Browsing: OurMSVoices

Vardaman, Mississippi, will always be home to me. 

Granted, my family only moved there when I was 11 years old, but for me, it is the place where I first learned the meaning of community, and the first place where I felt like a member of a community. My lifelong friendships were forged there during the last, sweet days of my childhood. I also learned the importance of having and being an integral part of a church family back there in Vardaman. And that childhood church home was where I married my husband over 46 years ago. 

It’s officially been over a month since my departure from Hattiesburg, Mississippi to Boston, Massachusetts. I’d be lying if I said the unfamiliar hasn’t been quite daunting at times. Tall buildings. Different cuisine. Walking— lots and lots of walking. 

So, we’re nearing the midway point of the football season, and it’s been an interesting one so far. Local colleges are rolling along quite well; local high schools, not so much. Maybe that has something to do with the nicknames/mascots—we’ll get into that in a minute.

Neurodegenerative diseases remain among the most complex and least understood conditions in modern medicine, with few effective treatments available for patients and families facing diagnoses such as progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), corticobasal degeneration (CBD) and frontotemporal dementias (FTDs). At The University of Southern Mississippi, Dr. Vijay Rangachari, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, has been investigating the molecular mechanisms that underlie these disorders, particularly how certain proteins misfold and aggregate in the brain to drive disease progression.

Every September, Jackson’s historic streets and stately trees come alive with one of my favorite celebrations of the year—the Mississippi Book Festival. Known affectionately as the “literary lawn party,” this gathering is more than an event; it’s a love letter to stories, storytellers, and the people who cherish them.

When people ask where I was during Hurricane Katrina, the memories come rushing back. Like many along the Mississippi Gulf…

August 29, 2005, was an unforgettable day for most Mississippians, even for those of us who lived way up in the Northeastern corner of the state. 

People were not the only creatures impacted by Hurricane Katrina. And although helping people recover was the priority, we soon turned to helping our feathered friends. As it turned out, these efforts provided folks with a diversion from their toils at home, and a reason for hope, that normal could return, including their own backyards.

I was sixteen when Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. At that age, I didn’t fully understand the weight of what had happened. I knew my parents were devastated — so many adults around me carried an exhaustion and grief that I couldn’t name at the time. Entire neighborhoods had been flattened, jobs and routines disappeared overnight, and the world I’d always known suddenly felt unrecognizable.

In 2005, I had just returned home from an 18-month mission trip in Brisbane, Australia. Settled back on the West…

There are not many lighthearted memories from Hurricane Katrina, but there are lessons, stories, and moments of strength that still…

Katrina 

That was her name— the name of the hurricane. The storm of the century. Ironically, the great storm that tore everything apart ended up bringing people together. I was only nine years old when I experienced the worst hurricane of my lifetime— Hurricane Katrina. The hurricane whose name still sends shivers down so many people’s spines to this day. 

These days, everyone has their favorite podcasts, even old ladies like me. But I am proud to say that my favorite podcast is a Mississippi creation from start to finish.

Hannah’s Heart is a weekly podcast that can be heard every Saturday evening from 5:00 to 5:30 on American Family Radio (AFR): https://afr.net/podcasts/hannahs-heart/. Hosted by two young Mississippi moms, Kendra White and Anne Cockrell, the show is dedicated to encouraging couples who are walking through some of life’s most difficult trials of infertility and miscarriage. 

There’s a moment in a Mississippi August evening when the sun lets go of the day and everything turns golden. The heat doesn’t leave, exactly—it just stretches out and settles in like your Aunt Shirley on the porch swing after supper. Crickets start their tuning, cicadas take over the rhythm section, and somewhere in the distance, someone’s radio hums out a country song that knows something about heartache and humidity.

There’s just something about Mississippi.

Maybe it’s the way the sun rises over a field of cotton, or how the wind moves through pine trees in the early morning, humming the kind of melody you can only hear in the South. Maybe it’s the smell of rain on red clay roads, or the way an iced-down Coke and a front porch swing can solve just about anything. Mississippi isn’t loud or flashy, but it doesn’t have to be—it speaks in stories, in soul, and in a kind of strength that’s quietly unwavering.

This week, I got to see one of my heroes have his wish granted through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and it was a joy to watch.