Dec. 19, 1924

Three-time Emmy winner Cicely Tyson was born in Harlem, New York. She became the first Black actor to appear as a series regular on a prime-time dramatic television series and in 1974 became the first Black actress to win an Emmy. 

Raised by her Caribbean parents, she was discovered by a fashion editor at Ebony magazine. She became a top model and began acting. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the 1972 film, “Sounder.” And two years later, she received an Emmy Award for her portrayal of a 110-year-old former slave in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.” At age 88, she became the oldest person to win an acting Tony for her performance in “The Trip to Bountiful,” and the Kennedy Center honored her a year later. 

Tyson performed on Broadway alongside James Earl Jones in “The Gin Game,” and in 2016, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. 

In 2018, three years before her death, she received an honorary Oscar at the age of 94. “I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something, then there’s nothing left for you to work towards,” she said in accepting the award. “I want to believe that there is a mountain so high that I will spend my entire life striving to reach the top of it.”

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

For centuries, hunters have trained dogs to be their poaching companions. First President George Washington even had a collection of hounds for hunting foxes. 

Fast forward to today, hunting with dogs – specifically for deer – has a more complicated reputation. Using dogs to hunt whitetail deer, the most common type of deer in North America, is only legal in nine states, including Mississippi. 

Hunters and private property owners have butted heads for years over the practice, with land owners complaining about hunting dogs straying onto their land and disturbing their peace. While hunters use dogs to chase down several types of game, dog-deer hunting typically covers more ground. According to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, the state receives such complaints every year.

In May, the state Supreme Court tackled one such dispute. In 2020, a couple of Prentiss County landowners, the Dickersons, sued a group of nearby dog-deer hunters, the Allens, after years of complaining to the local sheriff about the Allens’ dogs winding up on their land, which the Dickersons used for their own “still” hunting. 

A lower court imposed an injunction preventing the Allens from letting their dogs on the Dickersons’ land, and the Supreme Court affirmed the decision this spring. In his opinion, Judge Leslie King wrote: “Two long-standing but competing interests are at issue in this case: the right to the quiet enjoyment of property versus the right to hunt and harvest wildlife.”

Greg Beard, an attorney for the Dickersons, said this was the first such case in the state to find a hunting dog to be a nuisance. While he believes the case set a precedent, Beard argued that the decision still leaves a gap in regulating dog-deer hunting. 

“The Dickerson’s had to take matters in their own hands because there was no other remedy,” Beard told Mississippi Today. “Technically the Allens were not violating any criminal law. As long as they stayed on the public road, their dogs can’t trespass…I think you do have leeway as a dog runner where you’re not going to get an injunction against a dog runner unless it’s a frequent occurrence.”

Other hunters in the state, like Preston Sullivan in southwest Mississippi, agree that dog-deer hunting can be a nuisance. 

“We’re hunters, too,” Sullivan said. “But property rights take precedence over hunting rights.”

In 2009, Sullivan started the Rural Property Rights Association of Mississippi to speak out against the sport, advocating for a permit system that would punish hunters when their dogs stray onto someone else’s property. While they successfully lobbied the state to create a permit system for the Homochitto National Forest in 2011, Sullivan’s mission has fallen short in the rest of the state.

Lawmakers’ attempts in recent years to address the issue have not gone far, including in the 2024 session. 

“A hunter himself can’t legally go on somebody else’s property, but their dog can,” he said. “Their dog can go wherever it wants, and there’s no consequences for that. We want there to be consequences.”

David Smith, president of the Mississippi Hunting Dog Association, said Sullivan and others mischaracterize dog-deer hunting, and for the most part hunters are able to keep their dogs away from others’ private land. 

He explained that modern dog collars have GPS tracking, and if the dog strays too far, the hunter can send a shock or vibration to try to stop the dog. 

“You’ll have a dog from time to time get out of pocket, but not very often,” Smith said, estimating the collars do what they need to 90% of the time. 

Smith added he didn’t think it’s fair to punish hunters if they’re on a large swath of land where dog-deer hunting is legal, and their dog then strays onto someone else’s land. He said private landowners should consider adding rightS-of-way where hunters can stop their dogs. 

“It’s legal to hunt in a 280,000-acre national forest…you buy five acres and a dog comes across your five acres, and I got to pay a (fine),” Smith said. “That to me is just ridiculous.”

In a statement emailed to Mississippi Today, MDWFP said there’s little it can do to prevent hunters from running their dogs on other people’s land. It’s only if they see it happening, the agency said, when they can issue a citation. 

Part of the issue, the agency added, is the change in land use over recent years. 

“Quite simply, there are fewer and fewer large undeveloped tracts of agricultural or forest lands,” MDWFP said. “Dogs don’t care if they’re too close to someone’s house when they’re chasing a deer – they only care about staying on the scent. Homeowners get antsy when they hear gunshots or see deer being chased by a pack of hounds, unless they grew up doing that very thing. Wide open spaces and the ability to roam at will are casualties of the evolution of society.”

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

New hires by state and by local governments would receive less benefits upon retirement under recommendations approved Wednesday by the 10-member board that governs the Mississippi Public Employees Retirement System.

Lee County Chancery Clerk Bill Benson, a member of the board, said during the meeting he did not support all aspects of proposed changes in the plan for new hires, but said he would endorse the changes to ensure that current retirees and current public government employees receive the benefits they were promised.

The recommendation endorsed by the board on Wednesday would not change any of benefits for current employees and retirees. The new proposal is similar to recommendations the board made last year, but state lawmakers did not adopt.

The ultimate decision on whether to create a tier 5 that would entail a different and smaller benefits package for new employees rests with the Legislature. On Wednesday the PERS board simply endorsed creating a tier 5.

The hope is that a tier 5 for new employees would address the financial woes many people say exist for PERS, which currently is providing some type of retirement benefits for about 350,000 current public employees and retirees.

The recommendation made by the board would not include a guaranteed cost of living adjustment. The current plan includes an annual 3% cost of living increase that many members take at the end of the year as a so-called 13^th check. Some PERS Board members said they do not think it is financially viable to continue the current COLA for new employees.

“A guaranteed COLA is the big elephant in the room,” Benson told fellow board members Wednesday. “… I will support (a new play for new hires) based on that, we need to sustain what was promised to existing employees.”

Benson and others at the meeting said reducing benefits for new hires would help stabilize the system long-term, but noted the system will still need more funding in the meantime.

The key elements in the recommendations the board approved Wednesday with one dissenting vote and one not voting is creating a hybrid plan where a portion of the pension benefits for the new hires would be through a guaranteed defined benefit plan while the other portion would be through some type of investment package, such as a 401K, where the benefits would be determined by investment earnings.

Under the current plan, all of the benefits are guaranteed each month. Board member Randy McCoy who voted no said he could not support changing the program so that all of the month benefit was not guaranteed.

Under an example presented to the board Wednesday, a current employee with 30 years of service earning $60,000 per year at retirement would, based on projections, earn 87% of his or her current work salary upon retirement, including federal Social Security payments. Importantly, those benefits would increase 3% annually based on the guaranteed COLA.

By contrast, the same retiree under the PERS board recommendation would receive 84.1% if the earnings from the investment portion of the pension package increased by 7% annually. But there would be no guaranteed COLA, though, a cost of living increase could be awarded each year.

Some members conceded that a less attractive pension package could make it difficult to recruit people to work in the public sector where the salaries are often less than those provided in the private sector.

Kelly Riley, director of Mississippi Professional Educators, said her group is concerned about the proposal for new hires, “especially its impact on the teacher pipeline and recruitment and retention.”

“We believe it will only deepen and exacerbate our state’s teacher shortage,” Riley said. “New teachers under this tier 5 would contribute the same 9% as those in tier 4, but rould receive fewer guaranteed benefits.”

The financial issues facing PERS have been an ongoing headache for the Legislature with widespread and long-term ramifications. The system has about 350,000 members including current public employees and former employees and retirees. The system provides pension benefits for most Mississippi public employees on the state and local government levels, including schoolteachers. Members of PERS comprise more than 10% of the state’s population.

The system has assets of about $32 billion, but debt of about $25 billion.

During the 2024 session, legislation was passed to strip a key power of the PERS’ Board – to set the percentage of the employee paycheck governmental entities contribute to the pension program.

To deal with long-term financial issues, the PERS Board had planned a 5% increase over three years to 22.4% that the employers or governmental entities contributed to each paycheck. Governmental entities, particularly local governments and school districts, said to pay for the increase they would be forced to reduce services and lay off employees.

While stripping the power from the PERS Board to set the employer contribution rate, the Legislature also enacted a 2.5% increase over five years instead of the 5% increase over three years planned by the PERS Board.

In addition, the Legislature provided a one-time infusion of $110 million into the system.

The board on Wednesday debated holding off on endorsing the recommendation.

“I just got this around 8 last night and I don’t see the rush for us to recommend something,” said board member state Treasurer David McRae. “… I want to get this right. This is going to be a generational change for Mississippi.”

Board Chairman George Dales, former longtime state insurance commissioner, said the Legislature “could still do this on their own” without a PERS board recommendation. Others noted a recommendation from the board would be helpful and politically pragmatic for the Legislature.

State Sen. Daniel Sparks, R-Belmont, a board member, said that even if the state were to adopt more limited benefits, local governments in the system could still provide more, at their own cost.

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