Browsing: Featured

WIGGINS — What began as a woodturning studio has grown into a coffee shop and gift store that is helping revitalize downtown Wiggins. Southern Turnings, founded by Scott and Jane Ann Maddox, has become a staple for residents and a tourist destination for visitors. 

Oxford was already buzzing last Saturday, but tucked between the Grove and the Ole Miss Student Union stood a quieter symbol of the moment—one that felt just as meaningful as kickoff.

For Kayla Walker, Lambing Day began not as a book idea, but as a quiet moment of discovery. During Christmas break in 2023, she finally sat down to read The Tower of the Flock: The Christmas Story by Dr. Christine Van Horn—a book that would shift how she understood the nativity story she had known her entire life. What she found were biblical connections and historical details that challenged long-held assumptions and invited deeper reflection.

If you’ve ever been inside the Bolivar County Courthouse in Rosedale, you may have noticed the old bell — quiet now, but heavy with history. It doesn’t just belong to the building it’s housed in today. That bell once rang out over a town that no longer exists, a Mississippi place that was swallowed whole by the river.

For more than six decades, Chevron Pascagoula Refinery has invested in South Mississippi communities, helping drive economic growth and opportunity across the Gulf Coast. That commitment continues for the fourth  year in 2025 through the Chamber Chevron Community Creative Collaboration, better known as the 5C program.

Queen of Memphis, a family saga novel by Pascagoula writer Martin Hegwood, is on the short list of finalists for Southern Literary Review’s 2025 Book of the Year Award.  The story takes place in Memphis, the north Delta, and Jackson. The editors of Southern Literary Review extend this special recognition each year to a select group of books written by Southern authors and deemed to have lasting value in the Southern literary canon.

When I first moved to McComb, I started noticing Scott Photography appearing all over my Facebook feed. I was immediately drawn to the images and the way they captured the heart of this corner of Mississippi. What stood out most was that everything Manuel Scott photographs is centered around McComb and Summit. It’s clear that he isn’t just documenting events; he’s documenting the life and spirit of this community.

There’s something special about a win that feels both well-earned and long overdue. That’s exactly the energy surrounding Jackson’s newest honor: being named the South’s Top Culinary Town for 2025 by The Local Palate. After two rounds of public voting this summer, Jackson didn’t just hold its own — it rose to the very top, beating out cities across the region with a confidence only Mississippi’s capital can carry.

The 5th Squad began in 2016, founded by four veterans from Mississippi’s 184th Sustainment Command to build a strong brotherhood and address combat isolation in military life. After becoming an official nonprofit, 5th Squad provides immediate, impactful support for fellow veterans in crisis, filling gaps in traditional aid with quick financial help daily living, and rallies veterans together to foster a unique, service-oriented community.

MOSS POINT—Nothing says Christmas more than the joy in the eyes of a child upon receiving a gift, and the Junior Auxiliary of Pascagoula-Moss Point is working to make sure children in foster care have that same look of joy.

Toyota Mississippi team members build more than just great cars, as the automaker hosted a paid volunteer effort on site…

Writer and director Clinnesha D. Sibley is bringing a new holiday production to McComb on December 6—Love in the Layover, a Christmas-season play set in the most unlikely of places: an airport full of strangers.

When Lynn Martin talks about sewing, her voice softens—not out of nostalgia, but out of a deep, steady respect for a skill that shaped her life. She grew up moving around the Southwest and the Deep South, the daughter of an ironworker whose union jobs carried the family from Mississippi to Arizona, Texas, and Louisiana. Her father helped build landmarks like the New Orleans Superdome, but it was her mother who built something just as lasting: the family’s clothes, and Lynn’s love for sewing.

MOSS POINT—After being thankful for family, friends and food on Thanksgiving, the whirlwind of Black Friday, Shop Small Saturday and Cyber Monday all focus on getting the best deals on gifts or other purchases. But there is one more, less promoted, day on the calendar that is not about buying, but instead, it is about giving.

PASCAGOULA—Repurpose it and they will come! That is where David Boland’s brain has been lingering for the past 25 years as he was handed hit after hit in trying to keep Pavco Wood Products in operation on River Road in Pascagoula.

Local shops, good food, and a relaxed way to tackle your gift list.

Downtown Summit has become an unexpectedly great spot for holiday shopping. The stretch along Robb Street mixes vintage finds, local art, cozy cafés, and independent shops in a way that makes wandering from place to place actually enjoyable. If you want to keep your shopping local — or just avoid the chaos of bigger towns — Summit is an easy win.