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Archie Manning and Langston Rogers team up to raise money for Delta State athletics

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Archie Manning and Langston Rogers team up to raise money for Delta State athletics

There was a time, in the early-to-mid 1960s when Archie Manning thought he would probably play football, basketball and/or at Sunflower Junior College (now Mississippi Delta Community College). Or, Manning dreamed, if he really improved and put on some weight, he might even play at Delta .

Those were the college teams Manning knew well. Those were the schools closest to his hometown of Drew. Those were the places his daddy and uncles took him to watch college teams play.

and Mississippi State? For a skinny, 155-pound, red-headed kid from the tiny town of Drew, those places were pipe dreams.

You know the rest of the story. Manning did add some muscle to his lanky frame. He did improve and went on to become one of Mississippi’s most beloved football players with Ole Miss and then in the NFL.

Manning never attended Delta State, but he never lost his admiration for the school and its rich athletic history. That’s why he will join his longtime friend (and Delta State graduate) Langston Rogers for fundraising conversation and auction at DSU’s Sillers Coliseum on Thursday night. The program, billed as “Night of Champions,” will begin at 7 p.m.

Rogers played baseball for DSU legend Boo Ferriss and later become the school’s sports information director before going to Ole Miss in the same capacity. That’s where Manning and Rogers became good friends.

โ€œDelta State and Cleveland are 15 miles from Drew,โ€ Manning said. โ€œThat’s where we went to the picture show after the one in Drew closed down. That’s where we went to eat after the two restaurants in Drew had closed for the day. I have great memories from growing up and going to Delta State games. My sister, Pam, went to Delta State. I practically grew up there.โ€

Horace McCool, the longtime DSU football coach, recruited Manning when other colleges did not.

โ€œNo big colleges knocking my doors down in recruiting,โ€ Manning said. โ€œI was a skinny quarterback and I suffered a broken arm my junior football season and only played in three games.โ€

There was a time when Maning thought he might play basketball in college. He was the leading scorer and best player on Drew teams that sometimes played preliminary games before Delta State varsity games at Sillers Coliseum, opened in 1960.

โ€œOh man, that was a big deal for us back then,โ€ Manning said. โ€œFor us, Sillers Coliseum, when it was brand new, was like Madison Square Garden.โ€

Manning, a Major League prospect as a shortstop, played summer league baseball games at what is now Harvey Stadium at Boo Ferriss Field. Manning’s Babe Ruth League baseball team was coached by future Delta State football coach Don Skelton.

โ€œEverybody in the Delta knew who Boo Ferriss was,โ€ Manning said. โ€œHe spoke to my summer league team when I was 13. I remember it well not only because Coach Ferriss was so impressive, but because my daddy was so disappointed that it was my mother and not him who took me to practice that day. My daddy loved Boo Ferriss and so did I.โ€

Manning was also a huge Mississippi State basketball fan back in the early and mid-60s when Babe McCarthy-coached Bulldogs teams were among the best in the nation and battled Kentucky almost annually for the Southeastern Conference championship. Manning remembers December of 1963 when McCarthy brought his Bulldogs to Sillers to play Delta State. Manning couldn’t wait to see his basketball hero, State’s Red Stroud, in person.

โ€œRed Stroud’s hair wasn’t just red, it was flaming orange,โ€ Manning said. โ€œI remember that and I remember he could ever more shoot the basketball.โ€

Manning had told his father, Buddy Manning, he wanted to go to the big game. His father came home with one ticket. โ€œHow am I supposed to get there?โ€ Archie asked.

โ€œBetter start calling around,โ€ his mother answered. And he did.

Delta State’s financial woes have been well publicized in recent months. Academic programs have been cut. Budgets have been slashed.

Mike Kinnison Credit: DSU

Delta State athletic director Mike Kinnison, who played for Ferriss and later coached Delta State to a national baseball championship, is tasked with to keep Delta State nationally relevant in NCAA Division II with limited resources. Delta State has won national championships in football, baseball and women’s basketball and has been to the Final Four in ‘s basketball.

โ€œWe’re staying optimistic and focused on increasing revenue to offset our budget cuts,โ€ Kinnison said. โ€œIt will require utilizing every asset we have to maintain nationally competitive programs and positive experiences for our student athletes. …It is a challenge we will work through.โ€

Money raised from Thursday night’s program dubbed โ€œNight of Championsโ€ will , Kinnison said. The program also includes a silent and auction of sports memorabilia.

โ€œWe are honored to have Archie and Langston engage our community,โ€ Kinnison said. โ€œTheir long-time of college athletics and student-athletes are evident and appreciated.โ€

Click here for details of the “Night of Champions” auction.

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

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Mississippi Today

Senate panel weighs how much โ€” or whether โ€” to cut state taxes

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mississippitoday.org – Taylor Vance – 2024-11-04 15:42:00

A group of state senators on Monday grappled with how much to slash state taxes or if they should cut them at all, portending a major policy debate at the Capitol for next year’s legislative session. 

The Senate Fiscal Policy Study Group solicited testimony from the state ‘s leading experts on budget, economic and tax policies to prepare for an almost certain intense debate in January over how much they should trim state taxes while balancing the need to fund government services.ย 

Senate Finance Chairman Josh Harkins, a Republican from Flowood whose committee has jurisdiction over tax policy, told Mississippi Today that he wanted senators to have basic facts in front of them before they help decide next year if Mississippi should cut taxes.

โ€œWe’re getting a tax cut the next two years whether we do anything or not,โ€ Harkins said. โ€œI just want to make sure we have all the facts in front of people to understand we have a clear picture of how much revenue we’re bringing in.โ€  

Mississippi is already phasing in a major tax cut. After a raucous debate in 2022, lawmakers agreed to phase in an income tax cut. In two years it will Mississippi with a flat 4% tax on income over $10,000, one of the lowest rates in the nation.

However, the top two legislative leaders, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann who oversees the Senate and House Speaker Jason White, have both recently said they want legislators to consider new tax cut policies.  

Hosemann, the Republican leader of the Senate, has publicly said he would like to see the state’s grocery tax, the highest of its kind in the nation, reduced, though he hasn’t specified how much of a reduction or how long it would take for the cut to be implemented. 

White, a Republican from , said last week that he would like to see the state’s 4% income tax phased out and have the state’s 7% grocery tax cut in half over time. 

โ€œWe are hoping to construct a tax system that, yes, prioritizes certain needs in our state, but it also protects and rewards taxpayers,โ€ White said last week. 

But it’s difficult to collect accurate data on the state’s grocery tax, and state lawmakers must grapple with a laundry list of spending needs and obligations based on testimony from state agency leaders on Monday. 

Mississippi currently has a 7% sales tax, which is applied to groceries. The state collects the tax but remits 18.5% back to . For many municipalities, the sales tax is a significant source of revenue. 

If state lawmakers want to reduce the grocery tax without impacting cities, they could pass a new to change the diversion amounts or appropriate enough money to make the municipalities whole.  

State Revenue Commissioner Chris Graham said the Mississippi Department of Revenue, the agency in charge of collecting state taxes, does not have a mechanism in place for accurately capturing how much money cities collect in grocery taxes. This is because the tax on groceries is the same as non-grocery items. 

However, Graham estimates that the state collects roughly $540 million in taxes from grocery items.

The other problem lawmakers would have in implementing significant tax cuts is a growing list of spending needs in Mississippi, a state with abject poverty, and sewer and other woes and some of the worst metrics in the nation. 

Representatives from the Legislative Budget Office, the group that advises lawmakers on tax and spending policy, told senators that lawmakers will also be with rising costs in the public employee retirement system, the Medicaid budget, public education, state employee health insurance, and state infrastructure projects. 

READ MORE: As lawmakers look to cut taxes, Mississippi mayors and county leaders outline infrastructure needs

State agencies, the employee retirement system, also requested $751 million more for the coming budget year.

โ€œThat’s the billion dollar question, I guess,โ€ Senate Appropriations Chairman Briggs Hopson, a Republican from Vicksburg, said. โ€œHow we’re able to fund basic government services?โ€ 

Harkins and Hopson said the committee would likely meet again before the Legislature convenes for its 2025 session on January 7.

A House committee on tax cuts has also been holding hearings, and White in September held a summit on tax policy.

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

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Mississippi Today

Already dire lack of affordable housing for low-income Mississippians on verge of worsening

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mississippitoday.org – Simeon Gates – 2024-11-04 11:00:00

In Mississippi, where there’s already a dearth of 50,000 or more affordable homes for extremely low-income residents, that number could grow in the next five years.

Housing units available under the federal Low Income Tax Credit program could lose their affordability by 2030 โ€“a number estimated nationwide to be 350,000 with 2,917 in Mississippi, alone; 496 in the state already have.

The federal program responsible for most of the nation’s affordable housing is expiring.

The Low Income Housing Tax Credit, introduced as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986,  provides for developers to buy, build and restore low-income housing units. Under the deal, the housing only needs to stay low-rent for 30 years. Construction began in the early 1990s. 

Some LIHTC housing will remain affordable due to other subsidies, nonprofits, state law and individual landlords.

โ€œI think the low-income housing tax credit has done everything that it can to address the need for affordable housing around the state,โ€ said Scott Spivey, executive director of the Mississippi Housing Corporation, a state office that administers the program and works with the state and those in the affordable housing industry to create and affordable housing

Spivey supports the proposed Affordable Housing Credit and Improvement Act, a federal bill that would expand upon the low-income housing tax credit in several ways, including giving developers more credit for certain projects for low-income households and changing tenant eligibility rules. 

The bill was introduced in the House and the Senate last session, and is co-sponsored by Mississippi Sens. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker and in the House by Reps. Mike Ezell, and Michael Guest. As of this spring, both bills are in committee. 

While housing has become a major issue for Americans, getting legislation passed has been challenging. โ€œEverybody knows that housing is an issue, but it gets caught up with everything elseโ€ฆand it kind of gets lost in the shuffle,โ€ said Spivey.

This issue is especially important in Mississippi, where demand for housing is high across all incomes. 

โ€œAll the market studies that we see that with the applications tell us that there’s a huge need for affordable housing across the state at all the income bandsโ€ said Spivey.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, almost a third of Mississippi renters are extremely low income; 65% of them are severely cost burdened, meaning they spent more than half their income on rent. The majority of these households are seniors, disabled people, single caregivers of young , people enrolled in school, or other. 

Director of Housing Law at the Mississippi Center for Justice, Ashley Richardson said housing problems worsened after Mississippi stopped participating in the federal rental assistance program in 2022.

MCJ’s work on housing includes a statewide eviction hotline, investigating instances of housing discrimination, and more. 

Richardson praised the LIHTC program, but echoed Spivey’s concerns. โ€œEven with the affordable housing we do have in Mississippi, we are still at a lack,โ€ she said. 

The National Housing Preservation Database estimates Mississippi is short 52,421 affordable and available rental homes for low-income people. The National Low Income Housing Coalition puts the figure at 49,478.

Richardson wants the state to deal with issues like providing more tenant protections and rental assistance. There’s also a need to improve homes that are rundown or in poor , and many housing nonprofits are running out of

Spivey said people should to their property managers and learn about their rights. MHC’s website has resources for homebuyers and renters.

As the housing crisis goes on, there are options for people struggling to find and keep affordable housing and an effort to take action at the federal and state levels.  

Some aspiring low-income homeowners may qualify for Habitat for Humanity, a program that builds homes for families in need. Families who qualify work on the homes alongside volunteers, pay an affordable mortgage and financial literacy education.

New applicants must meet the qualifications, including a good debt-income ratio, 125 hours of sweat equity and taking classes on financial literacy, home repairs, and being a good neighbor.

Merrill McKewen, executive director for Habitat for Humanity Mississippi Capital Area, emphasized the importance of housing to individuals and communities. 

โ€œThere are untold studies that have been done that, you’ve gotta have a safe, decent, affordable place to live. The children are better , the are better employeesโ€ฆit grounds you to a community that you can contribute to and be a part of. It is the American dream, to own a home, which is what we’re all about,โ€ she said. 

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

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Mississippi Today

Mississippi Election 2024: What will be on Tuesdayโ€™s ballot?

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mississippitoday.org – Bobby Harrison – 2024-11-04 10:00:00

will go to the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 5, to elect federal and state judicial posts and some local offices, such as for election commissioners and school board members.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday. To find your polling place, use the secretary of state’s locator, or call your local county circuit clerk.

READ MORE: View the Mississippi sample ballot.

The is a list of the candidates for federal and judicial posts with brief bios:

President

  • Kamala Harris, current vice president and Democratic nominee for president. Her running mate is Tim Walz.
  • Donald Trump, former president and current Republican nominee. His running mate is J.D. Vance.
  • Robert Kennedy Jr. remains on the ballot in Mississippi even though he has endorsed Trump. His running mate is Nicole Shanahan.
  • Jill Stein is the Green Party candidate. Her running mate is Rudolph Ware.
  • Five other candidates will be on the Mississippi ballot for president. For a complete list of presidential candidates, see the sample ballot.

U.S. Senate

  • Ty Pinkins is the Democratic nominee. He is a Rolling Fork native and attorney, representing, among other clients, those alleging unfair working conditions. He served 21 years in the U.S. Army, including combat stints, other overseas deployment and posts in the White House,
  • Roger Wicker is the Republican incumbent senator. He resides in and has served in the U.S. Senate since late 2007 after first being appointed to fill a vacancy by then-Gov. Haley Barbour. He was elected to the post in 2008. He previously served in the U.S. House and as a state senator. He is an attorney and served in the United States Force.

House District 1

  • Dianne Black is the Democratic nominee. She is a small business owner in Olive Branch in DeSoto County.
  • Trent Kelly is the Republican incumbent. He was elected to the post in a special election in 2015. He previously served as a district attorney and before then as a prosecuting attorney for the of Tupelo. He is a major general in the Mississippi Army National Guard.

House District 2

  • Bennie Thompson is the Democratic incumbent. He was first elected to the post in 1993. Before then, he served as a supervisor and as alderman and then as mayor of Bolton.
  • Ronald Eller is the Republican nominee. He grew up in Virginia and moved to central Mississippi after retiring from the military. He is a physician assistant and business owner.

House District 3

  • Michael Guest is the Republican incumbent and is unopposed.

House District 4

  • Mike Ezell is the Republican incumbent first being elected in 2022. He previously served as Jackson County sheriff.
  • Craig Raybon is the Democratic nominee. Raybon is from and began a nonprofit โ€œfocused on helping out the community as a whole.โ€

Central District Supreme Court

  • Jenifer Branning currently serves as a member of the state Senate from Neshoba County.
  • Byron Carter is a Hinds County attorney and previously served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Armis Hawkins.
  • James Kitchens is the incumbent. He has served on the state’s highest court since 2008.
  • Ceola James previously served on the Court of Appeals.
  • Abby Gale Robinson is a Jackson attorney. She previously was a commercial builder.

Southern District Supreme Court

  • Dawn Beam is the incumbent, been first appointed in 2016 by then-Gov. Phil Bryant and later winning election to the post. She is a former chancellor for the Hattiesburg area.
  • David Sullivan is an attorney in and has been a municipal judge in D’Iberville since 2019. His father, Michael, previously served on the state Supreme Court.

Northern District Supreme Court seats

  • Robert Chamberlin of DeSoto County is unopposed.
  • James Maxwell of Lafayette County is unopposed.

Court of Appeals 5th District seat

  • Ian Baker is an assistant district attorney in Harrison County.
  • Jennifer Schloegel is a Chancery Court judge for Harrison, Hancock and Stone counties.
  • Amy St. Pe is a Municipal Court judge in Gautier.

Court of Appeals District 2

  • Incumbent Latrice Westbrooks is unopposed.

Court of Appeals District 3

  • Incumbent Jack Wilson is unopposed.ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย 

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

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