| Thursday, April 9, 2015 |
| Four vying for Mississippi State student affairs post | |
 | A Mississippi State University search committee charged with finding the school's next vice president for student affairs announced four finalists will be interviewed this month. "There has been great interest shown in this position by candidates from some of the top universities across the nation, and we're delighted with this very impressive group of finalists," said MSU Provost and Executive Vice President Jerry Gilbert. On-campus interviews are scheduled during the weeks of April 13 and 20, and finalists will participate in open forums and public question-and-answer sessions. |
| Mississippi State Announces 'Maroon Edition' Book | |
 | When homeless drifter Denver Moore met visionary advocate Debbie Hall in 1998, little did Ron Hall realize that his life would change forever. The real-life characters become the cast of players in Mississippi State's 2015 Maroon Edition "Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together." The 245-page novel, released in 2006 by HarperCollins Publishers subsidiary Thomas Nelson, is the university's 2015 selection for the university-wide common reading program. Maroon Edition activities are held through the academic year for students at all class levels, along with interested administrators, faculty and staff members. |
| Union school counselor, an MSU-Meridian adjunct, serves as 'mom' to hundreds | |
 | Lori Wilcher and husband Jimmy are the parents of three biological children and have been foster parents to 10 more. Even so, Lori Wilcher, a 41-year-old elementary school counselor and behavioral specialist with the Union Public School District, often finds herself playing "mom" to hundreds of others. After only a few minutes in her presence, a visitor easily appreciates how passionate she is about children. For the past two years, Wilcher also has been an adjunct professor at Mississippi State University-Meridian. Wilcher said being a counselor has proven to be a "perfect fit," as has teaching graduate classes in the MSU-Meridian program from which she graduated. |
| Rain-weary: Area farmers hope for a window of dry weather | |
 | Chris Hussey isn't a row-crop farmer like his brother, Herman, which means he doesn't plant corn, soybeans or cotton. However, he is like every other grower across Northeast Mississippi wondering when the wet weather will relent and give him much-needed time in his fields. Usually at this time of the year, Hussey and his employees are cutting sod for homeowners, landscaping crews and others who need pallets of sod to lay down. But the rain has put everything behind schedule. Charlie Stokes, the area agronomy agent with MSU Extension Service, said Hussey's situation is repeated across the region. "It's been a lot like 2013 when we had a wet spring, when it was wet for most of March and well into April," he said. "A lot of corn should have been planted by now, but there's been very little of it." |
| ZZ Top to play Friday at the Hump | |
 | Over 40 years after ZZ Top opened in 1973-74 school year with a concert at the Animal Husbandry Building on the Mississippi State University campus, they will return Friday to play at the Humphrey Coliseum. The concert was rescheduled from Oct. 30 after bassist Dusty Hill suffered a hip injury in September. Emilie Cravens, assistant director of MSU's Center for Student Activities, said the band rebooked as many tour dates as possible based on availability once Hill received the "OK" from his doctor. ZZ Top released a string of 11 gold and platinum albums starting with 1973's "Tres Hombres," which first showed their blend of Texas boogie and blues. Popular music videos for "Gimme All Your Lovin," "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Legs" escalated their fame. (Subscriber-only content.) |
| The Biscuit Lady: Starkville baker finds success selling one simple item | |
| When Michelle Tehan was a little girl, she used to help her grandmother, Dot McMurray, make homemade buttermilk biscuits. "I sat on her counter -- that's where you could help her better. There was no stool at my grandmother's house," said Tehan 35. "I'd get to pour the buttermilk. She'd say, 'A little more, a little more. I'll tell you when to stop.'" Tehan has parlayed that early knowledge and her knack for baking into her own business: The Biscuit Shop in Starkville. Tehan opened her business in June 2014 after successfully selling her made-from-scratch biscuits at the local farmers' market and on Facebook. "I was the business coordinator for Wildlife Fisheries and Aquaculture at Mississippi State University and I was baking from home and it reached a point where I was making my take-home pay in baking," she said. |
| MDA's Brent Christensen leaving for Greensboro (N.C.) Partnership | |
 | Mississippi Development Authority Executive Director Brent Chistensen is leaving the post he has held for three years to become president and chief executive of the Greensboro (N.C.) Partnership. During Christensen's tenure, more than 17,000 jobs were created and more than $2.43 billion incorporate investment was made, according to an MDA release. A signal achievement was the recruitment of Japanese commercial tire manufacturer Yokohama Tire Co., which is to open a West Point manufacturing facility in the fall. Christensen will report for the new job by June 1 and agency Chief Administrative Officer Manning McPhillips will assume responsibility for the agency's daily operations upon Christensen's departure. |
| State's top economic developer to leave | |
| Mississippi's top economic developer is taking a job in North Carolina. Brent Christensen, tapped by Gov. Phil Bryant as executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority in May 2012, will become chief executive officer of the Greensboro Partnership. Christensen first worked in Mississippi in the 1990s as a reporter for the Hattiesburg American newspaper. While there he was hired by David Rumbarger, now president and chief executive officer of the Tupelo-based Community Development Foundation, to work for the Hattiesburg-based Area Development Partnership. Rumbarger had been rumored for the state post in the past, but has consistently said he is not interested in leaving Tupelo. "I like being here," he said, adding there are numerous other good candidates for the MDA post both in Mississippi and outside the state. |
| Christensen leaving Mississippi Development Authority | |
 | Mississippi Development Authority executive director Brent Christensen will leave his post exactly three years after he took it. Christensen has been named the new president and CEO of the Greensboro Partnership in Greensboro, North Carolina. Christensen's new job will put him within 50 miles of Durham, North Carolina, home to Duke University, where Christensen received undergraduate degrees in economics and public policy. In a phone interview Wednesday, Gov. Phil Bryant said he had "mixed emotions" about Christensen's departure. "I understand," he said. "People are always trying to steal good people. It's similar to losing (former IHL commissioner) Hank Bounds. Brent has a special fondness for the North Carolina area. As he told me, it's like he's returning home." |
| Mississippi's special-ed graduation rate dips | |
| Already the lowest nationwide, Mississippi's graduation rate for students with disabilities fell an additional half-percentage point in 2013, according to the latest figures available from the state Department of Education. Twenty-two and a half percent of students with special needs earned a diploma after four years of public high school -- down from 23.1 percent the previous year. At the same time, the state's overall high school graduation rate rose nearly two points to 75.5 percent, further widening the achievement gap between students with disabilities and their nondisabled peers. The new figures come after months of debate in the Legislature, where lawmakers cited the previous rate when arguing for a host of measures to improve special education in public schools. |
| The day Trent Lott became a tree hugger, and other surprises from Katrina | |
 | Hurricane Katrina turned Trent Lott into a tree hugger. And it soon had him working with Barack Obama, then the junior senator from Illinois. Those were just two of the surprises Wednesday night at the Biloxi Civic Center as Lott took the crowd behind the scenes in his role in post-Katrina recovery. His talk was part of the Katrina +10 remembrance that continues at the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi and elsewhere along the Coast. Another surprise was a present from a woman in the audience. "It's my Senate pin," he said as he opened the small ring box she handed him. "It has my name on it." Louise Stanley said she found it in her backyard on Washington Avenue in Pascagoula, quite a ways from where Lott's beachfront home was destroyed in the 2005 storm. |
| A Crowd of Conservatives in Mississippi | |
 | There are no guarantees in politics, but Joe Nosef feels pretty confident in his prediction regarding the May 12 special election for Mississippi's open congressional seat. A Republican is gonna win," says Nosef. "The question is, which Republican is it going to be?" You might expect Nosef, as the chairman of the Mississippi Republican party, to say that. But it's not just partisan bluster. Though there are no party identifications on the special election ballot, of the 13 candidates vying to represent the state's First Congressional District, and all but one of them are Republicans. (The top two vote-getters will most likely proceed to a June 2 runoff). |
| Conservatives Find Political Red Meat in USDA Diet Guidelines | |
 | From the IRS to the Environmental Protection Agency to the Federal Communications Commission, federal agencies are under more scrutiny from congressional Republicans concerned about regulatory overreach than at any time in Barack Obama's presidency. Add the Department of Agriculture to the list. A group of 71 GOP House members has jumped into a growing controversy over proposed new dietary guidelines for Americans released earlier this year by a USDA advisory committee. Republicans voiced concerns about the panel, known as the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, in a March 31 letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, calling the committee's suggestions "conflicting." |
| Why the Confederacy Lives | |
 | One hundred fifty years ago, on April 9th, 1865, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House and the Union triumphed in the Civil War. Yet the passage of a century and a half has not dimmed the passion for the Confederacy among many Americans. Just three weeks ago, the Sons of Confederate Veterans appeared before the Supreme Court arguing for the right to put a Confederate flag on vanity license plates in Texas. Just why would someone in 2015 want a Confederate flag on their license plate? The answer is likely not a desire to overtly display one's genealogical research skills; nor can it be simplistically understood solely as an exhibition of racism, although the power of the Confederate flag to convey white supremacist beliefs cannot be discounted. Rather, displaying the Confederate flag in 2015 is an indicator of a complex and reactionary politics that is very much alive in America today. |
| US Army Readying Unmanned Systems Doctrine | |
| The US Army is drafting doctrine for the first time that would govern its robotic and unmanned systems, with the service's sights set on robots for supply convoys, tactical reconnaissance and as robotic wingmen for soldiers on foot. Driving the push for a unified strategy is concern an enemy would use robots on the battlefield first, said Lt. Col. Matt Dooley, lethality branch chief at the Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC). Although the Army is now moving toward an open systems architecture for its ground robots, it had fielded a variety of them on an ad hoc basis in Iraq and Afghanistan, largely for stand-off missions, such as bomb disposal. Over the next decade, the Army will prioritize its ongoing autonomous convoy and counter-IED efforts, as well as efforts to provide platoons and squads with reconnaissance capability at the company and battalion level, Dooley said. |
| UM professor kicks off book tour of the South | |
 | University of Mississippi Assistant Professor of Journalism Alysia Steele said her grandmother, Althenia A. Burton, was the inspiration for her book detailing the lives of 50 church-going women across the Mississippi Delta,"Delta Jewels: In Search of My Grandmother's Wisdom: Portraits and Interviews with My Elders." Burton raised Steele for 14 years after her parents divorced when she was 4 years old. "I never recorded her voice or took her photograph," Steele said. "It has been my only regret as a granddaughter and journalist." Nearly 20 years after Burton died, Steele began putting together "Delta Jewels" as a coffee table book recording the oral histories of 50 Mississippi Delta women. Steele signed "Delta Jewels" at a release party Tuesday at Square Books. |
| Newest USM research vessel ready to launch offshore expedition | |
 | It comes with a fancy kitchen, bunks with separate restrooms and all sorts of oceanography gadgets. The University of Southern Mississippi's newest and largest research vessel is getting ready to take the first group of students on an offshore expedition this weekend. About a week after docking at its new home at the Port of Gulfport, the Point Sur is getting ready to launch its research expedition. On Saturday, the 135 foot vessel will take 40 USM students 12 miles out to collect marine and mud samples and conduct depth and density studies. |
| MGCCC, Gov. Phil Bryant break ground on $15.5M Nursing and Simulation Center in Harrison County | |
 | Gov. Phil Bryant and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College leaders on Wednesday broke ground on MGCCC's new $15.5 million Nursing and Simulation Center in Harrison County. The new center at Tradition will be built on the east side of Miss. 67, just north of Mississippi 605. in the "health care zone," officials said. The governor, MGCCC President Dr. Mary Graham and other state and local leaders gathered in the patch of piney woods Wednesday afternoon to toss some dirt and celebrate the project. Graham called it "a historic moment" for the school and the entire state. The center will "enhance economic development, put people to work and save lives," Bryant said. |
| Roast of Phil Bryant benefits Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College | |
| At a charity roast of Gov. Phil Bryant, it was hard to say who took the brunt of more jokes: the proposed Gulfport aquarium, Democrats, Bryant's hair or Bryant himself. Probably his hair. But Bryant took it in stride and the event was a success. It raised $200,000 for the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, far outstripping last year's $120,000 raised. The gala, themed "Black Tie and Boots" for the cowboy boots Bryant wears bearing the state's seal, benefited a scholarship fund that gave $400,000 to 700 students last year. |
| Alabama student charged with electronically stealing $10,000 from others' student loan funds | |
 | The U.S. Attorney's Office in Birmingham has charged a 22-year-old University of Alabama student with stealing almost $10,000 from the student loan funds of others studying at UA after a joint investigation by university police and the FBI. U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance said the student, Briana Jackson, has pleaded guilty to a charge of unauthorized access to a University of Alabama computer and agreed to pay back $9,598 in restitution for the money she stole electronically. Vance said Jackson started running a phishing scam in April 2011 by creating an e-mail address with a name suggesting it was connected to the university's housing department. |
| U. of Alabama Board of Trustees eye hike in tuition for some students | |
 | The University of Alabama Board of Trustees is scheduled to consider proposed tuition increases in the 2015-16 academic year for the system's medical, dental and optometry students when it meets today and Friday in Huntsville. The board will begin today on the campus of the University of Alabama in Huntsville with committee meetings, including finance and physical properties. Agenda items approved by the committees will be considered by the full board on Friday. Specific details about the proposed tuition increase for the medical, dental and optometry schools were not included in the meeting packet released ahead of time. |
| U. of Alabama journalism professor gets SEC faculty award | |
| Kimberly Bissell, a journalism professor at the University of Alabama, was named Wednesday as one of 14 winners of the 2015 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Awards. According to an SEC news release, the annual awards honor one faculty member from each SEC university who has excelled in teaching, research and scholarship. All 14 honorees will receive a $5,000 honorarium from the SEC and are eligible for the 2015 SEC Professor of the Year Award, which will be named later this month. Bissell earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Florida, a master of arts degree from Binghamton University in New York and a doctorate from Syracuse University. |
| Coroner: U. of South Carolina student Terreni died of 'toxic' blood alcohol level | |
 | The University of South Carolina freshman who was found dead last month at an off-campus residence had a blood alcohol level more than four times the legal driving limit at the time of his death, a toxicology report showed. Charles Terreni Jr., 18, had a blood alcohol level of 0.375 percent, according to the toxicology results released Wednesday by Richland County Coroner Gary Watts. That is a toxic level and is ultimately what caused Terreni's death, Watts said. There is no way for him to tell whether that amount of alcohol was ingested voluntarily or by force, given the circumstances, Watts said. Terreni was found dead March 18 at 2319 Lee St., an off-campus house near USC's campus that is commonly used by Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity members. |
| UGA police officer fired over alcohol amnesty will sue, his lawyer says | |
 | A fired University of Georgia police officer will file a $5 million lawsuit against the state over his termination, his lawyer said Wednesday. Jay Park was wrongly fired and is entitled to whistleblower protection after questioning the UGA Police Department's enforcement of a new state medical amnesty law and seeking clarification from outside the department, said the lawyer, Michael Puglise of Snellville. Park called state lawmakers after he tried to grant immunity to two UGA students when one of them called 911 for help with a friend who had been drinking and was told by a supervisor that he couldn't. University officials say Park was insubordinate. But Park was right to seek clarification in calls to State Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, and other officials, Puglise said. |
| UGA employee stabbed on campus | |
| University of Georgia police are investigating a reported on-campus stabbing of a UGA employee early Wednesday morning. The employee said someone stabbed him in the hand during an encounter with three college-age white males as he walked on Herty Drive near Brooks Hall at about 2:40 a.m., according to a UGA "timely warning" issued several hours after the reported incident. The victim, who police said was treated for a superficial stab wound to the palm and released, said that as he walked from downtown with another person the three suspects approached him. |
| Many rush to save huge oak at U. of Florida | |
 | Students and faculty trying to save a bluff oak tree that is at least a century old from the axe to make way for the NEXUS building proposed by the University of Florida College of Engineering are turning to social media to get the word out. One student has set up an event page for today's 9 a.m. meeting of the Lakes, Vegetation and Landscaping Committee -- and has generated enough interest to have the meeting moved from a room to the 200-capacity Reitz Union Auditorium. The NEXUS building has been in the planning stages for several years. Eighteen months ago, the facilities planners presented a plan calling for removal of 25 trees, including the bluff oak, said Jason Smith, who chaired the committee the last time the project came up for review. |
| U. of Missouri fraternities rolling out peer education program to combat sexual assault | |
 | "Strong," "brave" and "dominant" were among 30 words scribbled in black on the whiteboard. They were all answers to the question: "What words do you think of when you think of masculinity?" When the guys couldn't think of more words, Travis Fox, a psychologist at the University of Missouri Counseling Center, drew a large black box around the descriptors on the board. Fox called this the "man-box," the limiting social role men feel they have to fit. Universities across the country are reacting to increased public scrutiny of the problem of sexual assault on campuses. Here, on Wednesday nights, a group of about 20 men are taking a proactive approach to educating their fraternity brothers about sexual assault. On March 18, the topic was gender roles. The group had already talked about alcohol and drugs as contributing factors, and there were six weeks of topics still on the agenda. |
| Political pressure builds for a new accreditation and aid pathway for upstart providers | |
 | A scenario in which a student can use a Pell Grant to help pay for a bundle of edX courses no longer seems so far-fetched. Political support is building for a system to encourage and oversee higher education upstarts that don't look or act like colleges, such as online course providers and coding boot camps. And these emerging players soon may have a pathway to accreditation and even federal financial aid eligibility, albeit in limited or experimental form. Accreditation, from either a regional or national accrediting agency that the U.S. Department of Education recognizes, is a requirement for federal aid eligibility. Several prominent politicians have expressed interest in creating alternative pathways to accreditation, including President Obama and Senator Lamar Alexander, the Tennessee Republican who heads the Senate's education committee. |
| Why Writers Love to Hate the M.F.A. | |
 | "Explosive" is the word routinely used to describe the growth of M.F.A. programs in creative writing. Iowa was the first, established in 1936. By 1994, there were 64. By last year, that number had more than tripled, to 229 (and another 152 M.A. programs in creative writing), according to the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. Between 3,000 and 4,000 students a year graduate with the degree; this year, about 20,000 applications were sent out. A graduate writing degree, unsurprisingly, turns out a lot of opinionated writing. |
| SID SALTER (OPINION): Judge adds to alternative Initiative 42 debate | |
| Syndicated columnist Sid Salter writes: "On the issue of the language of a legislative alternative to Initiative 42, one Hinds County judge chosen by the voters of one judicial district rejected the will of the majority of state legislators elected in in 174 legislative districts statewide. The ruling came in the case of the ongoing fight over an initiative-and-referendum effort to force the Legislature to 'fully fund' the Mississippi Adequate Education Program by amending Section 201 of the state constitution. ...The political fallout grows and this question -- which supposedly is about funding public education -- increasingly becomes about everything but funding education." |
SPORTS
| Mississippi State softball dominates No. 1 LSU, 9-4 | |
 | A hot start and a strong finish helped a surging Mississippi State team (30-10) tame No. 1 LSU (36-4), 9-4, on Wednesday night at the MSU Softball Field. The win gave State its first win over a top-ranked team at home in program history and its second win over a No. 1 team in the history of the program. By taking the contest that was defined as non-conference to keep each side from exceeding its limit of 24 Southeastern Conference Games, the Bulldogs improved to 22-3 in non-conference play this season and 19-6 at home. MSU is now 16-0 this season when scoring first. MSU will re-take the road for an SEC weekend series at No. 21 Missouri. |
| LSU softball team loses 9-4 at Mississippi State | |
 | In the first of six consecutive games on the road, the No. 1 LSU softball team dropped a 9-4 decision to Mississippi State on Wednesday at the MSU Softball Field. The game did not count in the Southeastern Conference standings. The Tigers (36-4) waited too long to get their offense going, not scoring until they were down by five. After cutting the Bulldogs lead to just three, they watched Mississippi State (30-10) score four runs late to make it 9-2, putting the game out of reach -- even after the Tigers scored two runs in the top of the seventh and leaving the bases loaded. Alexis Silkwood (22-7) earned the win for Mississippi State, going the distance. |
| Mississippi State women's basketball finishes season in top 20 | |
| Mississippi State wanted to receive a top-16 seed when the NCAA Tournament began. The selection committee handed the Bulldogs a fifth-seed. On Wednesday, the nation's coaches agreed as they voted the Bulldogs 18th in the final USA Today/WBCA Coaches Poll. It's the highest finish in the final poll since the 2002-03 squad closed the year at No. 16. Wednesday's poll was the 17th-straight week MSU appeared within the rankings, after finishing the year 27-7 overall and 11-5 in the SEC. Both win totals were school records. |
| Bulldogs bringing rebuilt defensive line up to speed | |
| No position was hit harder by graduation than Mississippi State's defensive line. The Bulldogs graduated five players, including three multi-year starters, leaving defensive line coach David Turner searching for new roles and personnel this spring. "We've got a lot of snaps we've got to replace," Turner said. "The good thing is we've got some guys that have played some snaps. We've just got to keep getting better every day working on our fundamentals and the little things." Departed starters Preston Smith, Kaleb Eulls and P.J. Jones left with 103 starts, 333 tackles and 22 sacks between them. |
| A strong finish vital to Mississippi State's postseason aspirations | |
| Two years ago Mississippi State swept Texas A&M in College Station. It started a skid for the Aggies that extended to losing nine in 10 games. MSU on the other hand advanced to the College World Series two months later. "You could see they had a really good club at its core," MSU coach John Cohen said. "But the pieces had not had enough experience." Two years later the roles are reversed. MSU travels to College Station on Thursday to begin a three-game series with Texas A&M, the top ranked team in the country. The Aggies have won 30 of 32 games this season. Meanwhile, Mississippi State has lost 14 its last 22 and dropped out of the polls two weeks ago. |
| Next SEC commissioner says NCAA regulations need to be more flexible | |
 | Greg Sankey does not take the reins of the Southeastern Conference until the beginning of August, but he has a firm grasp of the challenges and opportunities that await in his new role. The commissioner-elect outlined the scope of hot-button issues facing the SEC and the evolving landscape of collegiate athletics during the sixth annual Texas A&M Department of Health & Kinesiology Distinguished Lecture Series Wednesday at Rudder Theatre. In a rare public speaking engagement since being tabbed as Commissioner Mike Slive's replacement on March 12, Sankey made it clear he would not delve deeply into some issues the NCAA and SEC are faced with, but did not shy away from sharing words of wisdom with students in the audience pursuing sports-related careers. |
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