Mississippi Today

7 university presidents have left in the last year. Why is turnover so high?

Published

2 years ago

June 23, 2023

William LaForge — the former Delta State University president who was suddenly fired last summer — wants you to know this is not about “sour grapes.”

The regional public college he led for nine years in Cleveland, a small town in the Mississippi Delta, was losing students. There was a 27% decline in enrollment during the pandemic. He feuded with faculty. The school’s cash-on-hand, a financial health metric, was dwindling. And clashes with local donors over the golf course he closed sowed division.

LaForge concedes all of that. But if the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees had to fire him, he said there was a better way to do it.

Though the board gave LaForge a few weeks heads up it was considering parting ways, he says he did not learn he was officially fired until the commissioner, Alfred Rankins, called him on Monday, June 20, five minutes before a press release published announcing the decision.

“The way they did this gave Delta State an unnecessary black eye at a particularly vulnerable time,” he said. “I resent that.”

The stunning termination was the first in a series of presidential turnovers that have roiled colleges and universities in Mississippi over the last year. Weeks after LaForge was canned in 2022, Rodney Bennett, the president of the University of Southern Mississippi, stepped down in July — nearly a year before he said he would. Earlier this year, Thomas Hudson at Jackson State University resigned after the board placed him on administrative leave with pay. Then Felecia Nave was terminated from Alcorn State University.

All this has left students, faculty and staff and alumni wondering: Why is this happening? Mississippi Today spoke with more than a half-dozen former IHL board members, university administrators and faculty to understand the causes.

It’s unusual that LaForge — or for that matter, any president — was fired at all, some trustees said. Even presidents whose tenure ended in scandal have been allowed to step down. William Bynum Jr., the former Jackson State president who was arrested in a prostitution sting in 2020, resigned.

IHL acknowledged the board prefers presidents to resign in a written statement to Mississippi Today.

“That is common among employers,” IHL wrote. “No one wants to have to terminate an employee.”

The board added it could not comment on LaForge’s specific personnel matter.

Credit: Bethany Atkinson, Mississippi Today

The state’s private colleges haven’t been immune from turnover either. Millsaps College, Rust College and Tougaloo College have all seen their presidents depart in the last six months. The latter two are both historically Black universities, which have been especially impacted by turnover.

“It puts the university in maintenance mode,” said Dan Durkin, a University of Mississippi professor and the president of the United Faculty Senate Association of Mississippi.

As far as LaForge knows, “there’s been nothing like this exodus in the near past, in my lifetime.”

He feels like his longer-than-average tenure has been overshadowed by its bitter end. Now, a year after he was fired, he has a warning for university presidents in Mississippi: “Watch your back.”

“Future presidents should know it’s not forever,” he told Mississippi Today in a phone call from Virginia, where he has retired. “And you should know it’s not on your terms.”

Skirting a unified theory of turnover, some trustees said there are likely as many reasons for the recent turnover as there are departed presidents.

Others said it’s more general than that. But everyone agreed the job is getting harder, especially for the presidents of the smaller institutions. Wooing private donors matters much more in a time of declining state appropriations. So does enrollment. The eight universities are vying for the same pool of high school graduates, and University of Mississippi and Mississippi State, with their deep pockets and big stadiums, can out-compete them all.

“Many factors make the role of university president a complex and challenging position,” IHL wrote in a statement to Mississippi Today.

Ford Dye, a surgeon who was appointed to the IHL board by former Gov. Phil Bryant in 2012, said that turnover isn’t just an IHL or Mississippi issue. It’s a national problem.

Research backs him up. Across the country, university presidents are serving shorter terms than ever. According to the latest survey by the American Council on Education, a typical university president has served for 5.9 years. A majority don’t think another five years is possible due to the pandemic and the politicization of higher education.

That holds true for Mississippi, former trustees said.

“I agree with that,” said Bill Crawford, who served on the board from 1992 to 2004, when asked if the job of a university president in Mississippi has gotten more political. “What hasn’t?”

Presidents must wrangle so many constituencies on campus that even if they aren’t fired, frustrated faculty or outspoken alumni could drive them to quit. For leaders of the HBCUs, this presents a particularly fraught dynamic. In his autobiography, John Peoples, the beloved former Jackson State president, described walking a fine line between pleasing the mainly white board and advocating for his school. Another long-serving Jackson State president, Ronald Mason, resigned in 2010 in part due to outcry that he supported an IHL-backed plan to merge the three HBCUs.

“Navigating competing priorities and demands is one of the reasons the job is so difficult,” IHL wrote.

The presidents who thrive in this environment, trustees said, are politically savvy.That’s why Mark Keenum, Mississippi State University’s president, has lasted so long. (For LaForge, this is particularly ironic, as just like Keenum, he got his start in Thad Cochran’s office.)

Mississippi State University President Mark Keenum Credit: MSU

Keenum invites board members and lawmakers to sporting events and remembers the names of their family members, former trustees told Mississippi Today. His 14-year tenure as the president of Mississippi State University makes him the longest currently serving president and the exception to the rule.

“Mark is an intense listener,” said Sid Salter, Mississippi State’s director of public affairs. “He is, by nature, kind and thoughtful.”

Then there’s the view that the issue of turnover starts at the top — with the 12 trustees who are appointed by the governor to lead the system, a job that includes picking the university presidents.

“That is a matter of opinion,” IHL wrote. “Every personnel situation is different.”

That is also LaForge’s perspective.

He said his experience shows that when the going gets tough, this crop of IHL trustees lets the presidents go. Their four-year contracts are at-will. And the commissioner, Alfred Rankins, the presidents’ manager, is not standing up for them, LaForge said.

“I have grave concerns, and I know others do too, but they would never go public,” LaForge said. “Some of them are university heads.”

Past trustees were more understanding of the pressures that presidents face, he said.

Around the time he was appointed in 2013, LaForge spoke with Alan Perry, a trustee, and Hank Bounds, the then-commissioner. They warned LaForge that even though he should try to increase enrollment, it would be a serious challenge due to many factors, including the depopulation of the Delta.

“I took offense to that,” LaForge said.

But he said that they told him, “It’s not just you. It can’t be done. There are external factors beyond human capacity.”

Bounds told Mississippi Today he recalled the meeting. Perry wrote in an email that he did not remember this but in general had many discussions about the difficult task of increasing Delta State’s enrollment and thought LaForge was recalling those.

Nine years later, declining enrollment was one of the putative reasons for his firing, LaForge said. It is the number one metric on a list of 20 that university presidents are now graded on, according to the evaluation criteria obtained by Mississippi Today.

The IHL board, which can in nearly all cases hire or fire its eight university presidents at the whim of a majority vote, is a jumble of contradictions. It was created to be insulated from politics, but board members are political appointees. The board has been dogged by accusations of favoritism, but trustees are supposed to check their school colors at the door.

Some trustees like to say that “running a university is like running a city,” said C.D. Smith, an AT&T regional director who was appointed by Gov. Haley Barbour in 2008 and served until 2018.

Unlike a city, there is little democracy at the universities — and none at all within IHL.

The board knows that. Increasingly, Smith said, trustees think of the university presidents as CEOs who can be hired or fired “as the circumstances require.” The commissioner is a middle-manager who meets weekly with the presidents, who are his direct reports, and conducts their biennial performance reviews.

All this goes against the expectation many faculty have, which is of “shared governance,” a way of viewing the university as a partnership between students, faculty, staff and a transparent administration.

Trustees are aware of that too. When Crawford sat on the board, he said that any time a president had to be removed, trustees faced a tug-of-war between sharing just enough information to ameliorate upset alumni but not so much that it would denigrate a reputation — or lead to an employment lawsuit. He said the board also wants to make Mississippi a “congenial” place to be a college president.

“To the extent that you can comment, you offer a reason for making the change,” Crawford said. “But what you want to do is not harm somebody’s career by talking about those sorts of things which are personnel matters oftentimes.”

IHL wrote that the board “recognizes that all employees are entitled to confidentiality in personnel matters.”

In recent years, the board has said less and less, offering little-to-no information about its decisions and spurring calls for accountability from alumni, particularly from Alcorn State and Jackson State.

Just as trustees were not engaging with the community, it seemed to LaForge like they could do more to support the funding needs of each university.

The commissioner, legislative liaisons and lobbyists all advocate for funding during the legislative sessions, and IHL wrote that individual trustees “may, and do” advocate for the board’s requests.

But a few years after Rankins was appointed in 2018, LaForge recalled that he and some of the other presidents asked the commissioner if trustees could help lobby for more state funding at the Capitol, considering many of them donated to lawmakers. That could alleviate some of the pressure that presidents face to fundraise, he said.

The suggestion seemed to go nowhere, LaForge said.

On June 7 last year, LaForge said he received a personal visit from Rankins and IHL’s legal counsel. They met in the conference room in Kent Wyatt Hall. There, LaForge said the commissioner informed him that trustees were considering ending his contract at the upcoming board meeting on June 16 — news that LaForge recalled Rankins acknowledging was “a punch in the gut for you.”

Delta State University president William “Bill” LaForge attends a state College Board meeting Thursday, June 18, 2015 in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

The commissioner offered LaForge several options to resign, including staying on at Delta State to research how to bring more students to campus or increase faculty retention — a proposal that LaForge considered “frankly garbage.”

“Why the hell would I stay around Cleveland on campus doing research when that’s supposed to be done by somebody else on my campus anyway,” LaForge said he thought at the time.

He rejected all the options to resign. Then he said he asked Rankins what advice the commissioner had given the board on whether to fire him. LaForge said Rankins told him he gave the board no advice.

“He is supposed to support his presidents, that’s part of his job,” LaForge said. “I didn’t get the feeling he did that (for me) and nor do others.”

In a statement to Mississippi Today responding to LaForge’s recollection of the June 7 visit, IHL said the commissioner does not make a “recommendation regarding continued employment” of a president when he presents performance reviews to the board.

In the IHL board room later that month, the vibe was “cordial but cold,” LaForge recalled. Sitting in front of the trustees during executive session, he made his case.

He wasn’t trying to save his job. He just wanted to stay at Delta State through the end of his contract in 2023 to “make it a smooth, orderly transition.” He said he thought that was the deal trustees had given Rodney Bennett, the then-president of USM, who was also appointed in 2013.

“That’s what you did for Rodney, at least do it for me,” he said he told the board.

Mississippi Today could not confirm any sort of “deal” took place and while many outlets, including this one, reported Bennett stepped down before he initially said he would, no articles detailed some sort of compromise between the former USM president and the IHL board.

Four days later, the termination letter came. It was labeled “personal and confidential” and signed by Rankins. It listed no reason for LaForge’s firing and noted he would be paid by the board through June 2023, the original end of his contract.

IHL meeting minutes show that in the same executive session, trustees also voted to terminate Bennett’s contract and name Joe Paul interim president at USM. IHL wrote that the termination of Bennett and LaForge’s contracts were unrelated.

Delta State had consistent leadership up until LaForge’s firing. Now he spends his time exercising, running errands for his kids and contemplating creating a Wikipedia page.

He said he wishes his successor, Daniel Ennis, well. But he worries for the future of the system. So do many students, faculty and alumni.

Take Jackson State University which, along with the two other public HBCUs, has had more presidential turnover in the last two decades than the predominantly white institutions. Its community has repeatedly asked the board to conduct a more transparent search.

But as Keenum’s success has shown, closed searches aren’t the be all, end all. He was confirmed following a search that was unusually secretive for its time.

The Legislature could make a change to the board, Crawford said, through the constitutional amendment process. Without a ballot initiative process, the public has no direct avenue to influence IHL. In a statement, IHL said the board “regularly listens to input and concerns from constituents and tries to be responsive within the parameters of its constitutional duty.”

But recent bills to dissolve IHL have failed. And lawmakers may not view turnover as IHL’s fault. Sen. Hillman Frazier, a Democrat who represents parts of Jackson, said at a listening session in April for the Jackson State presidential search that he has heard lawmakers cite the university’s turnover as a reason not to provide it with more funding.

Presidential turnover, LaForge said, is just like enrollment. The three largest and wealthiest universities in Mississippi will be just fine; if they wanted to buy the entire freshman class, LaForge said, they could do it, and leave the smaller schools scrambling.

“It’s just like how the rich get richer,” he said. “I’m not bemoaning it. It’s a fact.”

Editor’s note: Ivy Taylor, the former president of Rust College, is a member of Mississippi Today’s board of directors.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Mississippi prepares for another execution

Published

6 days ago

September 12, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-09-12 13:06:00

by Mina Corpuz, Mississippi Today
September 12, 2025

The Mississippi Supreme Court has set the execution of a man who kidnapped and murdered a 20-year-old community college student in north Mississippi 30 years ago.

Charles Ray Crawford, 59, is set to be executed Oct. 15 at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, after multiple requests by the attorney general’s office.

Eight justices joined the majority opinion to set the execution, concluding that Crawford has exhausted all state and federal legal remedies. Mississippi Supreme Court Justice T. Kenneth Griffis Jr. wrote the Friday opinion. Justice David Sullivan did not participate.

However, Kristy Noble with the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel released a statement saying it will file another appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.

“”Mr. Crawford’s inexperienced trial counsel conceded his guilt to the jury — against Mr.
Crawford’s timely and repeated objections,” Noble said in the statement. “Mr. Crawford told his counsel to pursue a not guilty verdict. Counsel did just the opposite, which is precisely what the U.S. Supreme Court says counsel cannot do,” Noble said in the statement.

“A trial like Mr. Crawford’s – one where counsel concedes guilt over his client’s express wishes – is essentially no trial at all.”

Last fall, Crawford’s attorneys asked the court not to set an execution date because he hadn’t exhausted appeal efforts in federal court to challenge a rape conviction that is not tied to his death sentence. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up Crawford’s case.

A similar delay occurred a decade ago, when the AG’s office asked the court to reset Crawford’s execution date, but that was denied because efforts to appeal his unrelated rape conviction were still pending.

After each unsuccessful filing, the attorney general’s office asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to set Crawford’s execution date.

On Friday, the court also denied Crawford’s third petition for post-conviction relief and a request for oral argument. It accepted the state’s motion to dismiss the petition. Seven justices concurred and Justice Leslie King concurred in result only. Again, Justice Sullivan did not participate.

Crawford was convicted and sentenced to death in Lafayette County for the 1993 rape and murder of North Mississippi Community College student Kristy Ray.

Days before he was set to go to trial on separate aggravated assault and rape charges, he kidnapped Ray from her parents’ Tippah County home, leaving ransom notes. Crawford took Ray to an abandoned barn where he stabbed her, and his DNA was found on her, indicating he sexually assaulted her, according to court records.

Crawford told police he had blackouts and only remembered parts of the crime, but not killing Ray. Later he admitted “he must of killed her” and led police to Ray’s body, according to court records.

At his 1994 trial he presented an insanity defense, including that he suffered from psychogenic amnesia – periods of time lapse without memory. Medical experts who provided rebuttal testimony said Crawford didn’t have psychogenic amnesia and didn’t show evidence of bipolar illness.

The last person executed in Mississippi was Richard Jordan in June, previously the state’s oldest and longest serving person on death row.

There are 36 people on death row, according to records from the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

Update 9/15/25: This story has been updated to include a response from the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Mississippi prepares for another execution appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article presents a factual and balanced account of the legal proceedings surrounding a scheduled execution in Mississippi. It includes perspectives from both the state’s attorney general’s office and the defense counsel, without using emotionally charged language or advocating for a particular political stance. The focus on legal details and court decisions reflects a neutral, informative approach typical of centrist reporting.

Mississippi Today

Presidents are taking longer to declare major natural disasters. For some, the wait is agonizing

Published

1 week ago

September 8, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @alxrzr – 2025-09-08 11:30:00

by Sophie Bates, Associated Press, Alex Rozier, Illan Ireland, Mississippi Free Press, David A. Lieb, The Associated Press and M.K. Wildeman, The Associated Press, Mississippi Today
September 8, 2025

TYLERTOWN — As an ominous storm approached Buddy Anthony’s one-story brick home, he took shelter in his new Ford F-250 pickup parked under a nearby carport.

Seconds later, a tornado tore apart Anthony’s home and damaged the truck while lifting it partly in the air. Anthony emerged unhurt. But he had to replace his vehicle with a used truck that became his home while waiting for President Donald Trump to issue a major disaster declaration so that federal money would be freed for individuals reeling from loss. That took weeks.

“You wake up in the truck and look out the windshield and see nothing. That’s hard. That’s hard to swallow,” Anthony said.

Thousands of trees toppled as the result of tornadoes that hit Tylertown in March of this year are being ground into mulch, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025, as recovery efforts continue.

Disaster survivors are having to wait longer to get aid from the federal government, according to a new Associated Press analysis of decades of data. On average, it took less than two weeks for a governor’s request for a presidential disaster declaration to be granted in the 1990s and early 2000s. That rose to about three weeks during the past decade under presidents from both major parties. It’s taking more than a month, on average, during Trump’s current term, the AP found.

The delays mean individuals must wait to receive federal aid for daily living expenses, temporary lodging and home repairs. Delays in disaster declarations also can hamper recovery efforts by local officials uncertain whether they will receive federal reimbursement for cleaning up debris and rebuilding infrastructure. The AP collaborated with Mississippi Today and Mississippi Free Press on the effects of these delays for this report.

“The message that I get in the delay, particularly for the individual assistance, is that the federal government has turned its back on its own people,” said Bob Griffin, dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany in New York. “It’s a fundamental shift in the position of this country.”

The wait for disaster aid has grown as Trump remakes government

The Federal Emergency Management Agency often consults immediately with communities to coordinate their initial disaster response. But direct payments to individuals, nonprofits and local governments must wait for a major disaster declaration from the president, who first must receive a request from a state, territory or tribe. Major disaster declarations are intended only for the most damaging events that are beyond the resources of states and local governments.

Trump has approved more than two dozen major disaster declarations since taking office in January, with an average wait of almost 34 days after a request. That ranged from a one-day turnaround after July’s deadly flash flooding in Texas to a 67-day wait after a request for aid because of a Michigan ice storm. The average wait is up from a 24-day delay during his first term and is nearly four times as long as the average for former Republican President George H.W. Bush, whose term from 1989-1993 coincided with the implementation of a new federal law setting parameters for disaster determinations.

The delays have grown over time, regardless of the party in power. Former Democratic President Joe Biden, in his last year in office, averaged 26 days to declare major disasters — longer than any year under former Democratic President Barack Obama.

This Aug. 14, 2025, photo shows Buddy Anthony’s house after it was destroyed by a tornado in Tylertown, Miss..

FEMA did not respond to the AP’s questions about what factors are contributing to the trend.

Others familiar with FEMA noted that its process for assessing and documenting natural disasters has become more complex over time. Disasters have also become more frequent and intense because of climate change, which is mostly caused by the burning of fuels such as gas, coal and oil.

The wait for disaster declarations has spiked as Trump’s administration undertakes an ambitious makeover of the federal government that has shed thousands of workers and reexamined the role of FEMA. A recently published letter from current and former FEMA employees warned the cuts could become debilitating if faced with a large-enough disaster. The letter also lamented that the Trump administration has stopped maintaining or removed long-term planning tools focused on extreme weather and disasters.

Shortly after taking office, Trump floated the idea of “getting rid” of FEMA, asserting: “It’s very bureaucratic, and it’s very slow.”

FEMA’s acting chief suggested more recently that states should shoulder more responsibility for disaster recovery, though FEMA thus far has continued to cover three-fourths of the costs of public assistance to local governments, as required under federal law. FEMA pays the full cost of its individual assistance.

Former FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor, who served during Trump’s first term, said the delay in issuing major disaster declarations likely is related to a renewed focus on making sure the federal government isn’t paying for things state and local governments could handle.

“I think they’re probably giving those requests more scrutiny,” Gaynor said. “And I think it’s probably the right thing to do, because I think the (disaster) declaration process has become the ‘easy button’ for states.”

The Associated Press on Monday received a statement from White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson in response to a question about why it is taking longer to issue major natural disaster declarations:

“President Trump provides a more thorough review of disaster declaration requests than any Administration has before him. Gone are the days of rubber stamping FEMA recommendations – that’s not a bug, that’s a feature. Under prior Administrations, FEMA’s outsized role created a bloated bureaucracy that disincentivized state investment in their own resilience. President Trump is committed to right-sizing the Federal government while empowering state and local governments by enabling them to better understand, plan for, and ultimately address the needs of their citizens. The Trump Administration has expeditiously provided assistance to disasters while ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent wisely to supplement state actions, not replace them.”

New piping and hook-ups are under construction at Paradise Ranch RV Resort where a few campers enjoy the park in Tylertown, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. The park is open again after a tornado struck the area in March.

In Mississippi, frustration festered during wait for aid

The tornado that struck Anthony’s home in rural Tylertown on March 15 packed winds up to 140 mph. It was part of a powerful system that wrecked homes, businesses and lives across multiple states.

Mississippi’s governor requested a federal disaster declaration on April 1. Trump granted that request 50 days later, on May 21, while approving aid for both individuals and public entities.

On that same day, Trump also approved eight other major disaster declarations for storms, floods or fires in seven other states. In most cases, more than a month had passed since the request and about two months since the date of those disasters.

If a presidential declaration and federal money had come sooner, Anthony said he wouldn’t have needed to spend weeks sleeping in a truck before he could afford to rent the trailer where he is now living. His house was uninsured, Anthony said, and FEMA eventually gave him $30,000.

In nearby Jayess in Lawrence County, Dana Grimes had insurance but not enough to cover the full value of her damaged home. After the eventual federal declaration, Grimes said FEMA provided about $750 for emergency expenses, but she is now waiting for the agency to determine whether she can receive more.

Tornado destroyed home on Hwy 98 north of downtown Tylertown, Monday, March 17, 2025.

“We couldn’t figure out why the president took so long to help people in this country,” Grimes said. “I just want to tie up strings and move on. But FEMA — I’m still fooling with FEMA.”

Jonathan Young said he gave up on applying for FEMA aid after the Tylertown tornado killed his 7-year-old son and destroyed their home. The process seemed too difficult, and federal officials wanted paperwork he didn’t have, Young said. He made ends meet by working for those cleaning up from the storm.

“It’s a therapy for me,” Young said, “to pick up the debris that took my son away from me.”

Historically, presidential disaster declarations containing individual assistance have been approved more quickly than those providing assistance only to public entities, according to the AP’s analysis. That remains the case under Trump, though declarations for both types are taking longer.

About half the major disaster declarations approved by Trump this year have included individual assistance.

Some people whose homes are damaged turn to shelters hosted by churches or local nonprofit organizations in the initial chaotic days after a disaster. Others stay with friends or family or go to a hotel, if they can afford it.

But some insist on staying in damaged homes, even if they are unsafe, said Chris Smith, who administered FEMA’s individual assistance division under three presidents from 2015-2022. If homes aren’t repaired properly, mold can grow, compounding the recovery challenges.

Tylertown Assistant Fire Chief Les Lampton, shows how he and other firefighters receive alerts via their smartphones, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025, in Tylertown.

That’s why it’s critical for FEMA’s individual assistance to get approved quickly — ideally, within two weeks of a disaster, said Smith, who’s now a disaster consultant for governments and companies.

“You want to keep the people where they are living. You want to ensure those communities are going to continue to be viable and recover,” Smith said. “And the earlier that individual assistance can be delivered … the earlier recovery can start.”

In the periods waiting for declarations, the pressure falls on local officials and volunteers to care for victims and distribute supplies.

In Walthall County, where Tylertown is, insurance agent Les Lampton remembered watching the weather news as the first tornado missed his house by just an eighth of a mile. Lampton, who moonlights as a volunteer firefighter, navigated the collapsed trees in his yard and jumped into action. About 45 minutes later, the second tornado hit just a mile away.

“It was just chaos from there on out,” Lampton said.

Walthall County, with a population of about 14,000, hasn’t had a working tornado siren in about 30 years, Lampton said. He added there isn’t a public safe room in the area, although a lot of residents have ones in their home.

Rural areas with limited resources are hit hard by delays in receiving funds through FEMA’s public assistance program, which, unlike individual assistance, only reimburses local entities after their bills are paid. Long waits can stoke uncertainty and lead cost-conscious local officials to pause or scale-back their recovery efforts.

Walthall County Emergency Management Director Royce McKee, at emergency management headquarters in Tylertown, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. McKee discusses recovery efforts in Tylertown and surrounding areas after tornadoes struck in March.

In Walthall County, officials initially spent about $700,000 cleaning up debris, then suspended the cleanup for more than a month because they couldn’t afford to spend more without assurance they would receive federal reimbursement, said county emergency manager Royce McKee. Meanwhile, rubble from splintered trees and shattered homes remained piled along the roadside, creating unsafe obstacles for motorists and habitat for snakes and rodents.

When it received the federal declaration, Walthall County took out a multimillion-dollar loan to pay contractors to resume the cleanup.

“We’re going to pay interest and pay that money back until FEMA pays us,” said Byran Martin, an elected county supervisor. “We’re hopeful that we’ll get some money by the first of the year, but people are telling us that it could be [longer].”

Lampton, who took after his father when he joined the volunteer firefighters 40 years ago, lauded the support of outside groups such as Cajun Navy, Eight Days of Hope, Samaritan’s Purse and others. That’s not to mention the neighbors who brought their own skid steers and power saws to help clear trees and other debris, he added.

“That’s the only thing that got us through this storm, neighbors helping neighbors,” Lampton said. “If we waited on the government, we were going to be in bad shape.”

Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri, and Wildeman from Hartford, Connecticut.

Update 98/25: This story has been updated to include a White House statement released after publication.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Presidents are taking longer to declare major natural disasters. For some, the wait is agonizing appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

This article presents a critical view of the Trump administration’s handling of disaster declarations, highlighting delays and their negative impacts on affected individuals and communities. It emphasizes concerns about government downsizing and reduced federal support, themes often associated with center-left perspectives that favor robust government intervention and social safety nets. However, it also includes statements from Trump administration officials defending their approach, providing some balance. Overall, the tone and framing lean slightly left of center without being overtly partisan.

Mississippi Today

Northeast Mississippi speaker and worm farmer played key role in Coast recovery after Hurricane Katrina

Published

2 weeks ago

September 7, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @BobbyHarrison9 – 2025-09-07 07:00:00

by Bobby Harrison, Mississippi Today
September 7, 2025

The 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina slamming the Mississippi Gulf Coast has come and gone, rightfully garnering considerable media attention.

But still undercovered in the 20th anniversary saga of the storm that made landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and caused unprecedented destruction is the role that a worm farmer from northeast Mississippi played in helping to revitalize the Coast.

House Speaker Billy McCoy, who died in 2019, was a worm farmer from the Prentiss, not Alcorn County, side of Rienzi — about as far away from the Gulf Coast as one could be in Mississippi.

McCoy grew other crops, but a staple of his operations was worm farming.

Early after the storm, the House speaker made a point of touring the Coast and visiting as many of the House members who lived on the Coast as he could to check on them.

But it was his action in the forum he loved the most — the Mississippi House — that is credited with being key to the Coast’s recovery.

Gov. Haley Barbour had called a special session about a month after the storm to take up multiple issues related to Katrina and the Gulf Coast’s survival and revitalization. The issue that received the most attention was Barbour’s proposal to remove the requirement that the casinos on the Coast be floating in the Mississippi Sound.

Katrina wreaked havoc on the floating casinos, and many operators said they would not rebuild if their casinos had to be in the Gulf waters. That was a crucial issue since the casinos were a major economic engine on the Coast, employing an estimated 30,000 in direct and indirect jobs.

It is difficult to fathom now the controversy surrounding Barbour’s proposal to allow the casinos to locate on land next to the water. Mississippi’s casino industry that was birthed with the early 1990s legislation was still new and controversial.

Various religious groups and others had continued to fight and oppose the casino industry and had made opposition to the expansion of gambling a priority.

Opposition to casinos and expansion of casinos was believed to be especially strong in rural areas, like those found in McCoy’s beloved northeast Mississippi. It was many of those rural areas that were the homes to rural white Democrats — now all but extinct in the Legislature but at the time still a force in the House.

So, voting in favor of casino expansion had the potential of being costly for what was McCoy’s base of power: the rural white Democrats.

Couple that with the fact that the Democratic-controlled House had been at odds with the Republican Barbour on multiple issues ranging from education funding to health care since Barbour was inaugurated in January 2004.

Barbour set records for the number of special sessions called by the governor. Those special sessions often were called to try to force the Democratic-controlled House to pass legislation it killed during the regular session.

The September 2005 special session was Barbour’s fifth of the year. For context, current Gov. Tate Reeves has called four in his nearly six years as governor.

There was little reason to expect McCoy to do Barbour’s bidding and lead the effort in the Legislature to pass his most controversial proposal: expanding casino gambling.

But when Barbour ally Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, who presided over the Senate, refused to take up the controversial bill, Barbour was forced to turn to McCoy.

The former governor wrote about the circumstances in an essay he penned on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina for Mississippi Today Ideas.

“The Senate leadership, all Republicans, did not want to go first in passing the onshore casino law,” Barbour wrote. “So, I had to ask Speaker McCoy to allow it to come to the House floor and pass. He realized he should put the Coast and the state’s interests first. He did so, and the bill passed 61-53, with McCoy voting no.

“I will always admire Speaker McCoy, often my nemesis, for his integrity in putting the state first.”

Incidentally, former Rep. Bill Miles of Fulton, also in northeast Mississippi, was tasked by McCoy with counting, not whipping votes, to see if there was enough support in the House to pass the proposal. Not soon before the key vote, Miles said years later, he went to McCoy and told him there were more than enough votes to pass the legislation so he was voting no and broached the idea of the speaker also voting no.

It is likely that McCoy would have voted for the bill if his vote was needed.

Despite his no vote, the Biloxi Sun Herald newspaper ran a large photo of McCoy and hailed the Rienzi worm farmer as a hero for the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article presents a factual and balanced account of the political dynamics surrounding Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts in Mississippi, focusing on bipartisan cooperation between Democratic and Republican leaders. It highlights the complexities of legislative decisions without overtly favoring one party or ideology, reflecting a neutral and informative tone typical of centrist reporting.