Tuesday, May 1, 2018   
 
MSU President Mark Keenum to chair BIFAD board
Mark E. Keenum, president of Mississippi State University, has been designated chairman of the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development by President Donald Trump. BIFAD was created under the 1975 Title XII (Famine Prevention and Freedom from Hunger) Foreign Assistance Act. The mission of the BIFAD is to draw scientific knowledge from higher institutions of learning for advising U.S. international assistance efforts. BIFAD members are chosen from the academic community because of their insight and expertise in global food security and world hunger. Keenum has a distinguished record of service in similar roles including an appointment to Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture by President George W. Bush in 2006, and an appointment to the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research by then-Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Keenum was unanimously elected to chair the FFAR board in 2017.
 
Storyteller and mentor: Frances McDavid to retire after three decades at Mississippi State
Frances McDavid first came to know newspapers by reading the Sunday comics as a young girl growing up in the Oktoc community. It would prove to be a lasting relationship. At the end of the spring semester, McDavid will retire from the Mississippi State University Department of Communication after 30 years of teaching journalism courses and 20 years advising the Reflector, MSU's student newspaper. McDavid has also worked in several newsrooms, including the Commercial Dispatch, the Columbia, Tennessee Daily Herald and the Starkville Daily News, where she covered Oktibbeha County government. She holds a bachelor's in communication and a master's in public policy and administration from MSU. Her final official day at the university will be May 15. Her husband, Sammy, who has worked for MSU's Office of Public Affairs since 1976, will also retire.
 
Mississippi State commencement set for Thursday, Friday
Mississippi State University will host three spring commencement ceremonies at Humphrey Coliseum Thursday and Friday, in which MSU will recognize approximately 3,200 candidates for degrees. Former Rhode Island Chief Justice Frank J. Williams will serve as the graduation speaker. The ceremonies will be Thursday at 3:30 p.m., Friday at 9:30 a.m. and Friday at 3:30 p.m. Williams, a noted historian and current president of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, has played key roles in making MSU one of the nation's leading centers for study of the American Civil War.
 
County Extension Service receives new greenhouses
The Mississippi State University Extension Service recently received a donation for two new greenhouses for the master gardeners program. The announcement of the donation was revealed during the most recent Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors meeting. Extension Agent Thomas Legiandenyi told the supervisors Dr. Kenneth Ramsey was preparing to move to Florida to be closer to his children when he donated the two new greenhouses. Legiandenyi said the two greenhouses are small, but are priced at about $4,000. "We have several programs with kids, and this will be a really good asset for us to be able to have plants and teach kids and even for farmers," Legiandenyi said.
 
Swimming-pool landscaping: pretty with a minimum of debris
Landscaping around an outdoor swimming pool requires no-muss, no-fuss plant selections. The pool can be a flowery focal point, but don't open it to litter from leaves and limbs. Think about both day and night use. "Evenings can be accented by soft peripheral lighting or featuring tree trunks with up-lights," said Robert Brzuszek, a landscape architecture professor with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. Eliminate the use of dark-colored pavement around the pool; it adds reflected heat to plants, especially in hotter, dryer climates. "Plants that have smaller or waxy leaves will also lose less water than large thin leaves which dry out quickly," he said.
 
Poultry processor Peco Foods adding 300 jobs in West Point
One of the nation's largest poultry producers -- and one of Mississippi's largest employers -- is adding another 300 jobs. Peco Foods, the eighth-largest poultry producer in the state, is investing $40 million to convert a former cold-storage warehouse in West Point to provide freezer, cooler and storage space. The 300 jobs will be filled over the next four years. Pay is $15 to $17 an hour, plus benefits. The Mississippi Development Authority is providing $2.5 million for wastewater and infrastructure upgrades. Mississippi Works is providing $500,000 for workforce training. The city of West Point is providing a water and sewer rate reduction to Peco Foods.
 
Mississippians are still using meth, but they're not manufacturing it
Two Mississippi children were found living in a doghouse with their dog. The reason? Their parents were cooking methamphetamine inside the house and the power was cut off. The children had to bundle up with the dog to stay warm, said Public Safety Commissioner Marshall Fisher, who was the director of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics at the time. That was in 2010 before the Mississippi Legislature passed a bill the same year, signed into law, requiring a prescription to buy pseudoephedrine, the primary ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine. That kind of neglect and abuse is common and deadly in homes affected by meth addiction, officials say. In the days of widespread meth labs before the 2010 bill was passed, the dangers of poisoning and explosions were also immediate threats to families in homes where the drug was being manufactured. Recent talk by some lawmakers of rolling back that restriction is chilling to those who remember the manpower devoted to hundreds of meth lab cleanups because they also know the addictive draw of the drug.
 
Mississippi civil rights sites considered for national park status
A federal agency is preparing to hold six public hearings about a proposal to give national park status to some civil rights in Mississippi. The sites are the Jackson home where Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers was assassinated in 1963; a store and courthouse connected to the 1955 slaying of black teenager Emmett Till; the old Neshoba County Jail where civil rights activists Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were detained before Ku Klux Klansmen killed them in 1964; and the Biloxi medical office of Dr. Gilbert Mason, who organized wade-ins to integrate public beaches on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The National Park Service hearings are May 7 in Ewing Hall at Delta State University in Cleveland and at the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner; May 8 at the shared auditorium of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi history and at the Medgar Evers Library, both in Jackson; May 9 at the depot in Philadelphia; and May 10 at the Biloxi Visitors Center.
 
New Mississippi senator visits Jackson County
Industry in Jackson County is in the political spotlight. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith made four stops in the county on Monday, learning about the economic impact of the county's industrial base on the rest of the state. One of the stops was the port of Pascagoula. Senator Hyde-Smith stepped off the bus, and with one look around, she recognized the Port of Pascagoula as a major economic player. "It is amazing that the commerce that happens right here. It benefits everybody in the state of Mississippi. Whether you're shipping poultry or something else, this port is important to everyone," she noted. That something else includes many things for port executive director Mark McAndrews. He said, "Our public facilities are the gateway to world markets for many, many Mississippi products, including lumber, steel, and paper." Hyde-Smith is running for the special senate election in November. South Mississippi is critical to her campaign.
 
Richard Uihlein: Meet the GOP megadonor setting the tone for primary races
Behind just about every divisive Senate Republican primary this year, an amiable Midwestern businessman is bankrolling the candidate who claims to be the most hard-charging, anti-establishment conservative in the race. Richard Uihlein, a wealthy shipping-supplies magnate from Illinois who shuns the spotlight, has risen to become one of the most powerful -- and disruptive -- GOP donors in the country. The beneficiaries of Uihlein's largesse include upstart candidates such as Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel, who has made preserving the Confederate symbol in the state flag a centerpiece of his campaign for U.S. Senate. Uihlein gave tens of thousands of dollars to support failed Senate hopeful Roy Moore (R) in Alabama, doubling down even after multiple women accused Moore of unwanted sexual advances toward them when they were in their teens, FEC records show.
 
Mueller Has Dozens of Inquiries for Trump in Broad Quest on Russia Ties and Obstruction
Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russia's election interference, has at least four dozen questions on an exhaustive array of subjects he wants to ask President Trump to learn more about his ties to Russia and determine whether he obstructed the inquiry itself, according to a list of the questions obtained by The New York Times. The open-ended queries appear to be an attempt to penetrate the president's thinking, to get at the motivation behind some of his most combative Twitter posts and to examine his relationships with his family and his closest advisers. They deal chiefly with the president's high-profile firings of the F.B.I. director and his first national security adviser, his treatment of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between campaign officials and Russians offering dirt on Hillary Clinton.
 
Ole Miss partners with Ethiopian Airlines to launch graduate degree
The Meek School of Journalism and New Media is partnering with Ethiopian Airlines to launch an online integrated marketing communications graduate degree program for employees of the airline group. The new partnership between the airline group and the Ethiopian Aviation Academy could also offer training programs that would teach academy members how to effectively market their airline. Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Gebremariam and managing director of the Ethiopian Aviation Academy Solomon Debebe Kebere visited Ole Miss last week to make the agreement official. Meek School of Journalism and New Media dean Will Norton said he believes this collaboration will raise the profile of the school.
 
Southern Miss football center now patrolling campus as university police officer
Adam Kelly settles his bulky frame into the driver's seat of his police car. The University of Southern Mississippi police officer is anxious to be on his way. "I like to be moving," he says, as he revs the engine. Kelly's radio crackles. He's being called to a bank run -- one of his many duties. On the center console rests a large key ring containing dozens and dozens of keys. Beside Kelly is one of his weapons, unloaded, with the ammunition on hand nearby. To his side -- a laptop computer, where he can write reports and keep track of his activities. "Right now, we're going to do a bank escort," Kelly says. "We'll take money from the business office and take it to the bank," Kelly makes the short run from Bond Hall where the campus police department is located to College Drive. He walks Dorothy Thompson, university cashier, to the car. Later, he will walk her into the bank and wait with her while she makes the deposit.
 
Psychiatrist: Taking unprescribed meds for finals is dangerous
College students in the Pine Belt are feeling the pressures of finals week, and some students are dangerously resorting to unprescribed drugs to get through. Child and adolescent psychiatrist and addictionologist Dr. Thomas Miller with the Pine Grove Behavioral and Addiction Services said many students he meets are taking unprescribed medication to get through finals. "It's not really going to help you," Miller said. "There's no research to say that this is going to improve anything. There's strong evidence that the person will become psychologically dependent, meaning they feel they won't do well in the future unless they take the medicine." Shayla Strickland, a student on the University of Southern Miss campus, said she's come across coworkers who've become dependent on the drug. Miller said the best way to get through finals is to get a good night's rest.
 
Delta State lays out summer cost saving plan
Despite the fact that there will be no budget cuts at Delta State University, administrators are still very budget conscious going into the summer months. Last year, money was saved by closing down certain buildings and going to a four-day workweek. This summer, the same situation will happen, as three different buildings will be closed during the summer months. During a forum recently held with DSU President Bill LaForge and his cabinet, while the faculty received the news there would be pay raises, they were also told they'd face the closing of buildings again this summer. Some faculty members were a bit disgruntled with this news. By closing buildings and turning off the air conditioning, faculty members aren't able to use their offices for tutoring, research, or assisting students in other ways due to the hot temperatures. Some even expressed concern for the equipment in the buildings and said by shutting off the air conditioning, equipment in offices was damaged like printers.
 
Delta State alumni prepare for annual crawfish boil
The Delta State University National Alumni Association Annual Crawfish Boil will be Thursday at DSU at 5:30 p.m. on the lawn of the Walter Sillers Coliseum. The crawfish boil has been going on since Hugh Ellis Walker was director of the foundation. "I've been here exactly 10 years and been with the office for about almost 12 so this is something coming in that people were already excited for. It's changed over time because the university has changed," said Jeffrey Farris, alumni director. "The chapter and people attending the event has grown leaps and bounds. It used to be early spring, cold, a Saturday and around a baseball game. We moved the event to a Thursday where we weren't competing with other events. We've had as many as 500 people attend," said Farris.
 
Mississippi girl earns full-ride scholarship to Harvard
She's the former state president of Mississippi HOSA, president of the first NAACP chapter in Jefferson Davis County, president of the Beta Club and president of Mu Alpha Theta chapter for three years. Those are only some of the accomplishments of Shakira Hall, of Bassfield. Now, she's earned an acceptance letter and a full ride Bill Gates Scholarship to Harvard University. "Honestly, I wasn't even going to apply to Harvard, because I didn't think I could get in," said Hall. There were fleeting feelings of doubt even from a young woman who has never made less than an "A" and scored 32 out of 36 on her ACT test. "Finally, the day before the deadline, the Harvard application was due, I just said why not," Hall said.
 
'Teachers' Spring' Forcing Lawmakers to Find Money for Schools
It has been called the "Teachers' Spring" in the United States, with educators from five states staging an unprecedented wave of protests demanding increases in pay and school budgets. Encouraged by progressive resistance to President Donald Trump and the #MeToo movement, the protests by the nation's teachers, more than three-quarters of whom are women, mark the first statewide walkouts since the 1990s. The movement has already prompted lawmakers to allocate pay increases for teachers and more money for schools in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Colorado, while Arizona's legislature is also trying to hammer out a deal. Other states with a similar profile include Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, New Mexico, Utah and South Dakota, according to a study by the Brookings Institution. The protests have been largely driven by social media, rather than union leadership, allowing activists to organize rapidly.
 
U. of Alabama autism study pairs theater with peer mentoring
Researchers at the University of Alabama are preparing for a four-year study that pairs theater and peer mentoring to help improve social skills of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. "It is really good and healthy experience for the non-autistic peers to be a part of that," said Susan White, principal investigator for the project at UA. "It is good on that side. It is really good for those kids who have autism to be part of something that is not just therapy." The heart of the theater exercise is helping adolescents with autism disorders pay attention and understand facial expressions and other nonverbal cues. White, who is now at Virginia Tech, will begin her appointment in August as director of UA's Center for the Prevention of Youth Behavior Problems.
 
U. of Arkansas proposes diversity, ethics training objectives
Faculty at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville will consider on Wednesday adopting a new set of learning objectives for undergraduate students that include an emphasis on diversity and ethical reasoning. Eleven learning outcomes would give students a better understanding of why they must take core curriculum courses, according to the proposal. The new learning outcomes would take effect in fall 2020 if approved by the university's faculty senate. A goal with the new outcomes is "to be able to say what we think University of Arkansas undergraduate students ought to know, and know how to do, when they graduate," David Jolliffe, a UA English professor and chairman of the university's General Education Core Curriculum Committee, told faculty senators last month.
 
'Take away the fear factor:' LSU center offers training on school shooting response
After hurricanes Katrina and Rita ripped through Louisiana, an LSU-based national training center used the disaster preparation and recovery lessons of local colleges and universities to create a short course to help other higher education institutions across the U.S. prepare for similar emergencies. Since the February mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, officials with LSU's National Center for Biomedical Research and Training Center have redeveloped much of that program, customizing it into a course focused on what to do if a university is faced with an active shooter on campus. Jerry Monier, the center's associate director of research and development, said they received several calls from across the country requesting a one-day course on active shooter emergencies after a teenage gunman's rampage through the high school campus claimed the lives of 17.
 
$20 million: U. of Kentucky names new student center for big donor Bill Gatton
The University of Kentucky gave thanks once again to one of its most generous donors Monday, naming the new Bill Gatton Student Center in honor of the man who made it possible. Carol Martin "Bill" Gatton, a UK alumnus and former trustee who turned his first car dealership into a multi-state empire, made the $200 million project feasible with a signature gift of $20 million. That's on top of the $14 million Gatton gave to the College of Business and Economics that's also named for him, not to mention gifts he's made to other schools, like the Gatton Academy for gifted high school students at Western Kentucky University, or the Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy at Eastern Tennessee State, near where Gatton currently resides. The UK Board of Trustees is expected to formally approve the naming of the new student center on Tuesday.
 
How safe is U. of South Carolina's campus? Here's what a national survey says
University of South Carolina ranks among the safest college campuses in America, according to a recent study by an affiliate of ADT security company. The study, conducted by ADT security affiliate Your Local Security, measured the number of crimes reported to the FBI and Department of Education and compared them to the total number of students on campus and severity of crime. Of the 6,284 colleges studied, USC ranked sixth in the country and first in the state. It includes only USC's main campus in Columbia. A mobile safety app and publicly available crime statistics helped bolster USC's ranking, according to the study. The study gives USC a much needed publicity break after police say a convicted felon opened fire in March into a crowd at the popular student nightlife district, Five Points, injuring three at the St. Patrick's Day celebration. The suspect is not a USC student.
 
First U. of Florida hybrid students to graduate
Twenty-one-year-old Alexa Trout still has her Gator onesies she wore as an infant. Her first Halloween costume was a University of Florida cheerleader. Her uncle attended UF, and the Wesley Chapel native was "raised as a Gator," she said. Her academic career has been unique. She was one of the first students in the university's Pathway to Campus Enrollment program, and this weekend, she'll be one of the first 10 students in the program to graduate. UF's Pathway to Campus Enrollment, or PaCE, was launched in 2015 and offered about 3,000 UF applicants the chance to take two years' worth of college credits online before transitioning to on-campus courses. "It was a no-brainer," Trout said. "I didn't even apply to FSU. It wasn't an option." PaCE allows more students to take UF classes than the university has room for on its campus. Freshmen and sophomores in the program take online classes before finishing their degrees on campus.
 
Pay raises on tap for U. of Missouri
Retaining faculty and staff during a period of uncertainty is one of the top priorities of the University of Missouri, President Mun Choi said during a town-hall style forum Monday on the Columbia campus. The system budget for the coming year will include a 2 percent merit increase pool, which will become a regular feature of future budgets, he said. The raises will not be across-the-board, Choi said, to allow for larger increases for high-performing faculty or staff to keep them in the UM System. "It becomes a little tiresome, fending off all the outside suitors that come calling and saying would you like to come to our university for a seminar," Choi said. During the forum, several faculty members raised questions about the choices being made for investing the limited funds available to the university. They urged more investment in libraries and questioned how MU can afford the proposed Translational Precision Medicine Complex at $150 million or more and whether program cuts are going too far.
 
Provost candidate drawn to U. of Missouri's research, health care
When Latha Ramchand said Monday why she wants to be the next provost at the University of Missouri, the first thing she mentioned was its status as one of 34 public members of the American Association of Universities. The association also includes 28 private universities in the United States and two public universities in Canada and represents the elite research institutions. The University of Houston, where Ramchand is dean of the C.T. Bauer College of Business, aspires to join the association, Ramchand said. "You wake me up in the middle of the night and that is all I can think of," she said. MU, however, has been struggling to maintain its membership. It is near the bottom of many of the measures used to compare members. Chancellor Alexander Cartwright made protecting MU's membership in the association one of the reasons he cited for a plan to double research spending, where the university currently ranks in the bottom quarter among association members.
 
Why Are States Spending Less on Higher-Ed? Medicaid and Lazy Rivers Could Be to Blame
Three decades of spending cuts by states have left public colleges with nearly 25 percent declines in state funding per student. What happened to the money that could have been invested in higher education during that time? Most of it went to Medicaid, according to a new study. The study, "Higher Ed, Lower Spending: As States Cut Back, Where Has the Money Gone?" found that state spending has increased for public-school education, prisons, police, and fire protection, but the largest spending increases have gone to public welfare. Public higher ed is the only category in spending decline. Doug Webber, author of the study and an associate professor of economics at Temple University, said Medicaid is the single biggest cause of the decline in higher-education funding at the state and local levels. He also found that a $1 increase in per capita public-welfare spending was associated with a $2.44 decrease in per-student higher-education funding.
 
Georgia Tech research arm spent $1.1 million in tax dollars on staff 'morale'
In the name of morale boosting, the Georgia Tech Research Institute spent nearly $1.1 million in tax dollars over the past two years on entertainment and meals for employees and their families, a Channel 2 Action News investigation found. The spending included $73,000 for employees and their families to go to the Georgia Aquarium, $109,000 for a staff picnic at Six Flags over Georgia, $26,000 at a Braves game, nearly $12,000 racing go-karts and playing laser tag at Andretti's in Roswell and $7,300 at Topgolf, including more than $1,000 in cocktails, beer and wine. The institute is the nonprofit, applied research arm of the university and employs more than 2,000 researchers and scientists. Much of its research is classified work for U.S. defense agencies. But nearly all of its $370 million operating budget comes from the taxpayers through federal government contracts and grants, according to its most recent annual report.
 
State of Conflict: How a tiny protest at the U. of Nebraska turned into a proxy war for the future of campus politics
The first month of the fall semester had not gone as Hank M. Bounds, president of the University of Nebraska, had hoped. It was shaping up to be a tough budget year, for the school and the state, and he had hoped to press the case for how valuable the university was to the state. Instead, the president was sitting across from a Lincoln-area radio host as he delivered a monologue on what it means to call someone "Becky." The host seemed to be paraphrasing entries pulled from the website UrbanDictionary.com: It was slang for a white woman. In late August, there had been an incident. A graduate student and members of the English department had confronted a 19-year-old undergraduate over politics. Words were exchanged, including the one the radio host was now trying to define. The whole thing had lasted about 20 minutes and had made barely a ripple on campus. But thanks to a cellphone video, a web-savvy political organization, and a group of suggestible lawmakers, it soon sent shock waves across Nebraska.
 
Koch agreements with George Mason gave foundation role in faculty hiring and oversight
In defending its financial ties to the Charles Koch Foundation -- some $50 million worth, as of 2016 -- George Mason University has cited its academic independence from donors. Yet George Mason is less independent than it has let on, according to documents released last week via an open-records request, and amid an ongoing suit about donor transparency brought by student activists. Angel Cabrera, university president since 2012, shared the news with faculty members in an email, saying, "I was made aware of a number of gift agreements that were accepted by the university between 2003 and 2011 and raise questions concerning donor influence in academic matters." The gifts, in support of faculty positions in economics, "granted donors some participation in faculty selection and evaluation," Cabrera said, noting that one such agreement is still active (the rest have expired). All 10 of the now-public agreements relate to the university's Mercatus Center for free market research, a locus of Koch-funded activity. Three of the agreements involve Koch.
 
Americans Are A Lonely Lot, And Young People Bear The Heaviest Burden
Loneliness isn't just a fleeting feeling, leaving us sad for a few hours to a few days. Research in recent years suggests that for many people, loneliness is more like a chronic ache, affecting their daily lives and sense of well-being. Now a nationwide survey by the health insurer Cigna underscores that. It finds that loneliness is widespread in America, with nearly 50 percent of respondents reporting that they feel alone or left out always or sometimes. Using one of the best-known tools for measuring loneliness -- the UCLA Loneliness Scale -- Cigna surveyed 20,000 adults online across the country. The University of California, Los Angeles tool uses a series of statements and a formula to calculate a loneliness score based on responses. People scoring between 20 and 80 on the UCLA scale are considered lonely, with a higher score suggesting a greater level of loneliness and social isolation.
 
Counting our heads is easier said than done
Longtime Mississippi journalist Charlie Mitchell writes: "Americans, it's time to stand up and be counted ...or not. The year 2020 looms and the U.S. Bureau of the Census is gearing up to do as the Constitution commands. (A cynical person would say something about how few constitutional directives are heeded these days, but let's not be cynical.) There's no record of the cost of the first decennial headcount, but the last one cost $14.7 billion, which ciphers to about $49 per person. Can't do these things on the cheap, you know. The good news is that predictions were that 2010 Census would cost twice as much as the 2000 Census. It didn't. Actual "life cycle costs" of the count were $1.6 billion below projections. The bad news is that another doubling is projected -- the 2020 count to cost twice as much as 2010. Oh, well."


SPORTS
 
Jim Ellis enjoys nearly 40-year ride calling Mississippi State baseball moments
In a new age of technology where radios have been cast aside and televisions have taken precedent in society, Mississippi State fans still adjust their radio dials every Southeastern Conference baseball weekend. There's a familiar voice on the other end welcoming fans to the ball park, going through the starting lineups and delivering stories from days gone by that pop up from time to time when Jim Ellis comes across a team or coach's name on a roster. Ellis has plenty of stories to tell having sat behind home plate at Dudy Noble for nearly 40 years. Since Ellis arrived in Starkville in the fall of 1978 and took over as broadcaster in 1979, he's been there for 29 of 36 regionals, all seven super regionals and SEC Tournament championships and eight of the nine College World Series.
 
UGA's indoor athletic facility officially named for Bill and Porter Payne
Vince Dooley and Billy Payne remember rainy days inside Stegeman Coliseum when the University of Georgia basketball facility was used as a makeshift football field. Even then, the building with a roof wasn't enough to keep the team dry. "The coliseum, as I remember it, had 176 leaks because we had 176 buckets around for whenever it rained to catch the water," Dooley recalled during a press conference with the two Monday afternoon. Payne, a member of Dooley's first recruiting class in 1964, remembers a lack of productivity on days when it was raining. "I remember Stegeman, at that time, was relatively new," Payne said. "On rainy days we would go in there and mess around in the basketball thing just to stay out of the rain. Nothing more than staying out of the rain, really." Over 50 years later, the two were gathered to discuss the naming of Georgia's new state-of-the-art indoor practice facility that now bears Payne's name, along with his father Porter, for the William Porter Payne and Porter Otis Payne Indoor Athletic Facility.
 
Delta State keeps on winning, but Mississippi College is getting salty, too
Mississippi sports columnist Rick Cleveland writes: "Delta State closed out another banner regular baseball season Sunday afternoon with a 2-0 victory over suddenly competitive in-state rival Mississippi College. The Statesmen, who will host the Gulf South Conference tournament beginning Saturday, finished the season with a 38-8 record. That's a winning percentage of .826, which is better than DSU coach Mike Kinnison's career winning percentage -- and that's saying something, considering that Kinnison's 21 previous Statesmen teams have won 75.6 percent of their games. Two things are guaranteed in the Mississippi Delta: a hot muggy summer that follows a successful Delta State baseball spring. What we learned this weekend is that Mississippi College, which recently made the move back to Division II from Division III, has made huge strides under third-year coach Jeremy Haworth."



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