OurTupelo

HAZLEHURST — The Hazlehurst City School District board replaced its superintendent in a Friday morning vote. 

The board voted to hire Nonya Thrasher as the district’s interim superintendent. Thrasher was serving as the district’s director of accountability, compliance and accreditation. She replaces Cloyd Garth Jr., who had led the district since 2017.

Board members declined to confirm whether Garth resigned. Garth did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The board also voted to name Paul Rhodes as school board chairman pro tem, an interim role. He stepped in for school board president Daniel Jones, who also previously served as University of Mississippi chancellor. Jones declined to comment.

The leadership changes coincide with a Mississippi Department of Education probe of the district, which uncovered several accreditation violations that must be resolved to avoid a possible state takeover. Rhodes mentioned the district required an interim superintendent who was well aware of the corrective action needed. 

READ MORE: Can consolidations fix dysfunctional school districts?

The state Education Department rejected Hazlehurst’s corrective action plan in March and downgraded the district’s accreditation status to probation. District leaders have until December to clear outstanding accreditation violations including incomplete student recordkeeping, poor oversight of special education services and infrastructure in need of renovations.

As the district’s accreditation director since 2023, Thrasher helped clear outstanding violations related to problems with district course offerings, student transportation and student safety. She previously worked as interim superintendent of Claiborne County Schools.

“I feel pretty confident,” Rhodes said of Thrasher’s new role. “We all need to get on board because the main objective is making sure that our kids get educated. That’s the bottom line.”

Rep. Greg Holloway, a Democrat from Hazlehurst, told Mississippi Today he plans to ask state education department officials if they could postpone taking additional action against the district to give new leadership time to address problems.

“The district has shown an interest in making the school district better and not continuing down the same path, even though they went down that path too long,” Holloway said. “Certainly something had to be done about the conditions at Hazlehurst city schools. And it’s been that way for nearly 10 years, and it was never rectified.”

He described Thrasher as a leader capable of making the district a place that “people can be proud of in the future.”

INDIANAPOLIS — The hero of Alabama State’s first NCAA Tournament win and three of his teammates on the 2024-25 team were ruled permanently ineligible for accepting payment from gamblers to fix the outcome of a game that season, the NCAA announced Friday.

Amarr Knox, Shawn Fulcher, Corey Hines and Tony Madlock were alleged to have engaged in game manipulation when Alabama State played at Southern Mississippi on Dec. 5, 2024. Southern Miss was a six-point favorite and won 81-64.

According to the NCAA, two known bettors offered the players a total of $2,000 to throw the game. The players accepted and were later paid.

Knox, Hines and Madlock were Alabama State’s top three scorers for the 2024-25 season and Fulcher was a reserve. Knox’s layup with a second left lifted the Hornets to their first NCAA Tournament win, 70-68 over Saint Francis in the 2025 First Four.

The two bettors were indicted in January by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on wire fraud and bribery charges related to sports contests.

The NCAA discovered the game-fixing after Hines transferred to Temple, which notified the enforcement staff that Hines had been contacted by the FBI and shown text messages concerning a sports integrity issue when he was at Alabama State. None of the players was active on a college team last season.

Mississippi Today Ideas is a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share their ideas about our state’s past, present and future. Opinions expressed in guest essays are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Mississippi Today. You can read more about the section here. 

Two years before the Voting Rights Act was passed into law, on June 12, 1963, NAACP civil rights leader Medgar Evers drove back to his home in Jackson with a T-shirt that read “Jim Crow Must Go.” His wife and children waited up past midnight for his return.

As he approached his doorstep, an assassin’s bullet took his life – and his voice.

Our state of Mississippi has had a long and bloody battle to protect the political rights of Black people. Evers was far from the only victim in that movement.

Yet, this April, the United States Supreme Court spit in the face of Evers and the millions who risked it all and gave their lives for the right to vote.

By eviscerating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that Southern states have used to launch late-decade racially gerrymandering across the South, to dismantle congressional districts and silence the voices of Black voters. 

With a single ruling, the court sparked a new Civil War. And this one is not being fought with weapons. It is being fought with maps.

Prior to the Voting Rights Act, we did not have a single Black member of the United States House of Representatives from the South, despite a majority of the Black population residing in the region.

After the law’s passage in 1965 and through enforcement in the courts, every state in the South elected Black lawmakers. The law ensured that communities of interest were consolidated, not chopped up and fractured out of political existence. The Voting Rights Act put more people at the table, allowed more people to participate in the process and provided safeguards that allowed people to advocate for the candidates of their choice.

Let’s be very clear: racial gerrymandering is voter suppression. It is discrimination. When Black communities are surgically split up into numerous districts, so that they only make up a small percentage of the vote share in each district, their voice and vote lose their weight.

Attacking Black political power as a front to seize illegitimate control over all of us is unacceptable and undemocratic. But Gov. Tate Reeves and his clan view it differently. To them, voter suppression is a game.

Immediately after the Supreme Court announced its ruling, Mississippi Republicans jumped on the opportunity to reverse Mississippi back to its confederate roots. They exploited the opportunity to push a map that would erase the only majority-Black congressional district in our state, which I have the honor to serve and represent.

Mississippi is almost 40% Black. But under Reeves’ congressional map, Black Mississippians lose their one and only seat in Congress.

To those of us who believe in democracy, it’s evident that Gov. Reeves is leading an effort to shut us out of the political process. But to him, this gerrymander would end what he calls my “reign of terror.”

I have proudly represented the 2nd Congressional District, and have among the best attendance records in the whole of Congress. I, along with the Congressional Black Caucus, have consistently voted for greater access to healthcare, resources to uplift the poor, for increased support for our schools, stronger infrastructure and for an end to Donald Trump’s authoritarian regime.

Meanwhile, under Reeves’ reign, Mississippi ranks 48th out of 50 on health. And we are second-lowest in the nation on education.

If you ask me, that’s the real reign of terror plaguing Mississippians, and Reeves knows it. He and others have become so unpopular that they are rigging the system to keep their wealthy, out-of-touch and racist cronies in control of our government.

Take Shad White for example, the state auditor and a candidate for governor. He’s called for eliminating me through racial gerrymandering, and the next day, posted a photo of his AR-15 assault rifle with the caption “lock and load.” This is how they plan to maintain power, but we cannot allow it.

These are dark times for Mississippi, the South, and the whole United States. But we need to resist these attacks with every fiber in our body. We need to take this on in full force, peacefully, united and determined.

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s won – don’t forget that. Despite it being rigged against them, the People overwhelmed the political system. They marched and protested, they got laws passed, they eradicated Jim Crow and they secured representation in Congress that all Americans deserve.

My former colleague Congressman John Lewis reminded us that “democracy is not a state, it is an act.” Freedom must be defended day in and day out.

We know how to confront this. We’ve done it before, and we will hold all of those accountable who are hellbent to shut us down. 

As Medgar Evers’ T-shirts so pointedly proclaimed: Jim Crow Must Go.

Bennie Thompson has represented Mississippi’s 2nd District in the U.S. House since 1993. Thompson is former chair and currently the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee. He previously served as mayor of Bolton and on the Hinds County Board of Supervisors.

Three men charged with the same shooting at a south Jackson apartment complex were attacked within 24 hours of each other at two different jails – an incident a corrections expert called “bizarre” and “alarming.” 

Twin sisters Natalie and Nicole Gibson believe their children, Fredrick Williams and Isaac Gibson, were victims of a coordinated attack on April 23 – Gibson at the Hinds County Detention Center in Raymond and Williams at the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in the Mississippi Delta, where Hinds County houses some detainees because the Raymond jail is crowded.

“This is today’s society,” Natalie Gibson said. “You have no friends.” 

Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones previously confirmed that Isaac Gibson and another man facing murder charges in a March shooting at Pine Ridge Gardens Apartments were stabbed inside his jail on April 23, with the attack on Isaac Gibson occurring in the early morning. 

“It’s a jail,” Jones said. “People get attacked, people fight. In Hinds County, Madison County, Rankin County, Simpson County. All over the country, people fight in jails.” 

In an effort to make her own peace with the incident, Natalie Gibson told Mississippi Today a similar sentiment: “Jail is jail, and kids hurt kids.”

READ MORE: Hinds detainees in Delta prison injured during attacks they say are gang connected

Mississippi Today obtained a video of a stabbing inside a jail, but Jones said it did not depict his facility. Instead, Natalie and Nicole Gibson say the video shows the stabbing of Fredrick Williams, who had been transported to Tallahatchie shortly after Isaac Gibson was attacked in the Hinds County jail. 

The video shows several men wearing green uniforms and white undershirts attacking a man in a cell. The men beat on the victim, punching him, flinging him around and stabbing him with what appear to be cloth-covered weapons as he yells, “What I do?” 

Since the attack, Natalie Gibson said she’s been able to talk to Williams. She said he told her he was attacked by the same group of men who stabbed Isaac Gibson in the Hinds County jail. She said Williams believes they traveled with him in the transport van to Tallahatchie. 

Natalie Gibson also said Williams told her he was stabbed over a dozen times in his head and body, has broken bones in his face and can barely see out of his right eye. She said he told her that he felt threatened by a lieutenant who asked if he wanted to press charges. 

Ryan Gustin, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, the private company that runs the Tallahatchie prison, wrote in an email to Mississippi Today that an attack on two Hinds County inmates did occur in the jail at around 5:25 p.m. on April 23. He said one was treated at the jail and the other went to a local hospital. 

But Gustin did not provide the inmates’ names or confirm that the video obtained by Mississippi Today depicts the facility in the Mississippi Delta. He wrote that the Tutwiler Police Department is handling the investigation, but the department could not be reached. 

“As this is an active investigation, we cannot provide any information related to the videos you shared as part of your inquiry,” Gustin wrote. “What I can share is that inmates are not allowed to have cellphones and they are considered contraband.”

Were it not for the video, Natalie Gibson believes Williams would be dead. She said she was sitting at her kitchen table getting ready to eat dinner when her cousin called and told her to check Facebook. Someone was livestreaming the beating. 

Immediately, Natalie Gibson said she tried to get ahold of someone at Tallahatchie. After about 20 minutes, she said she connected with a sergeant who initially told her “ain’t nothing happened down there.” She said he didn’t check on Williams until she played him the video.

She said Williams later told her that he had been lying on the ground, bleeding from the head, for a half hour before staff discovered him.

Jail violence is common, but this attack was unusual

Violence in Mississippi’s jails and prisons is far from unusual, said Kathryn Bryan, a corrections specialist who has run jails and prisons across the country and briefly oversaw the Raymond Detention Center.

In Tallahatchie, Williams is far from the only person who has been attacked this year. Last month, an inmate from the US Virgin Islands was stabbed to death in Tallahatchie, leading a senator from the territory to voice concerns about conditions at the private prison, Mississippi Today reported.

But Bryan called it “bizarre” and “alarming” for attacks to span two facilities, occur within a day of each other and involve multiple people facing the same charges. 

“I have never heard of a scenario that extreme,” she said. 

Bryan added it was highly unlikely the inmates responsible for the attack lacked help of some kind.

“It’s equally alarming: Staff are either at worst complicit,” she said. “Or second worst, either deliberately indifferent or negligent.” 

Either way, Bryan said the Gibsons should file a lawsuit against the jails, noting a settlement would add to the financial toll Hinds County is already experiencing as it builds a new jail to replace Raymond.

“There’s money to be had and that may be the only thing that gets their attention,” she said,

Jones, the Hinds County sheriff, cited legal concerns as a reason he could no longer comment on the incident while speaking to a reporter after a law enforcement standards and training board meeting on May 14. 

Going forward, Jones said he will only release information if an inmate dies or escapes. 

Sisters believe their family is persecuted 

Natalie Gibson no longer lives in Jackson, but she grew up in the city with her twin sister, Nicole. For a time, their mother lived at Pine Ridge Gardens, a south Jackson apartment complex better known by its former name, Rebelwood. 

The sisters sometimes stayed there, too, during what they both recalled was a more peaceful time at the subsidized housing complex. In recent years, Rebelwood has become the site of repeated shootings, with residents complaining of a lack of security and frequently calling the police. 

In 2020, Nicole Gibson’s son, Quindarius Gibson, was fatally shot at Rebelwood. Ever since, the sisters say they’ve received threats. Their house was shot up. Their brother’s house was shot up. 

“After Quindarius got killed, it (was) just pretty much street beef,” Natalie Gibson said. 

In March, an 18-year-old named Trevarius Cooper joined the long list of Jacksonians who’ve lost their lives at Rebelwood. Cooper’s father, Johnny Cooper, told Mississippi Today he wanted to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the apartment complex and was advised by his attorney not to speak to the media. 

On April 8, the Jackson Police Department held a press conference announcing it had charged Natalie and Nicole Gibson’s children and another man, Quandarius Beasley, with Cooper’s killing. The police did not offer an explanation for the men’s alleged motive or describe the chain of events they believe led to Cooper’s death.

Shortly after their children’s arrests, Natalie and Nicole Gibson told Mississippi Today they started receiving threats again. 

Booked into the Raymond jail and denied bond, their children also started getting threats, the sisters said. Natalie Gibson said Isaac Gibson called her to say some inmates had promised to stab him and he wanted to see refuge in Tallahatchie. The aunt said she advised him not to go into a cell if he didn’t feel safe. 

Lack of safety spurs lack of trust

Isaac Gibson and Beasley were stabbed in the Raymond Detention Center around 2 a.m., Jones previously confirmed to Mississippi Today. 

About three hours later, Williams got on a van to go to Tallahatchie, Natalie Gibson said. He was already on his way when she called Raymond in the early morning to check on him. 

“They assured me that as long as he’s in the (Tallahatchie) facility that nothing else will happen to him,” she said. 

But Williams later told her that several men he believed had attacked Isaac Gibson were sitting in the back of the van taunting him. Natalie Gibson said that Williams was familiar with the men, but that his attackers weren’t directly involved in the ongoing saga that Natalie Gibson believes is engulfing her family. 

As Williams was recovering in the medical area, Natalie Gibson said he told her that a lieutenant came by to ask him if he wanted to press charges. When Williams said yes, the lieutenant warned Williams that he could be killed in the jail, a statement that Williams interpreted as a threat. 

Natalie Gibson said a staff member assured her that Williams would not be moved out of the infirmary. But on May 17, she said she received a call that the lieutenant and a sergeant had forced Williams to leave by pepper-spraying him. 

Now, she wants Williams to go back to Raymond. 

“I don’t know who I can trust in Mississippi,” she said. 

As Mississippi prepares to open applications for grants to improve rural healthcare, lawmakers on Thursday voiced concerns about transparency and whether the hundreds of millions of federal dollars awarded to the state will reach and benefit rural communities. 

The federal government allocated Mississippi nearly $206 million in December as part of the Rural Health Transformation Program. States will receive payments over five years as part of a one-time, national $50 billion program.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves spearheaded the state’s application for these dollars last fall and is overseeing distribution of the funds through the newly established Mississippi Rural Health Transformation Program Office. Mississippi’s plan includes a statewide rural health assessment and other initiatives focused on coordinating care, strengthening the workforce, creating a statewide health information exchange, expanding telehealth opportunities and improving infrastructure.

During a joint meeting of House and Senate Public Health committees Thursday, lawmakers asked Mississippi Rural Health Transformation Program Office Project Director Richard Grimes how the state devised its funding plan, whether any private stakeholder meetings were held regarding the funds and how his office would ensure transparency.

Grimes, whom Reeves appointed to this position on April 29, said he was unable to answer lawmakers’ questions about events that occurred before he was hired. He also disputed claims that Mississippi has been less transparent than other states in distributing the federal funds. 

“We are where we are,” Grimes said. “We’ve got five months to obligate these funds. We can talk about the past or we can…” 

Senate Public Health and Human Services Chairman Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory, cut Grimes off. 

“No, we’re here to talk about the past,” Bryan said. 

Bryan said he was concerned that the state’s plan for the program was constructed using survey responses from stakeholders and conversations with agency heads rather than meeting with people in rural communities. 

“This closed process has been very disturbing, not just to those of us in the Legislature — this is not an argument between the Legislature and the governor — it is a frustration that is being expressed through us from people on the ground,” Bryan said. 

Jamila McLean, the director of health equity for Princeton University’s State Health & Value Strategies Program, told legislators at a May 28 hearing that Mississippi is an outlier in the limited availability of information about its rural health program. She also noted that nearly every other state held public meetings to gather input about how to spend the money and that Mississippi is one of two states where the governor’s office directly oversees the distribution of the money.

Grimes pushed back on these claims, saying that releasing information before the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved the state’s program budget on April 20 would have been premature. 

“April 20th was when the budget was approved,” Grimes said. “CMS approves all the communications. There’s really not a lot to talk about until that’s ready. There just wasn’t.”

The Rural Health Transformation Program office held a webinar Monday to discuss three grants that will soon open through the program. It also held an in-person outreach meeting Thursday at the Pearl Community Center. Additional community outreach meetings are scheduled in Cleveland, Ellisville, Summit and Tupelo for Friday through June 10. 

Grimes dismissed as “semantics” the argument that Misisssippi is one of only two states with its program administered directly by the governor. He said many states are administering their programs through other executive agencies. He pointed to Arkansas and Alabama as examples, noting that their programs are being overseen by the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration and the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs. 

Lawmakers passed oversight legislation in March requiring the program’s funding to be directed toward rural communities and spending to be reported to the Legislature. Reeves vetoed the bill, arguing it could jeopardize the state’s access to the money by slowing down its distribution and potentially result in a loss of up to $1 billion over five years. Lawmakers failed to override his veto. 

Responding to a request from House Public Health and Welfare Chairman Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, Grimes said his office will share required federal reports on the funding to the state Legislature. 

Mary Helen Abel, a program manager for BDO Government Services, formerly HORNE, said during the Monday webinar that applicants do not need to be located in rural areas but must demonstrate their proposal will benefit rural Mississippians. The governor’s office in January entered into a seven-year, $10.2 million contract with BDO for consulting and accounting services to administer the program. 

Abel added that funds have not been awarded or promised to any providers.

Grimes said program budget amounts will not be made public or shared with the Legislature because attorneys have advised the state not to. He said releasing that information to the public could affect the fairness of the grant process or inflate applicant’s proposed budgets. The state’s project narrative is available online but estimated funding amounts are redacted. 

During the webinar, Grimes and BDO staff announced Mississippi will begin accepting applications for three rural health grant programs June 15. These initial funded grant programs, which will flow through state agencies, will help providers:

• Make facility renovations, increase service capacity and efficiency and reduce travel burdens.
• Upgrade technology systems and strengthen cybersecurity infrastructure. 
• Increase telehealth capacity and educate providers and patients on uses of telehealth services. 

Applications must be submitted by July 15. Awards will be made in August and recipients will have less than a year – until July 2027 – to complete their projects.

“Many of these efforts will take place over multiple years, and we want people to be planning big, bold, multi-year initiatives, but we can only really think about how to structure things in one-year increments,” David Long, a senior manager at BDO, said to a full room of over 100 participants at the Thursday community outreach meeting in Pearl. During the event, BDO staff took questions from participants about how to apply for and use the funding. 

Rural Health program funding can not be used for new construction or major building expansion, according to federal guidelines. 

Applications will be scored with a rubric, which will be made public and is meant to objectively send money to providers doing the most good for people in rural Mississippi, BDO staff said. Grant recipients will be required to pay for most projects upfront and then be reimbursed, though there may be some exceptions. 

Bryan told Mississippi Today he has concerns about whether applications will be scored fairly and whether the funded projects will benefit rural Mississippi. 

Without more opportunities for public input while the state wrote its application for the funding, he said it’s too late to change how the funding will be used.

“All these decisions have been made,” Bryan said. “The train has already left the station.”

Greenwood Leflore Hospital informed employees Thursday it has delayed its anticipated closure to July 31 as negotiations over a potential transfer of operations to the University of Mississippi Medical Center continue. 

The public hospital, which is owned by the City of Greenwood and Leflore County, first warned employees in April of potential mass layoffs as the hospital prepared to close June 15. 

“Considering the best information available at this time, GLH now expects that it will cease operations and facilities on July 31, 2026,” Vice President of Administrative Services Key Britt said in a letter to employees obtained by Mississippi Today. “Such closure is expected to be permanent and will affect all employees.” 

The warning complied with the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires covered employers to provide 60 days’ notice before mass layoffs. The hospital said in April the WARN notice was sent in order to comply with federal law but did not guarantee closure.

Gary Marchand, a consultant advising the hospital’s board and former interim CEO, said in a statement the hospital’s financial position is stronger than officials projected in April. He said the closure of outpatient clinics in April is reducing expenses by about $275,000 a month. 

“Every effort is being made to assure the ongoing availability of healthcare services for local residents,” Marchand said, noting that the hospital still provides emergency, inpatient, swing bed, surgical and outpatient services to patients. 

Marchand declined to answer questions about whether negotiations with UMMC or another large healthcare system are ongoing. 

The 25-bed Greenwood hospital serves an area of the Mississippi Delta with limited access to health care. In Leflore County, nearly 13% of residents do not have health insurance, compared with roughly 12% in Mississippi and 10% nationally, according to 2024 Census Bureau data. 

The public hospital has faced serious financial challenges since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, repeatedly warning that its fragile condition could force it to close. The hospital has said its current financial turmoil stems from a dispute with Medicaid over paying back debt. That burden emerged due to overpayments from a program designed to support struggling hospitals that were calculated using old data.

To stay afloat, the hospital in April laid off 86 staff members, closed clinics and filed for bankruptcy. Hospital and local officials then said the moves were intended to ensure the hospital can continue to provide healthcare to the Delta region while it negotiated the possibility of a large health system taking over its services. 

Greenwood City Council President Ronnie Stevenson said Thursday the notice extending the hospital’s expected closure timeline was necessary because negotiations with UMMC are ongoing. 

“We’re still negotiating and working hard,” he said. “We still have a lot of moving targets to hit, but they all are possible. And I do feel good about it right now, where things are as far as Greenwood Leflore Hospital staying open for good.”

House Public Health and Welfare Chairman Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, said he has not been directly involved in the negotiations between Greenwood Leflore and UMMC. However, he said officials informed him that UMMC recently submitted a proposal to Greenwood Leflore for review. 

Leflore County Board of Supervisors President Eric Mitchell confirmed that discussions with UMMC are ongoing but said he did not know their status. 

This is not the only time the financially troubled hospital has filed a WARN Act notice in recent years.

The hospital also filed a WARN notice in April 2020, alerting staff of 120 potential temporary layoffs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The facility again filed such a notice in October 2022, warning that 600 employees could be laid off that December. That notice came amidst another period of acute financial crisis. During that time, the hospital laid off as many as 80 employees and shuttered services, including its labor and delivery unit. The hospital was in negotiations with the University of Mississippi Medical Center over a possible takeover, but those conversations stalled in November 2022. 

This year’s April notice reflects a similar pattern of events. Before the notice, Greenwood hospital officials announced permanent lay offs of nearly a fifth of its workforce and closed several service lines to prepare to transfer operations to a larger health system or potentially close.

Marchand said Thursday there are no plans to extend the WARN notice again.

Some state lawmakers say they want to reduce administrative costs and bureaucracy at school districts. They also want to replace dysfunctional school boards with more qualified leaders. 

They’re discussing district consolidations as a way to realize those goals in hopes of improving outcomes for students at low performing schools. 

“We’re trying to make sure that we’re giving these communities some basis to have some good leadership, move their community forward and not hamstring them even further,” said Rob Roberson, co-chair of the Select Committee on Consolidation. Consolidation should not compound the problems the smaller districts had before merging, he said.

The state House subcommittee convened on Thursday. School district consolidation is slated to be a priority for House Speaker Jason White when the next session begins in January.

Since fall, the Mississippi Department of Education has taken over two school districts, Okolona and Wilkinson County, for financial and academic reasons, respectively. Dozens of other school districts have not filed one or more years of financial audits, which could mask serious financial troubles. Leadership issues in local school districts have led to costly state takeovers. Academic and financial concerns often come downstream of leadership issues in local school districts, state Superintendent Lance Evans told lawmakers. 

But the Education Department cannot take over every struggling school district — a challenge Evans reiterated Thursday. 

Evans previously shared with the Senate Appropriations Committee that the department had spent $1.5 million on the state takeover of Okolona Separate School District in November, which strained an agency emergency fund meant to help struggling districts.

Many legislators said consolidation can be an effective tool to resolve longstanding issues with leadership in school districts with shrinking enrollment where management talent might be sparse.

Representatives discussed other methods of holding school leaders accountable, too. Some suggested increasing the eligibility requirements for local school board members. Others suggested passing legislation that grants power to oust a sitting school board member by referendum — an idea addressed in multiple bills in the past session, all of which died.

State education officials told legislators that consolidation requires investment in leadership too.

“Consolidation might put you in a position to be effective down the road, but you’ve got to make some decisions to manifest that,” said Mike Kent, a state Education Department official tasked with assisting on future consolidations. “Consolidation is not a panacea for saving money.”

A mixed history of consolidations

School consolidations have had mixed results in Mississippi. 

Kent touted Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District as a “poster child” for consolidation, but acknowledged the proximity to Mississippi State University as a unique factor to its success as an A rated district. In contrast, Greenwood-Leflore Consolidated School District has had significant superintendent turnover. It has earned only “C” and “D” grades on the state accountability system since its consolidation in 2019. The state took over Holmes County Consolidated School District in 2021 over safety and financial concerns following its consolidation in 2018. 

Legislation to consolidate the Hazlehurst City School District and the Copiah County School District died in committee in the  last legislative session. Now, Hazlehurst City schools, which the state took over in 2008, faces a possible state takeover if district leadership can’t clear remaining accreditation violations.

Rep. Greg Holloway, a Democrat from Hazlehurst, expressed concern about facilities maintenance and school board governance in the city school district, but he said other accountability strategies should be explored before consolidation.

He did acknowledge that consolidations can benefit some communities. 

“You have to take a look at what is best for the students, what is best for the community, what is best for economic development,” Holloway told Mississippi Today. “It helps to make the district more sustainable financially if you do that because most of these school districts, if you look at them, they’re top heavy.”

Tameshia Shelton, a Clay County mother of four serving life in prison on a murder conviction, will finally get what she said she’s been praying for — another day in court to try to prove her innocence.

In a 6-1 vote Thursday, the Mississippi Supreme Court declined to disturb the December decision by the state Court of Appeals ordering a new trial for Shelton. The appeals court held that prosecutors failed to prove Shelton was guilty of murder “beyond a reasonable doubt” when she stood trial in 2015 in the fatal shooting of her youngest sister’s 21-year-old boyfriend, Danelle Young.

“This nightmare is close to being finally over,” her middle sister, Shenikia Shelton, said Thursday. “The missing piece of our family’s puzzle is about to be home.”

The justices’ decision came days after Mississippi Today published its four-year investigation that found that Tameshia Shelton has remained behind bars for 11 years, even though much of the evidence in Young’s 2009 death suggested that he killed himself — including an apparent suicide note never presented to the jury.

Shelton’s trial lawyer, Rod Ray, failed to introduce Young’s apparent suicide note as evidence — a key reason why the courts have ordered a new trial for her. The appeals court found Ray was so “ineffective” as Shelton’s defense attorney that he violated her constitutional right to a fair trial.

Other gaps have emerged in Shelton’s case in the years since her murder trial. The prosecution’s case against her relied upon a deputy state medical examiner’s official ruling that Young’s death was a homicide. The pathologist later called the conclusion an “error” due to lack of experience. Prosecutors also used testimony from Clay County sheriff’s deputies that conflicted with actual records. 

“We’re very pleased,” one of Shelton’s current lawyers, Sandra Levick of the Mississippi Innocence Project, said of the Supreme Court decision. “We look forward to Ms. Shelton returning to Clay County where justice can finally be done.”

The case will return to the Clay County Circuit Court and the same trial judge, Circuit Judge James T. Kitchens, who previously denied Shelton a new trial after three days of hearings in 2021 and 2022.

Prosecution would fall to the office of District Attorney Scott Colom, who supported those hearings. In 2021, Kitchens reassigned the case to the attorney general’s office.

Colom could not be reached Thursday for comment, but he previously told Mississippi Today that if the case were returned to his office, he would “look at what the facts show and do justice.”

If Shelton is freed, she would become the seventh person prosecuted in Mississippi’s 16th Judicial District to be exonerated of murder — the most of any district in the state. Like Shelton, the district’s six exonerees were all prosecuted under Colom’s predecessor as district attorney, Forrest Allgood.

Shenikia Shelton said she and her family are “so very happy and thankful to God for everything.”

She thanked her sister’s lawyers and Mississippi Today for “shedding light on the injustices. So many doors have been closed in our faces trying to fight this.”

Madeline Nguyen is a Roy Howard Fellow at Mississippi Today. Ilyssa Daly is an investigative reporter who previously worked with Mississippi Today to help investigate this case.

BROOKHAVEN — Five days into rehearsals for “Singin’ in the Rain Jr.” and teens crowding the historic Haven Theatre stage have already nailed the commandment of one of the classic’s most iconic numbers, “Make ‘Em Laugh.” 

Director/Music Director Randy Redd chuckled with glee as they danced, romped and performed pratfalls their way through the song.

This week, for the fifth summer, Brookhaven native Redd is bringing his Broadway bona fides and three decades of professional theater experience back home to direct a show for the Brookhaven Little Theatre teen camp. 

In just under two weeks, he and a few colleagues take seventh- through 12th-grade campers, fresh out of school, from “show up” to “showtime” on the stage of the community theater.

Opening night is Friday for the musical’s three-day, four-show run at the Haven Theatre in downtown Brookhaven. A camp for younger kids (first- through sixth-graders), led by the Brookhaven Little Theatre’s volunteers, follows later this month, with performances of “Disney’s Aladdin KIDS” June 25-26.

“There was nothing like this in Brookhaven when I was a kid,” said Redd, an actor, director and writer now based in Los Angeles.

He recalled a Brookhaven Little Theatre production of “On Golden Pond” and a traveling marionette troupe as his sole memories of live theater from childhood. The kid in the cast of “On Golden Pond” caught his eye — ”I want to do that,” he thought — but no musicals crossed his path back then.

Musicals have peppered his theater career, though, including his Broadway debut in the original cast of “Parade” at Lincoln Center, Off-Broadway credits including “The View Upstairs” and “Pump Boys & Dinettes,” directing roles for “Million Dollar Quartet” and the “Sweet Potato Queens” musical at New Stage Theatre in Jackson, and much more.

Now, in the same auditorium where he once watched movies — since renovated and home for live performances  — Redd turns a practiced, professional eye on a stage where nearly two dozen teenagers tackle a beloved classic musical about movies.

“The thing that I always try to impress to the students and the kids is that when I was their age, there was no such thing,” Redd said of the teen camp. “So, the idea that they’re here in my hometown, rehearsing musicals … and that there are kids that repeat this program, from when they were in the little camp all the way up until they’re sort of kicked out after high school – it’s amazing to me.

“It is the reason that I come back and do this every summer.” 

Support of Brookhaven Little Theatre and Production Manager Steven McMorris, who has been the theater’s leader since 2021, is a factor, too. 

“He will do anything for the theater. He will do anything for these kids, anything for us,” Redd said.

Founded in 1968, Brookhaven Little Theatre is among Mississippi’s longest continuously operating community theaters. Area schools hosted early productions, and the theater bought the then-vacant Haven Theatre (built in the 1930s as a movie house) as its permanent home in the mid-1980s.

Its teen camp, started prior to COVID-19 and picked up again post-pandemic, initially followed a summer show format, with a month of rehearsal.

 In recent years, “We wanted to create more of a camp experience, where we bring in a professional directing team and make it more of a concise experience,” McMorris said, with a show coming together in less than two weeks. Minimal staging and projected scenic backdrops keep the production simple and efficient.

Participants go straight from full school days to full-time song and dance work, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily at the theater during the camp. First-timers find the confidence to get on stage. Veterans get a chance to sharpen their skills. 

“Some of the kids have the dream of going on and doing other things. Some of the kids, this is all they’ll ever do, and they’re fine with that,” McMorris said. ”We want it to be an outlet for anyone to just get some experience being onstage.”

Along with Redd, the production team includes couple Ben Newby-Kahre and Taylor Newby-Kahre as assistant director and choreographer, respectively. Professional actors in New York and later Memphis, with broader performance and directing credentials to boot, they are now based in Oklahoma City, where they’re starting an after-school theater program for children of all abilities. Gregor Patti, a New York-based actor originally from Jackson, joined the team this week.

Redd’s involvement is a tradition now, but it was not a given at the outset. First time out in 2019,  the teen camp production pick was “Les Misérables School Edition.”

“I had never done one of these,” he said. “I said no at first.”

The path to yes? He workshopped his dream project on the students — setting the musical in 1964 Mississippi during Freedom Summer. “The kids jumped in.”

Redd was Taylor Newby-Kahre’s vocal performance teacher at New York University and the two have worked together off and on for about 20 years. Still, she was skeptical about this small town gig. That first show in 2019 changed her mind.

“As soon as we got here … there were so many kids that wanted to do this, and were actually really good,” Taylor Newby-Kahre said. Many they see, summer after summer, back as participants. “It’s incredible how much they have just grown” in skills and self-confidence.

“It is like night and day,” she said. “And that, to me, is the best part about theater, just in general. Because most of the people that do it, they become lawyers or CEOs … they don’t necessarily do this for a living, but you can take it anywhere.”

She said theater performance has value in public speaking and making and building connections. “This helps with all of that.”

For the teens, the appeal is simple. “Fun” is a word that comes up a lot, but other factors, too, keep pulling them back to the stage — this one in particular — for a season show or camp production.

“This just gives me a space to be creative, and sing and share my love of music with other people,” Magnolia Jones, 15, of Bogue Chitto, said. “I love being on a stage, and I love getting a reaction from people, like making them laugh or, if it’s sad, making them tear up.”

Gage Dyess, 13, a rising eighth-grader at West Lincoln Attendance Center, enjoys the community and the people at Brookhaven Little Theatre, plus  “I like getting up there.” For “Singin’ in the Rain Jr.,” he is game for improv, trying out some gruff gravitas to voice his character, Hollywood producer R. F. Simpson.

Andrew Miller, 13, of Hazlehurst, embraces the camaraderie. 

“I like being part of something that multiple people are a part of, sort of like a team in football,” he said. “You have to be coordinated, communicate well with others, stuff like that. And I like making the community enjoy watching that team.” 

Summer fun was a magnet for Oliviah McCullom, 13, and Lorelai Gennaro, 17, both of Brookhaven, and the chance to work with professionals is a big benefit.

“It’s inspiring to me because I get to see, oh, they’ve actually done it. They’ve done the whole thing,” said Gennaro, who has the show’s lead role of Kathy and wants to continue in theater through adulthood. Scene and character work with Ben Newby-Kahre was a favorite part this year, beneficial for this show and her approach to future characters. “It’s just a big learning experience.” 

McCullom counted the summer production as her ninth show at Brookhaven Little Theatre, and appreciated acting help from directors who improved her actions and reactions onstage.

Gennaro praised it as a low-pressure intro to musical theater for teens, and a place to form easy friendships and connections, plus build confidence. “Throughout every year, I’ve gained more and more confidence, and I’ve gotten more comfortable not only speaking onstage, but out in the world,” she said.

“I think we’re blessed. BLT, I feel like, is such a hidden gem in Mississippi, because it’s in such a small town.”

Recalling the paucity of musical theater in his own growing up years, Redd counted off the current bounty in the area, including productions at Mississippi School of the Arts, Brookhaven High School and Copiah-Lincoln Community College as well as Brookhaven Little Theatre. “There’s so much, suddenly, right here in Brookhaven that the community has some options.”

He wants to make sure the community knows about this one, and a slate of build-up events — a play reading, “Wicked” film singalong and more — plus encouraging participants to talk it up, spread the word.

In the auditorium, Redd watched the camp’s teens trying on the well-worn classic and making it fresh for a new generation. His outlook was both professional and affectionate, likely with a dose of hometown pride. When 13-year-old Gage Dyess barked an order like some old-school Hollywood producer in the scene, Redd laughed and marveled at the comic surprise.

“That was awesome,” he said quietly, never breaking his gaze at the stage.

Mississippi is one of 10 states joining a federal program that funds community mental health centers to expand their services, enabling them to sustainably provide care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. 

Two regional community mental health centers were selected to host pilot programs, and will receive four years of federal Medicaid funding to help cover expenses. The pilot centers are Communicare, covering north-central Mississippi, and LifeHelp covering rural counties in the Delta. Leadership at the mental health centers see this support as a lifeline in a system that has struggled to stay financially afloat. 

“It’s truly a transformational moment for our public mental health system,” said Phaedre Cole, executive director of LifeHelp. 

The Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic model is the “gold-standard” when it comes to behavioral therapy, Cole told Mississippi Today, because it creates an accountability-focused framework to cover a coordinated system of care. In states that have shifted to this model, clinics have expanded treatment options beyond therapy, reduced wait times and increased staffing, data from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing shows.

Other recently added states included Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Washington and West Virginia, according to a May 28 press release from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Participating mental health centers must “provide 24/7 crisis care, timely outpatient services, and access to a comprehensive range of services” to any patient seeking mental health care, the press release said. 

Congress created the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic Medicaid Demonstration Program in 2014, in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, amid growing awareness about the need for community solutions for mental health treatment. “At the core of this program is the belief that everyone deserves access to behavioral health services and treatment, something DMH wholeheartedly stands behind,” wrote Adam Moore, a spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Mental Health. 

Mississippi’s entry into the demonstration program comes after a 2025 bill authored by Sen. Rod Hickman, a Democrat from Shuqualak, directed the Department of Mental Health and state Division of Medicaid to apply for the program. Mississippi first applied in 2024, but was not selected that round. 

Hickman said the funding opens up resources for local clinics, and told Mississippi Today he is excited to see how the program is implemented at community mental health centers. 

“I’ve talked a lot with the CMHCs over the last year, and a lot of them have been saying that they are worried about collapsing,” he said. “[The program] allows for our mental health facilities to provide more services and benefits to the people that they serve.”

In Mississippi, four regional centers have closed since 2013, citing financial difficulties and stretching the coverage area of the remaining 12. Currently, community mental health centers operate under the “fee for service” model, which reimburses providers for billable appointments. This system rewards volume over value and doesn’t cover all of their costs, Cole said. 

By contrast, the certified behavioral health clinic model is a “prospective payment system” that has fixed reimbursements for a set of services, including ones the traditional model doesn’t cover. It is designed to pay a clinic back for providing a system of comprehensive care, such as through preventative screenings, treatment planning, case management and peer support. 

This program is rolled out through Medicaid, making it more reliable than the patchwork of grants community mental health centers across the country have historically relied on, Cole said. 

“You can’t really plan for the future when you don’t know if those grants are going to be there or not,” she said. “This is predictability that we desperately need.”

House Public Health Chairman Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany who authored the bill in his chamber, pointed to around-the-clock care as a high impact area for patients. 

“If a problem arises and it’s not during working hours, they end up being held in jail or the emergency room,” Creekmore said. “This provides them a place to go and be treated.” he said, adding that he hopes to see the program implemented across the state by 2030. 

As the executive director of a statewide organization for families of children with behavioral needs, Joy Hogge is more skeptical. The organization called Families as Allies has supported the certified behavioral health clinic model since at least 2021, their website shows. But when Mississippi applied for the demonstration program, Hogge said family advocates were excluded from planning. 

“It just seems bizarre to me that if you really want everyone at the table and all the different perspectives, I would assume that peer support would be a big part of this,” she said. To her knowledge, neither her group nor any other end users of the system, the people who receive treatment, were contacted to provide feedback on the application. 

Hogge said she is concerned the program will change community mental health centers’ billing structure, but not provide the systemic change she sees as necessary. 

“I think there’s definitely a risk that nothing will change as far as how responsive the system is to people,” she said. “I also think there’s a risk that Medicaid dollars won’t be used wisely.”

Still, she sees the opportunity the program funding provides, especially for at-home treatment options for youth behavioral health treatment. The potential for providers getting rewarded based on their patients’ outcomes is exciting, for instance if Mississippi chooses to offer clinics an end-of-year bonus for meeting certain benchmarks. She hopes that centers will actively seek feedback from people with lived experiences, update peer support requirements alongside peer-run organizations, and coordinate with schools to keep children in classroom learning rather than pulling them out for therapy sessions. 

Although Hogge will be retiring from Families as Allies by June 30, she plans to keep an eye on the demonstration program rollout and response from the pilot mental health centers. 

Meanwhile, Cole is enthusiastic about the program’s implications and grateful to the Mississippi departments that wrote the application. 

“This certainly gives me renewed hope,” she said. “This is not just a model that improves care, but it’s also a sustainability piece.” When the four years of the pilot are up, she hopes that Mississippi continues to opt in to the program, and to see the model become the statewide standard.

Mississippi Today mental health reporter Allen Siegler contributed to this reporting.

This story was produced with support from the Sarah Yelena Haselhorst Fund for Health Journalism.