Leflore Illustrated Fall 2020

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ONE AND DONE RADIATION TREATMENT FOR BREAST CANCER It may be hard to imagine that radiation therapy for early-stage breast cancer following a lumpectomy could be this fast, but Greenwood Leflore Hospital is now offering the Breast Microseed Treatment® that consists of one procedure. It’s safe, effective, and has very limited side effects, allowing patients to get back to their normal routines right away. Roderick C. Givens, MD, a radiation oncologist and the medical director of The Cancer Center at Greenwood Leflore Hospital, is one of only a dozen providers worldwide trained in this new procedure.

The minimally invasive procedure consists of tiny radioactive seeds—smaller than a grain of rice—being precisely placed in the breast tissue surrounding the lumpectomy site where the cancer is most likely to recur. The seeds contain a low dose of radiation that is released slowly and safely over time, minimizing damage to healthy tissue.

Once a patient’s doctor determines if they are a candidate for this treatment, based on things such as age and tumor size, the patient has a CT scan to identify the exact location where the seeds should be placed.

From the scan, the medical team uses advanced planning software and a template grid that guides the precise placement of the seeds around the lumpectomy site.

While they are sometimes needed, standard forms of radiation can cause changes in breast tissue that can be noticeable and uncomfortable. The Breast Microseed Treatment® has fewer cosmetic side effects as well as reduced rates of infection. The active radiation in the seeds lasts for approximately 80 days, and the seeds remain in the breast without causing any discomfort and can rarely be felt. They will still be identifiable through diagnostic scans such as mammograms.

If you or anyone you know has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and will be undergoing a lumpectomy, give us a call at 662-459-7133 to discuss this treatment option or let your physician know you are interested and ask if you are eligible.

GLH is proud to offer this innovative procedure that can save countless hours compared to traditional radiation treatment.

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From the smallest repair to a major upgrade, Robinson Electric will always do the job right. Call or email us to discuss your next electrical project.

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Church, community support helped pastor through cancer diagnosis Third grader Emma Smith enjoys reading about history Makamson house, featuring scenic Delta views, was meant to be Greenwood artist Lalla Walker Lewis found inspiration in her hometown Pillow graduate Thomas Woody has every NFL fan’s dream job Family-owned Westside Grill serves “best burgers in town” Denture maker’s detailed work provides happy smiles Chris Walker crafts colonial muzzle-loading shooting irons Preacher enjoys lighting up home for the holidays

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Relocating to Greenwood was “a God move” for hospital’s new chief of staff

From the editor Calendar Food

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Shopping page Event snapshots The Back Page

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The kindness gene

here are a lot of hands that go into this magazine each issue.

Those that belong to Jeanette Bankston don’t show up in the masthead.

Jeanette is largely responsible for distributing iÉÑäçêÉ fääìëíê~íÉÇ to the shops, banks, medical offices and other locations where the magazine can be picked up. She’s handled this job for several years, and always with a smile on her face.

Jeanette is one of those people who provide me regularly with the reminder of how little effort it takes to be kind, but how much difference it can make to those on whom kindness is spread.

I am sure Jeanette has all the stresses most of us face when it comes to money or family or work. But they never seem to change her disposition. She’s unfailingly polite, respectful and solicitous. She asks me all the time about my grandchildren and compliments me on the neckties I wear. She enjoys engaging in small talk, something at which I’m not particularly good. She makes me feel important, and it’s not just because I’m her boss. She’s that way, as best I can tell, with everyone. It’s as if she was born with a kindness gene.

There seems to be more of that hereditary trait in the South than in the Midwest, where I grew up, or the East Coast, where I went to college.

There are kind people everywhere, of course, but they just seem to be more plentiful in this part of the country. It’s not only because the South is more rural.

My daughter, Elizabeth, lives in Nashville, Tennessee, a booming, busy, increasingly

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cosmopolitan city. Despite its rapid urbanization, it still has retained a lot of its Southern manners.

A few weeks ago, Elizabeth was rushing around the city, trying to take care of a few lastminute details before loading up her three sons for a visit to Greenwood. She had not had her Starbucks fix, so she stopped at one to get a coffee.

While pulling out of the parking lot in the “boat” she drives, she clipped a car parked nearby. It coincidentally belonged to one of the Starbucks baristas, who was just getting off her shift.

Elizabeth was mortified. But the barista, rather than being angry, assured Elizabeth that it was OK. Instead of focusing on the damage and inconvenience Elizabeth had caused her, the barista seemed more concerned about Elizabeth. The experience left our daughter more uplifted than upset.

We are at a time, though, when kindness is being threatened by other forces.

Politics have become terribly nasty. From the presidential race on down, candidates and their supporters seem driven not just to win, but to totally denigrate the opposition. It’s

considered a sign of weakness to concede even the smallest point to the other side.

Many of those divisions in politics are mirrored by divisions on race. We distrust each other. We feel misused or misunderstood. We refuse to make the effort to see the world through the other person’s eyes.

The impulsive nature of social media doesn’t help, either. It encourages people to express themselves without much consideration for the feelings of those who are the objects of their sniping.

Then there’s the pandemic.

Besides the death toll COVID19 has claimed and the anxieties it has stoked, it has forced us to literally keep our distance from each other. Staying 6 feet apart and wearing facial masks are prudent health precautions when trying to ward off a contagion, but they also make it tougher to connect with one another. It’s hard to read people when you can’t see all of their face.

Hopefully, there will soon be a safe and proven vaccine to inoculate us from the virus.

What will rid the world of nastiness or conflict, though, can’t be found in a vial.

It exists in the hearts of all of us, though in some obviously to a greater degree than others.

Those who are overflowing with kindness help the rest of us build up our capacity. By the example of their lives, they inspire the rest of us to be less ill-tempered or impatient or self-absorbed.

My wife has a T-shirt that she wears occasionally. On its front is a message that says it well: “In a world where you can be anything, be kind.” ÓÔ=qáã=h~äáÅÜ

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‘A God move’

r. Kimberly Sanford says four years ago she was thinking about moving from Illinois to Arizona when she was offered a chance she simply could not turn down.

That was to join the staff at Greenwood Leflore Hospital, which offered her a financial package that would put a big dent in what she owed in student loans from medical school.

Before she knew it, she was saying “yes” and heading from the Midwest to the Deep South.

Now, she’s the hospital’s new chief of staff. “I know this was a God move, all the way,” said Sanford, 50, an obstetrician-gynecologist who is a former pharmaceutical sales representative.

Her story starts in East St. Louis, Illinois, where she was the youngest child of divorced parents. She was finishing high school when her mother moved the family to East Lansing, Michigan. The idea was that Sanford would qualify for in-state tuition and enroll at Michigan State University.

That plan didn’t include her prowess in shot put. “I’m an athlete,” Sanford explained. She was a national indoor shot put champion by the time she graduated in 1991 from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, which she attended on an athletic scholarship. She earned a degree in agricultural business.

This course of study set her up for pharmaceutical sales. She had internships ranging from one with the U.S. Forest Service to another with the Upjohn Co., now Pfizer. She was 21 when Upjohn hired her full time. She sold pharmaceutical drugs for people and animals for seven years and lived in New England, the Midwest and the Southeast. When she was residing in Boston, her territory extended from Massachusetts, through Rhode Island and up to

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New Haven, Connecticut.

She earned a good living, had the personality and drive for sales and enjoyed the perks, such as getting a new company car every two years. “It was quite different from the way I had grown up,” Sanford said. Her parents basically lived paycheck to paycheck.

She was in her 20s, single and had plenty of money to spend.

That changed when the pharmaceutical company that was her employer abruptly decided to transfer her from Boston to Michigan. By then, she was worn out with walking into offices with an array of edible goodies to ensure her welcome. Sanford said she was thinking, “I am not a caterer.”

“It was just not enough,” Sanford said. “I needed to use my brain more.” She continued, “I did not want to be vulnerable to an industry. I did not want to have a corporation determine where I can work.”

She already had been taking pre-med courses at Harvard’s extension school in Cambridge and had selected those “I thought I couldn’t do.” For example, she said, “I took calculus at Harvard.”

Of course, she succeeded, and she decided to enroll in medical school. By then, she was 28. “I knew if I let 30 happen, it wasn’t going to happen.”

Her mother — Valetta Leonard, now of Greenwood — supported the plan, and one of her brothers, who lived in Florida, offered her a home with him while she went to medical school.

Sanford cashed in her 401K and bought an old truck with a camper shell, which she drove south to Tampa. In 2001, she finished her pre-med requirements at the University of South Florida, and she entered the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta in 2002. While in Tampa, she worked part time as a registrar in the emergency room at University Community Hospital. She said this gave her invaluable insight into the needs of hospitals and, of course, the people they serve.

The latter was important to Sanford. “I knew I would be a doctor who communicated with patients,” she explained.

She was a resident physician

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with Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan, from 2006 to 2011, and she practiced in Illinois at Maryville Women’s Center, which delivered 600 babies a year, until affiliating with Greenwood Leflore Hospital.

Sanford said she knew from the get-go in Greenwood that its hospital did not have equipment, such as that for robotics surgery, that new doctors are being trained to use and expect to be able to use in their practice.

“I was trained in robotics, and I didn’t have a robot,” she said.

“I knew it was going to be a challenge.”

So she successfully campaigned for the hospital’s $2.2 million lease-purchase this year of robotics equipment.

“It’s a better way to perform an old process,” Sanford said.

Because it is less invasive, patients suffer less pain and therefore have a diminished requirement for narcotics, she said. “It was the right thing to do for the community.”

Sanford said the hospital also needs the services of specialists in urology and gynecological oncology, among others.

Keep in mind that Sanford was looking westward to Arizona when Greenwood Leflore came calling and she instead chose Greenwood. She surprised herself and her mother. Sanford announced at the time, “We are moving to Mississippi,” and her mother said, “What?”

But they found they like it in Greenwood. Her mother’s a

homebody who is content almost anywhere, Sanford said, and Sanford has become accustomed to the lack of anonymity one encounters in a small town. She attends New Green Grove Church of Faith, and she likes the hospital, which she said is more collegial than other medical centers. But, she said, “We do have challenges in keeping staff here.” And she would like to add to it.

As an ob-gyn, Sanford sees the difficulties people in Greenwood encounter. Some people put off going to the doctor. Others drive a couple of hours for services not offered in town. She said the community must act soon to make corrections and upgrades, and she wants it to make the commitment.

“You are in this small town, and your population is going down,” she said. “There are some changes that need to be made.”

“Start listening to your children if you want them to come back here,” Sanford advised.

“There are things that have to change rapidly. Greenwood has to decide as a city what it wants to be,” she said. “You could be the oasis in the middle of the Delta.”

For her, the community has offered opportunities that she did not expect. She became the hospital’s chief of staff in October.

She finds that extraordinary, and she is grateful. In a larger city, she explained, “The little girl from East St. Louis would never become chief of staff.” LI

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‘Love thy neighbor’ is more than a commandment

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ichard Owens had never been to the Mississippi Delta before interviewing for the job of youth pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in 2010.

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But the Alabama native knew something about small towns where agriculture plays a major role and where churches can influence their communities — so Greenwood seemed to be a good fit.

Owens served as youth pastor at Westminster for two years before being chosen as senior pastor in 2012. He said the people in his church and elsewhere in the community have been supportive through many challenges, including when he was diagnosed with cancer last year.

“There are a lot of really great people here,” he said. “The community’s been amazing — very loving, very patient with us as we’ve grown.”

v v v Owens, 39, grew up on a dairy farm in the small west Alabama town of Pleasant Ridge. He was raised in a Christian home, although his family didn’t push him into ministry. At school, he was the chaplain of the Student Government Association and

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president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, in addition to playing guitar and singing at worship services.

He taught himself how to play guitar around eighth grade and then played with friends. Being a “’90s kid,” he learned to play songs by Nirvana and other popular rock bands, but word got around that he could play in church, too.

“Churches are notorious for this,” he said with a laugh. “They find out somebody has an interest: ‘Hey, you like to play guitar; come play guitar here.’ That’s what got me into playing for youth groups and things.”

His goal was to be a teacher and coach — but, he said, “I guess you say the Lord had another plan.”

He went to the University of South Alabama, where he studied secondary education. One semester before he was to graduate, the course requirements for teachers were toughened by the No Child Left Behind legislation. So he had to stay one semester longer than planned and take more classes so he could major in both history and education.

He graduated in 2003.

During the summer before his additional semester, he found an internship leading the youth and children’s ministries at First Presbyterian Church in Aliceville, Alabama.

He enjoyed the work, and the church was impressed enough by his performance that it hired him after the summer.

“That is kind of what said, ‘You know what? Maybe education isn’t the path,’” he said. “It’s like the Lord gave me the love for the Gospel, teaching it to other people, building communities within a church.”

After three years there, he decided he needed to pursue a seminary education and entered Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, where he graduated in 2010. That led him to Greenwood.

At Westminster, he had to learn a lot — especially after being chosen as senior pastor at such a young age — but others gave him plenty of support.

“They were very gracious, very patient with me as I learned,” he said. “Because you don’t come out of seminary a great preacher.

You just don’t have enough life experience.

Older people were like, ‘What’s this kid know?’ Because there’s a difference between knowing the book knowledge and actually having the life experience of how that applies.”

v v v Owens had to deal with a new kind of “life experience” last October when he was diagnosed with kidney cancer.

After finding blood in his urine, he went to a doctor for a CT scan, which revealed a tumor. He was given the news while in a ministerial association meeting.

“The rug got pulled out from under me,”

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he said. “I was 38 years old. ... In the matter of five days, I go from thinking I’m fine to ‘I’m having a kidney removed.’”

He remained at Baptist Hospital in Jackson for three days and then spent about six weeks at home recovering. During that time, he was struck by the number of people who visited, sent letters or meals or offered their prayers. And these weren’t just members of his congregation; neighbors and people he had just encountered at the grocery store or elsewhere also wished him well.

“Two other pastors from in town just came down to visit me in the hospital,” he said.

“Just to be loved by the community was a really beautiful thing.”

Regaining his stamina took some time — and he said the experience also influenced his preaching.

Before the surgery, since he didn’t know how far the cancer had spread and wasn’t sure he would survive the procedure, he wrote letters to his wife, Annie, and his two children: daughter Sophie, who is now 9, and son Judah, who is 6.

“We know our days are numbered,” he said. “But then all of a sudden you realize, ‘No, they really are.’ It changes people.”

Once he returned to the pulpit, he thanked his listeners for their support and recounted what he had been through. He said the message of that sermon was simple: “God is good.

And sometimes it doesn’t seem like he’s good.

Sometimes life is really hard. But here are his promises that we cling to.”

Getting a glimpse of his mortality got him thinking about serious matters and how God’s word can help. After all, he said, “probably every Sunday in our congregation, there’s somebody who has just had the worst week of their life or has received a dire diagnosis.”

He had a six-month CT scan that found no problems. His next six-month appointment for blood work and a CT scan is scheduled for Nov. 9.

“So far, I haven’t had to do chemo,” he said. “We’re waiting to see. Obviously, the

hope is that the surgery got it all.”

He said life with one kidney hasn’t been much different, although he has made some adjustments to his diet. He exercised regularly before his cancer diagnosis and has continued to do so, although he said it’s more for his mental health.

In his spare time, he also has kept up his guitar playing, and he recorded an album, máäÖêáã=cáêÉë, which was recently made available on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and other online services. It was recorded in his dining room over the last year and finished during down time brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m not a professional musician,” he said.

“It’s just a hobby — a little passion project.”

v v v Like everyone else, Owens and his church have had to make some adjustments because of the pandemic.

He said they committed to following the rules set by public officials and shifted to virtual worship, with pre-recorded sermons and music. They met outside for a few weeks early in the summer; then, after receiving the go-ahead, they moved inside, with social distancing and masks. Services are still livestreamed for those who want to watch remotely.

The church’s typical attendance was 170 to about 200 before the pandemic. About 150 came to the outdoor services, and now the average is 120 to 150, Owens said.

“We’re definitely not up to pre-COVID numbers, but we’re getting there,” he said.

He said his general goal for the church is “for people to see the beauty of Jesus.” Some people come out of seminary dreaming of leading large churches, but he likes the impact a small congregation can have.

“It’s not about having huge numbers,” he said. “It’s about doing life with this community and seeing this community thrive and flourish — yes, in how we love the Lord, but also how we love our neighbors.” LI Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated / V

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mma Smith enjoys a good book.

The 8-year-old recently finished reading the first Harry Potter book, e~êêó=mçííÉê=~åÇ=íÜÉ pçêÅÉêÉêDë=píçåÉ, and has started on the second one. She also enjoys reading non-fiction history books about people, such as Helen Keller, Andrew Jackson and George Washington.

The daughter of Hunter and Lisa Smith of Greenwood, Emma is a third grade student at Pillow Academy.

Emma is active and enjoys sports, especially gymnastics.

When she grows up, she wants to be a pharmacist, just like her mom. Some afternoons, when she gets out of school early, she pitches in at her mother’s pharmacy, Greenwood Drugs.

“It’s fun helping out,” Emma said.

She is also enjoying the autumn season and looking forward to many outdoor adventures with her family. tÜ~í=Çç=óçì=Éåàçó=ãçëí ~Äçìí=íÜÉ=Ñ~ää\ I love it because I get to go deer hunting with my dad. I’m planning to shoot a buck this year. ... I like Thanksgiving, and I like to carve pumpkins. It’s fun. eçïÛë=ëÅÜççä=ÖçáåÖ=íÜáë óÉ~ê\=Good. We’re learning how to do more vocabulary words, and some are hard. We’re learning about what Indians did and all that, and we’re learning more stuff in English and in math. tÜ~íÛë=óçìê=Ñ~îçêáíÉ ëìÄàÉÅí\=Math. I like it because it’s the main thing of your life.

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Histo ry buff

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You’re going to have to be doing it your whole life, and I like adding and multiplication. tÜ~í=~êÉ=óçìê=Ñ~îçêáíÉ=ÜçÄJ ÄáÉë\ Reading and playing with my friends. aç=óçì=éä~ó=ëéçêíë\=I play soccer, tennis, gym and dance. tÜáÅÜ=ëéçêí=áë=óçìê Ñ~îçêáíÉ\=Gym (at Outer Limits Gymnastics). tÜ~í=~êÉ=óçì=äÉ~êåáåÖ=~í lìíÉê=iáãáíë=dóãå~ëíáÅë\ We’re going to learn how to do a back handspring. I can do a backbend. I am practicing to do a backbend from standing up, and it’s so very hard. We’re learning, on the beam, how to do a handstand and a cartwheel on it.

We’re starting on the low beam, and then we’re going to start going up to the high beam once we all get it. eçï=äçåÖ=Ü~îÉ=óçì=ÄÉÉå ÇçáåÖ=Öóãå~ëíáÅë\ Since 4K. tÜ~í=~êÉ=óçìê=Ñ~îçêáíÉ Äççâë=íç=êÉ~Ç\ I like Harry

Potter. I’m on the second Harry Potter book, and now I’m reading about Helen Keller. And I just read about Thomas Jefferson, too. tÜó=Çç=óçì=Éåàçó=êÉ~ÇáåÖ Äççâë=~Äçìí=Üáëíçêó\ I like them because they tell you true facts, and you learn more, and I’m probably the smartest person in my grade because I know about that stuff. aç=óçì=Ü~îÉ=~=Ñ~îçêáíÉ ãçîáÉ\ There’s this play. It’s about two hours, and it’s about Hamilton. e~ãáäíçå=is good; I’m not joking. aç=óçì=Ü~îÉ=~åó=ÄêçíÜÉêë çê=ëáëíÉêë\ I have a brother. His name is Hayes, and he’s 6. aç=óçì=äáâÉ=ÄÉáåÖ=~=ÄáÖ=ëáëJ íÉê\ A little bit, when he’s not annoying. aç=óçì=Ü~îÉ=~åó=éÉíë\=I have a dog, and he’s a King Charles spaniel, and we named him Simon. He’s a troublemaker. ... He likes to tear up stuff and

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run away. It takes you two hours to find him. aç=óçì=Ü~îÉ=~=Ñ~îçêáíÉ ÑççÇ\=Sushi. It’s so good; I love it. aç=óçì=Ü~îÉ=~=Ñ~îçêáíÉ Å~åÇó=çê=ÇÉëëÉêí\=My favorite dessert is cheesecake, and my favorite candy is a Hershey’s bar.

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Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated / NN

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It’s all meant to be

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ver notice how some things that go together seem meant to be together?

That somehow it was inevitable that two people would find each other — or find each other again — and live happily ever after? In a house that was, of course, just made for them?

Ray and Phyliss Makamson check all those boxes.

“I told her I’d have some plans drawn up for a new house,” Ray said, winking. “That’s how I got her to marry me.”

Phyliss has heard that one before. No trickery was involved.

Both now 67, they met and dated in college; however, following a familiar plot line, they drifted apart, then met and married others and grew families and lived busy lives away from each other.

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A generation later, after both Ray and Phyliss had gone through divorce, they reconnected — remember, it was meant to be — then started dating again and married in 2012.

Their blended family includes Phyliss’ daughter, Heather Hodges Jones of Madison and her family; and sons Heath Hodges and Hunter Hodges, both of Greenwood, and their families; and Ray’s two daughters, Emily Makamson Gnemi and Amanda Makamson Jefcoat, also both of Greenwood, and their families.

“We have 11 grandkids between us, ages 3 to 20,” Phyliss said. Family get-togethers are endless entertainment.

Almost immediately, they got serious about the house they wanted to build and live in. Everywhere they traveled, they looked for ideas, mulling over every design to see if or how it would fit into their vision of their future, imagining themselves living in each setting. Phyliss kept notes tirelessly.

No detail was overlooked or forgotten.

They had plans drawn up in 2016.

Ray, a successful farmer for decades, had bought a piece of land several years earlier.

It was land he had leased for the past 30 years, so he was familiar with its contours

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and personality.

Just west of Greenwood — they actually have an Itta Bena address — the Yazoo River runs through thousands of acres of

farmland and old-growth forest. At one location, the river flows in the shape of a horseshoe, creating a gentle rise that simply begged for a house to be built on it. The

Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated / NP

piece of land is big enough and high enough that the property isn’t threatened by the river, and Ray and Phyliss knew they’d enjoy sharing the leafy breezes with their neighbors — the ones that buzz, chirp, croak, whistle, squeak — for the rest of their lives.

To achieve the perfect combination of structure and site, Ray and Phyliss knew their original house plans needed some work, so they asked Frances Flautt Zook, an Oxford and Atlanta architect with Greenwood roots, to draft an updated plan. She incorporated all the changes the couple wanted, and they were then ready to turn the project over to their general contractor to make their dream a reality.

And how perfect that the general contractor for this project would be Phyliss’ son, Heath, owner of Heath Hodges Building & Design LLC of Greenwood.

Obviously, it was meant to be.

Heath, in fact, had already built a large farmhouse-style home for his own growing family just a stone’s throw from the

site where his mom and Ray would have theirs.

The Makamsons’ house would be smaller, and the couple invested a great deal of thought in how they would live in it.

“We wanted only two bedrooms,” Phyliss said. “We didn’t feel like we needed more.”

“We made everything handicapped-accessible, too,” she continued. Doorways are wide; floors are smooth hardwood or tile; the main bath has a glassenclosed shower large enough for a wheelchair; and walls adjacent to the toilet are reinforced behind the wallboard to be able to accommodate handrails.

“Nobody can see the future,” Phyliss said. “You never know what’s going to happen, and we wanted to be as prepared as possible so we can live in our forever home as long as possible.”

The house invites those who enter to take a long, deep breath, to feel tight muscles uncoil and the day’s tensions evaporate. Rooms are spacious, airy, bright and arranged for

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Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated / NR

comfort. Nothing is fussy or overdone.

Simple, uncluttered and clean are bywords.

The house is new — the Makamsons moved in in July — and still has that new-house fragrance that usually, eventually, disappears, but it may hang around longer here. Ray and Phyliss are both obsessive about cleanliness and organization.

“Ray is neat and meticulous, and I’m worse than he is,” Phyliss confessed.

“Things have to be clean and orderly, or I just get too stressed out.”

These two were meant to be together.

The house is organized into three main areas.

In the center are the public areas — the open-concept kitchen/living room, a smaller sitting room and a dining area.

Rough-hewn pine beams line the soaring ceiling, and wide-plank hardwood flooring makes the spaces feel more expansive.

“Heath had some really good subcontractors,” Ray said. “Morgan Fancher did the flooring, and Marty Clark (both of Greenwood) did the inlaid wood design on the floor in the center of the house.”

The kitchen backsplash is gleaming white beveled subway tile, and countertops are white granite with black flecks; in fact, the same granite is used for countertops in all the bathrooms.

The Makamsons chose to have all the granite slabs leathered before they were delivered to the house, a difficult and time-consuming process involving running a diamond-tipped brush over the entire surface several times to bring out a sheen in places and tighten the pores to help the surface resist staining.

The kitchen design looks like a chef’s dream, with acres of counter space, much of it on an outsized island, and miles of custom cabinetry.

“I love to cook,” Phyliss said, “and I do just about every night.”

She also grows food in her garden both to eat fresh and to can for use throughout the year. “Crops” include peas and butterbeans (two varieties each), green beans, cucumbers, squash, okra, tomatoes and sweet corn.

A hallway off the kitchen leads to the utility area. Phyliss said Morgan Fancher laid the tile for the floor in a herringbone pattern, every tile individually. The area includes the laundry room, a half bath, a large pantry and a mud room.

The focal point of the utility space is a bulletin board for the couple’s grandchildren. A Mother’s Day gift from Ray, the framed bulletin board holds newspaper clippings about “the grands,” artwork by them, photos and other memorabilia NS / Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated

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important to or about them. The contents change constantly, and every visiting grandchild checks the wall of the mudroom to catch the latest updates.

Just outside the mudroom is a dogtrot between the house and the garage. The Makamsons had a brick ramp built for wheelchair access to the dogtrot whenever it’s needed.

Back inside, through the center space again to the other side of the house, is the bedroom area.

The guest suite is a welcoming space populated with vintage furniture, much of which Phyliss has lovingly restored and repainted. For the walls of the bedroom and the en suite bath, she chose a soothing, calming shade from Benjamin Moore called “Healing Aloe.” The effect is almost like walking under calm, clear water through filtered sunlight.

At the other end of a short hallway on this side of the house is the main bedroom suite. On the wall over the headboard are three frames, each containing pressed botanicals.

“One day during construction, some of the grandkids and I went around the ‘island’ and picked flowers,” Phyliss said. It was just a fun thing to do, she explained. They enjoyed being together and exploring the new place. Later, their collections ended up in a flower press, where they stayed for about six months, all but forgotten. When Phyliss found them, she knew exactly what she wanted to do with them, and there they are, happy memories in a frame.

One of the small pillows on the bed says, “Home is wherever I’m with you.”

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The main suite’s bath is truly an indulgence, starting with the heated tile floor and continuing with the enclosed toilet area with space for a wheelchair and reinforced walls for future handrails, if they become necessary. The two full vanities with those stunning white granite countertops are separated by the entry to the walk-in closet, which contains multitudes of shelves, shoe racks, drawers and other built-ins.

“Heath designed the shower himself,” Phyliss said. The proud mom demonstrated

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NTJPN=Ó The Museum of the Mississippi Delta will present “4 Artists,” an exhibit featuring the works of Jesse Brown, Michael Foster, Hannah Bevens and Will Jacks.

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turning the shower water on by a wall switch that is preset for temperature and pressure. It took no time at all for Ray and Phyliss to get used to this small luxury.

One of the best features of the Makamsons’ house is that the lines between indoors and outdoors are softened and blurred. By design, every room has at least one spectacular view of the everchanging landscape of the Mississippi Delta that blesses this house — the Yazoo River from this room, the ancient trees from that held, from 5 to 8 p.m. Nov. 19 and during stores’ regular hours Nov. 20-21. On Nov. 19, there will be carriage rides from 5 to 8 p.m. q_a=Ó The Museum of the Mississippi Delta will present an exhibit featuring the works of artist and Greenwood native Lalla Walker Lewis.

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Q=Ô The Roy Martin Delta Band Festival and Christmas Parade will be held, beginning at 5 p.m.

room, the nearly endless cotton fields on all sides — visible through the many generous windows and glass doors.

This connection to the natural world is further strengthened by indoor rooms that extend themselves into inviting adjacent porch space.

“Nearly every morning, I take my cup of coffee out to the porch and sip it there while I wake up,” Phyliss said. “What a wonderful way to start my day!”

It was probably meant to be. LI

“

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Seeing the beauty of home

I’d rather watch a truck driver change a tire than go to a party in New York City. And I’d get much better art out of it, too.”

That quote by Lalla Walker Lewis perfectly describes the life and work of the late Greenwood artist.

Her work, which depicts mules, plows, cotton fields, tenant houses and other Depression-era Mississippi Delta scenes, has been seen at world’s fairs, at one of New York’s iÉïáë museums and in art shows around the world, including in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Paris.

In a 1981 interview, the same in which she made that statement about the inspiration she gets from Greenwood, Lewis said some could never understand why she would ever stay in the South when her talent could take her to much more metropolitan areas.

“Everybody thought I was crazy when I started to paint scenes of the Delta,” she said. “My cousin asked me, ‘If you’re going to paint the South, why don’t you paint girls in hoop skirts instead of those things?’ I could have shot him.

“Because of all that, I never have depended on Mississippi or Greenwood.

My things sold so much better in New York or California. I just never could struggle with the ladies down here who said, ‘But who would want a mule in a picture?’”

v v v Born in 1912, Lewis began painting at the age of 8.

Later in her life, she took art courses at the Mississippi State College for Women,

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now Mississippi University for Women.

While there, she focused on commercial art as an illustrator for agricultural magazines

and would also be the illustrator for the 1934 issue of jÉÜ=i~Çó, the college’s yearbook.

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Perhaps her most famous work, a woodcut piece titled cáëÜÉêã~å=pÜ~Åâ, was shown in the Library of Congress and was selected to be included among the Carnegie Institute’s 100 best pictures of 1944.

Lewis died at the age of 93 in 2006 at Golden Age nursing home, where she had lived for more than two decades.

While at Golden Age, she said she painted every day, mostly from memory.

Her body was donated to the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

v v v Dr. Anita Batman remembers the kind-hearted painter who would sit and discuss Southern art with the family. Batman’s mother, Leny Wacht, was also a Greenwood artist.

Lewis “was delightful; she was kind; she was good,” Batman said. “She was the kind of person who would speak to a peer and a child in the same respectful and serious way.”

She also made note of another aspect of Lewis’ life.

“She was the neighborhood cat lady,” Batman said.

Lewis was known for her many, many cats, which roamed in and around her house.

“You bring (a kitten) to Lalla Walker, and she immediately takes it in her hands and says, ‘Oh, you poor little thing, come here,’ and then she’d just take care of them.”

But, funny enough, Lewis admitted she was never really too fond of cats, and certainly never wanted a large number of them.

In a 1981 interview, Lewis said, “Oh, I had a mother cat just wander up one day; then she had kittens, which game me five. Then people just started dumping them at my house. We had no animal shelter then, and I either had to shoot them or feed them. I couldn’t just let them starve to death.”

Lewis’ art is scattered throughout the homes of longtime Greenwood residents.

Batman said that many have her signature portraits of magnolia flowers displayed in their homes.

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depicting cotton and riverboats — that adorned the inside walls of the old Greenwood-Leflore Public Library building. The murals were painted when Lewis was 25.

When restoration began about two decades ago on the library, which was built in 1914 through the philanthropy of industrialist Andrew Carnegie, leaders of the effort said the two Lewis murals were a major focal point of the building’s interior.

The murals were the result of her participation in the Depression-era Works Progress Administration program, established in 1935 during the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt.

Both murals have been restored and are presently in storage.

v v v

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Walker magnolia to hang over their fireplace,” Batman said.

Charlot Ray, a board member of the Museum of the Mississippi Delta, said it is not unusual to walk into a neighbor’s home and see some of her work.

“She painted from the day she was born to the day that she died,” Ray said with only slight exaggeration. “There are works of hers all over the place; a lot of people in Greenwood have them.”

Ray said community members would commission Lewis to paint everyday scenes and objects to give as gifts.

“She painted little scenes that people would give for graduation gifts, so they are everywhere,” she said. “Some people have really nice ones that they received years ago.”

One of those lucky individu-

als is Charles Bowman Jr. Bowman said that during World War II, Lewis was active in the U.S. war effort. Lewis had not only painted posters promoting the allies’ strengths, but she also worked as a draftsman with Bowman’s father.

“My father would always talk about that she was a really good worker, but she would always get distracted and start drawing little pictures of horses,” Bowman said.

He said that he is lucky enough not only to own a piece of art by Lewis, but also to get to see her work in the Fellowship Hall of First United Methodist Church on Washington Street.

That is not the only largescale work that she did.

Lewis is perhaps best remembered for her murals —

A variety of Lewis’ art will be shown during an upcoming exhibit at the Museum of the Mississippi Delta. The showing is expected to be held throughout November and December.

The Greenwood museum’s executive director, Katie Mills, said she is planning on the WPA murals being part of the exhibit.

She is excited about showcasing Lewis’ work.

“You know, she is kind of a big deal here,” Mills said.

“While I was growing up here, I had never really heard of her.

But her work is everywhere.”

Mills said she hopes younger Deltans will see Lewis’ work and be inspired by her passion for the area.

“I really hope it teaches the young people about our rich art history,” she said.

Mills said placing the show around the Thanksgiving and winter holidays encourages those coming back home to revisit the artist’s works and rekindle their own connections to the Delta.

And, as put by Lewis in a 1972 interview, to experience the beauty of the region.

“I think the Delta is an exciting place. But it was a better place to paint in the days when the mules were used on the plantations. Back when lakes had cypress trees and Spanish moss. Back before the palmettos were cut down.” LI

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Fan finds NFL career

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homas Woody just might be the busiest man on the Chicago Bears.

The 32-year-old assistant equipment manager from Greenwood can be seen roaming NFL sidelines only on Sundays, but behind the scenes Woody often logs 100-hour work weeks to ensure the team has everything it needs.

In charge of practice gear, game-day apparel and more, Woody’s usually one of

the first to arrive at team facilities around 5 a.m. and one of the last to leave around 10 p.m. before a mandatory overnight cleaning. If the Bears win, it’s Woody’s job to transform their locker room into a “Club Dub” party scene featuring a neon sign, blaring speakers, disco lights and, now, face masks. During a Week 1 rollercoaster, Chicago overcame a late 17-point deficit on the road at Detroit and sent Woody scrambling to set up the ensuing celebration.

“You have to be prepared because you don’t want to have it not set up when the whole team comes in,” said Woody, in his sixth season with the Bears. “We kind of did it last minute, but it’s always fun when you get to set it up. The team loves it.”

Woody loves it, too — genuine passion

is a must, he says, in order to make such a time-consuming sacrifice. But the reward of traveling across the country to different stadiums with a close-up view of the action makes it all worth it.

“I never dreamed I’d be able to work around something I love like football, because my degree was in finance,” said the University of Mississippi graduate.

“And luckily, I never really wanted to sit behind a desk all day. So it’s nice to do something where I’m on my feet working for a football team.”

v v v The scouting report on Woody has been the same for a while now: too small for football, too short for basketball, but smart

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Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated / ON

OO / Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated

enough to hang with anyone.

He was never the first choice during pickup football games growing up, but he could draft the best squad if he was one of the team captains. After he quit playing football in ninth grade, Woody remained around the game in other ways at Pillow Academy. A fantasy football and March Madness bracket guru, Woody put his mathematical skills to good use by keeping track of every statistic for the Mustangs’ football team.

Then, before he left for Oxford, a simple suggestion sparked his current career path.

“One of my family friends mentioned to my dad, would I be interested in equipment management in college?” Woody recalled. “I ended up getting hired as a student manager at Ole Miss, and that’s what got my foot in the door.”

The first coach Woody had the pleasure of working under? None other than Ed Orgeron, a no-nonsense gumbo lover who, though his time in Oxford was rocky, would go on to win last season’s national championship at LSU. “He was such an intense coach,” Woody said with a chuckle. “Like, not in a bad way, but he’d stress you out and make you notice the small details that you need to get done probably more than anyone just because he’d be the one to rip you in front of everybody. So you wanted to have everything perfect for him.”

Adhering to the high standards set by “Coach O” proved to be great preparation for the next level. After graduating from Ole Miss, a college connection helped him land an equipment management internship with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

A year later, Woody took a similar internship with the Bears. Finally, he got a call from Chicago with news of his promotion to the organization’s full-time staff.

Woody called it “probably the happiest day of my life.”

v v v Woody has seen a lot in his six seasons with the Bears.

A rainy Thanksgiving victory over the rival Packers on “Brett Favre Night” at Lambeau Field, Woody’s favorite stadium, served as an early highlight back in 2015.

A few years later, Chicago earned an exciting playoff berth. Along the way, the Delta native witnessed colder weather than he ever imagined while working at Soldier Field.

“It took me a while to get used to the brutal winters here,” Woody said.

“Coming from Mississippi, good gosh, the first year when we got a foot of snow — I had never seen more than an inch. In 2016, we were playing the Packers, and we were like two degrees off from the record

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of coldest game in NFL history.”

With the ongoing pandemic preventing packed stadiums, the 2020 season feels different for the entire league. Woody is no exception.

“This year I’m still fired up, but it’s so different without fans there,” Woody said.

There were times during the game against the Lions “when you could hear a pencil drop in the stadium,” he said.

“That’s going to take a little getting used to and all. Hopefully, we’ll have fans at some point this season. That’s why I love football, being around all the fans and the atmosphere.”

The adjustments haven’t been all bad, though. Woody’s training camp hours were shortened slightly when a new COVID-19 cleaning schedule forced him out of the team building at 10 p.m. instead of mid-

night. Plus, without fans, he can now clearly hear the unfiltered banter on the field.

So besides a busy week, what’s next for Woody?

“My goal is to be a head equipment manager one day,” Woody said. “I love it here. Don’t get me wrong — I love Chicago — but one day possibly if Ole Miss were to ever have an opening there as the head guy, that’s something I’d definitely consider just to be closer to my family. My closest family members are pretty much in Mississippi, I don’t really have anybody up here.”

As for the long days, Woody truly doesn’t seem to mind. His dad, Gary, summed it up best.

“If you go and do something that you love, then you’ll never work a day in your life.” LI

Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated / OP

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‘Famous for our food’

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ince 2007, the Gillion family has been hard at work serving plates of burgers and fries and other meals out of the Westside Grill at 300 W. Gibbs St.

Westside Grill is manned by three generations of the Gillion family — Retha and her grandson Lajuan, who cook the food, and her son Darius (Lajuan’s uncle), who runs the register and makes deliveries.

Prior to 2007, Retha said she had worked

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at the Greenwood restaurant as a cook for five years under the previous owner, Granderson Givens. When he left town, Retha said she was told to take over. “And

that’s how I ended up with it,” she said.

Nothing has changed about the restaurant since the Gillion family took it over in 2007, Retha said.

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Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated / OR

The restaurant still runs a little grocery store that sells toiletries, prepackaged foods and other items.

The main draw of Westside, however, is the plates of cooked food.

“We sell burgers, lemon-pepper chicken wings, pork chops, chicken strips, club sandwiches. And we also serve bologna sandwiches,” Retha said.

The most popular meal by far, according to the Gillions, is the burger and fries.

“The best burgers in town,” Retha proclaimed.

The burgers are made from fresh ground beef — “no frozen meat at all,” Retha said — and served with crinkle-cut fries.

“I like all the food here,” Lajuan said, explaining that Westside’s lemon-pepper chicken wings are the second-most popular meal.

And then there’s the lemonade with which to wash down the food.

“Folks really love this place because of the fresh lemonade,” Darius said.

“Everybody loves that lemonade. We have folks who come from all over town who buy jugs of it.”

Like Westside, which has been in the GP (named for a former railway, Georgia Pacific) neighborhood for 20 years, the Gillion family has also been a neighborhood fixture.

All three of the Gillions who work at the restaurant grew up in the GP neighborhood and graduated from Greenwood High School.

“As a matter of fact, we used to stay right there at that empty space over there,” Retha said, pointing to a lot across from the restaurant on Fulton Street.

“To me it was one of the best neighborhoods growing up,” Darius said. “We actually had four parks in the neighborhood.

You had four parks in one neighborhood, one on each corner.”

Darius said he enjoys continuing to work with his family in the neighborhood in which he grew up.

“It feels great because ... we’re one of the few families that still live in this neighborhood, because everybody else has left or died out,” he said.

Like his grandmother, Lajuan has cooked at Westside since 2007. Prior to that, he was a cook at the fast food restaurant Wendy’s.

“That’s when I figured out I loved cooking, but my grandma, she used to be so busy, so I just decided I wanted to come back here and cook one day, and the rest has been history,” Lajuan said.

Westside has been, and continues to be, a successful endeavor, he said.

“It’s been very productive. We’re famous for our food. We have a lot of new customers and people who constantly talk about us and give us high compliments.” LI OS / Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated

New pearly whites come from hilltop lab

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erry Ashby lives in a hilltop farmhouse in Carroll County, where he pursues an old craft: making teeth.

They’re not the wooden choppers like those worn by George Washington. Nor are they similar to the porcelain plates that people traditionally have kept resting overnight inside glasses of effervescent cleaners.

Instead, Ashby makes dentures and partial dentures from acrylic resin in a small, professionally appointed lab connected to the residence he shares with his wife, Kay. “I still do everything by hand. I still believe in the art of the work,” said Ashby, 65, a longtime dental laboratory technician who has been practicing his profession from the house for a decade.

The lab’s like a tiny factory hidden up the hillside near Black Hawk, an old community settled well before the Civil War. And Ashby Dental’s just down the road from a well-known landmark, Acy’s Store, although the public hardly knows there’s a lab there. But dentists do.

Among Ashby Dental’s customers is Dr. Ward Stuckey, a Greenwood dentist who

said he is glad to have Ashby nearby. He talked about Ashby one recent Friday morning.

“He just showed up this morning to pick up a case in person so I could tell him what we need him to do. He’ll have it back on Monday,” Stuckey said.

“This is extremely personal service,” Stuckey said. “You don’t see it everywhere.”

Dentists often send their prosthetic prescriptions to faraway labs with lots of employees. It’s more efficient to be able to meet with a technician when needed, Stuckey said.

“He does very good work and makes my job much easier. He can come in and look directly at the situation, and he can see

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Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated / OT

OU / Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated

Left: Terry Ashby examines a drawer of acrylic teeth for the prosthetics he makes for dentists and his patients. Above: Ashby shows how the top and bottom rows of teeth “articulate,” or fit into one another.

Left: Terry Ashby says a good foundation for a denture or partial starts with an accurate impression.

These are made at dental clinics and turned over to him.

Right: Terry Ashby’s wife, Kay, looks up from her desk at Ashby Dental.

what I see.”

Ashby said dentists provide him with impressions of patients’ jaws and teeth that are made from a putty-like substance at the dental clinic. Accompanying each is a prescription that explains what is being requested, in detail, so the denture or partial comes out correctly with acrylic gums and teeth the right size and color. These have to be carefully formed to fit securely and naturally and to withstand years of wear.

So the work is painstaking, progressing through at least a dozen stages that begin with a good foundation, Ashby said. This starts with the impression. “When all of the anatomical landmarks are there, I have everything I need,” Ashby explained.

He uses the many pieces of equipment in the lab to build partials or whole dentures in stages. “You have got your foundation, and from there you have your framing of it and things like that,” Ashby said.

He never cuts corners.

“You take a shortcut and then it doesn’t work,” he explained. “I do everything the old way, the slow way. That’s a rarity these

days.”

He used to make crowns and bridges but lately has confined his practice to dentures, partials and realignments of existing prostheses — mainly geriatric dentistry.

This is where he can be helpful, and it suits his way of life. “Our plan, of course, is that I am never going to retire.”

Ashby was born and raised in southeast Michigan, in the Ann Arbor area, and he joined the U.S. Air Force in 1973, toward the end of the war in Vietnam. He originally trained as a medic but “cross-trained over to the dental laboratory.” He didn’t serve in Vietnam but was stationed in Europe, including Germany, and was a sergeant when he was discharged in 1979.

From there, he moved to Virginia, where he worked for several clinics, and then he transferred to eastern Tennessee, where he worked for clinics around Oak Ridge. In the early 1980s, he worked for a clinic in Memphis, and then in 1986 opened his own laboratory in nearby Raleigh. Ashby said it was a “good-size lab” with about seven technicians working there. Family ties lured him to resettle in

Eskridge, Mississippi. At that time, he had his own lab in Duck Hill. Ten or 15 years later, he went to work for a clinic that was opening in Cleveland.

He and Kay have been married 20 years, and they have two children and three grandchildren. Their house is on family land, and they are in the process of constructing outbuildings and fencing for what they call a “hobby farm” there. They want to raise chickens, goats and maybe cattle.

A recently retired supervisor for United Parcel Service in Greenwood, Kay now handles some of the office duties at Ashby Dental. Her husband said, “We are a team.”

Terry Ashby said dentists sometimes ask him to see patients at his lab, but it is not open to the public. He happily assists dentists at their clinics, and he considers his abilities and insights useful.

“A lot of times I have to see the patient on an adjustment on a denture or partial. It makes me feel good that I am helping. It is a good career. It is an honorable career. ...

It makes people happy. It makes me happy. I truly enjoy it.” LI

Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated / OV

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unsmith Chris Walker of Carroll County has been immersed in black powder for most of his life.

“I’d say it was about 40 years ago. I was about 4 years old. That was before I started school,” said Walker, 44, a native of Greenwood.

Walker comes from good stock. His father’s uncle, Charles Walker, and a friend, Dave Brady, worked together on building muzzleloaders.

They were making muzzle-loading guns

PM / Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated

back in the mid-1970s and early 1980s.

From observing the two men, Chris Walker was able to learn about the lock work and mechanisms that make muzzleloaders go boom.

Walker made his first hand-built rifle in 1999. “It was an Iron Mountain Tennessee rifle,” which would have been made originally around 1840, he said. It was a cap lock,

which used a percussion cap to ignite the powder charge.

The thing that made it an Iron Mountain rifle, he said, is that all its components — the trigger guard and the butt plate — were made of iron instead of brass.

When asked how many muzzleloaders he’s made over the years, Walker said he wished he had kept a ledger. In all, he has crafted between 250 and 300 rifles and pistols, he said.

At one point, Walker had a website, Southern Flintlocks, but it became too much of a burden for him.

“I was making an old man out of myself quick. When people give you a half down

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Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated / PN

Left: Chris Walker, decked out in frontier garb, gives a demonstration of the meaning of “black powder.” The muzzleloader he is using is similar to the “Kentucky rifles” used by Colonialists against the “Red Coats.”

Right: “Minute woman” Rebecca Walker, 13, displays her very own flintlock rifle. She and her 16-yearold brother, Payton, and their mom, Patricia, each have their own muzzleloaders.

payment, you’ve got an obligation,” he said.

At the height of his business, he was averaging one or two guns per month.

Walker’s average price for a muzzleloader is $2,000.

Now, he focuses primarily on his repeat customers and from “word of mouth” referrals.

Scaling back the business was important, too, for Walker’s primary source of income, Walker’s Lift Service, which Walker has run for the past 24 years.

Before branching out on his own in the forklift repair business, he worked for the Grady W. Jones Co., which had an operation in Greenwood.

When Jones decided to shift its focus back to its home base of Memphis, Walker struck out on his own.

The evolution of the muzzleloading rifle covers a lot of ground between 1780 and 1800, Walker said.

Initially, barrels were smoothbore, and a round lead ball simply rolled toward the target.

Then rifling came along, and that was a game changer.

“The rifling in the barrel started as an accident,” Walker said.

“What it was, they were trying to cut grooves in a smoothbore barrel for the fouling to go (unburned powder residue).

When you shoot a black powder gun, every shot leaves a little residue. They were trying to get a few more shots without having to clean the barrel,” he said.

In the 1600s, a German Jaeger — also known as a Bohemian Jaeger — was developed. The designer, Walker said, noticed that the rifling was

PO / Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated

Here is a sampling of gunmaker Chris Walker's muzzle-loading shooting irons. The Carroll County gunsmith said these largely hand-made pieces typically sell for $2,000 apiece.

twisting inside the barrel, which amounted to more accuracy than other forms of rifling.

“He got to playin’ with it and realized, ‘Hey, when you put a spin on it, it brings the accuracy up,’” Walker said.

“The German immigrants that came over here in the 1730s and 1740s, they brought that style of gun over here with them,” he said.

By the 1750s, the rifling — and ultimately the gun’s accuracy — “was as good as it was ever going to get,” Walker said.

During the Revolutionary War, the British were armed with Brown Bess smoothbore muskets, which left them at a distinct disadvantage against the Colonials armed with “Kentucky rifles.”

Under ideal circumstances, a Patriot could produce aimed fire at the rate of two to three times a minute, Walker said.

He described the smoothbore versus the rifled musket.

“A smoothbore musket that

was good out to 50 or 60 yards, was pretty good,” Walker said.

It would produce a grouping of between 2 and 6 inches on a target, he said.

“With a rifled musket, you could shoot half-inch to 1-inch groups up to 100 or 150 yards.

That’s how much of a difference there was,” Walker said.

Flintlock pistols with rifled barrels were pretty accurate, he said.

“I wouldn’t want an angry man shooting at me and I’d be 20 to 30 yards away. He could hit you,” Walker said.

Walker said most of his customers know exactly what they want. “A lot of them are into Colonial history and Native American history,” he said.

During the Civil War, both sides used rifled muskets, which used Minié ball projectiles, which were conical in shape and far more deadly than the projectiles that preceded them, Walker said.

Although Walker uses cus-

tom-made barrels and lock mechanisms, he spends a lot of time bringing the gun stock to life. He’s’ not afraid to use modern-day tools to accomplish the desired results. “It’s chisels, it’s band saws, it’s grinders, it’s files,” he said. And let’s not forget the blessing to the modern world — electricity.

He also makes powder horns and “loading blocks,” which hold numerous patched, greased balls that are ready to be loaded one right after another.

Walker comes from a family of gunsmiths.

His great-grandfather was G.T. Glover, and his uncle is Havis Glover. The men owned and operated Glover’s gunshop on Carrollton Avenue beginning in 1956. In later years, the store was run by Havis’ son, Randy.

It closed its doors in 2002.

Walker’s mother is Karen Walker, and his father is Larry Walker. He has a single sibling, Jason.

Walker and his wife, Patricia, have two children, Rebecca, 13, and Payton, 16.

Each family member has his or her own muzzleloader.

Perhaps it is a “Minute Family”?

The primitive lifestyle is addictive, Walker said.

“We live it. We camp it.

There’s nothing modern. We try to do everything as authentic as we can,” he said.

“When I do hunt, it is with one of my flintlocks. I like the challenge.”

There’s something to be said about roughing it, Walker said.

“You had to make do with what you had at the time,” he said. LI

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he Rev. Dr. Scott Wright, or Brother Scott, as he is more commonly known, has a passion for bringing joy to those in his community through the use of Christmas decorating.

Wright, the pastor at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Greenwood, and his wife, Denise, whom he describes as his “head elf,” have been going above and beyond when it comes to decorating for the holidays for more than two decades in several cities all over the state of Mississippi.

“I’m not exactly sure of a start date,” Wright began, “because we’ve always done a little decorating. I think it is just something that has grown over the years.”

Within the couple’s 26 years of marriage, Christmas decorating has always been a big deal, but it has expanded significantly within the last decade, Wright said.

“It’s slowly grown over the years, but I’d say it really picked up within the last eight to 10 years or so. It’s picking up more lights here and adding to yard displays there.

“We’ll do one thing one year and say, ‘Oh, that looks good. Let’s add a few more lights to that next year.’ You just get a little braver each year, and then next thing you know you’re messing with some PVC pipe over your driveway.”

The Meridian native has been a United Methodist pastor for almost 25 years. Because of this, the Wrights and their two daughters, Kaelin, a junior at the University of Southern Mississippi, and

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Ali Grace, a junior at Delta State University, have lived all over the state.

The couple’s move to Greenwood began during the summer of 2019, when Wright became pastor at St John’s. With each new parsonage in which the family lives, there is a blank canvas to contemplate as the couple prepare their home for the holidays.

“When we first move into a new home, the first thing we ask each other is, ‘How can we decorate?’” Wright said.

He added, “Each parsonage offers different landscapes. There have been different things we do at each house. For example, this parsonage has a lot of bushes, so we use a lot of the bush lights.”

Wright and his wife acknowledge that putting up such a vast amount of Christmas lighting each year can be trying at times.

“Doing the lights can absolutely test our patience,” he said. “We go through this thing every year where we say we’re going to back things down.”

For the couple, however, it is the joy of the season and the happiness they see in each visitor’s face that encourages them to continue on.

“There’s just something about when the season rolls around that inspires us to do even more,” Wright said. “We love the guests. We’ve actually had families take their Christmas portraits under our lights.

To me, if we didn’t have the guests, there would be no point in doing this at all.”

The couple has so many spools of Christmas lights, it is hard to keep up with the exact number of bulbs.

“A few years ago, we had about 150,000 lights, but we’ve added more since then.

We have honestly lost count,” Wright said.

PQ / Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated

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The family stores its Christmas decorations in a large storage building throughout the year until it is time to slowly prepare for the holiday season.

“We ease into it,” he said. “We’ll put a little up for Halloween on the first of October — orange and purple lights with some inflatables. Then, we’ll do just a little bit in November for Thanksgiving, but we really start decorating for Christmas the first week of November.

“The weekend after Thanksgiving, which is the first Sunday of Advent, we’ll cut everything on, and we leave them up until Epiphany, the first weekend in January,” Wright added.

When explaining why he and his family go to such extremes during the holiday season, Wright’s answer is simple — to be a witness to those around them.

“As Christians, we see Jesus Christ as the light of the world,” he said. “That’s the biggest reason we do this, to spread joy and happiness. But also it is that ‘not-so-in-yourface’ way of witnessing that Jesus is the light of the world. We love to see people stop to admire it. In our minds, that’s just a little way that we can have fun witnessing to others.”

With more than 150,000 Christmas lights, a multitude of holiday inflatables, and handmade devices to create lit pathways, the Wrights’ home brings joy to each town in which they live. They don’t plan to stop anytime soon.

The family encourages visitors this holiday season to see its display on Greenwood’s Lincoln Avenue and hopes it brings a little happiness to everyone this upcoming Christmas season. LI

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Fincher’s has the perfect accent for all of your holiday decorating — Gold Regal Nutcrackers. They stand 26½ inches tall. $49.88 each.

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Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated / 35

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The education of a slave owner’s descendant t

hat kind of ancestor do you want to be?

I’d like to be one who helped to eradicate a trail of sin that has wound itself through generations in my family without many of us knowing it existed.

That’s jçåíÖçãÉêó enslavement.

I learned of it in 1991 and put the information aside as irrelevant, concluding that what my ancestors did or didn’t do had no bearing on how my family thought and acted well over a century afterward.

Later, I changed my mind.

This started perhaps 15 years ago, when a Black friend explained how she and her husband had to warn their teenage sons to be careful if they were ever pulled over by police while driving. The gist was that they should never resist. It’s too dangerous.

With a sick heart, I listened and learned. My own sons weren’t likely to experience race-based encounters with the law.

Also, sometime in the 1990s, another friend who is Black invited me to meet her for lunch to talk about race. She asked how often race was a topic in my family. We surprised each other. My family didn’t discuss racial issues as an everyday part of life, and hers did. We didn’t have as much common ground as we had thought.

I grew up in Memphis, and my parents — my mother in particular — considered themselves progressive about racial issues. My mother was a college administrator who implemented a policy, established in 1968, that required sororities QM / Fall 2020 ibcilob Illustrated

and fraternities to admit members without regard to race.

Those who resisted faced losing their chapter. In 1972, she supported the presidential candidacy of Shirley Chisholm, who was the first Black woman elected to Congress and the first to seek a major party’s nomination for president.

As a young teenager, I voted at our Presbyterian church to accept Black members into the congregation. I attended an Episcopal girls’ school, founded in 1847, that opened its doors in the 1960s to students of all races and ethnicities and now has a multiracial, multicultural student body.

All the same, as an adult, I began to periodically recognize instances of systemic discrimination. These led early this year to asking questions about whether there was a website particularly for people who are descended from slave owners.

I didn’t find one exactly like that, but I heard then about the racial reconciliation site, ïïïKÅçãáåÖíçíÜÉí~ÄäÉKçêÖ, and in the last month or so have visited it a time or two.

First, however, there was a

deed to examine. An uncle found it in family papers 29 years ago and sent it along with a family history. The deed was filed in 1856 in Shelby County, Tennessee, by my great-greatgreat-grandfather. It transferred ownership of an enslaved man and woman to his daughter, my great-great-grandmother.

She and her husband had moved from Bertie County, North Carolina, to Bartlett, Tennessee, traveling by wagon in 1854.

I wanted to know if more people were enslaved by my ancestors. So I wrote one cousin and called another who is a research librarian. The first didn’t know about the deed, and the other said, “I just pulled that out this morning.”

He then began a couple of months of on-and-off research stimulated by questions about who among our Tennessee relatives were slave owners and about participation by our ancestors in the Civil War. The simple answer, based on U.S. Census and Freedmen Bureau records, is that our ancestors had held many people in bondage.

At least one of our ancestors fought with Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest toward the end of the war. We worried that he might have been among Confederate soldiers who killed 200 captive Union soldiers, all Black, at Fort Pillow, which is north of Memphis, in 1864. But the cousin found a record showing that our ancestor’s regiment was 7 miles south in Randolph, Tennessee, at that time. The cousin reported the finding by email to a family group, “Sigh of relief!”

Emails among the family covered a lot of ground, including memories of grandparents and great-grandparents. A pair of cousins, who are brothers and poets, shared some of their verse. My sister replied to one of the poems with, “It grabbed me by the throat!”

She also told me on the phone, “I didn’t know I was privileged.” Compared with the many wealthy families we grew up knowing, we weren’t.

But that’s not quite the kind of privilege at issue. We didn’t realize that our advantages at least partly had come from the labor of those who were oppressed, both before and after the Civil War. The research answered a good many questions, but it didn’t tell us how to respond to the answers. The cousin who is a librarian said he might leave reparations in his will to the United Negro College Fund. I looked all over Memphis for a place to send a small monthly reparation. I finally settled on making one to an organization in Greenwood. I wrote my first check the other day. The money won’t make up for an unsought and previously unacknowledged inheritance. But it’s a start. n pìë~å=jçåíÖçãÉêó=áë=~=êÉÖìJ ä~ê=ÅçåíêáÄìíçê=íç=Leflore IllustratedK LI