuge in Mississippi and one in Alabama.

Steve Reagan is project leader for the Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge near Starkville, Miss., and the Choctaw National Wildlife Refuge in Gilbertown, Ala.

He has worked with the national wildlife refuge system for 12 years. For the past three, he was a deputy supervisor who helped to lead more than 250 staffers on 39 refuges in Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky.

“Steve has a wide range of experience in refuge management,” said Cindy Dohner, the Service’s southeast regional director. “He has done everything from starting a Friends Group for Bayou Teche Refuge in Louisiana, to developing a scientific research program on the Southwest Louisiana Refuge Complex, to participating in rescue efforts following Hurricane Katrina.

“His hands-on experience will really benefit these two refuges.”

Originally from Massachu-setts, Reagan also has worked for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Park Service. He also has been deputy manager at the White River National Wildlife Refuge in St. Charles, Ark., and worked at several refuges in Louisiana, where he began working for the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2000.

Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.

Micah Green/Dispatch Correspondent

More than 40,000 people are expected to descend upon Mississippi State University and Starkville this weekend, as the city will play host to both Super Bulldog Weekend and the Cotton District Arts Festival.

Super Bulldog Weekend will be highlighted by a performance from Grammy-award-winning country group Sugarland on the field at Davis Wade stadium. The concert will be the first held in the stadium and is scheduled to immediately follow the Maroon and White spring football scrimmage.

Unlike previous years, tickets must be purchased to attend the Maroon and White game, but the ticket includes the Sugarland show afterward.

Jacqueline Mullen, associate director of the Colvard Student Union at MSU, said ticketing the event was necessary to offset the costs of booking and producing a show of this caliber.

“It takes a lot of resources to bring a world-class act like Sugarland to campus,” she said. “We knew we would have to have some kind of revenue to support it.”

Maroon and White game

Chad Thomas, assistant athletic director of marketing at MSU, said about 35,000 people attended last year’s Maroon and White game.

This year only 15,000 tickets have been sold so far, but Thomas has high hopes the number will get closer to 25,000 by the end of the week.

Tickets, which cost $25 for general admission and $50 for a field pass, are available through the MSU athletic ticket office and online at www.hailstate.com/tickets.

“The cheapest seat you can get on Sugarland’s tour right now is $59.50, and that’s in the nosebleeds” Thomas said. “We are trying to put you on the field with the band for less than that.”

The joining of the spring game and the show was the result of combined efforts from the MSU Athletic Department, Music Maker Productions, the MSU Student Association and the Campus Activities Board.

Mullen said the idea to bring Sugarland to campus has been in the works for over a year, and she does not think people realize what goes into booking a nationally touring act.

“It is kind of just a big jigsaw puzzle that you have keep working to fit,” Mullen said. “Especially with us, we had a specific date and time that we needed to work with.”

Brice Lambert, student director of Music Maker Production, wanted to be sure people know the walkway connecting the east and west sides of the stadium, behind the grandstands and the north end zone, will be closed.

“Go in on the side your ticket is for. You will not be able to cross behind the stage, and for this event, you will not be allowed to re-enter once you leave the stadium,” Lambert cautioned.

Several other MSU sports teams will be playing for the large crowds in town this weekend. The baseball team will take on the University of Tennessee in a two-game series, the men’s tennis team will play host to the Southeastern Conference Championship, the softball team will face the University of Kentucky in two games and both soccer and volleyball will host their alumni games.

Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.

Dispatch Staff Report

It was a busy weekend for the Starkville Police Department, as 56 arrest citations were issued, during a city-wide crackdown on selling beer to minors.

In a joint effort with Alcoholic Beverage Control, Starkville police held a city-wide compliance check April 13-14.

“We sent underage people into stores and other establishments to purchase beer,” SPD Capt. Chris Thomas said. “The stores that sold beer to the minors were issued arrest citations. We served 22 citations to 21 establishments over the weekend. We are not releasing the names of the establishments at this time.”

Thomas said compliance checks of this nature generally are held twice a year.

“The numbers in this operation are a little bit higher, because we hit every business that sells beer or alcohol in the city limits,” he explained. “This included restaurants, bars, stores and liquor stores.”

Also, 34 other citations — ranging from possession of marijuana, possession of beer/alcohol by a minor, public drunk, DUI and disorderly conduct –were issued during the weekend operation.

Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.

Slim Smith/Dispatch Correspondent

STARKVILLE — Roughly 43 percent of Mississippians, between the ages of 19 and 26, don’t have health insurance.

But Lateshia Butler, the program manager for the regional office of Health Help Mississippi, and others are working to ensure every Mississippian is insured.

“To be honest, I think there is some sort of health insurance available to every one of those people,” said Butler.

Last week, Health Help Mississippi held the grand opening of its new regional office at 1414 N. Jackson St. in Starkville. HHM is a non-profit organization committed to providing support, resources and health education. It is funded through the Community Exchange Development program of the Mississippi Insurance Department.

Butler, a Starkville native, returned to her hometown to open the regional office, which serves 21 counties in Mississippi from the Alabama border to the Louisiana border, including Oktibbeha, Clay, Lowndes and Webster counties.

The new office’s first initiative is focused on young adults, although future efforts will hit just about every other demographic group, including small business owners, senior adults and families with children.

“We chose to start with the young adult group, because the timing seemed to make sense,” Butler said. “It’s graduation time, and there are a lot of students who will be going out in the job market and they are not sure about what is available to them.”

The initiative will focus on helping young adults identify the best health insurance programs available to them. In many cases, Butler said, young adults are simply unaware of their options. The 19-26 age group has the highest percentage of uninsured people, among Mississippians.

“A lot of those people don’t realize that the Affordable Care Act has opened up some new possibilities,” Butler said. “For example, students can stay on their parents’ insurance, until age 26. So there are some new options, but we’ve found in talking with a lot of young adults that there are even some programs that have been around for years that they aren’t aware of.”

Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.

Micah Green/Dispatch Correspondent

The Starkville Central Neighborhood Foundation is pushing for a National Register of Historic Places nomination for Starkville’s downtown district which, if approved, would give property owners in the proposed district access to significant tax incentives for renovations and purchases.

Jennifer Gregory, manager of the Starkville Main Street Association, said the organization does not yet have a stance regarding the nomination, but recognized how much of an advantage the tax credits could be to owners looking to renovate commercial properties.

“If a property owner were to take on a large scale renovation, let’s say, like State Theater, they could receive a 45 percent tax credit on the renovations,” she said. “That could really make the difference between a large renovation, like that, happening or not.”

Michelle Jones, a Neighborhood Foundation board member, said 20 percent of the tax credit comes in the form of a federal credit and 25 percent comes as a state credit.

The tax credits would only be available to income-producing properties perceived as contributors to the historic worth of the district. Property owners must complete an individual nomination application and have plans approved by a local review board, like the Starkville Historic Preservation Commission, as well as the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

Jones said the idea to nominate Starkville’s downtown district came in April 2010, while the foundation was helping with additions to new nominations in the Greensboro Street Historic District.

“Our thought was that doing a survey for downtown would give us historic information about the buildings and allow us to better promote the area,” she said. “We understood that by going through the National Register process, it would allow property owners, who were doing substantial renovations, to take advantage of the federal and state tax credits.”

Starkville currently has three other districts under the National Register of Historic Places, but with all three being residential neighborhoods, the proposed downtown district would be something no business owner in Starkville has experienced.

The proposed district is loosely bounded by Jefferson Street on the north, the railroad right of way on the south, North Montgomery Street on the east and Yeates Street on the west.

Columbus business owners know the benefits. The Columbus Central Commercial District was nominated and passed review in 1980, and the district has seen considerable economic growth since.

In addition to the tax incentives made available by the nomination, the city of Columbus has offered business owners tax deferments for plans approved by the local historic commission. Starkville could consider something similar, if the nomination is accepted.

Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.

Jan Swoope

Black-hearted gamblers, lily-pure maidens and stalwart heroes leap from the dime novels of the late 1800s to the McComas Hall stage at Mississippi State University April 12-14. The Theatre MSU production of Tim Taggert’s “Deadwood Dick or The Game of Gold” begins at 7:30 p.m. nightly.

In 1876, Edward L. Wheeler started turning out novels about Deadwood Dick, a Robin Hood of the Black Hills. The popular series continued for 15 years. Taggert has reincarnated Wheeler’s most colorful characters and exciting plotlines in this blood-and-thunder script, where long-lost daughters, gold mines and narrow escapes are the order of the day.

Communication professor Donna Clevinger directs the 25-member student cast in action that centers largely in Calamity Jane’s Mantrap Saloon. There, Wild Bill Hickock, hero Ned Harris and the villainous Black ‘n Red meet again.

“It’s a fun show because it’s so over the top,” said MSU senior Grant Alexander of Starkville. He portrays Pong Ping, the Chinese cook who falls in love with Lily Blossom. “I think audiences will have as much fun watching it as we do performing it,” continued Alexander, an English and psychology double major.

Chip Templeton of Starkville will be at the piano, providing “songs of the Gay Nineties” and special music. The longtime educator and businessman is an associate with the North Mississippi Research and Extension Center.

“It’s indeed a privilege to work with these talented students in this very entertaining melodrama,” said Templeton. “Musically this has been a challenge and positive learning experience for me, as there’s no musical score. ” The accomplished pianist will create the sounds and songs that set the production’s mood.

How to go

Individual $10 general admission tickets will be available at the door. To purchase tickets online, go to comm.msstate.edu/dept /theatre/.

For more information, contact Clevinger at 662-325-4034 or dcleviner@comm.msstate.edu.

Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.

Special to The Dispatch

With the sad knowledge more than a thousand college students nationwide commit suicide every year, two Mississippi State University groups are working to raise awareness and provide support.

Led by the Division of Student Affairs’ Department of Relationship Violence and Outreach and campus chapter of Active Minds, an advocacy group, a two-part, information-sharing event will be held Tuesday. The event is free to all.

From 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Active Minds members are organizing a Send Silence Packing backpack display on the Drill Field to help educate about the tragedies of student suicides. At 6 p.m., featured speaker Jordan Burnham will share his story in McCool Hall’s Taylor Auditorium.

“It is my hope that our students, faculty and staff will join the members of the MSU chapter of Active Minds and come out to support and encourage, and to bring attention to the importance of the mental wellness of college students,” said Beatrice Tatem, relationship violence and outreach director.

Burnham is a 20-year-old college student from Philadelphia, Pa. As a high school senior, he attempted suicide by jumping nine stories from a bedroom window.

Beyond causing severe injuries, the traumatic experience forced Burnham to confront his battle with depression and led him to use his experience to help others in similar situations. He has shared his story with national audiences via CNN, Good Morning America, People magazine, Sports Illustrated, and USA Today, among other media.

“After falling over 100 feet, by miracle I survived and now I am trying to make a positive from such a horrible nightmare,” Burnham writes in his blog, “Life After the Fall.” For more information on Burnham and Active Minds, visit www.active minds.org.

Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.