Mississippi Today
How Dr. Scott Benton’s decisions tore these families apart
How Dr. Scott Benton’s decisions tore these families apart
This story is the third part in Mississippi Today’s “Shaky Science, Fractured Families” investigation about the state’s only child abuse pediatrician crossing the line from medicine into law enforcement and how his decisions can tear families apart.Read the full series here.
Caryn Jordan, Columbia

When Caryn Jordan took her 10-month-old daughter to Forrest General Hospital on March 29, 2020, she never imagined the state would take her child from her.
She said she also never considered that a pediatrician who would accuse her of child abuse wouldn’t do the necessary testing to determine if a genetic disease caused her daughter’s fractures.
The nightmare started when Jordan was putting her daughter Sawyer in her high chair. She noticed one leg was warm and swollen. She tried to get Sawyer to stand up, but the child couldn’t handle pressure being applied to the swollen leg.
At Forrest General Hospital, Jordan said doctors told her an X-ray revealed a fracture on Sawyer’s leg and that the hospital would have to transfer Sawyer to the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) in Jackson because they were not equipped to put a cast on an infant. The hospital had contacted Child Protective Services, she said she later realized.
An official with Forrest General Hospital said when there is suspected abuse or neglect, the hospital social worker is consulted and further screening is done.
“CPS is notified when circumstances warrant,” said Suzanne Wilson, the director of emergency services and transfer center at the hospital.
Wilson said not all suspected abuse cases are transferred out of the facility, but those requiring a specialist’s care are transferred, as well as those in need of pediatric services not provided at the hospital.
After performing a full body X-ray on Sawyer at UMMC, doctors told Jordan her daughter had a broken leg and 11 fractures across her body in various stages of healing.
Jordan was baffled. Sawyer had rarely left their home, aside from frequent doctor visits due to stomach issues and a salmonella infection. Her mind raced for answers.
Then Jordan got a call from Dr. Scott Benton, a pediatrician at UMMC who specializes in child abuse pediatrics. He told her that Sawyer looked like she had been thrown against a wall or in a car accident, she said. Another mother told Mississippi Today that Benton also accused her of throwing her baby against the wall.
“He spoke to me like I was this abusive, disgusting mother,” Jordan said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that angry.”
Benton, who Jordan said she never saw in person, determined abuse caused her injuries. Jordan said to her knowledge, Benton, who told her on the phone he was out of town at the time, never saw Sawyer in person.
Jordan would not be taking Sawyer home. She was told to leave the hospital, and Sawyer went into the custody of Child Protective Services.

Back home in Columbia, Jordan turned all of her energy into getting Sawyer back, a fight that cost her everything. She was only able to work part time due to frequent court dates and doctor’s visits. She drained her savings and lost her health insurance. Her relationship with her boyfriend imploded. She moved back in with her parents.
“Could the fractures have occurred during birth?” she wondered. At one point, Sawyer got stuck in the birth canal. She had to be pushed back inside and delivered through an emergency cesarean section, Jordan said.
“Might Sawyer have a brittle bone disease called osteogenesis imperfecta?” Jordan thought. The group of inherited genetic disorders affects how the body makes collagen and causes fragile bones. A Facebook group she joined for parents whose children had the disorder encouraged her to request a bone density test.
But when Jordan proposed the idea, Benton replied in text messages that she shared with Mississippi Today: “There is no validated and approved bone density test for infants.”
While bone density tests are not typically performed on infants, there are alternative methods, Jordan said a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital New Orleans told her in June 2020. They include a skin biopsy or genetic testing to look for anomalies in certain genes involved in encoding collagen.
In videos shared with Mississippi Today, the New Orleans doctor tells Jordan that Sawyer’s symptoms and injuries are consistent with what is seen in a child with brittle bone disease, and that often the fractures are painless and left undiscovered for some time.
But Jordan was unaware Benton had performed a genetic osteogenesis imperfecta panel test on Sawyer on March 31, nor was she given the results. That test detected a variant of uncertain significance in her COL1A1 gene, which is involved in collagen production, according to Sawyer’s medical records from UMMC.
Dr. Mahim Jain, director of the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Clinic at Kennedy Krieger Institute and an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said issues with the COL1A1 gene are a major cause of OI.
“A variant of uncertain significance doesn’t really say, ‘Yes, it is disease causing’ or ‘no, it’s not.’ It means that there’s more work to be done to try to sort out if it is causing the condition,” Jain told Mississippi Today.
Benton’s report on Sawyer’s genetic test recommends genetic counseling and targeted testing of her parents to better understand the implications of this variant, but no further testing was done and no explanation was given as to why, according to the medical records.
Jordan said she became aware of the test and its results only after her case was concluded.
Benton declined to answer questions about Jordan and her daughter’s case, even though Jordan submitted a form to UMMC authorizing hospital employees to discuss her daughter’s medical records with Mississippi Today.
Benton told a group of public defenders in a recorded presentation about sex crimes, however, that before he came to UMMC in 2008, parents and anyone who was suspected of being associated with a child’s injury was “kicked out of the hospital.”
He said he reversed that policy so he could be sure to get a full history from parents and not overlook any possible medical explanations for a child’s injuries.
“That was part of their protocol (at the time). And I said ‘Alright, who am I supposed to get the history from? Who am I supposed to (talk to) to figure out if there’s a medical explanation for some of these bleeding findings?’” he told the group. “So we quickly reversed that.”
For the first three months while Sawyer was with a foster family, Jordan said she wasn’t allowed to see her, despite CPS visitation policy that states contact between the child and his or her parents must be arranged within 72 hours of that child being placed into foster care.
Shannon Warnock, a spokeswoman for CPS, said the agency can’t comment on specific cases, “including any exceptional circumstances that warrant policy adjustments.”
In December 2020, nine months after Jordan went into CPS custody, Jordan’s parents got a foster care license and got custody of Sawyer.
In doing so, that meant Jordan had to move out. She found a one-bedroom apartment she could afford.
Ultimately, the youth court judge concluded Sawyer was abused but it was unclear who inflicted the injuries, so she was returned to Jordan on April 5, 2021.
In the aftermath, Jordan has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, an anxiety disorder and depression. She mourns the milestones she missed during the 15 months Sawyer was taken from her.
“I missed my daughter’s first birthday,” Jordan said. “I missed her first Easter. I missed her first step. I missed a lot of firsts. And these are things I can never get back.”
The separation also affected Sawyer, now an outspoken 3-year-old who sometimes rolls her eyes at her mother and loves to dance.
Sawyer has to carry KeKe, a fuzzy blanket covered in llamas, with her wherever she goes, Jordan said. The baby blanket was the only one of her belongings she was able to keep while in state custody. She still has separation anxiety, and Jordan often has to reassure her she will not leave her again.
Jordan recently scheduled additional testing for Sawyer in New Orleans to confirm if she has the brittle bone disease. She said she waited because of the cost, and because for a long time, the idea of taking Sawyer to a doctor left her terrified.
The two now live in a two-bedroom house in Columbia with a large backyard. They’re trying to start over and create a new normal.
“Ever since they closed our case, I’ve just tried to be a mom,” Jordan said.
Lindsey Tedford, Tupelo

Lindsey Tedford of Tupelo rushed her 3-week-old son Cohen to the local emergency room at North Mississippi Medical Center on June 13, 2021. While her husband was holding their newborn and bent down to pick up a pacifier from the floor, Cohen had hit his head on the nearby crib, the parents told the nurses in the emergency room.
Cohen had bruising under both eyes and on his nose but was otherwise fine, the doctors told her.
The hospital never performed CT or MRI scans, medical records from the visit show.
But when Cohen was at a pediatric cardiologist appointment about two and a half months after the crib accident, the doctor noticed something concerning. Cohen’s head circumference had increased since his two-month checkup with his pediatrician. He scheduled an ultrasound two weeks later, and the results were “concerning for a brain bleed,” according to the baby’s medical records.
The doctor sent them to the North Mississippi Medical Center for a CT scan. It confirmed the ultrasound results: Blood had collected between the skull and the surface of the brain, and Cohen had a possible skull fracture.
The results triggered a chain of events that led to the Tedfords losing custody of Cohen for nearly five months. The state’s only child abuse pediatrician, Dr. Scott Benton, accused them of child abuse and diagnosed Cohen with “nonaccidental trauma.”
In recent months, doctors at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis have diagnosed Cohen, now over a year old, with a bleeding disorder called idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, or ITP. Subdural hematomas and intracranial hemorrhage — both diagnoses Cohen received at UMMC — are rare complications of ITP.
Back in September of 2021, the North Mississippi neurosurgeon recommended operating on the brain bleed as soon as possible. Lindsey asked the doctor to transfer Cohen to Le Bonheur in Memphis and left the hospital to go home to get clothes for the trip. On her way back, she got a frantic call from her husband Blake: they had taken Cohen in a helicopter, and he didn’t know where they were taking him, she said.
“As soon as Blake left to go out of the room to follow the people taking Cohen to the helicopter, (people from Child Protective Services) were waiting on him to question him.”
Eventually a nurse manager told him Cohen was sent to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, she said.
A spokeswoman for North Mississippi Medical Center said the hospital aims to care for potential victims of child abuse “with love and respect.”
“We report child abuse to Child Protective Services in accordance with Mississippi regulations and treat as medically appropriate,” the spokeswoman said when asked how the hospital handles cases of suspected abuse and neglect. “UMMC maintains a Pediatric Sub-Specialty Clinic in Tupelo, which offers non-traumatic medical examinations and treatment for cases of suspected abuse and neglect.”

The Tedfords said they made phone calls to UMMC as they drove to Jackson. They eventually found Cohen in the emergency room.
They didn’t hear from Child Protective Services again until almost two weeks later — the day before Cohen was discharged into CPS custody.
CPS policy and state law do not require parents be informed they are being investigated for possible child abuse in any specific time frame.
“The Foster Care Policy manual does say that a parent ‘will be notified prior to, or as soon as safely possible, that his/her child is being placed in custody,’ but there is no specific time period for notifying the parent of the child’s removal,” said Shannon Warnock, a spokesperson for CPS.
She said the agency could not comment on specific cases.
Following more tests, Cohen was transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit. Neurology, hematology and ophthalmology consulted on his case.
Blood work revealed he was anemic, but medical records note a hematologist “… felt that anemia was most likely secondary to subdural hematoma.”
No other tests or scans were abnormal, according to the records.
About five days into Cohen’s hospital stay, Dr. Scott Benton introduced himself to her and her husband as the “staff forensic pediatrician,” Lindsey said.
“I didn’t know what that meant,” she said. “He said, ‘I’m going to record this session,’ and didn’t tell us a whole lot, just started asking questions.”
The couple relayed how Cohen had hit his head on his crib at 3 weeks old. Benton said the bleeding couldn’t have been caused by that, Lindsey said.
When she showed him pictures of Cohen’s bruised face and the bassinet, he said that didn’t “impress” him, she recalled.
Lindsey also told Benton about Cohen’s “traumatic” birth, but she said he told her the same — it didn’t impress him. During 17 hours of labor, both her and his heart rates dropped on several occasions, and she lost consciousness.
Cohen was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.
Benton declined to answer questions about Lindsey and her son’s case, even though she submitted a form to UMMC authorizing hospital employees to discuss her son’s medical records with Mississippi Today.
Lindsey attempted to get the recording of her conversations with Benton from the Children’s Safe Center, the medical center Benton oversees, but was unable to reach an employee, she said. Another mother who attempted to get similar recordings was told she must have an attorney to do so.
At UMMC, a surgeon drilled small openings called burr holes into Cohen’s skull to relieve pressure from the bleeding. He recovered and was discharged from UMMC.
The Tedfords appealed to a CPS case worker to allow Cohen to stay with Blake’s mother, who lived about 20 minutes from their home. CPS tentatively agreed, pending a successful home visit.
On Sept. 22, 2021, officials from Child Protective Services took the baby back to Tupelo. The hospital had diagnosed his injury as “nonaccidental trauma to child.”
For months, the Tedfords’ lives were divided between two houses. CPS had also removed their then-3-year-old daughter Cullen Claire from the home under a safety plan, and she was staying with Lindsey’s parents.
“She kept asking, ‘Why can’t I go home with my mommy and daddy? Is my brother ever going to get better?’ We couldn’t tell her, ‘You can’t come home because these people think we’re abusing you,’” said Lindsey.
Cohen wasn’t sleeping well away from his home, either, and his grandmother was in a state of constant exhaustion.
Over the next several months, CPS visited the Tedfords’ home, and the couple took (and passed) a polygraph test at the end of October, Lindsey said.
At a December safety plan review, Cullen Claire’s court-appointed guardian recommended returning her home because of the detrimental impact on her mental health — contingent on Lindsey receiving a mental evaluation because of the postpartum depression she revealed to Benton at the hospital in their conversation.
Several court dates for Cohen in early January passed with no action from CPS or the prosecution. They finally went back to court at the end of January.
“Our lawyer presented dismissal, saying there was basically not enough evidence to say these people abused their children,” recalled Lindsey. “He said, ‘This has been going on for five months now, nothing’s happened, we haven’t been to trial, and we just now got medical records. How long is this going to go on, and this family is broken?’”
When the judge asked the prosecution if they would be ready for trial in the next month, the attorneys said no.
Cohen’s court-appointed guardian also recommended the child return home. The judge ruled in the Tedfords’ favor, but stated Cohen should remain under a CPS safety plan involving periodic home visits. The plan ended March 2, 2022.
Life for the Tedfords is, on the outside, back to normal. But a lot has changed.
In addition to the health scare with Cohen and frequent trips to Memphis for his doctor appointments for ITP, his sister Cullen Claire, now 4, is struggling.
“We’re looking into child therapy for her. She tells us all the time that she doesn’t think we love her, that no one likes her. She’s struggled at school,” Lindsey said, starting to cry. “It’s definitely caused a lot of trauma.”
Lindsey has also been to therapy to work through what happened.
She said any time there’s a minor accident — bumps, falls and scrapes — she gets worried.
“What would it take for my kids to go back into CPS custody?” she wonders.
Lauren Ayers, Madison

After an afternoon at the playground on July 24, 2018, Lauren Ayers of Madison came home with her 10-week-old twins and almost 2-year-old son.
Ayers’ husband was in Oklahoma for work, so she was left alone with the three boys. She made spaghetti for her older son and herself. After they ate, she started the bedtime routine for the twins, Eli and Conner. She changed Conner’s diaper, swaddled him and laid him in his bassinet in her bedroom.
She put the other twin, Eli, on the plastic diaper changing pad on top of the dresser where she changes the boys’ diapers in their nursery. She had Eli’s onesie undone, so the lower half of his body was pressed directly against the uncovered pad.
The three children’s screams and cries created a cacophony in her home. Eli was kicking and thrashing on the changing pad.
Over the sound of the cries, she heard a clicking noise behind her and turned around, with Eli still on the changing table. Her older son sometimes liked to stand on the glider and rock back and forth, and she’d often have to intercept him before he fell. This time, though, he was playing with a retractable tape measure.
Turning back around, she was horrified to see Eli had scooted himself backwards and had fallen, landing on the crown of his head on the hard floor.
She remembers the resounding thud. When she ran over to pick him up, he was crying, but then became limp and lost consciousness.
“I thought he had broken his neck … I couldn’t find my phone, I was running outside and screaming for anybody to help me,” Ayers recalled. “I finally remembered where my phone was and ran in and called 911. He was unconscious, but he was breathing.”
Ayers’ neighborhood in Flora was new at the time, and she said she was either so upset she wasn’t being clear about where she lived or the emergency response officials weren’t sure where she was. She offered to meet them at Mannsdale Upper Elementary School, about a mile from her house.
“I loaded everybody up, got there … three different fire departments came,” she said. “I kept asking this off-duty firefighter … ‘What do we need to do?’ And he said, ‘Look, if anything’s wrong with him, you want him in the care of an ambulance.’”
With Ayers’ husband out of town and her family in Destin, her best friend came to the school along with her husband.
When no ambulance had arrived 30 minutes later, “the off-duty firefighter was like, ‘You’ve got to get him to a hospital,’” she said. “So my best friend’s husband drove us (to the University of Mississippi Medical Center).”
Ayers’ friend stayed with her and Eli, who had regained consciousness, when he arrived in the emergency room.Two of Ayers’ other friends were also in the emergency room with them, along with her in-laws.

“Thank God people could come back in the ER (because) they were witnesses of everything that happened … They tried to get an IV in him … They stuck him probably over 12 times,” Ayers described. “They couldn’t get blood from him.”
The nurses started a procedure called “milking,” said Ayers, where they would put both hands on Eli’s legs and arms and squeeze the skin in opposite directions in an attempt to get blood to flow.
They checked his stats, ran tests and admitted him to the pediatric intensive care unit for the night. A neurosurgeon reassured Ayers and her family that while the injury was bad, Eli would recover.
A scan the next morning showed Eli’s brain bleed had not gotten any larger, so he was moved to a regular room. That day, Ayers said the nurse told her the forensic pediatrician wanted to go over what happened. Ayers had no idea what a forensic pediatrician was.
Ayers attempted to get a recording of her conversation with Benton to share with Mississippi Today, but was told by the Children’s Safe Center, the medical center Benton oversees, that she would have to get an attorney to obtain it.
But she well remembers how the conversation began.
“He goes on to explain his (Eli’s) injuries and then asked if I remembered (the actress) Natasha Richardson. And I was like ‘Yea, yea, from the ‘Parent Trap’,’” she said. “And he goes, you know, ‘she had the skiing accident … This is the same injury your child has.’”
Richardson suffered a head injury and died two days later in 2009.
Ayers was shocked. She thought maybe Benton was about to tell her something was very wrong.
Benton abruptly closed his notebook and looked at her, she said.
“He said, ‘You’re under a lot of pressure right now. You have three kids, you were home alone — postpartum (depression) is a real thing,’” she remembered. “‘Tell me what really happened.”
Benton’s notes from Eli’s medical records show his certainty that the baby was not injured the way Ayers said.
“The fractures are discontinuous (do not connect) and appear to represent separate impact sites,” his notes show. “… Bilateral fractures are not reported in single fall incidents except where the skull fractures are continuous across sutures or in cases of bilateral out bending from a posterior impact causing symmetrical fractures.”
He goes on to note his concerns are whether Eli was developmentally able to kick or slide himself backwards and whether his skull fractures are “consistent” with Ayers’ account of what happened.
An occupational therapist who later evaluated Eli noted he was “quite active for age and may be slightly ahead with developmental milestones.” Ayers also took a video of Eli scooting himself backwards off a diaper changing pad, which she provided to Mississippi Today. In the video, he is wearing the same onesie outfit he was wearing in photos from the hospital.
She said Benton then told her he believes she threw the baby against a wall.
Yet the “most traumatizing part” of the first meeting with Benton, she said, was when he “strips that baby naked, and he’s looking, I guess, for signs of abuse.”
He started taking pictures of the bruises and needle marks from when Eli was admitted in the ER. Ayers asked what he was doing, and he said he believed she had inflicted the bruises.
He argued with her that the bruises were not from attempts to draw blood, and that “milking” was against hospital policy.

“I kept saying, ‘Don’t you see the needle marks?’ I was screaming at the nurses, ‘These are needle marks, you see them and you gave them to him!’” said Ayers.
Her friend had written down the names of the nurses who treated Eli in the emergency room, and Ayers begged Benton to talk to them. Ayers found a nurse who showed Benton records that when Eli first came to the hospital, no bruising or marks were noted.
A pediatric general surgeon who reviewed Eli two days later noted “bruising to left hand with visible venous access attempt noted” and “IV to right foot.”
Benton backed off, she said. But Ayers’ anxiety had only increased.
“At that point I was like, ‘They’re going to take this baby from me,’” she said.
Benton declined to answer questions about Ayers and her son’s case, even though Ayers submitted a form to UMMC authorizing hospital employees to discuss Eli’s medical records with Mississippi Today.
At the next meeting with Benton, Ayers had family members with her, including her father-in-law, a pharmacist. One of Eli’s tests had come back showing he had slightly elevated liver enzymes, which Benton believed indicated trauma to the abdomen.
Ayers’ father-in-law asked to review the test results.
“He (my father-in-law) literally looked at him and said, ‘Dr. Benton, with all due respect, these are stress-related elevated enzymes,’” she recalled. “‘These are not trauma-level numbers.’”
Benton said Eli would need to do a CT with contrast that requires fasting and radiation. Radiation exposure is particularly concerning in children because they are more sensitive to radiation. And because they have a longer life expectancy than adults, that results in a larger window of opportunity for them to experience radiation damage.
Ayers and her father-in-law objected to the CT, noting Ayers’ husband, Drew, had a kidney condition that made dehydration particularly dangerous, and there was a chance Eli might have the same issue.
But Benton insisted, and they relented.
In the paperwork under “clinical history” for the CT scan, it states: “Reported new bruising on the abdomen. Concern for blunt trauma to abdomen.” There had never been any mention of abdominal bruising in the medical records or to Ayers up until that point, and the CT was performed two days after Eli came to the hospital.
The scan came back normal.
“No evidence of blunt trauma to the abdomen. No acute fractures or dislocations,” the report stated.
Eli was discharged but subjected to another full body X-ray several weeks after he left, according to records. A case worker from Child Protective Services visited Ayers’ home and cleared Eli to return. Several weeks later, a Madison County sheriff’s investigator also interviewed Ayers.
The case was closed that day, the incident report stated.
What haunts Ayers even four years later is wondering what happens to mothers without the resources she had: the ability to hire an attorney, a family member in the medical field to sit in on meetings with Benton and the support of friends and family who were in the emergency room and hospital with her.
“This man should have some more oversight … if you’re going to subject a 10-week-old to all these tests, two MRIs, a CT, X-rays, you should have your evidence in order,” said Ayers, who said she struggled “with some pretty dark days” after the accusations from Benton and the experience in the hospital.
Ayers filed a complaint with the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure in March of last year. In her complaint, she highlighted the unexplained “new bruising to abdomen” on the notes for his CT – bruising that was never mentioned anywhere else in his medical records.
“I would say, about 10 doctors signed off that my child (the patient) had ZERO bruising anywhere on his body upon admittance to the hospital … Scott Benton couldn’t ethically order this CT with contrast on my child bc (because) his liver enzymes weren’t actually elevated enough to need it,” she wrote. “ … Before I take matters further, I’d really like someone to call me, asap.”
She never heard anything back.
Editor’s note: Kate Royals, Mississippi Today’s community health editor since January 2022, worked as a writer/editor for UMMC’s Office of Communications from November 2018 through August 2020, writing press releases and features about the medical center’s schools of dentistry and nursing.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
New Stage’s ‘Little Women’ musical opens aptly in Women’s History Month
Ties that bind, not lines that divide, at the heart of “Little Women” are what make Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel such an enduring classic. More than a century and a half since its 1868 publication, the March sisters’ coming-of-age tale continues to resonate in fresh approaches, say cast and crew in a musical version opening this week at New Stage Theatre in Jackson, Mississippi.
“Little Women, The Broadway Musical” adds songs to Alcott’s story of the four distinct March sisters — traditional, lovely Meg, spirited tomboy and writer Jo, quiet and gentle Beth, and artistic, pampered Amy. They are growing into young women under the watchful eye of mother Marmee as their father serves as an Army chaplain in the Civil War. “Little Women, The Broadway Musical” performances run March 25 through April 6 at New Stage Theatre.
In a serendipitous move, the production coincides with Women’s History Month in March, and has a female director at the helm — Malaika Quarterman, in her New Stage Theatre directing debut. Logistics and scheduling preferences landed the musical in March, to catch school matinees with the American classic.
The novel has inspired myriad adaptations in film, TV, stage and opera, plus literary retellings by other authors. This musical version debuted on Broadway in 2005, with music by Jason Howland, lyrics by Mindi Dickstein and book (script) by Allan Knee.
“The music in this show brings out the heart of the characters in a way that a movie or a straight play, or even the book, can’t do,” said Cameron Vipperman, whose play-within-a-play role helps illustrate the writer Jo’s growth in the story. She read the book at age 10, and now embraces how the musical dramatizes, speeds up and reconstructs the timeline for more interest and engagement.
“What a great way to introduce kids that haven’t read the book,” director Quarterman said, hitting the highlights and sending them to the pages for a deeper dive on characters they fell in love with over the two-and-a-half-hour run time.

Joy, familial warmth, love, courage, loss, grief and resilience are all threads in a story that has captivated generations and continues to find new audiences and fresh acclaim (the 2019 film adaptation by Greta Gerwig earned six Academy Award nominations).
In current contentious times, when diversity, equity and inclusion programs are being ripped out or rolled back, the poignant, women-centered narrative maintains a power to reach deep and unite.
“Stories where females support each other, instead of rip each other apart to get to the finish line — which would be the goal of getting the man or something — are very few and far between sometimes,” Quarterman said. “It’s so special because it was written so long ago, with the writer being such a strong dreamer, and dreaming big for women.
“For us to actualize it, where a female artistic producer chooses this show and believes in a brand new female director and then this person gets to empower these great, local, awesome artists — It’s just really been special to see this story and its impact ripple through generations of dreamers.” For Quarterman, a 14-year drama teacher with Jackson Public Schools active in community theater and professional regional theater, “To be able to tell this story here, for New Stage, is pretty epic for me.”
Alcott’s story is often a touchstone for young girls, and this cast of grown women finds much in the source material that they still hold dear, and that resonates in new ways.

“I relate to Jo more than any other fictional character that exists,” Kristina Swearingen said of her character, the central figure Jo March. “At different parts of my life, I have related to her in different parts of hers.”
The Alabama native, more recently of New York, recalled her “energetic, crazy, running-around-having-a-grand-old-time” youth in high school and college, then a career-driven purpose that led her, like Jo, to move to New York.
Swearingen first did this show in college, before the loss of grandparents and a major move. Now, “I know what it’s like to grieve the loss of a loved one, and to live so far away from home, and wanting to go home and be with your family but also wanting to be in a place where your career can take off. .. It hits a lot closer to home.”
As one of four sisters in real life, Frannie Dean of Flora draws on a wealth of memories in playing Beth — including her own family position as next to the youngest of the girls. She and siblings read the story together in their homeschooled childhood, assigning each other roles.

“Omigosh, this is my life,” she said, chuckling. “We would play pretend all day. … ‘Little Women’ is really sweet in that aspect, to really be able to carry my own experience with my family and bring it into the show. … It’s timeless in its nature, its warmth and what it brings to people.”
Jennifer Smith of Clinton, as March family matriarch Marmee, found her way in through a song. First introduced to Marmee’s song “Here Alone” a decade ago when starting voice lessons as an adult, she made it her own. “It became an audition piece for me. It became a dream role for me. It’s been pivotal in opening up doors for me.”
She relishes aging into this role, countering a common fear of women in the entertainment field that they may “age out” of desirable parts. “It’s just a full-circle moment for me, and I’m grateful for it.”

Quarterman fell in love with the 1969 film version she watched with her sister when they were little, adoring the family’s playfulness and stability. Amid teenage angst, she identified with the inevitable growth and change that came with siblings growing up and moving on. Being a mom brings a whole different lens.
“Seeing these little people in your life just growing up, being their own unique versions, all going through their own arc — it’s just fun, and I think that’s why you can stay connected” to the story at any life juncture, she said.
Cast member Slade Haney pointed out the rarity of a story set on a Northeastern homestead during the Civil War.
“You’re getting to see what it was like for the women whose husbands were away at war — how moms struggled, how sisters struggled. You had to make your own means. … I think both men and women can see themselves in these characters, in wanting to be independent like Jo, or like Amy wanting to have something of value that belongs to you and not just just feel like you’re passed over all the time, and Meg, to be valuable to someone else, and in Beth, for everyone to be happy and content and love each other,” Haney said.
New Stage Theatre Artistic Director Francine Reynolds drew attention, too, to the rarity of an American classic for the stage offering an abundance of women’s roles that can showcase Jackson metro’s talent pool. “We just always have so many great women,” she said, and classics — “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Death of a Salesman,” for instance — often offer fewer parts for them, though contemporary dramas are more balanced.
Reynolds sees value in the musical’s timing and storyline. “Of course, we need to celebrate the contributions of women. This was a woman who was trying to be a writer in 1865, ’66, ’67. That’s, to me, a real trailblazing thing.
“It is important to show, this was a real person — Louisa May Alcott, personified as Jo. It’s important to hold these people up as role models for other young girls, to show that you can do this, too. You can dream your dream. You can strive to break boundaries.”
It is a key reminder of advancements that may be threatened. “We’ve made such strides,” Reynolds said, “and had so many great programs to open doors for people, that I feel like those doors are going to start closing, just because of things you are allowed to say and things you aren’t allowed.”
For tickets, $50 (discounts for seniors, students, military), visit www.newstagetheatre.com or the New Stage Theatre box office, or call 601-948-3533.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Rolling Fork – 2 Years Later

Tracy Harden stood outside her Chuck’s Dairy Bar in Rolling Fork, teary eyed, remembering not the EF-4 tornado that nearly wiped the town off the map two years before. Instead, she became emotional, “even after all this time,” she said, thinking of the overwhelming help people who’d come from all over selflessly offered.
“We’re back now, she said, smiling. “People have been so kind.”


“I stepped out of that cooler two years ago and saw everything, and I mean, everything was just… gone,” she said, her voice trailing off. “My God, I thought. What are we going to do now? But people came and were so giving. It’s remarkable, and such a blessing.”

“And to have another one come on almost the exact date the first came,” she said, shaking her head. “I got word from these young storm chasers I’d met. He told me they were tracking this one, and it looked like it was coming straight for us in Rolling Fork.”
“I got up and went outside.”
“And there it was!”
“I cannot tell you what went through me seeing that tornado form in the sky.”
The tornado that touched down in Rolling Fork last Sunday did minimal damage and claimed no lives.
Horns honk as people travel along U.S. 61. Harden smiles and waves.
She heads back into her restaurant after chatting with friends to resume grill duties as people, some local, some just passing through town, line up for burgers and ice cream treats.


Rolling Fork is mending, slowly. Although there is evidence of some rebuilding such as new homes under construction, many buildings like the library and post office remain boarded up and closed. A brutal reminder of that fateful evening two years ago.


















This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Remembering Big George Foreman and a poor guy named Pedro
George Foreman, surely one of the world’s most intriguing and transformative sports figures of the 20th century, died over the weekend at the age of 76. Please indulge me a few memories.
This was back when professional boxing was in its heyday. Muhammad Ali was heavyweight champion of the world for a second time. The lower weight divisions featured such skilled champions and future champs as Alex Arugello, Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran, Tommy “Hit Man” Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard.
Boxing was front page news all over the globe. Indeed, Ali was said to be the most famous person in the world and had stunned the boxing world by stopping the previously undefeated Foreman in an eighth round knockout in Kinshasa, Zaire, in October of 1974. Foreman, once an Olympic gold medalist at age 19, had won his previous 40 professional fights and few had lasted past the second round. Big George, as he was known, packed a fearsome punch.
My dealings with Foreman began in January of 1977, roughly 27 months after his Ali debacle with Foreman in the middle of a boxing comeback. At the time, I was the sports editor of my hometown newspaper in Hattiesburg when the news came that Foreman was going to fight a Puerto Rican professional named Pedro Agosto in Pensacola, just three hours away.
Right away, I applied for press credentials and was rewarded with a ringside seats at the Pensacola Civic Center. I thought I was going to cover a boxing match. It turned out more like an execution.
The mismatch was evident from the pre-fight introductions. Foreman towered over the 5-foot, 11-inch Agosto. Foreman had muscles on top of muscles, Agosto not so much. When they announced Agosto weighed 205 pounds, the New York sports writer next to me wise-cracked, “Yeah, well what is he going to weigh without his head?”
It looked entirely possible we might learn.
Foreman toyed with the smaller man for three rounds, almost like a full-grown German shepherd dealing with a tiny, yapping Shih Tzu. By the fourth round, Big George had tired of the yapping. With punches that landed like claps of thunder, Foreman knocked Agosto down three times. Twice, Agosto struggled to his feet after the referee counted to nine. Nearly half a century later I have no idea why Agosto got up. Nobody present– or the national TV audience – would have blamed him for playing possum. But, no, he got up the second time and stumbled over into the corner of the ring right in front of me. And that’s where he was when Foreman hit him with an evil right uppercut to the jaw that lifted the smaller man a foot off the canvas and sprayed me and everyone in the vicinity with Agosto’s blood, sweat and snot – thankfully, no brains. That’s when the ref ended it.
It remains the only time in my sports writing career I had to buy a T-shirt at the event to wear home.
So, now, let’s move ahead 18 years to July of 1995. Foreman had long since completed his comeback by winning back the heavyweight championship. He had become a preacher. He also had become a pitch man for a an indoor grill that bore his name and would sell more than 100 million units. He was a millionaire many times over. He made far more for hawking that grill than he ever made as a fighter. He had become a beloved figure, known for his warm smile and his soothing voice. And now he was coming to Jackson to sign his biography. His publishing company called my office to ask if I’d like an interview. I said I surely would.
One day at the office, I answered my phone and the familiar voice on the other end said, “This is George Foreman and I heard you wanted to talk to me.”
I told him I wanted to talk to him about his book but first I wanted to tell him he owed me a shirt.
“A shirt?” he said. “How’s that?”
I asked him if remembered a guy named Pedro Agosto. He said he did. “Man, I really hit that poor guy,” he said.
I thought you had killed him, I said, and I then told him about all the blood and snot that ruined my shirt.
“Man, I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I’d never hit a guy like that now. I was an angry, angry man back then.”
We had a nice conversation. He told me about finding his Lord. He told me about his 12 children, including five boys, all of whom he named George.
I asked him why he would give five boys the same name.
“I never met my father until late in his life,” Big George told me. “My father never gave me nothing. So I decided I was going to give all my boys something to remember me by. I gave them all my name.”
Yes, and he named one of his girls Georgette.
We did get around to talking about his book, and you will not be surprised by its title: “By George.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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