V16n43 Brotherhood of Destruction

JAC K S O N VOL 16 NO. 43 // JUNE 27 - JULY 10, 2018 // SUBSCRIBE FREE FOR BREAKING NEWS AT JFPDAILY.COM

FREE PRESS MAGAZINE THE CITY’S SMART NEWS AND CULTURE RESOURCE

A Teacher Mourns

FREE

Coté, p 12

Best of Jackson: Home Improvement pp 20-21

Fireworks on the Fourth Cardon, p 24

CELEBRATING 15 YEARS OF THE JFP

WORLD CLASS. HERE AT HOME. RHODES. FULBRIGHT. TRUMAN. GOLDWATER. COLLEGE FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME.

In the past three years, Millsaps College has claimed all five with two Rhodes Scholars, four Fulbright Scholars, a Truman Scholar, a Goldwater Scholar, and a College Football Hall of Fame inductee.

WHICH ONE WILL YOU EARN?

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

MILLSAPS.EDU

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contents

JACKSONIAN

June 27 - July 10, 2018 Vol. 16 No. 43

ON THE COVER Benny Ivey, photo by Imani Khayyam

4 Editor’s Note 6 Talks

8 City Scrambling for Funds Jackson officials spend more than $74K last-minute.

12 opinion 14 Cover Story

B

elzoni native Dowell Taylor, 64, is once again the director of bands for Jackson State University and an inductee to the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame.

“I actually came out of retirement to reassume my old position,” he says. “I love the institution. I love the people. I love the students. I love seeing them grow and develop into professionals.”

Taylor’s love for music started around 12 years old when his father, Rev. N.C. Taylor, brought a used piano home. From there, he says his love grew with his eighth grade band.

As one of 22 children, he played the tuba in eighth grade at Powell Middle School because his parents couldn’t afford to buy the trumpet he wanted. But it worked out, Taylor says, because his future wife, Vivian Taylor, was also in the eighth-grade band.

Dowell Taylor studied music education and played in the Jackson State marching band, also known as the Sonic Boom. He earned a bachelor’s degree in music education in 1976 and completed his master’s degree in the same subject in 1977.

He then worked as the director of bands at Kentucky State University and took a leave of absence to study at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music. He did not complete his doctorate because he returned to JSU to work.

In 1984, Taylor joined JSU as an assistant professor of music

household

Dowell Taylor and as the director of bands. He retired from the Sonic Boom the first time in 1992, when he started his stint as director of music technology and assistant professor of music.

After a 20-year absence from the band program, he came back in 2012 as the director of bands and assistant professor of music technology. In 2015, he retired again after working at JSU for 30 years. However, his retirement did not last long, as he became director of bands again in 2017.

This time around is slightly different for Taylor. His role has morphed into more of an administrative one.

“I’m sort of the navigator,” Taylor says. “I’m ... guiding the process, budgeting, trip planning, purchasing and giving out job descriptions, assignments, duties, (monitoring and advising half time performances), things of that nature for the entire staff.”

During Dowell Taylor’s induction into the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame on Sept. 28 in Atlanta, he will be inducted alongside former football player Jerry Rice.

“It actually means that all of the hard work and energy and time spent on trying to do the best in your career is being validated, in a sense of speaking,” Taylor says. “It’s not just for me, it’s also for all of the students whose lives I’ve touched. Jackson State University.

It’s for my family. It means a great deal.” —Marie Weidmayer

24 Firecracker Festivities See what’s happening for the Fourth of July.

26 events 26 usaibc

28 Battle of the Bands “Even if you’re not in music as a career, it can be a vehicle for you.”

—Travis Parks, “Arts on the (Drum) Line”

30 sPORTS 31 music listings 32 Puzzles 33 astro 33 Classifieds 34 DIY

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

Delreco Harris

20 Best of jackson

3

publisher’s note

by Todd Stauffer, Publisher

L

et’s jump right to it—we’re announcing exciting changes with this issue.

We’ve been planning for months how we will best serve the reader, how we serve local businesses and help make Jackson the best place we can moving forward.

In print, we are now Jackson Free Press Magazine. Our team has re-imagined and redesigned the publication to be more pleasing to the eye, and to present tons of interesting tidbits of information, longer story-telling features and in-depth listings.

In fact, “feature” is the critical word.

We’ve heard frequently from readers that your favorite JFP articles go in-depth and tell engaging stories, such as Editor-inChief Donna Ladd’s cover story on Benny Ivey and other men working to overcome crime and addiction. For news-focused articles, that means looking for both the causes and solutions for problems facing the city and state. For arts and culture, that means focusing more on the people behind those stories, including “why” and “how.”

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

Read a story you can’t put down.

4

We’ve also heard it can be tough to get through an issue of the JFP in one week, especially those dense with rich content.

We’ve been thinking for a while about how best to position the print publication and website to serve our readers and advertisers.

Step one: This magazine will be published every two weeks, not weekly. Our focus in print will be narrative feature pieces—built around stories about real people—on both news-related and cultural topics. Breaking news and most opinion will move exclusively to the online Jackson Free Press, where real-time content and commentary are best consumed and discussed. Ultimately, our goal is to put out a publication that makes you want to turn your phone over, lean back in a good chair, and read a story you can’t put down.

Step two: We’re redesigning Jackson Free Press online. The new design will be mobile-first, and will give us an opportunity to present very appealing layouts and photography in story packages. We’re moving our entire 15+ year archive of stories (not a simple task) while taking advantage of the new system to present stories in dif-

ferent, exciting ways. We hope to launch that new site in July, at which point we hope you’ll bookmark it, and return over and over again! (Oh, and, yes, our team is using words “podcast” and “more video” frequently as well, so keep an eye out.)

I won’t pretend market forces don’t influence these changes—paper prices have risen dramatically this year (I’ll leave the “tariff talk” for online) while, at the same time, digital advertising options have exploded. By making this move now, we feel we can offer extraordinary benefit to our readers and the advertisers who want to reach our engaged readers through a mix of print and online marketing opportunities.

Nielsen Scarborough reports that the Jackson Free Press has more than 97,000 cumulative (“unique”) readers of our print product; in May 2018, we had more than 105,000 unique visitors to our website. So, finding ways for advertisers to reach our audience in both mediums—affordably and targeted—is helping shape our strategy.

Meanwhile, JFP Digital Services (jfpdigitalservices.com) has grown by more than 300 percent in the past 18 months.

It offers web design, content, social-media and e-mail marketing, logo design, print collateral and more for local businesses and organizations. We’re particularly good at working with local service firms who need to convert web visitors into paying clients. If you want your website to generate leads and appointments for you, give us a call. (Or if you need to be a better “publisher” on the web and in social channels, that’s our bread and butter. Reach me at 601-362-6121 ext.

17 or todd@jacksonfreepress.com.)

JFP Digital has now added programmatic and retargeting advertising services, along with search-engine marketing. If you’d like a local resource for digital adver-

Imani Khayyam

Times They Are a Changin’ at the JFP

JFP Magazine will focus on great storytelling, such as Donna Ladd’s long-form story this issue about former gangster Benny Ivey, who toured her through South Jackson and Rankin County to explain his history of house burglaries, addiction, dealing meth and leading a white gang. See page 14.

tising advice—someone knowledgeable to meet with you regularly and work with you to meet your goals—call or write!

Now, let me talk about who has led these changes. We recently said goodbye to Arielle Dreher, with us for three years as our state reporter. Arielle did a fantastic job with award-winning reporting and dogged, shoeleather, document-scouring investigations.

She brought a fantastic attitude to the office every day and was a delight and inspiration for her co-workers and managers. And she helped envision these new products. Watch for an exciting new state reporter to arrive in August to pick up where she left off.

Ko Bragg, our city reporter since just last fall, first received a Bringing Home the

contributors

Donna Ladd

Ko Bragg

Delreco Harris

JFP Editor-in-Chief, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Donna Ladd is a graduate of Mississippi State and Columbia j-school. She has followed Benny Ivey around for months for both the JFP and The Guardian.

Read her latest starting on p. 14.

City Reporter Ko Bragg is a Philadelphia, Miss., transplant who recently completed her master’s in journalism. She loves traveling and has been to 25 countries to date. She wrote about Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith for Talk of JXN.

Freelance photographer Delreco Harris is a professional photographer, singer, songwriter and artist based out of Brandon. He owns RaR Productions, LLC, a one stop shop for multiple creative solutions. He took many photos for the issue.

World fellowship from the International Center for Journalists, which is sending her to Liberia for two weeks in July to report for the JFP. She then learned that she is a Reveal investigative fellow, with a hefty stipend to do in-depth reporting for us on juveniles tried as adults. And no city coverage we’ve done or seen rivals her work to date.

The news team—Arielle, Ko and Donna—won multiple awards this spring including Best in Division (and the most in the state) from the southeastern Society of Professional Journalists.

Kristin Brenemen, Zilpha Young, Amber Helsel, Micah Smith and Dustin Cardon played huge roles in the print and website redesigns; Meghan Garner is juggling digital services and sales tasks, and new client website design and launches.

We have three amazing in-house interns this summer: Marie Weidmayer (news), Kristina Domitrovich (editing) and Z’eani Furge (video) for online and print.

Kimberly Griffin, associate publisher, has collaborated with advertisers about the changes. And Cassandra Acker supports the team through office management, sales assistance, and our distribution team rocks.

We’re excited to roll into the second half of 2018 with this new look, new focus and a determination to continue producing fantastic solutions journalism and culture coverage with the goal of improving the lives of Jackson-area residents. Thanks for being such a critical part of it!

Visit Jackson

SALUTES

The 2018 Hometown Hero & SUMITT Winners HOMETOWN HEROES

Wednesday, July 11 11:00am 5:00pm 6:00pm 7:00pm 10:15pm

Gates Open Choctaw Social Dancing at Main Stage Opening Ceremonies at Main Stage Choctaw Indian Princess Pageant World Series Stickball

Thursday, July 12 11:00am 5:00pm 6:00pm 7:00pm 8:30pm 10:15pm

Gates Open Choctaw Social Dancing at Main Stage Choctaw Social Dancing at Main Stage Cody Jinks in Concert Jamey Johnson in Concert World Series Stickball

Friday, July 13 10:00am 5-8pm 8:30pm 10:15pm

Gates Open Choctaw Social Dancing at Main Stage Dustin Lynch in Concert World Series Stickball

Saturday, July 14 7:00am 10:00am 5:00pm 6:00pm 7:00pm 8:30pm 10:15pm

REZ RUN 2018 Gates Open Choctaw Social Dancing at Main Stage Closing Ceremonies at Main Stage Choctaw Social Dancing at Main Stage Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in Concert World Series Stickball Championship

TICKETS: Adult Season:

$20

Adult Day:

$12

Student Season:

$10

Student Day:

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Ages 5 and Under:

Free

See Iron Warriors in Competition Thursday-Saturday!

For More Information:

Pre-fair tickets on sale at

601.650.7450

Pearl River Resort Welcome Center,

www.ChoctawIndianFair.com

Monday, June 4, 2018.

This is a family, non-alcoholic event.

Special Appearances: THURSDAY-SATURDAY: Scales, Tails & Teeth Gator Show Birds and Exotics of the World Show Living Traditions Dance Troupe

For More Information on REZ RUN: 601.650.1765

www.racesonline.com

TRAVEL & TOURISM INDUSTRY: David Lewis Greater Jackson Arts Council Dan Blumenthal Mangia Bene, Inc. Restaurant Management Group Jeanne Luckett The Eudora Welty Foundation Chris Goodwin MS Department of Archives and History John Spann MS Department of Archives and History Ruby Lindsey Hampton Inn & Suites Amber Williams Hilton Jackson Becky Baumel The Westin Jackson Mike Burton The Westin Jackson Kimberly Farmer Jackson Municipal Airport Authority Daniel Dillon F. Jones Corner Minnie White Watson Medgar Evers Home/Tougaloo College Andrea Patterson MS Sports Hall of Fame

Valerie Taylor MS Department of Education/ Education Rising Annual State Conference Obadiah Jenkins Church of Christ Holiness (USA) FESTIVAL/EVENT ORGANIZERS

Mississippi Book Festival Mistletoe Marketplace Chinese Spring Festival The Mercantile SHINING EXAMPLES Cade Chapel M.B. Church City of Jackson Public Works Department

Rita Brent

TOURISM VISIONARY AWARD Highland Village Pam Confer

SUMITT AWARD

Attraction of The Year Mississippi Civil Rights Museum Festival/Event of The Year Hal’s St. Paddy’s Parade MEETING PLANNERS & And Festival GROUP TOUR PLANNERS Mitzi Dease Paige Friend of Tourism Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Jeff Good, Mangia Bene, Inc. State Cluster Restaurant Management Group Julius Jordan The Original General Grand Masonic Full-Service Hotel of The Year Congress of Grand Master The Westin Jackson Floressa Janelle Jefferson Limited-Service Hotel National Academic Advising Association of The Year Robert Lock Residence Inn By Marriott Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., Jackson / The District Southwestern Province At Eastover Cynthia Davis Order of the Easter Star/ Restaurant of The Year Maurice F. Lucus Grand Session The Manship Betty Nichols Wood Fired Kitchen Cantonian Weekend Sarah Link MS Optometric Association Marcine Freeman MS Educational Computing Association Stephanie Spangler MS Association of Supervisors MS Winter Legislative Conference

1-800-354-7695 www.visitjackson.com

City with excitement. City with hospitality. City with Soul.

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

®

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news,

storytelling & re, ir tu

cu l

TALK JXN

“I’ve never seen a city with an airport not generating any revenue from the airport.”

@jxnfreepress

@jacksonfreepress

— Michelle L. Thomas, City of Jackson financial consultant

@jxnfreepress

ce eren rev

DA Smith on Police Shootings, Being a Victim

by Ko Bragg

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

6

‘The Families Deserve Answers’

DA Smith spoke in a cool and col-

Imani Khayyam / File Photo

F

or the better part of last week’s officeridentification task-force meeting at the Jackson Municipal Art Gallery, some of the members didn’t know they had a prominent guest.

In its sixth meeting since April without any recommendation, the group carried on its usual banter and monologues about policing, which some members would agree are getting a bit repetitive. It wasn’t until the task force’s co-chair, attorney CJ Lawrence, mentioned that he wanted to ask the district attorney how many officers his office has indicted that everyone realized that Robert Shuler Smith was in the room.

“Is he here?” Paul Hobson, a Jackson Police Department detective, asked as he looked around the room.

The Hinds County district attorney sat quietly at the end of an L-shaped meeting table inside the City’s art gallery—a former stately home tucked behind tall trees and flora that line the garden entryway. Smith sipped from a 20-ounce plastic bottle of Coca-Cola and plucked potato chips carefully without rustling the bag.

After his snack, he scribbled notes randomly with a No. 2 yellow pencil.

Jackson’s officer-ID task force invited the district attorney of Mississippi’s largest county to speak to them about how officerinvolved shootings go through the local criminal-justice system.

Smith’s public appearances in the last two years have mainly been in circuit courts as he battled charges that range from hindering prosecution to domestic violence.

His Rankin County domestic-violence trial will resume in the fall, after nearly a year of court-ordered delay.

At the June 18 meeting, however, Smith spoke about laws he enforces instead of laws he had been accused of violating.

The DA demonstrated that he, in theory, supports progressive measures and national trends on transparency around officer-involved shootings, but, to date, he has not wielded his power as district attorney to make them a reality in Hinds County.

On June 18, 2018, Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith spoke to Jackson’s officer-ID task force about how officer-involved shooting cases go through the system. He is pictured here during one of his trials.

lected manner as he divulged as much information as he could about the grand-jury system and even spoke vaguely about cases currently under investigation in his office.

Smith said he did not recall an officer in Hinds County ever being indicted for an officer-involved shooting in his ten-year tenure as district attorney. In April, at least four JPD officers were “no-billed” in three deadly officer-involved shootings spanning from November to February, meaning that those cases will not go to trial unless the

district attorney’s office decides to investigate further.

Before a grand jury convenes, the district attorney’s office receives a case file.

Smith said the first thing he and his attorneys do is look at the investigating agency and determine whether or not there has been a thorough investigation.

“We prefer for an outside agency besides JPD to investigate these cases,” the district attorney said. “We have a few cases that we’re reviewing at this time because

the families deserve answers.”

Smith spoke of one current case in which his office realized that no one had interviewed a number of witnesses to an officer-involved shooting. He said that case would have to go back to the grand jury because families often hire private attorneys who can gather evidence before the district attorney’s office gets to it, posing a problem if they do not cover all the bases in the investigative process.

“But (the investigation) certainly has to be very thorough because, again, we’ve seen some surprise press conferences where the families are standing outside and complaining, and that’s something that we need to address before it continues,” Smith said.

Notably, Baltimore-based attorney Jason Downs and the family of 21-yearold Crystalline Barnes held an impromptu press conference on the lawn outside Jackson City Hall in May to reveal that Downs’ investigation had found details inconsistent with JPD’s internal investigation into the traffic stop that resulted in two officers fatally shooting Barnes.

Downs also released the names of JPD Officers Rakasha Adams and Albert Taylor, believed to have killed Barnes. Their names are on the April no-bill list, with Adams appearing a second time for a separate deadly on-the-job-shooting in November 2017. more DA SMITH p7

Why Local Biz Matters by Amber Helsel When you spend $100 at a local business, roughly $68 stays in the community.

Mississippi’s 2018 profile from the U.S. Small Business Administration shows that 99.3 percent of the state’s businesses are small.

The state has 74,801 minority-owned businesses.

In 2012, 36 percent of businesses were womenowned.

Companies with fewer than 100 employees make up the largest share of small-business employment.

Graphic: Medical symbol In 2015, health care and social assistance made up 39.9 percent of smallbusiness employment.

FONDREN The local businessman everyone loves or loves to fuss about after he kicks up a fuss, Ron Chane, and his lovely wife, Katie Jo, have a new son. His name feels very Chane around the office: SEVEN FINN CHANE 7 pounds 7 ounces 7 minutes in delivery 7th day of the week going home

GOVERNOR’S MANSION “Families Belong Together” Rally will take place outside of the Governor’s Mansion at 11 a.m. on June 30 with the help of Indivisible Jackson, Organizing for Action Mississippi, and the Mississippi Chapter of Pantsuit Nation. We don’t expect the guv to be in.

GEORGETOWN xxxxx

CITY HALL The place where the city council convened for four, FOUR consecutive days last week as members squabbled over the budget, hiring contractors to fix sewage and water issues, and finding money for events and summer programs they committed to weeks ago. Read more at jfp.ms/cityhall JACKSON CONVENTION CENTER COMPLEX The City’s Planning and Development department will host D3: Downtown Design Dialogue at the convention center on Saturday, June 30, from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. to engage the public for ideas about how to develop the roughly 7 acres of downtown property.

A DA’s Immense Powers Downs ultimately filed a petition against the City of Jackson to divulge information in Barnes’, case, putting the onus on city officials and police chiefs to be transparent, as is the national trend.

District attorneys have immense powers to change and reform the criminal-justice system. At the meeting, Smith was under the impression that the purpose of the task force was to decide policy that would make everyone at the table, including him, comfortable, and he seemed willing to go along with whatever the end recommendations shall be.

“If there’s going to be a policy, then there’s going to be a policy.

If you all agree that it’s going to be 72 hours, then it’s 72 hours,” Smith said, noncommittally.

To have Smith’s support in releasing names should Jackson follow the lead of many other U.S. cities would be the Crisco that

eased the system along. But, he has the legal power to do much more than that, like progressive district attorneys nationwide.

Larry Krasner, the district attorney in Philadelphia, Pa., since November 2017, spent three decades suing police for civil-rights violations more than 75 times before be became the district attorney. He wanted to fix the system from the outside.

“I have—like a lot of civil-rights lawyers, like a lot of activists—been beating my head against the wall of the DA’s office and the (Philadelphia) police department for a long time because the DA’s office in Philly was not enforcing the law against police.

Somebody had to do it,” he told Business Insider.

Philadelphia is a distinctive place for a progressive district attorney, because he has the power to make a huge difference in a city with a staggering incarceration rate and the highest povermore DA SMITH p8 ty rate for a big city in the U.S.

“I’m not trying to have an argumentative tone, Dr. Omari.”

— Ward 4 Councilman De’Keither Stamps, p 8

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

DA SMITH

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TALK JXN

DA Smith

The DOJ’s assessment of deadly force in the Philadelphia Police Department led to the best-practices recommendation to release names in 72 hours following an officer-involved shooting.

Krasner didn’t just run on rhetoric, either. Earlier this month, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Krasner’s office “asked the city’s Police Department for nearly a decade’s accounting of serious violations by its officers so it can compile a comprehensive roster of those who have lied while on duty, used excessive force, racially profiled, or violated civil rights.”

The goal is to have more transparency around officers who appear as witnesses, although Krasner has not yet decided if the list would become public.

Transformation is happening in the South too. Kim Ogg, the district attorney of Harris County, Texas—which includes Houston—decriminalized small possessions of marijuana, which diverted 576 people from jail in the first six weeks following her decision and saved the county more than $1.5 million, she told the Texas Observer. She diverts them to drug-education programs instead.

Aramis Ayala, the state’s attorney in a district near Orlando, Fla., and the first black state attorney in Florida history, de-

cided not to use the death penalty in her district, despite pressure to implement it in high-profile cases or police killings.

These district and state’s attorneys are among a growing class of reformers using their power as the highest prosecutors in their respective areas to enact change.

Many of them unseated longstanding conservative attorneys, including one in the state of Mississippi. Scott Colom, the district attorney in the 16th district that

do. He sought messaging that would stick.

“What really, really resonates with people is when you say, ‘We’re sending too many young people to jail.’ A lot of people agree with that statement. They don’t have to understand what the district attorney does,” Colom said.

Smith the ‘Victim’

DA Smith left the task-force meeting to take a call after his cell phone chimed to

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. includes Noxubee, Clay, Oktibbeha and Lowndes Counties, defeated Forrest Allgood who had held the position since 1989.

The Washington Post coined Allgood as “one of America’s worst prosecutors.”

Colom ran on the platform that tough-on-crime policies, such as Allgood’s, don’t work. In 2015 he told Slate that district attorneys should exercise more discretion when it comes to non-violent drug offenders and young people in the system.

During Colom’s campaign for district attorney, he tried to inform people of the role’s powers, and was “shocked” to find how few people know what DAs actually

the Firefly ringtone on AT&T phones— watch any of the company’s commercials, and you’d be familiar with the sound.

An hour into questions from journalists and task-force members, Smith posed a question himself—he wanted to know what Adofo Minka, a criminal-defense attorney who often attends the meetings and writes occasional opinion columns for the Jackson Free Press, thought about the policy of releasing names within 72 hours.

Minka believes the names should be released immediately and that police officers should get the same treatment as any other citizen who discharges a weapon.

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander is my position,” Minka said.

While Smith has not proved to be a progressive leader in his role as district attorney, he knows what it is like to be on the other side of a grand jury indictment and to have a mugshot publicly circulated like many arrestees in the Jackson metro area.

Ironically, however, Smith’s defense in cases where the State of Mississippi accused him of tampering with prosecutions was that he was trying to protect an innocent man. But Smith did not go through an obviously legal procedure to help Christopher Butler, later convicted of wire fraud and drug trafficking in separate cases.

Instead, Smith shouted at judges and claimed the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics tampered with video surveillance that his office never fully reviewed. A second jury believed Smith, after his first trial ended with a hung jury.

Smith continued to listen as Minka detailed his issues with grand juries.

“These are institutions of secrecy and deception sometimes, so we hold these institutions up like they’re some kind of holy grail, but if we look at them from a historical standpoint, they have degraded people…,” Minka said.

“I’ve been a victim of that,” the Hinds County district attorney replied.

Email reporter Ko Bragg at ko@jacksonfreepress.com. Read more at jfp.ms/DAFiles.

Last-Hour Jobs for Youth?

by Marie Weidmayer

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

imani khayyam

8

Mayor’s Youth Initiative Summer Youth Employment Program is coming from unspent Department of Public Works salaries. And it has caused not a small amount of tension in city hall.

T

ensions ran high at the third Jackson City Council meeting in a week during discussions about funding for the Mayor’s Youth Initiative Summer Youth Employment Program that is supposed to train young people age 16 to 24 to code and develop apps.

The City’s last-hour request of funding for the program, though, became another example of the mayoral administration’s tendency to wait until the last minute to request actions and funding from the branch of government tasked with clearing expenditures.

Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba’s program started June 25, three weeks later than originally scheduled.

Announced on May 22, the mayor said funding would come from extra money in the city’s budget.

But, they were unable to find extra money in the Human and Cultural Services budget as planned, Chief of Staff Safiya Omari told the JFP on June 21.

“We thought we were going to be able to find the money by doing some revisions within Human and Cultural Services budget,” Omari said. “So that it wouldn’t have had to come before council. But when we couldn’t find the funds there.” more youth jobs p9

MOST VIRAL STORIES AT

“If there’s going to be a policy, then there’s going to be a policy.

If you all agree that it’s going to be 72 hours, then it’s 72 hours”

JFP.MS: 1. “Learning the Restaurant Ropes” by

— District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith equivocating on IDing JPD officers who shoot people.

Alexis Carter 2. “City’s Financial Consultant, Mi-

YOUTH JOBS Less than a week before the delayed start date, the mayor’s office requested $124,000 to fund the program at a June 20 meeting. Councilmember Ashby Foote questioned why the request for funding came up for the first time during an emergency meeting held to find money to fix collapsed sewer pipes.

The council did not vote on the funding at that meeting.

Instead, it picked it up again at the June 21 meeting. This time, the mayor’s office requested $74,924— which the council granted. “It changed because we wanted to not go into fund balance any more than we have to,” Omari told the JFP. The initiative employs 80 people, 16

to 24 years old, to work 20 hours a week at minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour, for six weeks. Apple gave the City the coding curriculum for free, the City said at a press conference.

Flaring Tempers Funding for the youth employment program comes from unspent salaries in the Department of Public Works instead of the unrestricted fund balance, also known as the rainy-day fund, Omari said.

“We’re putting money into that, we also have departments where we have critical issues where we don’t have the manpower, like Public Works,” Ward 1 Councilman Ashby Foote said. “Where they don’t have the manpower to fill potholes and other things like that.”

Tempers flared between Ward 4 Councilman De’Keither Stamps and Omari during the meeting when he questioned her about details.

“There is an ongoing program within the city to fund summer youth. Youth

employment was not budgeted, but the staff members for that were funded,” Omari said. “What this is requesting is a budget revision so we can fund hiring the students. The administration has the authority to fund programs that it wants to run within the confines of what approval comes from council.”

“I’m not trying to have an argumentative tone, Dr. Omari,” Stamps said.

“I think so,” Omari responded.

Foote was the only one to vote against funding the program. Councilmen Kenneth Stokes, Ward 1; Stamps; Charles Tillman, Ward 5; and Aaron Banks, Ward 6, voted for the funding.

Melvin Priester Jr. of Ward 2, and Virgi Lindsay, Ward 7, were not present.

‘I Think It’s Only Fair’ The council also voted to spend $31,000 from the unrestricted fund balance at the June 21 meeting. The Jackson Music Awards, on July 30, is more YOUTH JOBS p10

chelle Thomas, Hints at Plans for Jackson” by Ko Bragg 3. “OPINION: Don’t Yuck My Yum”

by Lauren Rhoades 4. “Run-off Blues: Inside the Playoff to Challenge Roger Wicker” by Arielle Dreher 5. “Public Works Eyeing Private Contractors” by Ko Bragg MOST VIRAL EVENTS AT JFPEVENTS.COM: 1. Civil Rights & Social Justice: Voices of the Young People, June 28 2. The Arts Mean Business, June 28 3. 2018 Celebrate America Balloon Glow, June 29 4. Mississippi Championship Hot Air Balloon Fest, June 28-30 5. Jackson: Soul of the City, June 30

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

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YOUTH JOBS

receiving $10,000, the Mississippi Baptist State Convention, July 16 to 20, $6,000, and $15,000 is going to the annual Farish Street Heritage Festival, on Sept. 28 and 29.

The mayor said at the June 20 meeting, the city could face legal action for not funding what they promised.

The $15,000 for the festival is in addition to $75,000 coming from Visit Jackson—which is funded by a 1 percent tax on restaurant and hotel sales.

The Farish festival wanted the $15,000 because the money from Visit Jackson requires an enhanced festival, including a larger stage and gospel concert. Without the city’s money, the enhancement is not possible, Constituent Services Manager Keyshia Sanders said.

The council tried to fund the Farish festival at the May 22 meeting, but it didn’t use the correct procedures and disbursement was not possible. The June 21 meeting rectified the mistake.

Before then-Director of Department of Finance and Administration Charles Hatcher left his position, he warned against frivolous spending of the fund balance, as it could make it harder to avoid raising taxes or to respond to an emergency.

“When you look at how much we’re going to need to spend, and how much (we’re) going to make in the next six years, that fund balance is going to evaporate in the next three years,” Hatcher said in a previous interview. “[W]e need a strategy for building it up. It undermines that effort when we pick away at it See jfp.ms/city for daily reporting on the City of Jackson and the mayor’s office.

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Olivia cotÉ

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

aleb Kinnard was quiet in my classroom. He sat on the row closest to the door, about halfway down the row of desks. He was often bored, along with some of his classmates, in the 90 minutes he spent in my class.

It was my first year of teaching, and I had been taught (whether explicitly or implicitly) to value a quiet and “orderly” class over a class that was a little bit louder and less orderly but full of the best instruction for my students. Teachers who could keep a class of ninth-graders “well-managed” were looked to in the highest esteem.

Caleb was too good for class in my first year of teaching. All of my kids were.

Some just learned to be more complicit and accepting than others, particularly those with whom I had close relationships. It was unfortunate that I didn’t have that type of relationship with Caleb.

It wasn’t until after he left my class that I built a relationship with him and learned what a truly intelligent, thoughtful and kind young man he was. We had open and honest conversations about my class and what could have been better for him.

I think of Caleb and the many other young men like him now as I plan my lessons, trying desperately to reach the lives of kids in a system that was not made for them, a system that doesn’t care whether or not they thrive or even survive.

On Monday, June 25, 2018, Caleb died from a gunshot wound to the head.

He was 19. He graduated only a few weeks before someone took his life from him. I taught him, his cousins, his closest friends.

He was one of my kids. The endless amount of heartbreak circulating in my social circle and in the lives of my kids is palpable.

I am devastated for Caleb, for his family, for his friends. But, mostly, I am devastated at the likelihood that Caleb will become just another story of “the dangers of living in Jackson.” He will probably become just another number in the gunviolence count that circulates widely, a number that those in power often use to further perpetuate systems of oppression that harm the youth of Jackson, systems that were not made for kids like him.

You see, the national and even statewide conversation around gun violence and youth circulates around white students in suburban settings. Only when well-to-do white children die at the hands of gun violence do we feel the need to make a change or do something. And yes, it is absolutely important that we treat these 12 stories seriously and take a hard look at how

Courtesy Olivia Coté

C

Fighting a System That Was Not Made for Them

Editor-in-Chief and CEO Donna Ladd Publisher & President Todd Stauffer Associate Publisher Kimberly Griffin Art Director Kristin Brenemen Managing Editor Amber Helsel EDITORIAL City Reporter Ko Bragg JFP Daily Editor Dustin Cardon Music Editor Micah Smith News Intern Marie Weidmayer Editing Intern Kristina Domitrovich Writers Alexis Carter, Brynn Corbello, Richard Coupe, Bryan Flynn,Wenna Gibson, Mike McDonald, Greg Pigott, Abigail Walker, Logan Williamson Consulting Editor JoAnne Prichard Morris ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY Advertising Designer Zilpha Young Freelance Photographers Delreco Harris, Imani Khayyam Video Intern Z’eani Furdge

(Left to right) Caleb Kinnard, 19, took a photo with classmate Akeem Knight and teacher Olivia Coté at his Murrah High School graduation only a few weeks before suffering a fatal gunshot wound.

gun violence is affecting all of the youth of our nation; however, where have all the stories of young black lives taken been for all these years? Where are the stories that advocate for community supports to end gun violence in cities like Jackson?

Yes, there are plenty of people in Jackson and in communities like ours all around the nation fighting for equity and safety for our kids, but our voices are never heard as loudly as those fighting for the lives of the privileged.

There is no time to waste.

People use crime rates in communities like Jackson as reason for not supporting the city, its governing force, its people or its schools. The numbers are often chalked up to a “natural inclination” toward violence in certain communities, whereas they are looked at as devastating, isolated incidents in privileged communities.

These numbers show systematic problems created by a society that doesn’t value our community or communities like ours.

But we live in a country that refuses to see that. It refuses to see the egregious income gap and racist structures that affect majority black communities. These instances of institutional racism often lead to poorer educational opportunities, community

welfare and overall community stability, which so often leads to the instances of gun violence we see in our communities.

Until we all address the need for equity in all our communities, we will continue to lose kids like Caleb, kids whose potential for a bright future is immeasurable. Kids whose lives matter despite often getting lost in a statistic read-off on the news or printed in a newspaper.

As Caleb’s former teacher with hundreds of kids across the city of Jackson, my lifelong home and my community, I can only ask you to do a few things. Please ask yourself, when you are talking about these numbers and Jackson’s crime rate, are you truly recognizing the humanity of the people involved? Are you being productively critical in supporting our community and serving to humanize our kids whose lives are lost, or are you simply criticizing and further perpetuating the ideas of the inhumanity of our kids?

Ask yourself what you are doing to help. If the answer is nothing, fix it today.

Support those who are out in the community trying to make genuine change. Listen and learn from the people whom these situations most affect. There is no time to waste. Caleb’s life mattered. We must make sure that it continues to matter every day.

Olivia Coté has taught ninth-grade English for the past four years at her alma mater, Murrah High School.

This column does not necessarily reflect the views of the JFP.

ADVERTISING SALES Digital Marketing Specialist Meghan Garner Sales Assistant Cassandra Acker BUSINESS AND OPERATIONS Distribution Coordinator David Morgan Distribution Damien Fairconetue, Eddie Williams, Humberto Sanabria, Ruby Parks ONLINE Web Editor Dustin Cardon Web Designer Montroe Headd CONTACT US: Letters letters@jacksonfreepress.com Editorial editor@jacksonfreepress.com Queries submissions@jacksonfreepress.com Listings events@jacksonfreepress.com Advertising ads@jacksonfreepress.com Publisher todd@jacksonfreepress.com News tips news@jacksonfreepress.com Fashion style@jacksonfreepress.com Jackson Free Press 125 South Congress Street, Suite 1324 Jackson, Mississippi 39201 Editorial (601) 362-6121 Sales (601) 362-6121 Fax (601) 510-9019 Daily updates at jacksonfreepress.com

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13

Imani Khayyam

Benny Ivey gets up as early as 4 a.m. to work out in his garage on “Ivey Hill” in Rankin County. He never thought he would have a home, much less a garage.

“W

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

henever we yell, y’all come running!”

Benny Ivey’s father Glenn had just told him and his brother Danny to hide on the side of their small shack at the bottom of Marsalis Lane in South Jackson.

Benny was 15, and Danny was 16 that night in 1991 as they crouched down, getting ready to ambush a crack dealer who was about to show up any minute. Glenn handed Benny a stick from an oak tree in the yard and Danny a baseball bat.

Marsalis Lane is narrow and hidden on the north side of Raymond Road, 14

a main thoroughfare through a thenbooming middle-class neighborhood of Mississippi’s capital city. You can miss the tiny lane if you don’t know it’s there, sandwiched like an alley between two busier residential streets.

When you turn on the one-lane strip of pavement, you immediately drop down a roller-coaster hill with heavy brush and trees on either side. It can look shaded and depressing even on sunny days, a hermetic little world just hundreds of yards from heavy east-west traffic.

The geographically large, diffused and economically devastated city has many

such ignored grassy pockets that can attract crime, debauchery, piles of garbage, and abandoned cars and lives.

The men in the white family, all long addicted to various substances as their parents had been, had graduated to crack by the 1990s as the drug was destroying the lives of various races all around them. Patsy, the woman Benny considered his mother although she was his biological aunt, had also moved to crack from her addiction to Dilaudid and other powerful opioids.

The family needed more of the seductive “candy,” but didn’t have the money to buy it just then. Benny’s father worked as a

carpenter for $20 an hour, but it all went to support their habits and ran out fast.

So they cooked up a scheme to get a black woman crack dealer Glenn knew to bring them some rocks, and they would rob her and take all the product she had on her.

As the boys waited excitedly with their sticks, they could see headlights creeping down the hill toward the shack at the bottom, where the open porch was their bedroom. They could see the girl, but she was in the passenger seat. The dealer she worked for was driving. He was also black.

The duo pulled up in front of the house, and the plan unfolded. Dan-

‘Boy, How Old Are You?’

Benny Ivey’s older buddy, Chris Dennington, picked him up in his primer-black 1969 Nova one day in 1991, and they soon were speeding around the Jackson metro, drinking beer and joyriding.

Dennington had bought the car for $300. It didn’t have any carpet, but it had “plugs” in the floorboard that opened to the street below. They liked to throw their trash out through the holes.

Both blond Wingfield High School

and Dennington had met as cellmates in the Hinds County Juvenile Detention Center, then on Silas Brown Street in downtown Jackson, where they both went after being busted for house burglary.

In the lonely facility, the teenagers liked to sing songs from Boyz II Men to Skid Row, and they would watch “DuckTales” and other cartoons. When there was trouble, they were locked down in the cell for 23-hour days.

Both stayed in detention several Imani Khayyam

Pearl native Randy Adams (above) was almost sent away for 30 years for dealing meth, but rehab saved him. He then did the same thing for Benny Ivey and other addicts.

“Oh, man, I’m going back to training school,” Ivey cried out when he saw the flashing lights behind them.

“Naw, you’re not,” Dennington said, punching the gas. The speedometer lurched toward 100 as the police chased them south through Richland. Along the way, the young men stuffed the weed and the guns through the plugs in the floor.

Soon, Dennington slammed on his brakes to take a hard left onto Star Road, and the cops flew past them. They turned on another road to get away, but suddenly, it was “lit up like Christmas up ahead” with a roadblock, to use Ivey’s words.

The cops came up with guns drawn, snatched the duo out of the car and threw them face-down on the ground. One of the officers kick-stomped Ivey in the back of the head, busting his chin open, while another hit Dennington in the back of the head with the butt of a shotgun, he says.

The cops then picked the teenagers up and slammed them on the Nova to cuff them.

Another officer ran up. “Hold on, stop! Boy, how old are you?” he asked Ivey.

“15.”

“Put him in the car and take him to the precinct,” the officer ordered the cop who had kicked Ivey.

An ambulance was waiting at the police station, and a paramedic cleaned up their wounds and the blood. In the meantime, they could hear cops on the radio: “We found a gun.”

The cop said it had bounced from under the car and busted out a headlight on his squad car. They’d also found a piece of the second handgun but couldn’t lift fingerprints off the gun parts.

They arrested Dennington for multiple charges. They didn’t charge Ivey, perhaps because of the boot to the back of the head to a minor, instead taking him back to South Jackson and dropping him

I was selling to support my habit. — Randy Adams dropouts—Dennington had just turned 18, and Ivey was still 15—had pistols on them from previous house burglaries on the Jackson metro’s “Southside,” which for young white criminals spanned from South Jackson, where many then grew up, east into suburban Rankin County, where many eventually moved as demographics shifted. Poorer families like Ivey’s moved back and forth across the county line chasing the next place they could afford after an eviction or a new place to hide out.

The teenagers had left the Ross Barnett Reservoir before they headed down Highway 49 South, with Ivey popping open beers for them along the way. He

months before Ivey was sent to the Oakley training school, a rough facility for minors in Raymond that was formerly known as the Negro Juvenile Reformatory and the Black Juvenile Reformatory School before it became a still-abusive facility for teen boys of all races by the time he was there.

When the joyride down Highway 49 started that day, Benny was supposed to be back at Oakley after visiting his mom, but he decided to go AWOL instead.

When Ivey and Dennington stopped at a red light in front of a Richland Conoco, police suddenly flashed blue lights on them.

They had marijuana in the Nova, as well as their guns and a case of beer.

off at the same apartment in Choctaw Village where he had recently done meth—and liked it—for the first time with Dennington. They did alert the Jackson police, however, and they picked Ivey up the next morning and took him back to training school.

“That was the start of it,” Dennington said at his brother’s home in Fondren in early May 2018, just two weeks after he left his last bid at the maximum-security Wilkinson County Correctional Center.

Over the 27 years since the Rankin joyride, Dennington has spent 24 years total in prison, and Ivey 10 years. They both joined white gangs in prison 15 June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

ny’s girlfriend had an old hatchback Chevette that was broken down and parked adjacent to the driveway. When the dealer turned in to park, the adult men pushed the old car behind him real fast so he couldn’t back up, setting the trap.

They yelled for the boys, and the ambush started. The Ivey youngsters broke out the back glass out of the visitors’ car to stun them so they didn’t know who all was holed up down there on Marsalis Lane.

Glenn slung the passenger’s side open and stabbed the lady dealer in the leg. Uncle Jackie opened the driver’s door and put a knife to the man’s throat.

The white mob terrified the victims, who didn’t try to fight back.

The Ivey men then pushed the Chevette out of the way of the dealer’s car, and the driver slammed the car into reverse and gunned it up the hill backward.

“I ain’t never seen anybody go so fast in reverse,” Benny Ivey said in November 2017 while sitting on Marsalis Lane in front of the spot where the shack, long fallen down, used to stand. “They never turned the car around. They come all the way up this little hill in reverse.”

Inside the rental house, the mob was mad and cussing because they only got two rocks out of the ruckus.

Then, the wall phone rang, and Glenn answered it. It was the crack-dealer lady.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Glenn, I just want to thank you for not killing me,” she said. “There’s some rocks outside by the tree in the front yard.”

He hung up and went outside to the oak tree, and sure enough, there was a paper bag full of crack that one of them threw out of the car when they heard people yelling and running their way.

The adults in the Ivey family smoked a long time on that supply. Benny and his brother didn’t, though.

By then, they had dropped out of school and were developing their own addiction to meth, which Benny would prefer to cocaine for many years to come.

At that point, the teenagers were also helping the adults bust into houses all over South Jackson in order to fund the family’s menu of addictions.

Benny Ivey believes now that he kicked in doors to 200 houses during those years, often with his uncles, during the day after people had left for work.

After telling the crack-heist story in late 2017, Benny was silent, as was his wife, Kristina, as we pulled slowly back up the hill away from the creepy inglenook toward the real world of Raymond Road.

“Take a right, baby,” he finally said to his wife, who was pulling the SUV up to the stop sign at the top of the hill.

Then, to all of us: “That’s how I was raised, you know what I mean?”

Brotherhood of Destruction —the Simon City Royals for Ivey and the Aryan Brotherhood for Dennington and, eventually, Ivey’s brother Danny.

Gang life was about both brotherhood and staying alive, depending on the day. But the drugs had a far worse pull on them and others around them than either gang did.

Pledging loyalty to a gang was a symptom of a more daunting reality—addiction.

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

Chris Dennington grew up in South Jackson and was an addict since age 13. He joined the Aryan Brotherhood when he was 19 in prison, but rejects racist ideology now.

Dennington said in early May 2018.

“It puts the devil in your brain and steals your brain. You don’t think,” he said.

Benny Ivey preferred meth over powder or crack cocaine and can still describe the euphoric high it gave. Meth made a high-energy guy even more so.

Over the next several years, he kept getting high and started selling, and sometimes cooking, meth himself to support his own habit.

Ivey’s life was mostly on the streets, interacting regularly with black and white drug users, dealers and thieves just as his elders had done. “We don’t all have trust funds and ‘privilege,’” Ivey said in April.

“There are a lot of us that were raised in the pits, and that’s where almost all gang life begins, no matter the race or gender.”

Like many of the young black men Ivey got to know on the streets and while

locked up, no one either in the system or on the outside tried or seemed to know how to help him choose a different route than crime. It was just assumed that his life was worthless and hopeless.

By then, his parents were fully beholden to their crack addictions. Ivey had been on the honor roll until middle school, he says, and he was talented, even helping lead a rock band, Silent Threat, for a while.

He was and is funny and personable, but had no sense he could become more Imani Khayyam

‘The Devil in Your Brain’

By the high-speed chase in 1991, all three teenagers were speeding down the road to destruction, fueled by substance addiction. Ivey graduated from the Scotchguard when he was 13, soon starting to smoke weed with his dad and uncles, and then getting hooked on meth.

Dennington, who was even closer to Danny, helped himself from his mother’s supply of diet pills when he was 13 or 14.

He graduated from pot and meth to crack before he turned 18 and later hooked up with heroin. But his worst deeds came while strung out on Xanax over the decades.

South Jackson was a hotbed of drug activity when these young men and their friends came of age in the 1980s and ’90s.

Just about two decades after the U.S. Supreme Court forced white schools there, like the shining new Wingfield, to allow black children to attend in early 1970, the area was still majority-white. And many young white people were strung out on one drug or another, committing crimes to support the habits and craving the gang life.

Dennington’s family had moved back to the neighborhood where he was born at the old Baptist Hospital after their house in Brandon burned down. When he met Danny and then his brother Benny when locked up, Dennington was living in an apartment in Choctaw Village, and his father had a flooring business.

He blames all the “hoodlums” he grew up with around in South Jackson—white kids getting high, robbing and stealing to pay for the drugs they were consuming.

It was one crime after the other for Dennington—each seemingly crazier than the last. He would get out of detention or jail and immediately rob again to feed his habit. He helped hold up crack dealers in “cracktown” (then Gallatin Street south of Terry Road near the present-day juveniledetention center). He stole jewelry from South Jackson homes, one time robbing a house while the mother was sleeping on the sofa, her daughter outside twirling a baton. He and Danny stole a car and took it on a joyride to Florida.

Dennington became Aryan Brotherhood in Parchman when he was 19, he 16

said, because his unit didn’t have many white guys, and he desperately needed protection. Many prison gangs are race-based, although some like the Royals are also allied with black and Hispanic gangs.

AB, however, prides itself on its white supremacy, with tattoos such as swastikas.

He says that most guys don’t join because they’reracist,though;theyareluredtotheneed for protection in prison, he says, and often don’t realize the true ideology until later.

The drugs made him commit crime,

from page 15

than his parents or escape the hamster wheel that is generational poverty that, in turn, too often leads to addiction.

Ivey had no mentors, no former criminals trying to tell him to do right, no nonprofit trying to get him back into school or to work on his GED. He once had good grades, but that had gone to hell after all the pretend gang obsession and his tasting drugs for the first time. An actual job wasn’t something he considered, nor even getting a driver’s license. He wouldn’t have known how.

Life in the Ivey household was constant parties and cookouts, bouncing from the highs and lows of addiction.

Ivey did have some carpentry skills his father had taught him when he was a kid, and he would pick up a day construction gig here or there, but like his father, he used the money mostly for drugs.

His and Danny’s only respite, when

they had nothing to eat or no bed that night, was to go to their Aunt Peggy’s house, in a brick rancher in South Jackson that he still points to fondly while driving by it long past her death. There, the boys would watch their uncle, Russell, pass out every night in his recliner in an opioid haze.

Along with Dennington, his brother and many like them, Benny Ivey was a kid without a future. No one could, or would, do anything to change that for many years.

On a driving tour of his old haunts in November 2017, Ivey pointed to a house on Paden Street, near the Southside Assembly of God church, where he kicked the door in and robbed it one day.

It was the house burglary—out of around 200—that got him sent to the juvenile detention center and then the Columbia training school, back before lawsuits led to reform of the abuse-filled facilities with putrid conditions.

“That was horrible as a kid, you know what I mean?” he says from the passenger’s seat about juvenile detention. The youth facilities provided no real education, counseling, mentoring or efforts at rehabilitation then, just as prison never would later.

“Naw, nothing,” Ivey said on the driving tour, shaking his head.

‘That’s My Homeboys’

Ivey faced increasing trauma through his teenage years in the 1990s as his meth addiction and the burglaries he committed to feed it kept him spiraling through a dark abyss that juvenile detention and training school—that brought no actual training— made worse. By 1997, he was 21 and living in a South Jackson rental off Old McDowell Road Extension with his young first wife and other meth heads.

One of them was his best friend Jimmy, who one day decided to kill himself with Ivey’s gun, right in front of him.

He lost any remaining control after that, Ivey says. After he was charged with aggravated assault for “punkin’-heading” a man at a party, breaking his jaw, and then more robberies, Ivey went to the Hinds County Jail before moving to prison. There, he met a member of the Simon City Royals who called himself “True Love.”

When Ivey met True Love and friends in jail in 1998, he was relieved to discover a brotherhood that understood a redneck like him—his word—and would have his back.

His mother didn’t have transportation to visit, and he was alone behind bars. “That’s my homeboys; that’s the people I’m gonna be around,” Ivey said he believed then.

The Royals, a national street gang that originated in Chicago in the 1950s and

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17

Brotherhood of Destruction

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

ery day in prison.

During that two-year bid and soon another two at the Mississippi Penitentiary at Parchman for violating probation, Ivey took the title of Central Mississippi regional captain and then returned home to organize the Royal nation from Rankin County. Like Ivey, many members suffered from addictions or were the children of addicts, including alcoholics, living life day-to-day, from one high to another.

“In 2003, there was no structure, no

ment or to keep their lights on. If they did not repay the money, or violated other rules, other Royals could “smash” (beat) them.

Ivey believed his members needed family gatherings. His first outdoor rally of Royals was in May 2008 at the Barnett Reservoir north of Jackson, but moved it south after residents up there complained.

Later, he hosted an even bigger gathering in a West Jackson parking lot. An old photo shows about 150 white men, and a few women, with Ivey beaming front and cenKo Bragg

has grown in Rankin County and Mississippi in recent decades, convinced Ivey they could improve his life; like many, he stepped up into the gang from an unstructured life without positive adult influences.

“It was about bettering yourself: get a job, go to school, learn communication skills so you can do anything, go to banks, get loans,” he said. “Most getting into gangs didn’t come from environments to know how to write a check, or basic life skills.”

After several months, Ivey was moved to the neighboring Rankin County jail to be processed, alongside True Love and friends, for prison on the burglary charge. By then, he had learned that the Royals were allied with the storied Black Gangster Disciples, another Chicago gang originally started

by Larry Hoover, a man born in Jackson, Miss., who as a toddler had migrated north with his parents as they sought a better life.

As guards watched in the jail, he says, allied Gangster Disciples and Royals moved to one side of the communal zone, and several held up a sheet to block the view. “They knew we were doing something illegal and didn’t say nothin’,” he said of the guards.

They backed Ivey into a wall. He vowed loyalty “to the death” and to keep Royals rules confidential. Gangsters punched him hard in the chest 12 times—called “catching the gap.” They then pricked his finger, and he bled on a “birth certificate” with the six-point star the Royals inherited from the Gangster Disciples after joining the Folk Nation alliance in Chicago in 1978.

Getting “blessed in” to a gang, as Ivey calls it, is not only the initiation, but the mindset of new members like Ivey who are finally part of something bigger than their miserable lives. Gang members do not usually step down to the life from a structured reality with positive adult influences. They tend to step up into the group from the depths of trauma or abandonment—like watching parents smoke crack or your best friend blow his head off with your gun.

The first day after Ivey—“Outcast” to the Royals—arrived at the South Mississippi Correctional Institution, he helped the Gangster Disciples. “I wasn’t there five minutes, and I had to put my boots on and hold security … so they could beat the dog crap out of their guy,” he says of a GD who had ratted to the cops.

The Greene County prison, he says, was filled with gangsters protecting their own and their allies. Behind bars, it takes a village to stay alive and avoid physical and sexual assault. “We called it the Thunderdome, because it was gangbangin’ every 18 day,” Ivey said. He also did illicit drugs ev-

from page 16

Kristina Ivey, right, met her husband-to-be while visiting someone else at the Common Bond Recovery Center in South Jackson. She was already a recovering drug addict.

meetings—was none of that on the streets of Jackson or in Mississippi,” Ivey said. “I was going around trying to bless people in.”

That is, he wanted to initiate others into the supportive group he had found. “I didn’t become Royal because I wanted to sell dope, run the streets. That was the farthest thing from my mind. It was the structure thing, the brotherhood. I had their backs, they had mine, no matter what.”

Ivey’s Royals didn’t sell dope as an organization, he said, although many of them sold it to support their own addictions, as he certainly did.

By 2008, Ivey ran the gang from Rankin County trailer park where a mother of two called “Spirit”—Thomasa Massey— lived and helped run gang operations. She helped administer the Royals’ fund; each member would put $6 a week in and could borrow if they needed a child support pay-

ter. They drank beer and did business.

Some Royals were tagging property over in Rankin County. “We had to address that. Stop that,” Ivey says. He made two members who had jumped a guy in a bar each fight two brothers at the same time.

But Ivey’s newfound family would not last. By late 2008, some of his members were beefing, which turned into violence— most gang violence in the U.S. today is between members of the same group, experts say—and some were talking to the feds.

Law enforcement led a big bust of the gang in Rankin County, sticking many of them with $1-million bonds, although not Ivey.

“When all that happened, everybody got scared to even be seen around each other,” Ivey says. Then 32, his ERS—freedom due to “earned release”—was revoked due to gang activity, and he was sent to the private Delta Correctional Facility, which was

notorious for gang activity and violence.

There, he gathered Royals in the yard and told them the feds were after him. “I have to retire, because I’m a liability,” he said.

Ivey had his six-point tattoos covered, but left the large Royal shield on his shin, inking “retired” under it.

“It was all a blessing in disguise,” he says now. “When it all went down at first, I was heartbroken. I thought I was doing something. I wasn’t doing nothing but prolonging my miserable existence.”

‘Addicted to the Lifestyle’

In 2006, Randy Adams was sitting in a waiting room with his life flashing in front of his eyes when an angel appeared next to him.

Then 39, Adams was facing at 30 years in prison for dealing meth. The Pearl native had worked as a truck driver since he was about 20, soon doing the drug to help him stay awake on long hauls between Mississippi and California. He had been smoking pot since his early teens, so illicit substances weren’t new to him.

He soon started buying meth in California and bringing it back to his home state to deal even as his first wife and three daughters waited at home. “I was selling to support my habit,” Adams, now 51, said in May sitting on the deck behind his large brick home in South Jackson. He got away with it for years, but was finally caught up in an undercover sting, bolstered by audio and video from a truck stop. He was changed with transfer of controlled substance.

While he was the Hinds County Detention Center, Adams attended Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. But he was sitting outside the courtroom awaiting his sentencing when that angel appeared in the form of Brenda Mathis, program director of the Hinds County Circuit Drug Court. Without him knowing who she was, Mathis just started talking to him, and he told her his whole story. She must’ve liked what she heard because she soon asked if wanted to attend drug court instead of getting locked up.

Hinds Circuit Judge William Skinner approved, and Adams got out of jail, and deputies took him to Common Bond Recovery Center, then a drug-rehabilitation center in South Jackson, in shackles and chains He was under court order to complete 30 days of treatment.

At the point he could leave, though, he decided to stay longer. “That’s when things really started changing,” he said. Because the counseling was so effective, Adams started studying it himself. He went on to get a degree in counseling from Jackson

wrote his story with pen and paper for eight months, as he explained in detail while standing in the parking lot pointing to now boarded-up buildings of the rehab that changed his life. It later closed due to lack of funding, Adams said.

Ivey also met his now-wife, then Kristina Arnold, there as she was visiting someone else. He used his charm on her; she by then was a former addict herself, and she had a young daughter and was suspicious of his past. But when Ivey got out in 2012

against Yankees who belittle southerners, he said—until photographer Imani Khayyam visited. “I didn’t want to hurt Imani,” he told me later. “The flag is not about racism to me.”

It’s Starting All Over’

Since I published a story about Ivey and white gangs in The Guardian in April 2018, his life has made yet another turn.

Due to his life of crime, Ivey has longed to be what is commonly called a “credDelreco Harris

Benny Ivey, right, met former Vice Lord and prominent drug dealer John Knight (left) at a June people’s assembly at New Horizon Church on Ellis Avenue. The two bonded as they brainstormed ideas for what would help people returning from prison to re-integrate into healthy lives without re-offending.

(which he says he didn’t know was happening). At this point, Ivey was 34 and sitting in jail in a state of despair, sick of his years of crime and addiction, but with no idea how to leave it. He had never even had a driver’s license, much less a real job.

“They’d never tried to get me to rehab, they always sent me to prison,” Ivey said in 2017. “… All I knew was dope and gangs, that’s all I ever cared about. But I was tired of it, man.” A friend told him about Common Bond, and he asked to talk to them.

Adams remembers first meeting Ivey in the jail and how disgusted he was with his own life choices, as Ivey broke down crying in front of him: “He wanted to change, but he didn’t know how.” Adams told the cops he wanted Ivey in his rehab to change his environment “to give him a helping hand instead of handouts.”

There, Ivey worked out, prayed and

with all charges dropped, they moved in together, and he landed his first real job— re-grouting floors and clearing sewer drains for $10 an hour, working day and night.

He and Kristina got married, and he adopted her daughter, now 12, on Valentine’s Day 2013.

Ivey’s trajectory had definitely shifted upward since Common Bond: He became a partner in the plumbing business when one of the partners died, lifting his income.

And the couple found a 2,100-square-foot home on what he now calls “Ivey Hill” in Florence. It was a mess, but he used remodeling skills his father had taught him to fix it up. He now uses it for cookouts, especially on NASCAR days, and he’ll drink a Corona or two, but does no drugs.

He and Kristina work out in the garage where he used to have a Confederate flag on the wall—as a sign of rebellion

ible messenger” in the violence-prevention world—using his story and experiences to deter young people from making the same mistakes. And now it is happening: He is visiting detainees at the Rankin County Juvenile Center every Thursday.

Ivey is determined to cross race lines to help deter crime, especially since he grew up knowing that the same forces lead to crime along race lines, especially poverty and addiction. He and Kristina showed up at Jackson City Hall in early June for a meeting about crime, telling his story about stabbing the crack dealer on Marsalis Lane to a mostly black audience. He also met with A.T. Mitchell, who leads anti-violence work in New York City and whom Mayor Chokwe Lumumba had invited to Jackson to consult on crime issues.

Ivey is also working with Ronnie Crudup Jr., who runs New Horizons

Ministries, to assemble a group of multiracial credible messengers, drawing on gang members he hasknown over the years: Royals, Gangster Disciples, Vice Lords, Latin Kings and even Aryan Brotherhood.

Facebook is a pulpit for Ivey’s ministry, drawing comments from former gang members who are cheering him on and telling him to hurry and publish his damn book because they’ll buy it. On June 20, Ivey posted on Facebook that he had run into a former AB who told him, “Yeah, I don’t associate anymore, but I’m still white.”

Ivey answered, “I don’t associate with Royal anymore either. And Jesus wasn’t white, so I don’t care nothin’ about race.”

Ivey said that he then added: “Don’t come at me with nothing resembling racism or hate. I don’t wanna hear it lol.” (He types “lol” a lot.)

At the June 2018 people’s assembly at New Horizon Church on Ellis Avenue, Ivey was one of a few white faces in the packed room of people brainstorming solutions to crime. He and John Knight, a long-time Vice Lord and drug dealer in the Washington Addition who spent 9.5 years in prison and has tried to organize young people who have been in trouble against crime, ended up sitting together in the circle discussing what people need when they leave prison to keep from re-offending. They sat armto-arm, using colored markers to earnestly fill big stickies with suggestions. Then they stood together to report out to the group.

“Trade classes before release. Integrate into society with sponsored employers,” Ivey suggested. “… Transition meetings to go to upon release … kind of like AA meetings so you’re around like-minded people who can also …”

Knight, a black man who stands about a foot taller, jumped in to finish Ivey’s sentence: “… better acquaint you from coming from incarceration back to society.

Know what route you need to take, what you need to go to to make yourself a whole person again.”

“You have to not think about catching up,” Knight, now 41, added as Ivey listened, nodding. “Most of the time, it’s startingallover. Somepeoplehavenothing, nobody to encourage them to know that life’s not over.”

Meantime, Chris Dennington is determined to go straight and stay out of trouble. He’s working in his brother’s restaurant in Pearl and wants to help steer young people straight, too. His message was straightforward: “I hope society will forgive us.”

Read more about Benny Ivey and white gangs at jfp.ms/ivey_guardian and John Knight at jfp.ms/johnknight.

19 June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

State University, and Common Bond hired him as a counselor. He worked his way up to admission director and then executive director, wanting to help others like himself.

At his home, Adams knocked on his own chest, choked up. “That’s where my passion, my heart was,” he said.

The first time Adams met Benny Ivey was in the Rankin County Jail in 2010.

Ivey had left Delta Correctional not a gangster, but still an addict. He soon got busted again for driving a woman to a drug deal

BEST OF JACKSON // HOME

Best of Jackson: Home Improvement

H

ouses require work, whether it’s dealing with leaky pipes and faucets or unsightly pest problems, or heating and air conditioning, and everything in between. When you need help in dealing with a house problem, it’s best to call a professional. That’s where Best of Jackson: Home Improvement can help. Here are this year’s winners and finalists.

839 Pear Orchard Road, Ridgeland, 601-957-1731; 259 Calhoun Station Pkwy., Madison, 601-859-5444, callawaysonline.com

Michael Dier says the last year for the 2018 Best Contractor and Best Roofers, Watkins Construction and Roofing, has been one of giving back to the community and serving others.

The company gave away two roofs this year, one to a Jackson veteran through the “Roof Deployment Project” with Owens Corning and Platinum Preferred Contractors, and one through Watkins’ “No Roof Left Behind” campaign.

“We enjoy giving to the city that does so much for us and have even more community roof projects planned in the coming months,” he says.

Watkins specializes in roofing installation and repair, and offers metal, copper-tile and shingle roofing options. The company also offers roof coating, restoration, and wind and waterproofing, roof inspection MICHAEL DIER (LEFT) AND CATHERINE WILLIS (RIGHT) and consulting services, and more.

Watkins Construction and Roofing also offers a 24-hour answering service during off hours.

For more information, visit watkinsconstructioninc.com.

—Dustin Cardon

This year’s winner for Best Gardening Center, Callaway’s Yard & Garden has been a family-owned and operated business since Robert Moody and Lorene Callaway opened the doors to the first location in Jackson in 1954. The couple wanted to serve their area with some of the best gardening supplies and services in the metro area, and within three years they had done just that, when they moved and opened the Ridgeland location.

Their son, David Callaway, eventually took over the business with his wife, Betty Callaway. The two are still involved, with Betty mostly contributing to the Christmas store. The couple’s children, daughter Alison Callaway Richardson, son Brint Callaway and daughter-in-law Annette Callaway, still work with the business to this day.

Callaway’s recently opened a new location in Gluckstadt. Both locations still strive to serve their customers with the best gardening and outdoor living supplies, such as plants and various greenery, outdoor furniture and décor, grills and barbecue supplies, landscaping services and more.

—Kristina Domitrovich

Best Contractor finalists Arrow Remodeling (601-898-9308, arrowremodeling.com) / Hemphill Construction Company (1858 Highway 49 S., Florence, 601-932-2060, hemphillconstruction.com) / InVision Construction (1138 Weems St., Pearl, 601-376-9654, invisionconstructionllc.com) / Jeremy’s Perfect Finish (864 Foley St., 662-934-0062, jeremysperfectfinish.com) / Round ’Da House Home Repairs (127 E. Ford St., Suite B, Ridgeland, 601-983-8669, rounddahouse.com) Best Roofers finalists Complete Exteriors, LLC (4725 Highway 80 E., Pearl, 601-202-4107, complete exteriorsms.com) / Deep South Roofing (3845 Interstate 55 S., 601-346-8144, deepsouthroofing.com) / Josh Neal Roofing and Restoration, LLC (108 Trailbridge Bend, Canton, 601-573-1364) / Ready2Roof (1888 Main St., Suite 159, Madison, 2052 MS-471, Brandon, 601-573,1160, ready2roof.com) / Strength Roofing and Siding (710 Ridgewood Road, Ridgewood, 601-373-7254, streghtroofingandsiding.com)

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

168 E. Porter St., 601-519-0212, environmentmasters.com

We live in Mississippi, which means the summers can get really hot. Air conditioning helps reduce this misery and heating systems keep us warm in the winter months. However, those systems can sometimes have issues, and that is when you call someone such as this year’s winner for Best HVAC, Environment Masters.

Ray J. Nalty Jr. began the company in 1957 with the goal of giving Mississippians some of the best HVAC and plumbing services in the state. Ever since the cur20 rent president and owner, Raymond Nalty III, has led

DELRECO HARRIS

Best HVAC: Environment Masters

Finalists: Green Oak (5009 Old Canton Road, 601-956-5017; 1067 Highland Colony Parkway Suite E, Ridgeland, 601-707-9440, greenoakms.com) / Hutto’s (1320 Ellis Ave., 601-973-2277) / Lakeland Yard and Garden (4210 Lakeland Drive, Flowood, 601-939-7304, lakelandyardandgarden.com) / Martinson’s Garden Works (650 Highway 51, Ridgeland, 601-856-3078, martinsonsms.com) / Rivers Greenhouse and Garden (4664 Highway 18, Brandon, 601-825-9816, riversgreenhouseandgarden.com)

the company since 1991, it has grown to more than 100 employees and 65 vehicles.

The business can deal with systems such as thermo-

stats, air filtration, ductless systems, bathroom and kitchen plumbing, and has cooling and heating maintenance plans.

Environment Masters can also handle commercial HVAC, plumbing and energy management systems.

For more information, visit environmentmasters.com or find the business on Facebook.

—Amber Helsel Finalists: Buford Plumbing (5625 Hwy 18 W., 601-372-7676, bufordplumbing.net) / Dent Air Conditioning and Plumbing (200 Sheppard Road, 601-912-0535, dentairconditioning.com) / Jamie Weeks Heating and Cooling (207 Bellwood Drive, Brandon, 601-331-1447) / Mid-Mississippi Heating and Cooling (12320 Highway 18, Raymond, 601-871-0716, midmshvac. com) / Round ’Da House Home Repairs (127 E. Ford St., Suite B, Ridgeland, 601-983-8669, rounddahouse.com)

DELRECO HARRIS

Best Gardening Center: Callaway’s Yard & Garden

3940 Highway 80 W., 601-966-8233, watkinsconstructininc.com

COURTESY MICHAEL DIER

Best Contractor; Best Roofers: Watkins Construction and Roofing

AIR CONDITIONING

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Thank You for voting Dent Air Conditioning a finalist for

BEST PLUMBER and BEST HVAC AIR CONDITIONING

HEATING

PLUMBING/ WATER FILTERS

ELECTRICAL/ GENRATORS

We’ve served the Jackson Metro Area with AC, Heating, Plumbing, and Electrical services for over 60 years!

Call (601) 912-0535 or visit www.dentairconditioning.com to learn how we can serve you.

Making Mississippi a Better Place to Live Thank you to all our customers and friends who voted:

Environment Masters, Inc. Jackson Finalist BestBest of ofJackson Winner Best Heating and AC Service Company

We are honored and will continue to give you our best

Environment MASTERS 5SVTUFE 4JODF t )FBUJOH t $PPMJOH t 1MVNCJOH Making Mississippi Homes & Businesses t XXX FOWJSPONFOUNBTUFST DPN LiveBETTER Service in Hours, Not Days! Guaranteed!TM

Voted Best Contractor and Best Roofer Two years in a Row!

Weiand Plumbing, Inc. SERVING THE TRI-COUNTY AREA

Thank you for Voting Us a Finalist

Best Plumber Best of Jackson 2018

Trusted Contractors, Proven Products. â„¢

601.966.8233 Locally Owned & Operated

¸ ¸ ¸

www.weiandplumbingms.com 601-956-4044

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

Owner, Michael Dier and his family

s timate ncy Number s E e e r F ge r Emer 24 Hou rrenty Wa 1 Year

21

BEST OF JACKSON // HOME 1139 Old Fannin Road, Suite R, Brandon, 601-706-4516, poolworksms.net

This year’s winner for Best Plumbers, Buford Plumbing, has been in business in central Mississippi since T.D. Buford established the company in the early 1950s. He previously served on the Mississippi State Board of Contractors for 10 years and has been on the City of Jackson Mechanical Board for more than 25 years. The current owner, Howard Buford, took ownership of the company in 1969.

In addition to repair work, Buford Plumbing performs commercial plumbing installation services for new businesses, and plumbing modifications and remodels for existing businesses. The company also offers gas and piping system tests for people moving into new homes, kitchen remodels and repairs, plumbing fixture repair, leak repair, sewer pipe replacement, gas piping installation, heater and air conditioner repair or replacement, and more.

For more information, visit bufordplumbing.net.

—Dustin Cardon

This year’s Best Pool Service winner, Pool Works LLC, provides commercial and residential services to the local Jackson community.

“We’re young, but we hustle,” says owner Jason Bryant. “We like to transform a customer’s backyard into something they can enjoy and appreciate,” Butler says. “And make something that was maybe once a nightmare into an enjoyable experience.”

The company can perform services such as acid washes, equipment repair, saltwater pools and weekly maintenance. The business’ retail store is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

—Jenna Gibson

Finalists: D Ray’s Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning (601-278-7470) / Davis Plumbing and Gas (2031 Causey Drive, 601-540-0185, davisplumbingandgas.com) / Dent Air Conditioning (200 Sheppard Road, 601-912-0535, dentairconditioning.com) / Skeen Plumbing (220 Christopher Cove, Ridgeland, 601-856-5758, skeenplumbinggas.com) / Weiand Plumbing, Inc. (Multiple locations, 601540-5972, weiandplumbingms.com)

601-941-7773, bigjohnstree.net

Big John’s Tree Service is a family-owned tree trimming and removal company passed down from father to son. John Roland started the business, which Jacksonians voted as this year’s Best Tree Service, roughly 30 years ago, eventually passing it down to his son, Johnnie Roland. The younger Roland later changed the name of the company in honor of his father, who measured in at 6 feet, 7 inches.

Roland says the business’ ethics boils down to hard work and honesty. He credits his workers for the success

receiving repeat customers and good recommendations.

“I just got an outstanding crew that just makes me look really, really, really good,” he says. “… We do what we say we’re going to do, or we bust our tails trying to do it—and if we can’t, we at least let people know why.”

Big John’s can handle tree and stump removal, tree trim-

Finalists Kip’s Tree Services (7025 Highway 25, Brandon, 601-829-3748) / Matthews Tree Services (P.O. Box 720185, Byram, 601-316-8584) / Morgan Tree Services (601-668-5501, morgantreeservice.net) / Southern Tree Services (2400 McFarland Road, Raymond, 601-857-0061) / Tri-County Tree Service (1456 Douglass Drive, 601-940-5499, tricotreeservice. com)

Best Pest Control Magnolia Exterminating

700 Highway 468, Brandon, 601-631-4330

multiple Locations, magnoliapest.com

Cleaning seems to be an ever-present task in many people’s lives. This year’s Best Housecleaning Service winner, Marvelous Maids of Mississippi, strives to take that burden off of its clients. The business provides commercial and residential cleaning to the local Jackson community, as well as move-in and move-out cleaning. For those who are moving, the business can also help with packing.

The company, which Jamela Rodgers owns, also offers real-estate property cleaning services.

Marvelous Maids of Mississippi is open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and is closed on Sunday. For more information, find the business on Facebook.

—Jenna Gibson

With more than 46 years of experience, this year’s winner for Best Pest Control, Magnolia Exterminating, can get rid of pest infestations for both residential and commercial properties.

Owner Charlie Harrell says the business’ products are what distinguish his company from other exterminators, as he and staff use natural and organic products that are safe on pets and families.

Magnolia Exterminating uses baits, pest contraceptives and adulticide (a pesticide that kills adult insects rather than larvae) to safely remove unwanted insects from the area. The business performs most of its services outside with a perimeter defense to prevent home invasions.

Harrell says the company, while eliminating the pests, also strives to eliminate the diseases the pests may carry. The company has also serviced hospitals in the area for many years and work with many returning customers.

For more information, find the business on Facebook.

—Logan Williamson

Finalists Ceci House Cleaning LLC (601-672-6145) / Foster’s Cleaning Service, LLC (7048 Old Canton Road, Suite 2009, Ridgeland, 601-291-7936, fosterscleaningservice.com) / Green Goddess Cleaning Company (601-613-6744) / J&J Professional Maids, LLC (601-983-6485, jandjprofessionalmaids.com) / Olga’s Maid (580 S. Pear Orchard Road, Ridgeland, 601-952-0833)

COURTESY MAGNOLIA EXTERMINATING

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

ming and pruning, and can also do maintenance of landscapes at parks, playgrounds and more.

—Kristina Domitrovich

Best Housecleaning Service: Marvelous Maids of Mississippi

DELRECO HARRIS

22

Finalists: AquaBlue Pool and Spa (115 Village Square, Suite I, Brandon, 601-362-6773, swimaquablue.com) / Bob’s Pool Service, Inc. (5014 Highway 80 E., Pearl, 601-939-3388, 310A Highway 51 N., Ridgeland, 601-605-0308, bobspoolserviceinc.com) / CPS Pools and Spas (3776 Interstate 55 S., 601-372-0500; 120 Beaver Creek Drive, Ridgeland, 601-6050500, cpspoolsandspas.com) / Elite Pools LLC (464 Church Road, Suite 500, Madison, 601-790-9966, elitepoolsms.com) / Paradise Pools and Spas (227 S. Pearson Road, Pearl, 601-557-2701, paradisepoolsms.com)

DELRECO HARRIS

Best Tree Service: Big John’s Tree Service

DELRECO HARRIS

Best Local Pool Service: Pool Works LLC

5625 Highway18 W., 601-372-7676 DELRECO HARRIS

Best Plumbers: Buford Plumbing

Finalists: Cook Lawn and Pest (524 E. College St., Clinton, 601-924-3701, cooklawnandpest.com) / Dependable Pest Service (100 First Choice Drive, Madison, 601-790-0068, dependablepest.net) / Mosquito Marshals (multiple locations, mosquitomarshals.com) / Synergy² Pest Control (327 Lake Village Drive, Madison, 601624-6360, synergy2ms.com) / Stan’s Pest Control (601-856-1749, stanspestcontrol.com)

Offsite & Onsite CATERING AVAILABLE

DAILY BLUE PLACE SPECIALS

Music/Events

Monday 7/2

Monday 7/9

Central MS Blues Society presents:

Central MS Blues Society presents:

Dining Room - 7 - 11pm $3 Members $5 Non-Members Tuesday 7/3

Dining Room - 7 - 11pm $3 Members $5 Non-Members Tuesday 7/10

(Dinner Drinks & Jazz with Raphael Semmes and Friends to Return next Tuesday) 7/4 -7/5

with Raphael Semmes and Friends

Blue Monday Blue Monday This exhibition is free and open to the public.

The Mississippi Museum of Art and its programs are sponsored in part by the city of Jackson and Visit Jackson. Support is also provided in part by funding from the Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency, and in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Picturing Mississippi is supported by the Robert M. Hearin Support Foundation and

MISSISSIPPI MUSEUM of ART | 380 SOUTH LAMAR STREET | JACKSON, MS 39201 | 601.960.1515

Open as Usual

Closed for the Holiday Friday 7/6

Open as Usual Saturday 7/7

Mississippi Hard Rock And Metal Music Awards RED ROOM: 18+ Doors:7 Tix available at Eventbrite

Dinner Drinks & Jazz Dining Room - Free - 6-9pm Wednesday 7/11

New Bourbon Street Jazz Band Dining Room - Free Thursday 7/12

D’Lo Trio

Dining Room - Free - 7-10pm Friday 7/13

The Kats

Dining Room - Free - 7-10pm Saturday 7/14

Jackson Gypsie Dining Room - Free - 7-10pm

Upcoming

7/16 Blue Monday 7/17 Dinner Drinks & Jazz with Raphael Semmes and Friends 7/20 Barry Leach 7/21 Taylor Hildebrand 7/23 Blue Monday 7/24 Dinner Drinks & Jazz with Raphael Semmes and Friends

visit halandmals.com for a full menu and concert schedule

MDWFP.COM/MUSEUM The Science of Ripley’s Believe It or Not!® is produced by:

7/25 New Bourbon Street Jazz Band 7/26 D’Lo Trio 7/27 Bill & Temperance 7/28 Waterworks Curve 7/30 Blue Monday 7/31 Dinner Drinks & Jazz with Raphael Semmes and Friends

601.948.0888

Ripley’s Believe It or Not!® is a registered trademark of Ripley Entertainment Inc. ®

200 s. Commerce St.

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879), The Jolly Flatboatmen,, 1877-78. oil on canvas. Collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection. 1992.15.

DON’T MISS IT! ON VIEW THROUGH JULY 8!

23

Food/Drink

Fireworks and Festivities

by Dustin Cardon

dren and a fireworks show at 9:30 p.m.

Parking is $10 per vehicle. Gates for parking will open at 4 p.m. For more information, visit clintonms.org or find the event on Facebook.

The Town of Livingston Independence Day Celebration

The Town of Livingston (Highway 463 and Highway 22, Madison County) will host a free Independence Day celebration starting at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, July 3.

The event will feature a firework show, live music from the band U.S. and more. Gates

“Celebrating America” Concert

The Mississippi Wind Symphony will host a “Celebrating America” concert at St. Joseph Catholic School (308 New Mannsdale Road, Madison) on Tuesday, July 3, at 7:30 p.m. The concert will feature pieces from American composers such as David Gillingham, Chris Pilsner, Norman Dello Joio, Jack Stamp, John Williams and John Philip Sousa. The guest conductor is David Gregory, music director for the Georgia Wind Symphony. For more information, call 601-925-3440 or email serio@mc.edu.

courtesy Nandy’s Candy

22nd Annual Watermelon Classic

The annual Farm Bureau Watermelon Classic will be at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum (1152 Lakeland Drive) on Wednesday, July 4, starting at 7:30 a.m. The event will kick off with a 5K run and walk, followed by the Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi One Mile Wellness Fun Run.

Participants will receive watermelon and drinks after the races, and prizes are available for the winners of age categories, teams and more.

Packet pick-up for the event will begin at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, June 27, at the museum. For more information, find the event on Facebook.

Fourth of July at the Hilton Jackson

The Hilton Jackson is offering a Fourth of July package that includes a one-night stay with complimentary WiFi, a breakfast buffet, a holiday lunch and late check out. Packages start at $139 for up to two adults and two children, with a $10 charge for each additional person. For more information, call 601-957-2800 or visit bit. ly/HiltonFourthofJuly.

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

Red, White and Blue at the Zoo

The Jackson Zoo will offer $4 admission to visitors wearing red, white and blue as part of their clothing or hair. Participants must be wearing all three colors to qualify for the promotion. The event will also feature food from Back Yard Burgers. For more information, visit jacksonzoo.org or find the event on Facebook.

Mississippi Braves Fireworks Show

The Mississippi Braves baseball team will put on a “Super-sized Independence Day Fireworks Show” at Trustmark Park (1 Braves Way, Pearl) on Wednesday, July 4, after the Braves’ game against the Biloxi Shuckers. Gates open at 6 p.m., and the game begins at 7 p.m. The fireworks show begins as soon as the game ends. For more information or to purchase tickets, call 601932-8788, or visit mississippibraves.com or the Mississippi Braves Facebook page.

29th Annual July 4 Family Fireworks Extravaganza

Traceway Park (328 Cynthia Road, Clinton) will host its 29th annual July 4 Family Fireworks Extravaganza from 5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The event will feature live music from Troy Laz and the 2 Hip24 notic Band, a Play World area for chil-

Celebrate the Fourth of July with businesses such as Nandy’s Candy.

open at 5 p.m., and the music starts at 6 p.m. Guests can bring lawn chairs, but no coolers are allowed. For more information, find the event on Facebook.

Fireworks Extravaganza

The City of Jackson Department of Parks and Recreation will host the Fourth of July celebration at SmithWills Stadium (1200 Lakeland Drive) starting at 5 p.m. The event features a fireworks show, live music, dance performances, food and drink vendors, and more. Gates open at 5 p.m., and fireworks start at 7 p.m.

For more information, find the event on Facebook.

Celebrate America Balloon Glow

The 28th annual Celebrate America Balloon Glow is Friday, June 29, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at North Park Mall (1200 E. County Line Road, Ridgeland). The event serves as the opening for the Mississippi Championship Hot Air Balloon Race and Festival.

The glow will have more than 20 hotair balloons, and the event also includes performances from Luckenbach and Dylan Scott. The celebration will have food, a kids’ carnival, a fireworks show and more.

The Celebrate America Balloon Glow is free and open to the public.

For more information, find the event on Facebook.

Independence Showdown at Mississippi Coliseum

Metro PCS will host the eighth annual Independence Showdown Battle of the Bands at the Mississippi Coliseum (1207 Mississippi St.) on Saturday, June 30. The event begins at 4 p.m. and will feature Mississippi’s Alumni All Star Band competing against marching bands from Michigan, Alabama, Ohio, Louisiana, Tennessee and Georgia. General admission is $20, and VIP admission is $30.

For more information, visit eventbrite. com or find the event on Facebook.

Independence Celebration on the Rez

Old Trace Park (137 Old Park Trail, Ridgeland) and Lakeshore Park (1112 North Shore Pkwy., Brandon) will host an Independence Day celebration from 4-9 p.m. on Saturday, June 30. The event will include a kid’s play zone, military displays, a car show, live music and fireworks. It is free to the public. For more information, find the event on Facebook.

Nandy’s Candy (1220 E. Northside Drive, Suite 380, 601-362-9553, nandyscandy.com)

Nandy’s Candy will sell candy apples, chocolate stars with red, white and blue sprinkles, and white chocolate-covered popcorn drizzled with red and blue-colored chocolate during the week of July 4. The business will also offer a buy-one-get-onefree deal on the business’ Captain America snowball, which is a New Orleans-style snowball with red, white and blue stripes of strawberry, wedding cake and blue bubblegum flavors. Nandy’s will be closed July 4.

Campbell’s Bakery (3013 N. State St., 601-362-4628; 123 Jones St., 769-3002790; campbellsbakery.ms)

Campbell’s will have red, white and blue teacakes, petit fours and three-layer cakes for sale the week of July 4. The bakery is closed on July 4.

Hickory Pit (1491 Canton Mart Road, 601-956-7079)

For Fourth of July, Hickory Pit will have pies, cakes and party packs, along with catering. For more information, find the business on Facebook.

This is not a complete list. See and add more at jfp.ms/fourthofjuly2018.

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25

aTo Do Listd

So you think there’s nothing to do in Jackson? Visit JFPEVENTS.COM for more.

The Arts Mean Business, Part 1 June 28, 2-4 p.m., at Greater Jackson Chamber Partnership (201 S. President St.). The Mississippi Arts Commission presents the public discussion about the intersection between the arts, business, government and communities. Part one, “Utilizing the Arts in Your Business,” features speakers Matthew McLaughlin, Paul Wolf, Phillip Rollins and Janice Cameron. Free; find it on Facebook.

The Arts Mean Business, Part 2 June 28, 4:30-7:30 p.m., at Lucky Town Brewing Company (1710 N. Mill St.). The Mississippi Arts Commission presents the public discussion about the intersection between the arts, business, government and communities. Part two, “Community Engagement by Reimagining Place,” features speakers William Goodman, Salam Rida, daniel johnson and Anne Marie Decker.

Free; find it on Facebook.

Fourth of July Beach Party July 4, 1-4 p.m., at The Outlets of Mississippi (200 Bass Pro Drive, Pearl). DJ Scott Steele of 96.3 performs next to a “sandy beach” on the Plaza near the Food Court. Includes beach balls and toys for kids to play with. Free; find it on Facebook.

Jubilee Picnic July 9, 11:30 a.m., at Margaret Walker Center (1400 J.R. Lynch St.). The celebration of Mississippi author and poet Margaret Walker includes food, live entertainment, speakers and more. Free admission; call 601-979-3935; jsums.edu.

AMBER HELSEL

COMMUNITY

Yunting Qiu, a dancer with the National Ballet of China, was one of the winners at this year’s USA International Ballet Competition, earning a gold medal in the women’s senior division.

Independence Celebration on the Rez June 30, 4-8 p.m., at Lakeshore Park & Old Trace Park (Brandon). The Fourth of July celebration features fireworks, food and drink vendors, kids’ zones, live music, the Fenders & Fireworks Classic Car Show at Lakeshore Park and more. Free admission; barnettreservoirfoundation.org.

Jackson’s Fireworks Extravaganza June 30, 5 p.m., at Smith-Wills Stadium (1200 Lakeland Drive). The City of Jackson Department of Parks and Recreation presents the Fourth of July celebration featuring a fireworks show, live music, dance performances, food and drink vendors, and more. Gates open at 5 p.m., and fireworks start at 7 p.m. Free; find it on Facebook.

WEDNESDAY 6/27

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

The “On Poems & Images” Gallery Talk is from 11:30 a.m. to noon at the Mississippi Museum of Art (380 S. Lamar St.). The lecture features photographer Maude Schuyler-Clay and poet Ann Fisher-Wirth discussing their latest collaboration, “Mississippi.” Book signing and reading to follow. Free admission; call 601-960-1515; msmuseumart.org.

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The Town of Livingston Independence Day Celebration July 3, 5-10 p.m., at The Town of Livingston (106 Livingston Church Road, Flora). The event includes live music from U.S and Sid Thompson & DoubleShotz, fireworks, a wine and craft beer garden, a kids’ activity area, and more. $15 in advance, $20 at the gate, free for ages 10 and under; thetownoflivingston.com.

Brookwood July 4th Festival July 4, 11 a.m.-8 p.m., at Brookwood Country Club (5001 Forest Hill Road, Byram). The Independence Day celebration features music, fireworks, children’s activities, vendors and more. Free admission, food prices vary; find it on Facebook.

History Is Lunch: B. Brian Foster July 11, noon-1 p.m., at Two Mississippi Museums (222 North St.). B. Brian Foster, associate professor of sociology at the University of Mississippi, presents on the topic “‘That’s for the White Folks’: Race, Culture and (Un)making Place in the Rural South.” Free admission; mdah.ms.gov.

KIDS Independence Day Fireworks Extravaganza July 4, 5-9:30 p.m., at Traceway Park (328 Cynthia Road, Clinton). The event features music from Troy Laz, 2 Hipnotic and the Chad Wesley Band, food vendors, fireworks, a kids’ area and more. $10 per vehicle; clintonms.org.

Fourth of July Fireworks Show July 4, 7 p.m., at Liberty Park (100 Liberty Park Drive, Madison). The event features food vendors starting at 7 p.m. and a fireworks show at 9 p.m.

Free; call 601-856-7116; madisonthecity.com.

Fondren After 5 July 5, 5 p.m., in Fondren.

The street festival includes live music, food and drinks for sale, art and crafts vendors, pop-up art exhibits and more. Free admission; fondren.org.

Christmas in July July 7, 10-11 a.m., at Northpark Mall (1200 E. County Line Road). In Center Court. The party features Christmas karaoke, pictures with Santa and more. Hawaiian shirts encouraged. Free admission; northparkmall.com.

Summer Sunday Series: Archaeology Day July 8, 1:30-5 p.m., at Museum of Mississippi History (222 North St.). Visitors learn how people lived in the past through pottery making, mock digging and more. $8 for adults, $6 for senior, $5 for ages 4-18; mdah.ms.gov.

Magnificent Monday Dine In Learn July 9, 6-8 p.m., at The Trace Grill (571 Highway 51 N., Ridgeland). Empowering Progressive Women’s Association presents the event for parents, coaches, educators, youth leaders and more.

The keynote speaker is Janelle Griffin, children

Events at Mississippi Museum of Natural Science (2148 Riverside Drive) • Cool Science on a Hot Day June 27, 1:30-3 p.m. Carl Dewitt presents experiments with liquid nitrogen. $6 for adults, $4 for ages 3-18, free under age 3; mdwfp.com.

THURSDAY 6/28 The Mississippi Championship Hot Air Balloon Race & Festival begins at 6 p.m. in Courthouse Square (Canton). The event features a launch party on June 28, the Balloon Glow at Northpark Mall (1200 E. County Line Road, Ridgeland) on June 29, the Balloon Chase Bike Ride, a fireworks show and more on June 30 at the Canton Multipurpose Center (501 Soldiers Colony Road, Canton). Free admission; ballooncanton.com. and youth director of the Church Triumphant Global. Must RSVP. Free admission; email ewpawomen@gmail.com; find it on Facebook.

Boss Business Expo & Summer Fashion Show July 7, 2-10 p.m., at New Jerusalem Church (1285 Raymond Road). The event features a pop-up shop, giveaways, kids’ activities and more. $10; find it on Facebook.

FRIDAY 6/29 The Willet Bourbon Tasting is from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at Rickhouse by the Manship (717 Popular Blvd.). Participants taste a range of the Kentucky bourbon distiller’s product line, including a Willet Family Estate Single Barrel Pick. Chef Alex Eaton prepares bourbon-inspired dishes to accompany each course. $65 per person; find it on Facebook.

• The Secret Lives of Salamanders July 3, noon-1 p.m. Jen Lamb, a biology professor at Southeastern Louisiana University, presents the lecture exploring the diversity of salamanders and how scientists are working to better conserve them. $6 for adults, $4 for ages 3-18, free under age 3; mdwfp.com.

• Ancient Civilizations June 29, 10 a.m.noon. Visitors learn about the scientific feats of ancient civilizations through hands-on activities. $6 for adults, $4 for ages 3-18, free under age 3; mdwfp.com.

• Wonders of Electricity July 6, 10 a.m.noon. Visitors learn about the science of electricity through activities, such as building a human circuit, making static beads dance, lighting a neon bulb with their body, and more. $6 for adults, $4 for ages 3-18, free under age 3; mdwfp.com.

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EVERY WEDNESDAY LADIES NIGHT LADIES DRINK FREE

JAMESON RODGERS WITH SETH WALKER

ISSA VIBE DJ FRI. JUNE 29 | 6 P.M.

HAPPY HOUR IN THE DINNING ROOM

STEVE CHESTER

Saturday, June 30

Jackson: Soul of the City

WITH HOST RITA B DJ YOUNG VENOM AND EPIC FUNK BRASS BAND

WITH

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Monday, July 9

THE DEVON ALLMAN PROJECT WITH SPECIAL GUEST DUANE BETTS AND C.W. STONEKING

Friday, July 13

THE MOLLY RINGWALDS the ULTIMATE 80s experience returns!

Friday, July 27 AN EVENING WITH

PAULA COLE

grammy award winning 90s pop singer plays jackson!

Tuesday, August 7

TANK AND THE BANGAS / sweet crude new orleans funk greatness and npr tiny desk contest winners

Friday, August 10 A NIGHT OF COMEDY WITH

GALLAGHER

get ready for a SMASHING good time with legendary comedian gallagher!

Wednesday, August 22

The Marcus King Band WITH BISHOP GUNN

blues rock wunderkind returns to Jackson to rock your world

Wednesday, September 12

Jason Eady

country storytelling that will leave you enamored and begging for more

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27

Music

Arts on the (Drum) Line

A

aTo Do Listd

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

Fam Friday with Mississippi Children’s Museum June 29, 5-7 p.m., at Highland Village (4500 Interstate 55 N. Frontage Road).

Includes activities with oversized creative building blocks from Imagination Playground, trainpainting, bubbles and more in celebration of the “Thomas & Friends: Explore the Rails” exhibit.

Free admission; highlandvillagems.com.

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Summer Learning Family Fun Day June 30, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., at Jackson Convention Complex (105 E. Pascagoula St.). The family-friendly event features hands-on learning stations, free books, MPB and PBS Kids character appearances, live entertainment and more. Must register in advance. Free admission; mpbonline.org.

Eagle Ridge Junior Golf Clinic July 10-13, 9 a.m.-noon, at Eagle Ridge Golf Course (1500 Raymond Lake Road, Raymond). The workshop series features beginners’ sessions covering basic rules of golf etiquette, putting, chipping and more. Lunch provided. Register in advance. $150 per session; find it on Facebook.

Question It? Discover It!—Brain Day July 11, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., at Mississippi Children’s Museum (2145 Museum Blvd.). Children learn

Little, director of bands at Jim Hill, co-founded the Independence Showdown and its parent nonprofit, Mississippi Music Institute, with Atlanta native Travis Parks, 32, and Memphis native Travis Pruitt, 31.

The trio connected while studying music education at Jackson State Univer-

something we saw later because of just the landscape of music in Mississippi. But there was a definite want to do something recreational and positive, and we just wanted to provide that outlet for the young people, not just people who are in school.”

Parks says they aim for the event to COURTESY MISSISSIPPI MUSIC INSTITUTE

wave of brass and booming percussion spills out onto the gravel lot behind Jim Hill High School.

A few young men, who look to be freshly out of an athletic practice, peer through an open back door to watch more than 50 musicians prepare for battle—or at least, for a battle of the bands.

Standing or seated in groups, the musicians play and mimic the movements spectators will later see on the field. Flutes, saxophones and quieter instruments sit nearest to the platform where the bandleaders conduct. Cymbal players and drum-line members close out the pack, standing in the back beneath a rainbow of trophies.

On the wall, a banner reads “Jim Hill High School Marching Band,” but of course, that’s not entirely true. While some are Jim Hill students, many come from other schools around Jackson or are even recent high-school and college graduates.

Together, they form the Mississippi Alumni All-star Band, which is preparing for the Independence Showdown, an annual competition featuring marching bands from states such as Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio and Michigan.

“We started off just with this marching band in 2011, and everything just grew,” Chris Little, 34, says. “Now, we have two marching bands. We have a high-school and middle-school-only band, and this band is high school, collegiate members and people who are alumni.”

by Micah Smith

The eighth annual Independence Showdown, a competition featuring marching bands from across the country, is at the Mississippi Coliseum on June 30.

sity in the early 2000s. Around that time, Parks approached Little about launching an all-star band in Jackson. They have since brought on additional staff members Curtis Luckett, Anthony O’Bryant, Trenton Harper and Jordan Harper.

“We saw that there was a want,” Parks says. “I won’t say it was a need. The need is

be a national attraction for the city, a platform to advocate for performing arts, and a source of opportunities for the musicians.

The bands have been able to help several students earn scholarships, he says, and this year, they received invites to competitions in the Bahamas and Jamaica in the fall.

This year presents a few changes for

the Showdown, as this will be its first at the Mississippi Coliseum, relocating from its home at Newell Field due to renovations.

Along with the bigger location is a bigger version of the middle- and high-school group, the Magnolia All-star Band, which now has four divisions across the state.

In the near future, they also hope to expand other Mississippi Music Institute programs, which include a band-director training program, two dance ensembles and a flag corps. They are planning a banddirectors conference for 2019 and want to eventually start symphonic and jazz bands.

The main obstacle has been a lack of funds, which has made it difficult to travel and obtain equipment, uniforms and facilities, Parks says. The bands do have membership fees, but he says they try to provide fundraising opportunities, including smaller performances. They also don’t turn people away due to money.

“It’s really about the kids having that experience,” he says. “… We want to change the landscape and let people know that this avenue of music can really take you to multiple degrees. You can have a very good life, as far as your career. A lot of people don’t know that. Even if you’re not in music as a career, it can be a vehicle for you.”

The Independence Showdown is at 5 p.m., Saturday, June 30, at the Mississippi Coliseum (1207 Mississippi St.).The gates open at 4 p.m. Admission is $18 per person.

Visit msmusicinstitute.org.

So you think there’s nothing to do in Jackson? Visit JFPEVENTS.COM for more. about the brain through activities with representatives from the UMMC Child Development Clinic Center for the Advancement of Youth. $10 admission; call 601-9815469; mschildrensmuseum.org.

“When Cletus Met Elizabeth” Dinner Theater June 30, 6-9 p.m., at Sombra Mexican Kitchen (111 Market Street, Flowood). The Detectives present the comedy. Seating and cocktails at 6 p.m. $39 per person; thedetectives.com.

SUNDAY 7/1 “Oklahoma!” is at 2:30 p.m. at the Madison Square Center for the Arts (2103 Main St., Madison). The Madison Center Players present the beloved Rodgers & Hammerstein musical about a farm girl and a rivalry between her two suitors in the western territories. Additional dates: June 28-30, 7:30 p.m. $15 for adults, $12 for seniors, students and military; call 769-300-1359; email madisoncenterplayers@gmail.com; find it on Facebook.

FOOD & DRINK “Murder with a...Big Bang” Dinner Theater June 28, 7-9 p.m., at Biaggi’s (970 Highland Colony Parkway, Ridgeland). The dinner-theater show is a parody of the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” and features a three-course meal. $52 per person; fringedinnertheatre.com.

SPORTS & WELLNESS Ella Strong Triathlon June 30, 7 a.m., at Madison Healthplex Performance Center (501 Baptist Drive, Madison). The triathlon features an adult race with a 300-yard swim, nine-mile bike ride and three-mile run, and a kids’ race with a 150-yard swim, three-mile bike ride and

one-mile run. The kids’ race has two divisions: junior (ages 7-10) and senior (ages 11-14). $40 per adult, $25 per child and $50 per relay team (2-3); ellastrong.racesonline.com.

Live Oaks Two-Person Scramble June 30, 8 a.m.-6 p.m., July 1, 1-6 p.m., at Live Oaks Golf Club (11200 Highway 49 N.). The golf tournament features cash or Pro Shop prizes for the first-, second-, third- and fourth-place teams.

Includes lunch, hors d’oeuvres, beverages during play and a Saturday evening Calcutta. $450 per team (includes cart); find it on Facebook.

“Out of Bounds” Charity Cornhole Classic June 30, 10 a.m. at Renaissance at Colony Park (1000 Highland Colony Pkwy., Ridgeland). The tournament also features music, games, raffles, and food and drink vendors. Proceeds go to the Warrior Bonfire Program. $10 admission, $50 per team of two; warriorbonfireprogram.org.

Ol Skool Hoop Fest June 30, 5:30-8:30 p.m., at Lanier High School (833 W. Maple St.). The benefit basketball event features former Jackson Public School student-athletes. Includes a women’s game and a men’s game. $8 admission, free for ages 10 and under; find it on Facebook.

Farm Bureau Watermelon Classic July 4, 7:30-10:30 a.m., at Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame & Museum (1152 Lakeland Drive).

The annual event includes a 5K run/walk, a one-mile wellness fun run, watermelon and beverages after the race, and more. Participants are encouraged to arrive early. $25 5K, $15 fun run; msfame.com.

Le Tour de Waffle July 7, 7:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., at The Bike Crossing (115 W. Jackson St., Suite 1-D, Ridgeland). The biking event celebrates the kickoff of the Tour de France and features 25- and 48-mile routes. Includes a post-ride screening of the race with beer, soda, water and waffles for participants. Free admission; find it on Facebook.

Roger & Tena’s Hip-Hop Dance-a-thon July 7, 12:30-3 p.m., at Salsa Mississippi Club & Studio (605 Duling Ave.). Fitness experts and dance coaches Roger and Tena Long of Go Long Productions lead the high-energy hip-hop dance masterclass. Open to all skill levels. For ages 13 and up. Participants can pay in advance to info@salsamississippi.com via PayPal. $15 in advance, $20 at the door; call 601-853-7480; choreorobics.com.

STAGE & SCREEN “My Name Is Lola” Short Film Screening June 28, 7 p.m. at Arts Center of Mississippi (201 E. Pascagoula St.). Yazoo City-native author and filmmaker Maximus Wright’s short film is a prequel to his novel, “Soul Damage.” $15; pho3nixrisingentertainment.com.

Events at Mississippi Museum of Art (380 S. Lamar St.) • Moving Images in Mississippi: “Cookie’s Fortune” June 28, 6:30 p.m. Glenn Close, Julianne Moore and Liv Tyler star in the 1999 comedy set in Holly Springs, Miss. Includes a panel discussion. Free admission; msmuseumart.org.

“The Dinner Party” June 28-30, 7:30 p.m., July 1, 2:00 p.m. at Black Rose Theatre (103 Black St., Brandon). The Neil Simon-penned one-act dramedy follows six dinner guests and centers on the topics of marriage and divorce. $15 for adults, $10 for students/seniors, free for ages 2 and under; blackrosetheatre.org.

“Oklahoma!” June 28-30, 7:30 p.m., July 1 2:30 p.m., at Madison Square Center for the Arts (2103 Main St., Madison). The Madison Center Players present the beloved Rodgers & Hammerstein musical about a farm girl and a rivalry between her two suitors in the western territories. $15 adults, $12 seniors, students and military; find it on Facebook.

MONDAY 7/2 Author Abbey Lee Nash signs copies and reads from her debut young-adult novel, “Lifeline,” at 5 p.m. at Lemuria Books (Banner Hall, 4465 Interstate 55 N., Suite 202). $20.50 book; call 601-366-7619; lemuriabooks.com.

• Moving Images in Mississippi: “Dixieland” June 29, 6:30 p.m. The 2015 film from writer-director Hank Bedford stars Faith Hill, Chris Zylka and Riley Keough. Includes a post-screening panel discussion. Free admission; call 601-960-1515; msmuseumart.org.

“1776: The Musical” in Concert July 6-7, 7:30 p.m., at Belhaven University Center for the Arts (835 Riverside Drive). The Belhaven University Theatre Department presents the award-winning Broadway musical centered on the foundation of the United States of America.

Free admission; find it on Facebook.

CONCERTS & FESTIVALS Country Cousinz Concert Series: JXN vs.

North MS June 29, 8 p.m., at The Flamingo (3011 N. State St.). The hip-hop showcase features Metaphive, TdotVdot, Sippi Queen, Kayoh, Remidee Effect and more. Admission TBA; find it on Facebook.\ Events at Duling Hall (622 Duling Ave.) • Jameson Rodgers June 29, 8 p.m. The Batesville, Miss.-native country artist performs.

Seth Walker also performs. Doors open at 7 p.m. $10 admission; ardenland.net.

• Jackson: Soul of the City June 30, 8 p.m.

The event features comedian and host Rita B., the Epic Funk Brass Band, DJ Young Venom and more. $10; ticketfly.com.

• The Devon Allman Project with Duane Betts July 9, 7:30 p.m. The singer-songwriters are the sons of The Allman Brothers cofounders Greg Allman and Devon Betts. C.W. Stoneking also performs. $25 in advance, $30 day of show; ardenland.net.

Ryan Upchurch June 29, 9 p.m., at The Hideaway (5100 Interstate 55 N. Frontage Road ).

The Tennessee comedian, country-rapper and rock artist’s latest album is titled “Creeker.” $25 in advance, $50 VIP; eventbrite.com.

An Evening with Gerald Richardson & Friends June 29, 9 p.m., at Center Stage of Mississippi (1625 E. County Line Road). The Memphis, Tenn., R&B and soul artist performs.

Cortney Little and Nick Black also perform.

BYOB. $15 admission; find it on Facebook.

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

Red Brick Ride July 4, 7 a.m.-noon, at Clinton City Hall (300 Jefferson St., Clinton). The bike ride begins on the brick streets in downtown Clinton, and features 62-, 42-, 25- and 11-mile options. Register by June 26. Registration at 7 a.m., and departure times at 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m., depending on route. $35 in advance, $40 late registration; find it on Facebook.

So you think there’s nothing to do in Jackson? Visit JFPEVENTS.COM for more.

GILLIAN ROSE HYAM

aTo Do Listd

29

aTo Do Listd

So you think there’s nothing to do in Jackson? Visit JFPEVENTS.COM for more.

SUNDAY 7/8

ELIOT LEE HAZEL

EDM Friday June 29, 9 p.m.-4 a.m., at Club Vudu (209 Commerce St.). The event features music from New Orleans deejays DRAZR and WOP, and Mississippi deejays Rob Roy, DJ I-Pierce and DJ Clover. For ages 18 and up. $10 cover; find it on Facebook.

Events at Martin’s Restaurant & Bar (214 S. State St.) • The Gills June 29, 10 p.m. The Pensacola, Fla.-native indie-rock band performs. Doors open at 9 p.m. For ages 18 and up. Admission TBA; call 601-354-9712; martinslounge.net.

• Dirty Outlaw House of Rock June 30, 8 p.m. The concert features Louisiana-native post-grunge band 12 Stones and Los Angeles hard-rock act Stonebreed. $17 for ages 21 and up, $22 for ages 18-20, $60 VIP; call 601354-9712; martinslounge.net.

• Back in Black July 6, 10 p.m. The Dallasnative AC/DC tribute band performs. Doors open at 9 p.m. For ages 18 and up. Admission TBA; call 601-354-9712; martinslounge.net.

Independence Showdown June 30, 5 p.m., at Mississippi Coliseum (1207 Mississippi St.).

The competition features summertime marching bands from Mississippi, Michigan, Ohio, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Louisiana. Doors open at 4 p.m. Proceeds benefit programs from the Mississippi Music Institute. $18-$28; call 601-879-4627; ticketmaster.com.

Audience Control: June Edition June 30, 8-10 p.m., at Hops & Habanas (2771 Old Canton Road). The hip-hop showcase features Jo’De Boy, Scottie Pimpen, KC Young Bone and Kenyon Green, with host Sika and DJ Spre. Free admission; find it on Facebook.

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

“A Patriotic Celebration” Concert July 1, 6:30-7:30 p.m., at Christ United Methodist Church (6000 Old Canton Road). The Christ United Methodist Church orchestra and Testament men’s quartet present a concert of patriotic songs, as well as “Gershwin by George” and a tribute to composer John Williams. Ice cream social to follow. Free; christunitedjxn.org.

30

“Celebrating America” Concert July 3, 7:30 p.m., at St. Joseph Catholic School (308 New Mannsdale Road, Madison). The Mississippi Wind Symphony performs works from composers such as David Gillingham, Chris Pilsner, Norman Dello Joio, Jack Stamp and John Philip Sousa. Free; find it on Facebook.

Sippin’ Saturday featuring Arn Mait’n July 7, 1-8 p.m., at Lucky Town Brewing Company (1710 N. Mill St.). The Louisiana bluegrass tribute band is known for its renditions of rock songs from bands such as Iron Maiden. Also includes brewery tours, craft beer for sale, games and more. Free admission; find it on Facebook.

Jackson Gospel Explosion July 8, 6 p.m., at Thalia Mara Hall (255 E. Pascagoula St.). The

Imagine Dragons performs at 7 p.m. at the Brandon Amphitheater (8190 Rock Way, Brandon). The Las Vegas rock band’s latest album is titled “Evolve.” Grace VanderWaal also performs. Doors open at 6 p.m. $54.40-$94.50; call 601-724-2726; brandonamphitheater.com.

City of Jackson Parks and Recreation presents the gospel concert featuring Erica Campbell, Paul Porter, Jekalyn Carr and Small Fire. $24; ticketmaster.com.

Imagine Dragons July 8, 7 p.m., at Brandon Amphitheater (8190 Rock Way, Brandon).

The Las Vegas rock band’s latest album is titled “Evolve.” Grace VanderWaal also performs.

Doors open at 6 p.m. $54.40-$94.50; call 601724-2726; brandonamphitheater.com.

“The Many Faces of Love” Benefit Concert July 10, 7 p.m., at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church (5400 Old Canton Road). The fundraising concert for the Refill Cafe workforce-development project features performances from the Summer Women’s Chorus of Jackson and the Metro Male Chorus of Jackson. Includes ice-cream social from Sal & Mookie’s. $20 for adults, $5 for students; email jeffg@bravobuzz.com.

WEDNESDAY 7/4 The Farm Bureau Watermelon Classic is from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame & Museum (1152 Lakeland Drive).

The annual event includes a 5K run/walk, a onemile wellness fun run, watermelon and beverages after the race, and more. Participants are encouraged to arrive early. $25 5K registration, $15 fun run; msfame.com.

LITERARY SIGNINGS Gallery Talk: “On Poems & Images” June 27, 11:30 a.m.-noon, at Mississippi Museum of Art (380 S. Lamar St.). Photographer Maude Schuyler-Clay and poet Ann FisherWirth discuss their latest collaboration, “Mississippi.” Book signing and reading to follow. Free admission; msmuseumart.org.

History Is Lunch June 27, noon-1 p.m., at Two Mississippi Museums (222 North St.). In Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium. Author Stephanie Clanton Rolph discusses her new book, “Resisting Equality: The Citizens’ Council in Three Movements.” Sales and signing to follow. Free admission; call 601-576-6998; mdah.ms.gov.

Events at Lemuria Books (Banner Hall, 4465 Interstate 55 N., Suite 202) • “Lifeline” July 2, 5 p.m. Author Abbey Lee Nash signs copies and reads from her youngadult novel. $20.50 book; lemuriabooks.com.

• “The Lost Country” July 10, 5 p.m. Sonny Brewer, a longtime friend of the late author William Gay, signs copies. Reading at 5:30 p.m. $26.95 book; lemuriabooks.com.

The Writer’s Circle July 7, 4:30-6:30 p.m., at Kundi Compound (256 E. Fortification St.).

The event features an interview with Jackie Warren Tatum, author of “Unspeakable Things,” with audience participation segments. Funmi “Queen” Franklin is the host. Free admission; find it on Facebook.

CREATIVE CLASSES Watercolor Workshop: Color, Line and Shape June 27-28, 6-8 p.m., at Mississippi Museum of Art (380 S. Lamar St.). McKenzie Drake is the instructor. Participants ages 16 and up learn the basics of watercolor painting in the three-session class for artists of all skill levels.

Limited to 15 students. $30 per person; call 601-960-1515; msmuseumart.org.

EXHIBIT OPENINGS Beacon Makers’ Market July 5, 5-8 p.m., at The Beacon (3030 N. State St.). The pop-up shopping event is on the first Thursday of each month, and features local artwork, food, crafts and vintage items from Mississippi vendors.

Also takes place in the Fondren Building parking lot. Free admission, item prices vary; unboundstudios.org.

PRGS in the Gallery: “House of Morning” July 7, 4-6 p.m., at Pearl River Glass Studio (142 Millsaps Ave.). The exhibition features new artwork from Alli Bostrom Smith. Free admission; find it on Facebook.

LGBT Jaidynn Diore Fierce June 30, 8 p.m., at WonderLust (3911 Northview Drive). The Nashville, Tenn., drag performer was a contestant on season seven of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

Includes meet-and-greet event after the show.

For ages 18 and up. $15; find it on Facebook.

BE THE CHANGE D3: Downtown Design Dialogue June 30, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., at Jackson Convention Complex (105 E. Pascagoula St.). The City of Jackson presents the opportunity for citizens to learn more about plans to develop 7.75 acres downtown. Residents can submit ideas for how they would like to see the area used via social media. Free admission; find it on Facebook.

Check jfpevents.com for updates and more listings, or to add your own events online. You can also email event details to events@ jacksonfreepress.com to be added to the calendar. The deadline is noon the Wednesday prior to the week of publication.

S L AT E

the best in sports over the next two weeks

by Bryan Flynn, follow at jfpsports.com, @jfpsports

The MSU baseball team’s magical season ended Saturday. Fans have to be proud of how the team responded to the adversity early in the season by ending it at the College World Series.

THURSDAY 6/28 Soccer (9 a.m.-4 p.m., FOX/FS1): Group G in FIFA World Cup FRIDAY 6/29 CFL (6-9 p.m., ESPN2): Winnipeg Blue Bombers v.

Hamilton Tiger-Cats SATURDAY 6/30 Soccer (9 a.m.-4 p.m., FOX/FS1): Round of 16 in FIFA World Cup SUNDAY 7/1 Soccer (9 a.m.-4 p.m., FOX/FS1): Round of 16 in FIFA World Cup MONDAY 7/2 Soccer (9 a.m.-4 p.m., FOX/FS1): Round of 16 in FIFA World Cup TUESDAY 7/3 Soccer (9 a.m.-4 p.m., FOX/FS1): Round of 16 in FIFA World Cup WEDNESDAY 7/4 Baseball (3-6 p.m., ESPN): Baltimore Orioles v.

Philadelphia Phillies THURSDAY 7/5 Poker (9-11 p.m., ESPN2): World Series of Poker Main Event FRIDAY 7/6 Soccer (9 a.m.-4 p.m., FS1): Quarterfinals in FIFA World Cup SATURDAY 7/7 Soccer (9 a.m.-4 p.m., FOX): Quarterfinals in FIFA World Cup SUNDAY 7/8 Formula 1 (8-10 a.m., ESPN): Rolex British Grand Prix MONDAY 7/9 Baseball (6-9 p.m., ESPN): Washington Nationals v.

Pittsburgh Pirates TUESDAY 7/10 Soccer (1-4 p.m., FOX): Semifinals in FIFA World Cup WEDNESDAY 7/11 Soccer (1-4 p.m., FOX): Semifinals in FIFA World Cup

Courtesy Kicking

WEDNESDAY 6/27 1908 - Bill Ellison 6:30 p.m.

Alumni House - Larry Brewer 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Drago’s - Johnny Barranco 6-9 p.m.

Hal & Mal’s - New Bourbon Street Jazz Band 6:30 p.m.

Kathryn’s - Gator Trio 6:30-9:30 p.m.

MS Legends Grill - Phil & Trace 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Old Capitol Inn - Stacy Andrews 7 p.m.

Pelican Cove - Mike & Skip 6-10 p.m.

Shucker’s - Proximity 7:30-11:30 p.m.

Thursday 6/28 1908 - Larry Brewer & Doug Hurd 6:30 p.m.

District at Eastover - John Causey 6-9 p.m.

Drago’s - Johnny Barranco 6-9 p.m.

F. Jones - Maya Kyles & the F. Jones Challenge Band 10 p.m. $5 Fenian’s - Zach Day 9 p.m. free Georgia Blue, Flowood Phil & Trace Georgia Blue, Madison Aaron Coker Hal & Mal’s - D’Lo Trio 6-9 p.m. free Iron Horse - Vinnie C. 6 p.m.

Kathryn’s - Chad Perry Band 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Kemistry - DJ T-Money 9 p.m.

Majestic Burger - Hunter Gibson 6-8:30 p.m.

McClain - James Bailey & Linda Blackwell 6-9 p.m.

Old Capitol Inn - Brian Jones 7 p.m.

Pelican Cove - Acoustic Crossroads Duo 6 p.m.

Shucker’s - Sofa Kings 7:30-11:30 p.m.

Underground 119 Fred T & the Band 7-10:30 p.m. free

Friday 6/29 1908 - Andrew Pates 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Ameristar, Vicksburg Fortag 8 p.m.

Bonny Blair’s - Larry Brewer & Doug Hurd 7:30-11:30 p.m.

Burgers & Blues - Inside Out 6 p.m.

Center Stage - Gerald Richardson w/ Cortney Little & Nick Black 9 p.m. $15 Cerami’s - James Bailey & Linda Blackwell 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Club Vudu - Drazr, Wop, DJ I-Piece, Rob Roy & more 9 p.m. $10 Doe’s Eat Place, Florence Dagnabbit 7-9 p.m.

Drago’s - Brandon Greer 6-9 p.m.

Duling Hall - Jameson Rodgers w/ Seth Walker 8 p.m. $10 F. Jones - Sherman Lee Dillon & the MS Sound midnight $10 Fenian’s - Yancy Clegg 9 p.m.

The Flamingo Metaphive, TDot VDot, Kayoh, Sippi Queen, Remidee Effect & more 8 p.m.

Hal & Mal’s - Crooked Creek 7-10 p.m. free The Hideaway - Ryan Upchurch 9 p.m. $25 advance $50 VIP Iron Horse - Sherman Lee Dillon 9 p.m.

ISH - High Frequency Band 10 p.m.

Kathryn’s - Chris Gill & the Sole Shakers 7 p.m.

Kicking Kemistry - DJ Trigga 8 p.m.

Martin’s - Steve Chester 6-8:30 p.m. free; The Gills 10 p.m.

Old Capitol Inn - Stevie Cain 7 p.m.

Pelican Cove - Faze 4 7-11 p.m.

Pop’s - Trouble Trio 9 p.m.

Shucker’s - Sonny Duo 5:30 p.m.; Snazz 8 p.m. $5; Todd Smith 10 p.m.

Underground 119 - Kern Pratt & the Accused 8:30 p.m.

Saturday 6/30 Ameristar, Vicksburg Fortag 8 p.m.

Bacchus - Larry Brewer 6-9 p.m.

Bonny Blair’s - Angela Pittman 6:30 p.m.

Burgers & Blues - 3 Hour Tour 6 p.m.

CS’s - A Deer A Horse w/ Kicking & Bad Magic 8 p.m.-midnight Doe’s Eat Place, Florence Kern Pratt 7-9 p.m.

Duling Hall - DJ Young Venom, Epic Funk & more 8 p.m. $10 F. Jones - Big Money Mel & Small Change Wayne 10 p.m. $5; Jesse Robinson & Sherman Lee Dillon midnight $10 Fenian’s - Rail Yard Reclamation 10 p.m.

Hal & Mal’s - Taylor Hildebrand 7 p.m. free The Hideaway - South of 20 9 p.m.

Hops & Habanas - Jo’De Boy, Scottie Pimpen, KC Young Bone & more 8-10 p.m. free Iron Horse - Barry Leach Band 9 p.m.

Jose’s, Pearl - Blake Edward Thomas 6 p.m.

Kathryn’s - Travelin’ Jane 7-10:30 p.m.

Kemistry - DJ T-Money 9 p.m.

Majestic Burger - Scott Stricklin 6-8:30 p.m.

Martin’s - 12 Stones w/ Stonebreed 10 p.m.

MS Coliseum Independence Showdown 5 p.m. $18 $28 VIP Pelican Cove - Phil & Trace 2-6 p.m.; Lucky Hand Blues Band 7-11 p.m.

Pop’s Saloon - Spunk Monkees 9 p.m.

Shucker’s - Steele Heart 3:30-7:30 p.m.; Snazz 8 p.m.-1 a.m. $5; Chad Perry 10 p.m.-2 a.m.

Soulshine, Flowood Brandon Greer 7 p.m.

Table 100 - Tommie Vaughn 6 p.m.

Underground 119 - Stevie J Blues 9 p.m.

WonderLust - Drag Performance & Dance Party feat. DJ Taboo 8 p.m.-3 a.m.

Sunday 7/1 1908 Provisions - Knight Bruce 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Char - Big Easy Three 11 a.m.; Tommie Vaughn 6 p.m.

Iron Horse - Tiger Rogers 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

Kathryn’s - XtremeZ 6 p.m.

Table 100 - Raphael Semmes Trio 11 a.m.2 p.m.; Dan Michael Colbert 6-9 p.m.

Wellington’s - Andy Hardwick 11 a.m.2 p.m.

Monday 7/2 Hal & Mal’s - Central MS Blues Society 7 p.m. $5

Kathryn’s - Joseph LaSalla 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Pelican Cove - Robin Blakeney 6-10 p.m.

Tuesday 7/3 Fenian’s - Open Mic 9 p.m.

Kathryn’s - Stace & Cassie 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Pelican Cove - Larry Brewer & Doug Hurd 6-10 p.m.

St. Joseph Catholic School - MS Wind Symphony 7:30 p.m. free Livingston - U.S & DoubleShotz 5-10 p.m. $15 advance $20 gate

WEDNESDAY 7/4 Pelican Cove - Acoustic Crossroads 1-5 p.m.; The Chill 6-10 p.m.

Traceway Park, Clinton - Troy Laz, 2 Hipnotic & Chad Wesley Band 4-9:30 p.m. $10

THURSDAY 7/5 Bonny Blair’s - Larry Brewer & Doug Hurd 7-11 p.m.

Drago’s - Johnny Crocker 6-9 p.m.

F. Jones - Maya Kyles & the F. Jones Challenge Band 10 p.m. $5 Iron Horse - Eric Deaton 6 p.m.

Kathryn’s - Steele Heart 6:30-9:30 p.m.

McClain - James Bailey & Linda Blackwell 6-9 p.m.

Pelican Cove - Keys vs.

Strings 6-10 p.m.

Doe’s Eat Place, Florence Jason Turner 7-9 p.m.

Drago’s - Hunter Gibson 6-9 p.m.

F. Jones - Lonn’e George & Flasche midnight $10 Iron Horse - Bernard Jenkins 9 p.m.

ISH - DJ Unpredictable & Phingaprint 9 p.m.

Kathryn’s - Acoustic Crossroads 7-10:30 p.m.

Majestic Burger - Chad Perry 6-8:30 p.m.

Martin’s - Back in Black (AC/DC tribute) 10 p.m. $20 advance $25 door Pelican Cove - Dead End Circle 7-11 p.m.

SATURDAY 7/7 Ameristar, Vicksburg - Dr. Zarr’s Amazing Funk Monster 8 p.m. $10 F. Jones - Big Money Mel & Small Change Wayne 10 p.m. $5; T-Baby midnight $10 Hal & Mal’s - Year of the Locust & Dark Sky Machine 8 p.m.

Iron Horse - Stevie J 9 p.m.

Kathryn’s - Faze 4 7 p.m.

Lucky Town - Arn Mait’n 1-8 p.m. free Martin’s - Cloud Wars 10 p.m.

Pelican Cove - Barry Leach Trio 2-6 p.m.; Chris Gill Band 7-11 p.m.

Pop’s - Just Cauz 9 p.m.

Underground 119 - John Causey & the Effects 9 p.m.

FRIDAY 7/6

SUNDAY 7/8

1908 - Bill Ellison 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Ameristar, Vicksburg - Dr. Zarr’s Amazing Funk Monster 8 p.m. $10 Char - Ronnie Brown 6 p.m.

1908 - Knight Bruce 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Brandon Amphitheater - Imagine Dragons w/ Grace VanderWaal 7 p.m. $59-$99

Char - Big Easy Three 11 a.m.; Tommie Vaughn 6 p.m.

Iron Horse - Tiger Rogers 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

Kathryn’s - Jeff Reynolds Band 6-9 p.m.

Pelican Cove - Roadhogs noon; Rewind 5 p.m.

Table 100 - Raphael Semmes Trio 11 a.m.2 p.m.; Dan Michael Colbert 6-9 p.m.

Thalia Mara Hall - Erica Campbell, Paul Porter, Jekalyn Carr & Small Fire 6 p.m. $24 Wellington’s - Andy Hardwick 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

MONDAY 7/9 Duling Hall - Devon Allman Project & Duane Betts w/ C.W. Stoneking 7:30 p.m. $25 advance $30 door Hal & Mal’s - Central MS Blues Society 7 p.m. $5 Kathryn’s - Stevie Cain 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Pelican Cove - Shaun Patterson 6-10 p.m.

TUESDAY 7/10 Bacchus - Doug Hurd 6-9 p.m.

Char - Tommie Vaughn 6 p.m.

Drago’s - Chris Gill 6 p.m.

Fenian’s - Open Mic 9 p.m.

Hal & Mal’s - Raphael Semmes & Friends 6-9 p.m. free Kathryn’s - Keys vs. Strings 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Pelican Cove - Acoustic Crossroads Duo 6 p.m.

St. Philip’s Episcopal - Summer Women’s Chorus & Metro Male Chorus 7 p.m. $20 adults Table 100 - Chalmers Davis 6 p.m.

MEDITERRANEAN GRILL

EasyKale™ is the effortless and nearly tasteless way to add “superfood” kale to your diet!

A portion of our profits will go to help fight poverty!

730 Lakeland Dr. Jackson, MS | 601-366-6033 | Sun-Thurs: 11am - 10pm, Fri-Sat: 11am - 11pm

W E D ELIVER F OR C ATERING O RDERS Fondren / Belhaven / UMC area

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

6/27 - 7/10

See more music at Visit jfp.ms/musiclistings.

To be included in print, email listings to music@jacksonfreepress.com.

31

Last Week’s Answers

BY MATT JONES

50 British romance novelist’s boast?

58 Awestruck 59 Intensify 60 “Sopranos� actress ___ de Matteo 61 Samurai without a master 62 “Monster� that’s really a lizard 63 Fish sometimes eaten by raccoons 64 Special vocabulary 65 Fix, at the vet’s office 66 Turns into compost

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flavor (up for voting) in 2018 56 Hanukkah candy 57 Talk back to 58 Constellation called “the Altar� Š2018 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@ jonesincrosswords.com)

For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800 655-6548. Reference puzzle #883.

Down

“Flip the On Switch� —turn on, tune in.

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48 Singer Rita born in what’s now Kosovo 49 Wide shoe size

1 Puts two and two together 5 Clean the deck 9 Filibuster-airing channel 14 Cheer 15 Serve tea 16 River past Liechtenstein 17 “South Park� co-creator Parker 18 Rice-A-___ 19 Oscar winner Jeremy 20 Subsequent to a sin?

23 Dartmouth or Brown, e.g.

24 “I� focus?

25 Kissing disease’s progression?

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38 Inexperienced with 41 Sign for Oct. 23-Nov. 21 43 Parliamentary votes

AT TO YO U R SE

BY MATT JONES Last Week’s Answers

“Kaidoku�

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Blue Plate Specials 11am-3pm Mon-Fri WEDNESDAY Fried Pork Chop

Smithwickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ale braised, The Flora Butcher Irish sausage, Two Brooks Farm rice, Gilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s garlic crostini

buttermilk fried, bone-in chop, Guinness onion gravy, champ, sauteed garlic greens

TUESDAY Chicken Curry

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In the coming weeks, you will have an excellent chance to dramatically decrease your Wimp Quotient. As the perilously passive parts of your niceness toughen up, I bet you will encounter brisk possibilities that were previously off-limits or invisible to you. To ensure you remain in top shape for this delightful development, I think you should avoid entertainment that stimulates fear and pessimism. Instead of watching the latest flurry of demoralizing stories on Netflix, spend quality time summoning memories of the times in your life when you were unbeatable.

For extra credit, pump your fist 10 times each day as you growl, “Victory is mine!”

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):

It’s not so bad to temporarily lose your bearings. What’s bad is not capitalizing on the disruption that caused you to lose your bearings. So I propose that you regard the fresh commotion as a blessing. Use it as motivation to initiate radical changes. For example, escape the illusions and deceptions that caused you to lose your bearings. Explore unruly emotions that may be at the root of the superpowers you will fully develop in the future. Transform yourself into a brave self-healer who is newly receptive to a host of medicinal clues that were not previously accessible.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):

Here’s my list of demands: 1. Avoid hanging out with people who are unreceptive to your influence. 2. Avoid hanging out with people whose influence on you is mediocre or dispiriting. 3. Hang out with people who are receptive to your influence and whose influence on you is healthy and stimulating. 4. Influence the hell out of the people who are receptive to your influence. Be a generous catalyst for them.

Nudge them to surpass the limits they would benefit from surpassing. 5. Allow yourself to be deeply moved by people whose influence on you is healthy and stimulating.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):

“If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” Activist and author Audre Lorde said that, and in accordance with your current astrological and psychological needs, I’m offering it to you. I realize it’s a flamboyant, even extreme, declaration, but in my opinion, that’s what is most likely to motivate you to do the right thing. Here’s another splashy prompt, courtesy of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre: “We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made us.”

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):

André René Roussimoff, also known as André the Giant, was a French actor and professional wrestler. He was 7 feet, 4 inches tall, and weighed 520 pounds. As you might imagine, he ate and drank extravagantly. On one festive occasion, he quaffed 119 bottles of beer in six hours. Judging from your current astrological indicators, Scorpio, I suspect you may be ready for a binge like that. Just kidding! I sincerely hope you won’t indulge in such wasteful forms of “pleasure.”

The coming days should be a time when you engage in a focused pursuit of uplifting and healthy modes of bliss. The point is to seek gusto and amusement that enhances your body, mind and soul.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

On her 90th birthday, my Great-Aunt Zosia told me, “The best gift you can give your ego is to make it see it’s both totally insignificant and totally important in the cosmic scheme of things.” Jenna, my girlfriend when I was 19, was perhaps touting a similar principle when, after teasing and tormenting me for two hours, she scrawled on my bathroom mirror in lipstick, “Sometimes you enjoy life better if you don’t understand it.” Then there’s my Zen punk friend, Arturo, who says that life’s goodies are more likely to flow your way if you “hope for nothing and are open to everything.” According to my analysis of the astrological rhythms, these messages will help you make the most of the bewildering but succulent opportunities that are now arriving in your vicinity.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):

In accordance with the astrological beacons, I have selected two pieces of advice to serve as your guiding meditations during the next seven weeks. You might want to write

them on a piece of paper that you will carry in your wallet or pocket. Here’s the first, from businessman Alan Cohen: “Only those who ask for more can get more, and only those who know there is more, ask.” Here’s the second, from writer G. K. Chesterton: “We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable.”

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):

Ecologists in Mexico City investigated why certain sparrows and finches use humans’ discarded cigarette butts in building their nests. They found that cellulose acetate, a chemical in the butts, protects the nests by repelling parasitic mites. Is there a metaphorical lesson you might draw from the birds’ ingenious adaptation, Aquarius?

Could you find good use for what might seem to be dross or debris? My analysis of the astrological omens says that this possibility is worth meditating on.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):

I suspect that sometime soon you will come into possession of an enchanted potion or pixie dust or a pouch full of magic beans, or the equivalent. If and when that occurs, consider the following protocols: 1. Before you use your new treasure, say a prayer to your higher self, requesting that you will be guided to use it in such a way as to make yourself wiser and kinder. 2. When you use it, be sure it harms no one. 3. Express gratitude for it before, and during and after using it. 4. Use it in such a way that it benefits at least one other person or creature, in addition to you. 5. See if you can use it to generate the arrival of more pixie dust or magical beans or enchanted potion in the future. 6. When you use it, focus on wielding it to get exactly what you want, not what you sort of want or temporarily want.

ARIES (March 21-April 19):

Your best ideas and soundest decisions will materialize as if by magic while you’re lounging around doing nothing in a worry-free environment. So please make sure you have an abundance of relaxed slack and unhurried grace. Treat yourself to record-setting levels of comfort and self-care.

Do whatever’s necessary for you to feel as safe as you ever have. I realize these prescriptions might ostensibly clash with your fiery Aries nature.. But if you meditate on them for even two minutes, I bet you’ll agree they’re exquisitely appropriate for you right now.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):

“It is always what is under pressure in us, especially under pressure of concealment—that explodes in poetry,” Taurus poet Adrienne Rich wrote in an essay about the poet Emily Dickinson. She was describing the process of tapping into potent but buried feelings to create beautiful works of literature. I’m hoping to persuade you to take a comparable approach: to give voice to what’s under pressure inside you, but in a graceful and constructive way that has positive results.

HELP WANTED FLORAL DESIGNER NEEDED Full/part time period. Experience preferred. Whitley’s Flowers 740 Lakeland Drive Jackson NOTICES LEGAL NOTICE FORM 854 FILE Number: A1106251 Branch Towers III, LLC is proposing to construct a 160’ Monopole located 93 yards E of N Mill St just N of McTyere Ave Jackson, Mississippi. Per FAA Regulations this tower is not required to be lit. Interested persons may review the pending application by going to www.fcc. gov/asr/applications and entering the Form 854 File Number listed above. Interested persons may raise environmental concerns about the proposed structure by filing a Request for Environmental Review with the Federal Communications Com-

Homework: Describe the tree house you would like to build for yourself one day, and what pleasures you would like to pursue there. Write: Truthrooster@gmail.com.

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TO PLACE A CLASSIFIED AD: Post an ad, call 601-362-6121, ext. 11 or fax to 601-510-9019.

Deadline: Mondays at Noon.

Write stories that matter for the publications readers love to read.

The Jackson Free Press and BOOM Jackson are seeking hard-working freelance writers who strive for excellence in every piece. Work with editors who will inspire and teach you to tell sparkling stories.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):

Introductory offers are expiring. The bracing thrills of novelty must ripen into the cool enjoyments of maturity.

It’s time to finish the dress rehearsal, so the actual show can begin. You’ve got to start turning big, bright fantasies into crisp, no-nonsense realities. In light of these shifting conditions, I suspect you can no longer use your good intentions as leverage, but must deliver more tangible signs of commitment. Please don’t take this as a criticism, but the cosmic machinery in your vicinity needs some actual oil, not just your witty stories about the oil and the cosmic machinery.

mission. The Federal Communications Commission strongly encourages interested parties to file Requests for Environmental Review online. Instructions for making such filings can be found at www.fcc.gov/asr/environmentalrequest Interested parties that would prefer to file a Request for Environmental Review by paper copy can submit to: FCC Requests for Environmental Review, Attn: Ramon Williams, 445 12th Street SW, Washington, DC 20554 Internet $14.95 (where avail.) CALL Today & SAVE 25%! 1-866-698-8159

Email and convince us that you have the drive and creativity to join the team. Better yet, include some kick-ass story ideas. Send to:

micah@jacksonfreepress.com

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

CANCER (June 21-July 22):

33

DIY

Marble Masterpieces

AMBER HELSEL

by Amber Helsel

Whether you like coffee, painting or just need something to put stuff in, mugs can come in pretty handy. Sadly, sometimes they can look a little boring. Why not make them prettier using just a few things you may have lying around the house? Here’s an easy DIY if you’re feeling a little creative.

Materials Fingernail polish

Masking tape

Water Disposable container Tooth picks

Dishwasher-safe acrylic sealer

(as many colors as you want)

Sponge brush (optional)

----------Directions ---------Put hot water in the disposable container.

Tape off the inside and outside of the upper rim of the mug.

Pour the nail polish into the water and swirl colors together.

Dip the mug in the mixture using a circular motion. Do this quickly, as the polish may begin hardening when it touches water. If you want to layer colors, just wait a few minutes for the color to dry.

Let the mug dry for a few hours, then apply the sealer with a sponge brush. You can use a paintbrush, but it may leave lines. After the sealer cures for a month, it’s dishwasher safe. You can still drink from the mug in the meantime; just don’t put it in the dishwasher. When washing it during this time, use warm water and mild dish soap. Keep in mind that over time, the color may fade or get chipped off, even with the sealer.

CHANDELEUR ISLAND

June 27 - July 10, 2018 • jfp.ms

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