Delta Magazine January/February 2018 Complimentary Issue by Delta Magazine

Delta

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

annual tourism guide

easy winter meals fitness and recreation

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W O N

N E OP

RReaadyy carre for o yyou. Reeady d for or thefuuture.

With the opening of our $300 million m hospital in Oxford, Baptist is renewing g our health care commitment to north th Mississippi patie ents and communities.. For 28 yea ars, our physicians and d staff have been carring for patients while e focusing on n innovation, research and quality. Toda T oday, we ar a e a leader in health car c e technology y,, provid ding more convenience and access—and a new hospital ready for you now and in the future.

Get Bette er. baptistonline.org/nowopen

662-636-1000

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DELTA M

Publisher: J. Scott Coopwood Editor: Cindy Coopwood Managing Editor: Pam Parker Contributing Editors: Hank Burdine, Maude Schuyler Clay, Noel Workman, Roger Stolle Digital Editor: Phil Schank Graphic Designers: Sandra K. Goff, Cailee Conrad, Holly Ray Consultant: Samir Husni, Ph.D. Special Projects Coordinator: Stacye Trout Contributing Writers: Brenda Ware Jones, Sherry Lucas, Zoe McDonald, Angela Rogalski, Tom Speed, Boyce Upholt, Amanda Wells Photography: Austin Britt, Greg Campbell, Rory Doyle, Will Jacks, Roy Meeks, Bill Powell, Marge Selby Self, Charles Smith Circulation: Holly Tharp Accounting Manager: Emma Jean Thompson Account Executives: Cristen Hemmins, Kristy Kitchings, Wendy Mize, Ann Nestler, Cadey True POSTMASTER: Send all address changes to Delta Magazine P.O. Box 117, Cleveland, MS 38732 ADVERTISING: For advertising information, please call (662) 843-2700 or email Delta Magazine accepts no responsibility for unsolicited materials or photos and in general does not return them to sender. Photography obtained for editorial usage is owned by Delta Magazine and may not be released for commercial use such as in advertisements and may not be purchased from the magazine for any reason. All editorial and advertising information is taken from sources considered to be authoritative, but the publication cannot guarantee their accuracy. Neither that information nor any opinion expressed on the pages of Delta Magazine in any way constitutes a solicitation for the sale or purchase of securities mentioned. No material in Delta Magazine may be reproduced in any form without the written consent of the publication. Delta Magazine is published bi-monthly by Coopwood Magazines, Inc., 125 South Court St., Cleveland, MS 38732-2626. Periodicals postage paid at Cleveland, MS and additional mailing office. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Delta Magazine, P.O. Box 117, Cleveland, MS 38732-0117. Delta Magazine (USPS#022-954)

Delta Magazine is published six times a year by Coopwood Magazines, Inc. EDITORIAL & BUSINESS OFFICE ADDRESSES:

Mailing Address: P.O. Box 117, Cleveland, MS 38732 Shipping Address: 125 South Court Street, Cleveland, MS 38732 Phone (662) 843-2700 • Fax (662) 843-0505 deltamagazine.com E-mail: publisher@deltamagazine.com editor@deltamagazine.com Subscriptions: $28 per year 6 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

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WALKING THROUGH LIFE WITH YOU You’ve achieved firsts, you’ve overcome obstacles and, with the help of Greenwood Leflore Hospital, you’re continuing to live a happy and healthy life. We will always be there to move forward through life with you.

A Lifetime of Care

1401 River Road • Greenwood, MS • 662-459-7000 • www.glh.org

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from the editor

Day by Day he new year is upon us with all its possibilities, promises and uncertainties–oh, and the enormous pressure to make our annual resolutions. Like most people, I don’t think I’ve ever successfully kept a resolution for a whole year; in fact, they are usually completely forgotten about two weeks in! So this year I resolve NOT to make any New Year’s resolutions; instead mine will be daily–maybe even hourly. That’s a little more doable for me, and I believe this will help me reach my ultimate goal, which is to live in the present. I want to truly engage in what’s before me every day: time with my family, lunch with a friend, the special events and the mundane. This is how I want to live in 2018–daily, hourly and moment by moment! This is not to say there aren’t a few things I’d like to do or accomplish this year! I have a bucket list of places I’d like to see and do right here in the Delta. Our annual tourism issue will inspire you to plan a weekend trip or even a day trip through With photographer (and my high school classmate!), Tom the region. Follow the Museum Trail, page 45, from town to Beck, on a recent shoot at an town and study our special Delta Detours section to help you historic home in Lexington. plan your journey. Read on in our Health, Fitness and Recreation section, page 134 not only for tips for staying fit but to learn about the tremendous outdoor recreation opportunities scattered across the landscape of the Delta. Or spend a day in Cleveland taking in the Mathews-Sanders Sculpture Garden which has recently expanded from the Delta State campus to the green strip downtown. This is truly a treasure for art-lovers. In the spirit of de-stressing mealtime in the new year, try one of our crockpot soup or sheet pan recipes, page 124. What could be better than to walk in from work or a frigid soccer game and have a hearty soup ready to enjoy or a one-dish meal ready to pop in the oven—especially with such easy clean up! I hope you enjoy every page of this issue and that it inspires you to explore the Delta in a new way. The abundance of interesting people, little known treasures, restaurants, artists and beautiful homes here in the Delta never ceases to amaze me—and we are already hard at work on features to bring you in the new year. Write us and tell us about your Delta experiences; we love to hear from our readers. And however you plan to approach 2018, we wish you the very best in all your endeavors! DM

I loved the Fresh Apple Cake recipe from (November/December 2017). It was a huge hit when I made it for Thanksgiving. My family cannot wait for me to make it again, so I am sure it will be on the menu again next year! Sherry Henson Memphis, TN

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Cindy Coopwood

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o t e om c Wel Local chefs pput their farm to table creativity on display...

for a Sample of Spring’s Favorite Culinary Events

January 20 SOUPer Bowl A taste-off of innovative a , chef ’s choice soups fr from some of our favor a ite local l restaurateur a s

For BREAKFAS BREAKFASST FAVORITES: BREAK FAAVORITES: V VORITE S rkville Cafe & Star City Bagel Cafe

February 15 unWINE Downtown w After hours shopping and delicious wine & hors d'oeuvre pairings

April 22-29 22 29 Starkville Restaurannt Week e A showcase of culinar y culture in one of the largest g Restaurant a Weeeks in MS

For LUNCH FAVORITES: FAAVORITES:: The Little Dooey, BIN 612 & Oby’s

May 11 King Cotton Crawf wfish Boil Cooking teams show off their best “heads, tails & trimmings” outdoors in i the Cotton District See stories of Starkviille’s culinar y ar tisanshipp in i our video series, Mississsippi’s Culinary T Town own. You’ll You’ll see why the best of the N New South still happens MISSISSIPPI’S around our table. Scan to Watch Video

Stories around the Table of Starkville’s S Culinary Community

/mscollegeetown

For DINNER FAVORITES: AVORITTES: The Veranda & Restaurant Tyler Tyler

IG: @starkvillem ms

S SavorStarkville.org SSt k ill

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contents Volume 15 No. 4

JANUARY/FEBRUARY departments

B.B King Museum

80 40 DELTA URS

BOOKS

SHOPPING

Reviews of new releases and what Deltans are reading now

Road trip Gadgets & Goodies

ART

MUSIC

HOMES

Langdon Clay From New York to the Delta Bob Dowell An Englishman in the Delta

A Delta Modernist Bentley Tibbs and the Allure of Home Easy Living on the Bogue, page 108

123

FOOD

156

HISTORY

Easy. Quick. Nutritious. Sheet pan meals and Crockpot soups

Kentucky Fried Chicken Comes to the Delta

DETO

features

45 80 84 90 116 134

DM’S ANNUAL TOURISM GUIDE

ARTISTIC INSTALLATIONS

Let the Museum Trail take you through the Delta The Mathews-Sanders Sculpture Garden expands to downtown Cleveland

THE WHO’S DELTA CONNECTION FOWL PLAY & FAMILY FUN The Wild Ride of Maxene Harlow

THE GREAT BEAR HUNT

The Rogers family making memories in the great outdoors

HEALTH, FITNESS AND RECREATION A walk through history in modern times

in every issue 12 Letters 16 On the Road Where we’ve been, where we’re going next

20 Off the Beaten Path 24 Hot Topics 160 Events A listing of events including concerts, festivals, book signing

162 Delta Seen Pages of snapshots from area fundraisers, art openings and social events

168 The Final Word by Dr. Lee Owen

Inspiration to get moving in the new year

ON THE COVER: Photo by Will Jacks of a hearty tomato soup, one of the recipes featured in our winter meals feature. 10 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

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Desttination

Misssissippi

what h ’s your next missi s ssip ssissi s ppi getaw t aay?? Map a course to rich history, bright beaches, cool blues, soulfu ul cuisine and warm welcom mes. Our highways, byways and back roads invite you to explore all the hospitality y state has to offer. And MD DOT travel resources makes s it easy. From traffic alerts and road conditions, to weatherr forecasts and more, MDOT gives you the travel informatio on you need for your next adventure. Yo ou can access it all from our mobile app, your computer or by calling 511. Find out more at MDO OTtraffic.com.

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LETTERS D

10/18/17 8:37 AM Page 175

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to see other friends. It has been many years since I have visited the Delta. However, your magazine is my connection to a special place I will always have in my heart. Rena Davidson Tupelo, MS

PHOTO COURTESY OF HAMMONS & ASSOCIATES

RECOLLECTIONS

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017

1970 Christmas Parade

Winter Carnival

Greenwood’s historic Christmas Parade BY MARY CAROL MILLER

round the turn of the last century, Roy Martin’s grandmother advised him that it never rained on the second Friday after Thanksgiving. Whether her wisdom was gleaned from almanacs or a lifetime of experience has been lost to history, but this little nugget of meteorological lore would pave the way for decades of fond memories for Delta

children. Should you ask a Greenwood native about that particular date on the calendar, even today, their instant response would likely be, “Oh, that’s Band Festival!” How this enduring holiday tradition developed is an unlikely tale of one stubborn young man and a struggling river town. Roy Martin grew up in Rosebud, Arkansas, a tiny crossroads in the Ozarks.

Along with his ten siblings, he toured the state as part of “The Martin Family Band,” entertaining at church picnics and local fairs. Almost every one of those Martin children grew up to be a band director, but it was Roy who made the most enduring mark on the music world. Arriving in Greenwood in 1932 and tasked as the school district’s band director for the grand salary of $125 per month,

Martin saw a community that was bordering on despair. The Great Depression dragged on with no end in sight, five of the town’s banks were shuttered and the city had been inundated by floodwaters the previous spring. Greenwood High’s senior composites showed only a handful of thin, worried faces, reflecting a high dropout rate. Luxuries like yearbooks and new football uniforms were out of the question. Listening to his small band practice in a

converted farmhouse, Martin quickly discovered that the talent was there, but the outlets for it were pitiably rare. This was a town and a high school that needed an immediate infusion of hope. Talking his way past reluctant administrators and city officials, Roy Martin declared that Greenwood would hold a Christmas parade, led by the GHS band and scheduled for that magical “It never rains” Friday. A handful of neighboring school districts signed on and

a cotton trailer was commandeered to carry “Santa Claus” through downtown. On the crisp, clear night of December 6, 1935, with a few strands of lights lining the parade route and most of Greenwood’s populace shivering on the sidewalks, a beloved tradition was born. Ambitiously dubbed the “Delta Band Festival and Winter Carnival,” Mr. Martin’s parade grew rapidly in the preWWII years, attracting more and more bands each December. DM

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DELTA MAGAZINE 2017

I was feeling sorry about aging. Then, thanks to Mary Carol Criss Miller, I was transformed back to my youth. The Greenwood Christmas parade (November/December 2017) in 1968 made this Florida transplant a member of a loving community. I do think it rained, because the pimento cheese sandwiches that the Delta debs sold were soggy. Didn’t matter because I was welcomed by not only the Criss family, but all those fine Delta folks. I appreciate this walk back, so that I can thank each and every one. I now speak correct Southern which I did not then; so—hey, y’all with hugs! Lee Davis Williams Addison, TX In the 1960’s when I grew up in Osceola, Arkansas, jute bagging was used to wrap cotton bales and hide duck boats, and the steam-powered gin built by my

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grandfather in 1929 was still operating. I have driven tractors on both sides of the levee, ferried a farm barge to an island in the Mississippi River, and my grandfather and father participated in flood rescue operations in 1927 and 1937. Thanks for reviving some fond memories. Jim Teaford Eufaula, AL Your article on the coffee shops in the Delta (November/December 2017) made me want to drive over there and sample some of those delicious offerings the moment I read it! I especially liked the contrast you used of the modern and older standby places to visit such as the Blue & White cafe in Tunica. Many years ago when I attended Delta State (back then it was called Delta State Teachers College), my friends and I often stopped at the Blue & White on our way to Memphis to shop and

THE HOLIDAY ISSUE

I know, better than most, the challenge of keeping a magazine fresh, vibrant, viable, and compelling. The two of you have lived up to—and exceeded—that objective in ways that defy all odds. For fourteen years, you have shown the world the best Delta (and Mississippi, too, for that matter). I don’t need to wait for an anniversary or milestone to offer my congratulations. Keep up the great work, my friends. Neil White Oxford, MS Hat’s off to Delta Magazine for the fine coverage, including the incredibly artistic photography of Timothy Ivy, of

Like our official Delta Magazine Page

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Find nostalgia in every item of the Delta Magazine Gift Collection

We’re “buzzed” about our exclusive linen cocktail napkins, set of four for $40

Shop our gift collection in our office at 125 South Court Street or Cleveland Commons in downtown Cleveland, Montage Marketplace in Greenville, Downtown Marketplace in Yazoo City, and Forty-Nine Commissary in Belzoni. Shop online at deltamagazine.com

To subscribe, call (662) 843-2700 or visit deltamagazine.com

12 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

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8:26 AM Page 100

Fall is Festival time

IN THE DELTA Sid “Bo Weevil” Law, a man outstanding in his field.

The harvest is over, the time is right and we do have fun! BY HANK BURDINE • PHOTOGRAPHY BY TIMOTHY IVY

ack in the summer of 1988, my sister Jane Rule called and asked if I had anything planned for the fall, as her dear friends Willie Morris and Bill Allard had teamed up as writer and photographer to write a story for National Geographic Magazine about “Faulkner’s Mississippi.” I told her, as a matter of fact, I was planning a dress up dove hunt to be held at my hunting compound Willow Run in November when it was cool. Everyone was going to dress in English

country attire and come as proper as possible sporting knickers and plus fours, big hats and flowing plaid skirts. We were planning a morning hunt with Bloody Marys served at 10 a.m. sharp and brunch to follow in the field shortly thereafter. After a light siesta a trap shoot was to be held at the trap range next to the Larry Pryor Ladies Libation House. This, I think, blew her socks off as she loudly exclaimed, “YES, that is right down Faulkner’s alley!” The sunflowers soon wilted as the doves came in droves, and the Saturday morning of the hunt, everyone showed up at my cabin right

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Hank Burdine’s Alden Farm Festival in your last issue! And a hearty thank you to Hank from Jack and Elizabeth Coleman. What a great way for a Texan by birth turned Mississippian by marriage to be introduced to fall fun in the Mississippi Delta! It’s not the way I am accustomed to shooting dove or quail in the South Texas brush country, but equally enchanting. There’s no better place to enjoy food, fun, and fellowship than in the great outdoors, whether trekking through a thick cover of guajillo bush, cacti, and long grass behind well-trained dogs searching for a bobwhite covey in South Texas or sitting in a strategic location surrounded by the lovely Cypress and cane breaks as the sun goes down. Count us in for campfire conversations and tall-tale telling. God Bless God’s Country—the Mississippi Delta! Elizabeth Ames Coleman Rosedale, MS

My sincere appreciation for the article on my nativities in your November/ December issue of Delta Magazine. I thought it was well done and enjoyed both Sherry Lucas and Tom Beck so much. They were delightful to visit with! Mary Hazel Weissinger Cary, MS

Send Comments and Letters to editor@deltamagazine.com or Delta Magazine PO Box 117 • Cleveland, MS 38732 DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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Lovely, dark and deep

PHOTO BY RORY DOYLE

A rare sight captured on a country road in Bolivar County as photographer Rory Doyle stopped to “watch the woods fill up with snow” on a winter evening in 2015. DM

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ON THE ROAD

where we’ve been, where to go next

winter wonder CLEVELAND

LULA

The DSU marching band getting ready for half-time. – RORY DOYLE Watching over those who have gone before. – BILLY HOWELL

PHOTO OPS & Renaissance happening

BOLIVAR COUNTY

WATER VALLEY

Old abandoned whiskey still from the 1930s. Notice the axe marks in the bottom made to drain the barrel of its illegal contents. – DELTA MAGAZINE Don’t miss this cool little place to grab lunch and groceries. – MALCOLM WHITE

CARY WAYSIDE

days gone by This is one of the oldest existing structures in the Mississippi Delta, built in 1842 by the Hunt family. – FRANC LEE Attendees kick off the first event of the annual Hot Tamale Festival. – MALCOLM WHITE

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WARREN COUNTY

lighting the way

St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Vicksburg.

STOVALL

– MARTY KITTRELL

FUNKY STOPS

A typical Delta landscape during this time of the year. – BILLY HOWELL

Roaming the real and rustic Delta HOLLANDALE

OXFORD

musical journey Rowan Oak entry way, Faulkner’s Home. – JIM HENDRIX

Juking it right way in the South Delta. – MARTY KITTRELL

LOS ANGELES

running waters LAFAYETTE COUNTY

Railroad bridge crossing the northern portion of the Tallahatchie River. – JIM HENDRIX

The Mississippi Delta Blues travels far and wide. One of the blues markers in downtown Los Angeles. – DELTA MAGAZINE

Instagram users, follow @deltamagazine and see #DMphotoops

DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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Spice up your kitchen - Bulldog style! Bring Mississippi flavor into your kitchen with the special Mississippi State University limited edition of A Mississippi Palate – the coffee-table cookbook with 105 Mississippi heritage recipes by acclaimed chef Robert St. John and 66 beautiful watercolors by Wyatt Waters, with his home state as the subject. This special edition features exclusive back cover art of one of the Bully statues in The Junction, with Davis Wade Stadium in the background. Each book is autographed by both chef and artist and accompanied by a signed and numbered print of the Bully statue. Collectively, the chef and artist are commentators and chroniclers of Mississippi culture – one using a cast iron skillet, the other using a #42 da Vinci brush – both armed with a deep love for the beautiful state of Mississippi. MSU is an AA/EEO university.

Order yours today at msufoundation.com/cookbook or call 662-325-7000. 18 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

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OFF THE BEATEN PATH roaming the real and rustic Delta

ST. JOHN’S CHURCH & LORELEI BOOKS One of the most majestic ruins in the Delta and a thriving bookstore in Vicksburg BY BOYCE UPHOLT AND ZOE MCDONALD

ne of the most majestic ruins in the entire state, St. John’s Episcopal Church has its

One mile south of Glen Allan on Lake Washington Road

ince 2006, Lorelei Books, has been an anchor in downtown Vicksburg. After ten

years in operation, Vicksburg native Kelle Barfield, who has worked in publishing and now works in corporate communications with Entergy, took over in May, along with manager Haley Sellers. Barfield says the foundation laid by previous owner, Laura Weeks—which includes readings and author signings—reflects the growing Vicksburg community. Barfield wants to strengthen the relationship between the community and the store even further, to foster a love of literature and learning in town. For example, opening Lorelei’s secondfloor space to open the Liein Lore Loft, a gathering space for classes, readings or book clubs. “Bookstores are far more than just selling a product,” Barfield says. “They can be a place for idea generation, a place to exchange theories and philosophies—a place that opens up your mind, anywhere you are. I’m just a fan of independent bookstores, period. I wanted to make sure we had one in Vicksburg.” 1103 Washington St, Vicksburg (601) 634-8624 20 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

RORY DOYLE

roots in the first days of the modern Delta. The region’s earliest plantations were launched in the area in the 1820s, on the banks of Lake Washington. Three decades later, the growing population demanded that St. John’s, the Delta’s first Episcopal church, move out of its timber-frame church and into something grander. Construction began in 1852 and was completed by 1856. But the church’s life was short: during the Civil War, the stained-glass windows were removed so that the lead could be melted into ammunition. The weather blew in, and the building never recovered; its fate was sealed when a 1904 tornado tore through the remains leaving only the foundation and a belfry which still stand above Greenfield Cemetery, a reminder of days past. With flying buttresses and plastered brick, St. John’s Church was praised by one bishop in the late 1800s as being the finest structure in what was then known as the “Southwest.”

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OFF THE BEATEN PATH

roaming the real and rustic Delta

ANN-TIQUES & THE ALAMATT RESTAURANT Second-hand goods from A to Z and American Chinese cuisine

IIn 1982, Bobby and Ann Papasan of t started as a hobby, and now it’s a life.

RORY DOYLE

Tunica launched twin businesses—his was a jewelry store, Dunn’s Jewelry, and hers was an antique shop, AnnTiques. “We aren’t your typical business people,” Ann explains. Both were still working full-time, Bobby in education and Ann as town clerk. Now the couple are in their next-door shops six days a week. It’s like a second home—“preferable to home, really,” Ann laughs. Chatting with customers as she enjoys the ever-present music floating throughout the store suits her happily. AnnTiques features just about every sort of second-hand good you might be seeking, from cookware to furniture to books, all in an airy, well-organized space. But she also gets her share of locals who just pop in for a cup of coffee and a conversation.

Many of AnnTiques visitors are passing through Tunica on a blues road-trip.

1259 Main Street, Tunica (662) 363-1501

n 1960, there were more Chinese residents in the Delta alone than in any other Southern state, with most working in the grocery industry. Soon after, the national

boom in Chinese restaurants began. American Chinese restaurants created a whole new cuisine—from Egg Foo Yung to General Tso’s chicken—dishes based on Chinese traditions but targeted to American tastes. However, in the early ’60s there were few Chinese restaurants in the South, and, for a time at least, none in Mississippi. That all changed in Greenville in 1968, when the first Chinese restaurant opened. It’s closed now, but the Alamatt carries on its spirit. Built into a ’60s-era motel diner, complete with faux-wood veneer, this restaurant serves up the take-out classics. Greenville was once the epicenter of the Delta’s Chinese culture, and the Alamatt has long been known to have the city’s best Chinese food. It’s worth a visit to experience the tasty minglings of America’s (and Mississippi’s) cultures. 2039 Highway 82 East, Greenville (662) 378-8166 DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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h 662-429-0416 · M-F 8-5 · Sat 9-1 Hernando - 470 Hwy 51 North n Ave. 662-236-0025 · M-F 8-5 Oxford - 2206 B. West Jackson Tupelo - 1730 McCullough Blvvd. 662-840-8833 · M-F 8-5 · Sat 9-1 Ridgeland - 314 New Pointe Dr. 601-499-0693 · M-F 8-5 · Sat 9-1

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Completing the circuit.

At Entergy, the circuit means more than electricity. It means connection and potential. Families. Neighborhoods. Businesses. We’re all part of a circuit. So we invest in industry. Inspire education. Nurture community. We empower each other. And together, we power life.

DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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HOT TOPICS THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ABRAHAM IS ROCK AND ROLL AMBROSIA A Delta Boy’s Reflections on Life as a Road Manager Paul Abraham’s new book The Gospel According to Abraham is a wide-open, no-holds barred look at his life as road manager for some of the biggest rock bands that ever hit the highways, byways, and skies to bring their music to the people. From Skynyrd to Bad Company, the Marshall Tucker Band to The Fabulous Thunderbirds; Abraham has seen just about every aspect, both good and bad, of some of our favorite bands—and lived to tell about it. Abraham is a Delta boy, growing up in Leland and now lives in Scott. He joined Lynyrd Skynyrd’s crew in 1987 and traveled for the next ten years around the world with the band. It was an interesting time for him, to say the least. But his relationship with Ronnie Van Zant and some of the other original band members goes back even further. “I first saw Skynyrd in probably 1973 in a club in Atlanta called Funochio’s,” Abraham says. “They just blew me away. Basically, I saw this guy onstage, (Ronnie Van Zant) barefooted, singing songs about growing up in the South, and about things you do in the South. And I knew he was a lot like me. I connected immediately with him. So, I contacted my brother, Carl, who was still living in Mississippi at the time, and told him how great the band was, and suggested that we bring them to Cleveland to perform. So, we put a little production company together and we contacted Skynyrd’s booking agent and brought them to Cleveland on March 7, 1974. They played the Bolivar Country Expo Center. And that was the beginning of a very long friendship with the band.” The rest was rock and roll bliss, according to Abraham, with a

few poignant moments of heartache thrown into the mix. Along with Skynyrd, he worked for the Marshall Tucker Band, Barefoot Servants, Fabulous Thunderbirds, Paul Rodgers and Bad Company and Billy Ray Cyrus. The book chronicles his many adventures with these icons as they traveled the road to rock greatness. Music still has a strong influence on his life, as he plays in a band called That’ll Do at local festivals and other venues. But this being his first book, he seems to have found another niche. “The words just seemed to spill out. I start at the beginning, growing up in the Delta, and some of the crazy stuff we used to do, then I just move through my life and career on the road with these great bands. It was an amazing ride, for sure, but not for the faint of heart,” he laughs. The book is published by The Word Verve Inc. and is available on amazon.com.

WONDER LIGHT CITY: A BLUESMAN’S FIELD OF DREAMS Ode to a great Deltan and more When 80-year-old Mississippi blues legend Robert “Bilbo” Walker talked about Wonder Light City, his eyes lit up almost as much as his aptlynamed juke joint. He called the ancient blue quonset hut his lifelong dream. Unfortunately, within a month of the grand opening, Walker was diagnosed with cancer. The blues legend passed away in the early morning hours of November 29, 2017. However, today on the edge of a cotton field just south of Clarksdale, Wonder Light City sits dark, a fitting memorial to one man’s dream. Known for his flashy suits and duckwalking stage antics, the flamboyant musician bought the rusty, ex-Army barracks somewhere in the Delta about eight years ago. He cut it in pieces and moved it with a cotton trailer to an old, family

24 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

property seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but actually just eighteen minutes from downtown Clarksdale. For the next seven years, Bilbo worked on his dream—painting the exterior, nailing up plywood inside and pouring a concrete floor. He cleared trees on the property, dug fishing ponds and even built an outdoor stage suspended by trees. He also hung Christmas lights. Lots of Christmas lights. This past June, he finally flipped the switch. Colorful photos and excited comments began to appear on Facebook and Instagram. Both CNN (Great Big Story) and NPR (Jazz Night in America) featured the Po Monkey’s-like party place. And the dreamer smiled. South of Clarksdale near the small town of Alligator.

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HOT TOPICS AN “EVENTFUL” CELEBRATION MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD Erik Kegler Takes Event Planning to New Heights Erik Kegler doesn’t think of himself as an event planner; he’s the one who creates the beauty behind the event. As co-owner of Eventful, an event design and rental service in Jackson, Kegler works with many planners who handle the logistics of the event, but he doesn’t plan; he and his partner and staff design and execute the character of the event. Kegler is based in Jackson, but works with clients throughout Mississippi to put together some of the most unique and elegant events possible. Kegler moved to Jackson about 20 years ago from Palm Beach, Florida and opened his design firm, Erik Kegler Interiors. “Then about seven years ago we were working on parties for clients and I had done a few weddings, and it had just gotten to the point that I wasn’t satisfied with the rentals that I was getting; it was really hard to try and find the things that I wanted in order to throw really good parties. So, I decided to open up Eventful, which is a boutique rental, party/design business.” Kegler says Eventful provides everything from linens to chairs, from tables to glassware and plates, just everything you’d need to throw an event of any kind. In the Delta he has been the event designer for the “Big Night” party and concert for the Delta Soul Celebrity Golf Tournament sponsored by the Steve Azar St. Cecilia Foundation, in addition to designing multiple Delta weddings. Kegler and his partner, Brennan Hovell, both have a background in design, which Kegler says is helpful in that, not only can they provide the rental items needed for an event, they can also help pull the event together from a design standpoint. “So, we get to help them create their event, as well as selecting the items they’ll need to make it the most memorable ever, from weddings to baby showers, and everything in between.”

erikkeglereventful.com

GRACELAND EXCURSIONS Extending the Elvis Experience Beyond the Doors of His Mansion Graceland is now offering Elvis fans an even more immersive experience into the world of the King of Rock and Roll. From seeing his birthplace in Tupelo, Miss., on the Graceland Excursions Tupelo trip, to visiting points of interest in the Mississippi Delta, guests will enjoy a one-of-a-kind musical journey. The Graceland Excursions Mississippi Delta trip follows U.S. 61, known as the “Blues Highway,” making stops at the “Gateway to the Blues” Museum in Tunica, Mississippi; the legendary “Crossroads” and Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale; Dockery Farms, widely recognized as where the Delta Blues was born; and the state-of-the-art, GRAMMY Museum® Mississippi in Cleveland, which offers interactive exhibits that showcase Mississippi’s important musical heritage and celebrates all genres of music. The luxury coach that guests travel aboard features entertainment and video programming, giving guests a truly memorable experience as they journey to each musical landmark and museum. Graceland Excursions is available to the general public and sold separately from the Graceland attraction tour experience.

Graceland.com DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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Getting a perfect selfie is tough, but making a mobile deposit is a snap.

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The Webb School is proud to be the Southeast’s oldest college preparatory boarding school that EHJLQV LQ WK JUDGH DQG R̆HUV OLPLWOHVV RSSRUWXQLWLHV IRU RXU VWXGHQWV WR SXUVXH WKHLU SDVVLRQV Contact us today to schedule your personal campus visit. 931.389.6003 • www.TheWebbSchool.com • admissions@webbschool.com 26 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

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BOOKS

Buzzworthy Comments

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich (Harper Collins) Fans of Margaret Atwood will de delighted with Louise Erdrich’s new novel, Future Home of the Living God. In the vein of The Handmaid’s Tale, the government is seeking control of women’s bodies for reproduction purposes in the face of worldwide devolution of life. The story is told by Cedar, a pregnant Native American who is writing to her unborn child. Tenacious and strong, Cedar must hide her pregnancy from the government to protect her unborn child. Her vulnerability grows alongside her pregnancy, especially when the characters living in this dystopian society start to get desperate themselves. Simultaneously thought provoking and action-packed, this novel has Erdrich’s signature fantastical elements, though her magical style is crowded out by the apocalyptic chaos, making this novel different from her previous books. Nonetheless, it is beautifully written and like all of her work, brings the reader into deep connection with the characters. (Liza Jones)

We asked Facebook friends and Delta Magazine Fan Page Group members what is the most influential book they have read and why. Louise Erdrich

Cleveland, Mississippi

The Stand by Stephen King. This book introduced me to truly epic storytelling with many diverse people, each having a rich well developed background. The ability to link and sustain the characters, how they act and react, while advancing a story of epic lenth is just mindboggling.

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn (William Morrow) If you love any of Alfred Hitchcock’s films, this book is for you. More than just a nod to the old suspense movies, it is a bow to Hitchcock films and all the others in his thriller genre. This setup makes for a highly entertaining marriage of Girl on a Train and Rear Window (one of Hitchcock’s best films). As in both of those stories, she witnesses something in her everyday snooping that puts her at risk. Or does she? (Liza Jones) A.J. Finn The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s Press) The Great Alone is full of rich characters and, like much of Hannah’s work, an emotionally charged plot that leaves the reader’s heart dizzy. As with her New York Times bestseller The Nightingale, Hannah poignantly shows the despair and destruction of war, though the two stories do differ significantly. A Vietnam veteran and surviving POW moves with his wife and daughter to the Alaskan wilderness “at land’s end” to find peace and happiness. This land’s end Alaska, wild and unyielding, ends up being the most complex, foreboding character of all. Some parts of the book are hopeful and beautiful, while other parts are dark and stomach turning. This is the kind of story that sticks to you, walks around with you after completion. It is the interspersion of light and dark, plus the ability of the human spirit to ride through both that marks Hannah’s work, and this novel is no exception. (Liza Jones)

For the Record

o Jennifer Medders

o Amy Hatchett Bowlin, Owner at DJN, LLC Madison, Mississippi

Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall, Denver Moore and Lynn Vincent. A true story that we can all learn a few lessons from. o Jason Heavner, Gallery Manager Oxford, Mississippi

Walden by Henry David Thoreau. This book changed the way I view my surroundings. We all live in such a beautiful world if we would only stop and look. o Becky Pardue, Dental Hygienist Clinton, Mississippi

Kristin Hannah

Books Delta Magazine fans are currently reading

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

o Alana Shannon Pinchback The Light of Paris by Eleanor Brown

o Janice Smith Taylor Michael White Feathers from Emmett by Dr. Sue Clifton

o Courtney Clark Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

o Lisa Fratesi Ivy Perennials by Julie Cantrell 28 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

o Dave Duggins

Six and a Half Deadly Sins by Coin Cotterill

o Penny Tullos Polk Jackie’s Girl by Kathy McKeon

o Dottie Ferrell Kerstine Origin by Dan Brown

o Tami Hawes A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

o Debbie Marquis Buckley The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda

o Keith Wood, Retired

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. It was an insight to the travesties of war. The story touched me on a personal level as I have not lived in such times. The book opened my eyes to the personal devastation that so many families suffered during World War II.

o Susan Ratliff Therrell To Be Where You Are by Jan Karon

o Karen Zadina

The Ghostwriter by Robert Harris

o Erin Jacobs Stagner The Queen’s Code by Alison Armstrong

o Elizabeth Hunter Mathews Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

o Julianne Bailey Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

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The End We Start From by Megan Hunter (Grove Press) Water is rising in England, refugees flee London, and one new mother gives birth to her son in The End We Start From. We follow this mother as she flees the water, struggles to survive with her infant and meets caring, strong strangers along the way. What is surprising is how immediately, how forcefully, the reader is pulled into the story. Hunter is an author to watch, as this is her debut novel. She writes with unforgettable provocation: every word seems chosen, seems to shine with power. A testament to the resilience and beauty of humanity and the sustenance of devoted motherhood, this story sticks well. (Liza Jones) Jim Carmody, Big Nasty, Mississippi’s Coach by Ron Borne (Nautilus Publishing Company) Jim Carmody, Big Nasty, Mississippi’s Coach by Ron Borne is a fascinating read. The manuscript, which chronicles the life of Mississippi football coach Jim Carmody. The book offers readers a detailed account of Carmody’s remarkable coaching career. Carmody was the head coach at the University of Southern Mississippi from 1982 to 1987. He led the Eagles to a 38-29 victory over Bear Bryant’s Alabama Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa in 1982, breaking the Tide’s 56game home winning streak. Carmody also scheduled a 1987 game against Jackson State University that broke a long standing race barrier. And, Carmody served as an assistant coach at Mississippi State University, the University of Mississippi, and the University of North Carolina. (Special/DM Staff) Fannye Cook: Mississippi’s Pioneering Conservationist by Dorothy Shawhan (University Press of Mississippi) The late Dorothy Shawhan’s newly released biography, Fannye Cook, Mississippi’s Pioneering Conservationist, details Cook’s accomplishments as an activist for Mississippi conservation. Born in 1889 in Crystal Springs, Frances “Fannye” Cooke was a strong willed woman determined to channel her love for all things outdoors into conservation efforts. Cook was the driving force in the Mississippi legislature’s authorizing what is now the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks in 1932. She founded the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science in 1939. During the Great Depression, Cook organized and established 22 wildlife museums in high schools and colleges around the state through the government Works Progress Administration. She founded the Mississippi Ornithological Society in 1955. Though Shawhan’s literary efforts Fannye Cook should now be more widely recognized in the company of John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Theodore Roosevelt. (Robert Dale) DM DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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There’s a good reason why

MILLS SAP APS COLLEGE is one of only 12 colleges or universities in the nation with a RHODES SCHOLAR in two of the last three years. years “TELL YO OUR FAMIL FAMIL LY, FRIENDS, NEIGHBORS: MILLSAPS IS THE PLACE TO BE! I DO NOT THINK I COULD HA AVE VE DONE IT AT AT ANY Y OTHER OTHER PLACE PLA IN THE WORLD.” – Noah Barbieri, Class of 2018 Truman Scholar, Rhodes Scholar

After he completes his education, ion, Noah ultimately wants to return to Mississippi and drive e progress in his home state. WORLD CLASS. HERE AT AT HO HOME. OME. | MILLSAPS COLLEGE MILLSAP PS.EDU

30 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

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It made Muddy wail+ Kermit talk+ Faulkner write. What will it do for you?

Mississippi gives rise to more than our fair share of legends. See what inspired them and spark the legend within you.

Opening April 28, 2018 Meridian, Mississippi msarts.org

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SHOPPING

⋘

Travel cord roll Your ever-disappearing phone charger now has a home. Pack all your electronics cords, earbuds and other accessories in this convenient travel roll. uncommongoods.com

⋘

When you turn down a gravel road and find yourself in the middle of a field criss-crossed with turnrows—and you’re just trying to get back to HWY 61. Trackstick retraces your path by copying your travel route to GoogleEarth. Super cool. trackstick.com

Don’t forget an extra battery charger

⤴

Chosen by Cat Head’s own roger Stolle

road trip

⤴

Gadgets & Goodies

The Ultimate

Delta Road Trip Playlist

There’s nothing better than a spur-of-themoment road trip! These snacks, songs and swag will deliver deep Delta vibes and come in mighty handy as you cruise the flatlands. Don’t leave home without them!

Copper Water Bottle A stylish way to stay hydrated on the go. swellbottle.com

Warning: This is not your nutritionist’s snack list!

Trackstick

⋙

“Smokestack Lightning” – Howlin’ Wolf “Parchman Farm” – Mose Allison “Down in the Delta” – James “Super Chikan” Johnson “Highway 61 Blues” – James “Son” Thomas “Mississippi Boweavil Blues” – Charley Patton “Backwater Blues” – Bessie Smith “Avalon Blues” – Mississippi John Hurt “Standing at the Crossroads” – Elmore James “My Home is in the Delta” – Muddy Waters “When the Levee Breaks” – Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe McCoy “They’re Red Hot” – Robert Johnson “Goin’ Down South” – R.L. Burnside “So Many Turnrows” – Leo Welch “Hill Stomp” – Robert Belfour “Mississippi Number One” – Eden Brent

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⤴ ⋘

32 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

Snacks When you fill’er up, who can resist grabbing these classic Southern snacks for the road? Pork skins, Moon Pies, sunflower seeds and boiled peanuts taste best with a cold RC cola!

Meori Red Foldable Box Keep this lightweight trunk organizer stocked with travel essentials so last minute road trips will be a breeze. containerstore.com

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⋘

I Was Here: A Travel Journal for the Curious Minded Diary This journal by Kate Pocrass is cleverly designed to prompt travelers to explore “the easily overlooked and wonderful everyday details” with pages to record each new discovery while traveling. amazon.com

Umbrella

Rain boots When it rains all day at the festival, or for a hike in the deep Delta woods, Hunter Original short rain boots. hunterboots.com

This inverted umbrella by Owen Kyne drys upside down, keeping the water on the inside.

⋙

amazon.com

Rain coat

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A must to keep in your car at all times, Torrentshell raincoat. patagonia.com

⋙

Walnut Hill Roll Top Backpack Sometimes a backpack is all you need. This extra capacity bag is perfect for travel or work. timberland.com

You can never have enough of these!

⤴ ⋘

⋘ Canon EOS Rebel T6 A great all purpose camera for capturing your travel adventures.

Blanket Perfect for any road trip adventure, festival or impromptu picnic. The Kachula Adventure blanket is warm, water-resistant, and has a snap-attached hood to convert it to a poncho. coalatree.com

usa.cannon.com DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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ART

King’s Inn, Chevrolet Caprice, Hoboken, New Jersey 1975

LANGDON CLAY From New York to the Delta BY MAUDE SCHUYLER CLAY

angdon Clay made his initial visit to the Delta in 1971 on a cross country road trip from California to New York with his New England prep school friend, Lloyd Fonvielle. Fonvielle was from Wilmington, North Carolina, but neither he nor Langdon had ever been to the Deep South. They traveled in an MGB convertible, had sleeping bags and knew virtually no one, other than the couple of names given them by New York friends. After a pit stop in Memphis visiting Bill Eggleston, they somehow ended up in Rosedale, Mississippi. [Eggleston’s wife, Rosa Kate Dossett Eggleston, was from nearby 36 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

Beulah.] Langdon, a then-fledgling photographer, was working on a series of photographs called A Day in the Life consisting of a picture of himself—either taken by a friend, stranger or, what would now be deemed as a “selfie,” a selfportrait—every day for an entire year. The photograph for October 10, 1971, taken by

Lloyd Fonvielle, depicts Langdon on the front porch of the Colonial Inn in Rosedale, a landmark river hotel that later burned. [Historian Adrienne Beard notes: The Colonial, near the levee, was a frequent stop for whiskey boats, or “blind tigers” as the locals called them. Mississippi bootleggers outfitted small riverboats with casks of illegal corn whiskey and docked them behind the inn.] The thing Langdon says he remembers most succinctly about that trip was seeing open fields of cotton for the first time and the smell of defoliant, which for many years afterward he assumed was the

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Carz-a-Poppin, Ford Galaxie 500, Houston and Broadway, 1976

MAUDE SCHUYLER CLAY

Flower Power Bug, Volkswagen Beetle, 23rd and 6th Avenue, 1975

Sign of Good Taste, Plymouth Duster, Hoboken, New Jersey, 1975

Clay, photographed on a flooded road near Minter City, 2013. DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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Top left to right: Delta Angel with Cropduster, Sumner, Mississippi, 2009; Harem, detail from 42nd Street panorama, 1979; Colonial Inn, Rosedale, Mississippi, 1971 (credit Lloyd Fonvielle); Lawnmowers, Tracks, and Dog, Carrollton, Mississippi, 2016

smell of cotton. He also recalls meeting a Delta State student who, after confiding his mother had recently discovered his pot in his sock drawer, invited them to sleep on his dorm room floor. When Langdon returned to New York City, he began the project 16th Street, photographing his block between 6th and 7th Avenues every day for two months. Working on photographic series became an obsession, and from 1974-76 he traversed the streets of Manhattan at night looking for cars that “matched” their backgrounds. This color work was shown in 1978 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Corcoran Gallery/ Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D. C., and was featured in an article in Newsweek called “They Park By Night” as well as Zoom, a French photo journal. The New York Times sent him to photograph the Natchez Pilgrimage, which led to work at Rolling Stone (where he photographed Randy Newman, John Prine, Levon Helm and many other musicians), New York and a variety of magazines. Over the course of three months in 1979, his personal project was using an 8x10 view camera at night, 38 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

photographing 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues; The 42nd Street Panorama, as it became known, remains a key document of Times Square at its seedy best, especially since the area has become more like Disney World in its current touristy (and much safer) incarnation. By 1982, he had switched over to architectural photography, gotten a book deal to photograph Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and focused on a career working for various architects and “shelter magazines,” such as Architectural Digest and House and Garden. He and his new wife (yes, dear readers, it was I) were making pilgrimages from New York in the summers and holidays to visit her family in the Mississippi Delta. Though they moved to Sumner in 1987, Langdon was still flying out of Memphis weekly, working on books like From My Chateau Garden in Burgundy, France, and photographing houses, gardens, and food all over the world. In contrast to his commercial work, he began to be drawn to photographing life in the Delta. One of his ongoing projects for almost twenty-five years has been Landscapes, Cityscapes, consisting of

juxtaposing focal planes of the landscape with the human or man-made thing. He describes this work as “combining the natural landscape with several layers of objects and shadows, balancing form and content. It’s like a stage set with dancers, with a foreground, background and midfield.” Inspired by Italian Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca and the 17th century Dutch painter Vermeer, he “records daily domestic life distilled through color and light.” He has for the last few years been retracing the steps of Paris photographer Eugene Atget (1857-1927.) Because Paris is a city whose architecture has for the most part remained intact—it was not, for example, bombed during World War II— many of the streets, statues, fountains and parks that Atget photographed a hundred years ago are virtually unchanged. Langdon’s photographs are in color, and Atget’s were, of course, in black and white, but the contrast of how things looked then contain often strikingly similarities to today’s Paris. The main thing Langdon says he wants to do is leave a record of what these places, whether Paris or the Mississippi Delta, looked like in our particular time period. “In

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Heloise and Abelard Tomb with Crow, Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France, 2017

ten years or one hundred years, through photographs we’ll see what was here. It is too much hubris to say that this was what life was like, but it’s not too much to say this was what life looked like.” One hundred and twenty of his Cars photos were shown in the 2017 show at Paris’ Foundation Cartier Museum: AutoPhoto: A Survey of the Automobile in Photography. He also had a one man show in September of 2017 at Polka Gallery in Paris of this work. His Delta work will be featured in the upcoming exhibit and book, Southbound: A Survey of Southern Photography at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2018. Cars at Night: NYC 1974-76, having long been retired to boxes, was finally published as a book in 2016 by Steidl. Steidl will also publish Times Square: The 42nd Street Panorama in the fall of 2018. The University Museums (formerly Mary Buie Museum) at the University of Mississippi, Oxford, will have a retrospective of thirty years of the work of Langdon and Maude Schuyler Clay in Fall 2019. DM Visit langdonclay.com

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From Kiplinger's Personal Finance, May y © 2017 The Kiplinger Washington E Editors. All rights reserved. Used by y permission and pr protected by the Copyright Laws of 1or bm]ķ u;7bv|ub0 ঞomķ |_; &mb|;7 "|-|;vĺ $_; rubmঞm]ķ r orr rretransmission of this t Content without express ub ;m r;ulbvvbom bv ruuo_b0b|;7ĺ

DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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MUSIC

An Englishman in the Delta How Trombonist Bob Dowell Found His New Home BY TOM SPEED • PHOTOGRAPHY BY RORY DOYLE

his is a story about how a trombone-playing Englishman found his way to the Mississippi Delta and came to call it his home.

That Englishman is called Bob Dowell and in 2008, he found himself on a ship setting out from the port of San Diego. The ship would spend a week at sea, traveling south through the Pacific Ocean into the waters off Mexico with stops in the ports of Cabo San Lucas, Mazaltan, and La Paz before returning home. Also aboard the ship were blues legends like Etta James, Koko Taylor, and Magic Slim. Dowell was playing with blues guitarist Kenny Neal and his band. Other legendary artists such as Dr. John, Los Lobos, Watermelon Slim and Curtis Salgado were also among the shipmates. They were all there as part of the Legendary Blues Cruise, a festival at sea that was on its eleventh voyage in six years. Among the special guests on the cruise, performing in the piano bar, was Greenville native and decorated blues pianist Eden Brent. Dowell and Brent hit 40 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

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it off, and over the years developed a relationship. Eventually, that relationship would blossom into marriage.

You Have Long Arms But that’s not exactly where the story starts. It started in England, in the North London borough of Barnet, where young Bob came home from elementary school one day with a form. He was to choose an instrument to learn as part of the school’s music curriculum. “I chose the trumpet,” Dowell says. “Just because I knew what one was. And I wanted to make some noise.” But the instructors disabused him of that notion on account of the fact that he was tall, and thus had long arms, and thus would be perfect to fill the role of trombone player. So Dowell took up the trombone, learned to sight-read and soon was playing all around town in brass bands, big bands, and other bands he could play with. At home, his father taught him a few songs

by strumming the guitar—songs like “Down By The Riverside” and “Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey.” His father also took him to some jazz concerts in the city. “We heard a few different players and I became aware of what could be done, and eventually it became more fun than counting a hundred bars in an orchestra,” Dowell says. “A trombone player called Chris Barber really got interested in harmony.” Soon he found kindred spirits. “I had a friend, Edward,” Dowell says. “He was really into it. We’d go around his house during PE lessons. The country run would go around his house and we’d pop in and listen to jazz records. A lot of Miles Davis, Clark Perry on these scratchy old recordings. It was early be-bop but you get past that and you hear the music.” That sorta-skipping PE class to listen to jazz records eventually landed him in the Royal Academy of Music, where he earned a fouryear degree in jazz trombone. That, in turn, landed him—jobs. Well, musician jobs. Gigs. There were periods of quiet and periods of DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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gigging. Sometimes he’d spend his last few pounds on breakfast, hoping he got a gig by dinner time. “I think every musician would consider [music] a non-voluntary part-time gig,” he says. “I got by. I clawed my way out. But it wasn’t easy.” That “clawing out” included a long career of studio session work and live performances with artists from a diverse range of genres including jazz, soul, ska and orchestral music. He performed at the prestigious Glastonbury Festival and the Royal Albert Hall. Then he met Eden Brent.

The Ambassador “If you need an overseas ambassador for Mississippi,” Dowell quips, “You should consider Eden Brent. She sold it to me really well.” Dowell landed in holy matrimony, and in the Delta, in 2105. It didn’t take long for him to acclimate. Playing along with Brent, he met fellow horn players. He started landing some local gigs, though more so with his bass guitar playing than his trombone playing, at least at first. “The first time I came I didn’t have any real preconceptions of Mississippi or the Delta whatsoever.” 42 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

Even given his varied background Dowell was not particularly steeped in the blues tradition of Mississippi. “I wouldn’t have called myself a huge blues fan,” he says. “We kind of grew up with records by Jimmy Reed and John Lee Hooker. But being a horn player, I was always more into Jazz. But blues was something that was always around.” When he got to Mississippi, Brent helped him find the nexus between the two. “I’d done a couple of gigs with her where she had a horn section. So I met a few guys from Memphis. I gradually met more. I went out to Lafayette Music Room on a Sunday and that’s where I met Tony Thomas, the organ player and [bass player] Tim Goodwin and [drummer] Tom Lonardo.” Soon he also met up with saxophonist Art Edmaiston (Gamble Brothers Band, Mofo), and producer Niko Lyran. All of a sudden, he had a band, and a studio. Dowell then went into the studio to record his first solo album, Mississippi Slide, which is a sumptuous six track slice of soul, jazz, and just more than a little bit of blues. Dowell composed all the tracks, but concedes they were mostly blueprints that were written more in the moments of improvisation than on the charts. A highlight is the album closer, “Little Boogaloo,” pays homage to the nickname of his wife Eden. And all of a sudden, Dowell is immersed in the heart of the Delta and the sweat of Memphis soul, all held together by his studied jazz heritage. And it feels like home. Over the telephone, in advance of an all-star tribute show at the Orpheum theater in Memphis, Dowell says, “right now, I’m looking out the window at a cow and big ‘ol cotton fields. I love it here.” And the Englishman has found his home. DM

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DMI

Fine Timber Land & Farms BIG BLACK RIVER TIMDER COMPANY • • • • • •

$7,000,000 for 1968 surveyed acres-Southeast of Vicksburg Over 1550 acrres of mature old growth hardwoods that join four miles of river frontage 400 acre of rich river bottom farmland and two excellent fishing lakes Legendary trophy bucks and turkey hunting on the banks of the river Located within a short drive form Baton Rouge, Bastrop, Monroe, Vicksburg, and Jackson Contact our Brokers to schedule a showing, Real Estate Broker Danny Rice 601-529-2847

MALLARD’S ROOST • • • • • •

$2,400,000 for 600 acres-located 15 miles south of Charleston, MS. Heart of the flyway 120 acre Cypress and Tupelo Gum Brake an incredible greentree area with shooting holes 270 acres of #1 sandy loam farmland with well and 88 acres of CRP that combined produce $40,000 annual cashflow Located in the middle of DU’s red zone for waterfowl and within a mile of Federal rest pond and 4 of the Delta’s top Duck Clubs Trophy Deer and Turkey are abundant, as well If you’ve ever hunted the Delta for Ducks, you know location is everything and this farm is in the bull’s eye ready to hunt. Call Doug Mauldin for an appointment 662-457-0714

LOST LAKES PLANTATION ON THE TN RIVER • • • • • •

10 Equity Memberships offered at $500,000 on 1823 surveyed acres You get your own lot on the Riverfront for your future cabin, ownership, and use of all 1823 acres for any and all types of recreation Over 400 acres of prime river bottom farmland and 200 acres of private lakes feeding into the River filled with all types of fish and Duck Hunting opportunities. 2 1/2 miles of private sandy beaches fronting the River for your water sports and summer fun 1300 acres of old growth Hardwoods filled with trophy deer and turkey. Food plots and stands in place. Contact Doug Mauldin at bigdougm@gmail.com or call 662-457-0714

DMI Properties – Real Estate Broker – Danny Rice

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2018 Delta Magazine’s

Annual Tourism Guide

HOP on the Museum Trail

here are so many things about the Mississippi Delta that pique tourist’s interests–the Blues, the food, historic towns, the river, and miles and miles of highway flanked by fields. This year our tourism guide

highlights the museums that are dedicated to many such interests. From the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale to the Winterville Indian Mound museum, these collections are carefully curated and are a great place to begin your exploration of the towns they call home. And our Delta Detours section offers up even more cool things to do in towns all across the region. So hop on the Museum Trail and let it be your guide for a true Delta road trip! – C.C.

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TUNICA

Tunica River Park & Museum

The Tunica RiverPark features a Nature Trail that is rich with native wildlife and flora, and the stunning architectural features of the RiverPark Overlook provide breathtaking views of the river. The Mississippi River Museum showcases the history, nature and culture of the region, including the trail of Spanish Conquistadors, the Great Flood of 1927 and four fresh-water aquariums allowing visitors to peek beneath the river’s mysterious surface to see live turtles, gars and fish. The Nature Trail and Gift Shop are free to the public. One River Park Drive, (866) 517-4837, tunicariverpark.com

Tunica Museum

Founded in 1997 by ﬁve Tunica residents who wanted to preserve their town’s heritage, this museum hosts exciting exhibits, special educational events, and history lectures covering Tunica’s Native American beginnings to the Civil War to the town it is today. You’ll even see how the addition of casinos in 1992 made gaming a part of the town’s one-of-a-kind culture. Admission is free. 1 Museum Boulevard, (662) 363-6631, tunicamuseum.com

Gateway to the Blues Museum

is rustic train depot, circa 1895 is the ﬁrst place many people stop when they travel down Highway 61 into Tunica. It serves a dual purpose—if you are looking for directions, advice or the latest information about events, restaurants and attractions in the area, travel counselors are there to help. ey can even book you a hotel room, make dinner reservations or ﬁnd you a perfect, oneof-a-kind souvenir in the gift store. And if you love the Blues, the museum tells the museum tells the remarkable story of how this genre was born and the role Tunica played in its legacy. 13625 Highway 61 North, (888) 488-6422, tunicatravel.com

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CLARKSDALE

Delta Blues Museum

e world's ﬁrst museum devoted to blues, the Delta Blues Museum was founded in 1979 and has become a world-renowned attraction and a major component of the blues tourism industry in Mississippi. Housed in a former railroad depot, exhibits here include signiﬁcant blues-related memorabilia, including Muddy Waters’s cabin and numerous instruments of the great blues players, as well as collections of art portraying the blues tradition, including works by sculptor Floyd Shaman. e museum also boasts an education program which has trained many young musicians to carry on this musical tradition. Join the likes of rockers Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, Billy Gibbons and Robert Plant who have all stopped in to pay homage to the history and culture of the blues. 1 Blues Alley, (662) 627-6820, deltabluesmuseum.org

FRIARS POINT

North Delta Museum

e North Delta Museum at Friars Point sits at the base of the levee on the banks of the Mississippi River in the National Register of Historic Places District of Friars Point. Founded as a town in 1836 when Coahoma County was carved from Indian territory, and later became the county seat and famous old steamboat port shipping Delta cotton for sale to Memphis aboard steamboats. e museum was founded at this historic location in the late 1960s as an educational and historical repository of early Delta history and artifacts. 748 2nd Street, (662) 902-7642 or (662) 902-9005

Rock & Blues Museum

is museum preserves the history and evolution of blues music to rock 'n roll with exhibits of memorabilia spanning several decades from the 1920s through the 1970s e museum shows not only the inﬂuence of American music, from its beginnings in the blues to American pop culture, but the impact it has had on pop music and culture around the world. e museum has six rooms ﬁlled with memorabilia, posters, autographed photos and photo exhibits of today's Clarksdale musicians. 113 E. 2nd Street, (901) 605-8662, blues2rock.com

GLENDORA SUMNER

Emmett Till Interpretive Center

Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center

Housed in the Sumner Courthouse which has been fully restored to look the way it did during the Emmett Till trial in 1955, the Emmett Till Interpretive Center was the brainchild of the late Jerome G. Little. He was the ﬁrst African-American president of the Tallahatchie county Board of Supervisors and formed the Emmett Till Memorial Commission in 2006. e Center now exists to tell the story of the Emmett Till tragedy and point a way to racial healing. By using the arts and story-telling to honor his memory, the goal is to help process the past pain and to imagine a new future for generations to come.

In Glendora resides a very important part of the Civil Rights Movement that many people may have missed: the Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center. “We provide an educational and healing experience for those who visit our museum,” says the mayor of Glendora, Johnny B. Thomas. “And, as I understand it, as history has continued to evolve, we’re now considered the epicenter of the Civil Rights Movement. The truth is told as it happened during that period and our museum is a living museum, where we tell the story of then and now. The mission of our museum is to preserve the heritage and culture of our community and its citizens.”

120 North Court Street, (662) 483-0048, emmett-till.org

33 Thomas Street, (662) 375-7333, glendorams.com DELTA MAGAzINE 2018

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CLEVELAND

GRAMMY Museum® Mississippi

is stellar museum is an exciting and interactive celebration of the power of music occupying a vibrant new space in Cleveland. Cutting edge exhibits, interactive experiences and ﬁlms provide a one-of-a-kind visitor experience—engaging, educational, celebratory and inspirational for all music lovers. 800 West Sunflower Road, (662) 441-0100, grammymuseumms.org

Martin and Sue King Railroad Museum

Railroad train passenger service for the Cleveland area stopped in 1965 and the last freight train passed through in 1995. In 2000, the tracks were removed and a walking trail took their place. Oﬃcially opened in 2009, today the museum is home to thousands of artifacts, photographs, and documents. Outside, visitors can “walk through history” in our 1941 Illinois Central caboose. e museum also displays one of the largest O gauge model railroads in the southeast. e museum’s mission is to preserve the history of the railroad in Cleveland, Bolivar County, and the Delta. 115 South Bayou Avenue, (662) 843-3377, clevelandtrainmuseum.com

Boo Ferriss Museum

David “Boo” Meadow Ferriss was the Boston Red Sox pitcher from 1945 through 1950. After his Major League career ended, he returned to the Mississippi Delta as the head baseball coach at Delta State University where he retired. With 639 wins, he led Delta State as the school’s all-time leader in wins. Visit the museum on campus at the Crawford Center to experience one of baseball’s most legendary icons. 1003 West Sunflower Road, (662) 846-3000, gostatesmen.com

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LELAND

Birthplace of Kermit the Frog Museum

On the banks of Deer Creek, this museum provides a place where both old and new fans can join in the celebration of Jim Henson’s creativity. e exhibit includes educational displays, videos, memorabilia, a welcoming staﬀ, and a gift shop. 415 North Deer Creek Drive West, (662) 686-7383, birthplaceofthefrog.org

Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum

e Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum is a fascinating look at not only the ﬁsh and animals native to the Delta, but also the tools used to harvest them. ese run the gamut from Indian spears to antique lures, outboard motors and the latest in trail cameras. Displays and stories abound from hunters, ﬁshers and outdoor lovers who are helping preserve the history of our natural resources by sharing their prized possessions. A part of Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum, the Mississippi Outdoor Hall of Fame seeks to honor Mississippians who have dedicated their lives to the Great Outdoors. 304 North Broad Street, (662) 686-7789, mswildlifeheritagemuseum.com

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Highway 61 Blues Museum

Deep in the Mississippi Delta on the famous blues highway, lies a musical treasure: the Highway 61 Blues Museum in Leland. Nestled in the cradle of American music, Leland produced some of the major inﬂuences and early movers in the blues, and carried a musical tradition that even made an indelible mark on rock & roll. 307 North Broad Street, (662) 686-2063 or (662) 686-2004, highway61blues.com

Traveler The Hungryin the Delta Eating off the grid

BY BOYCE UPHOLT AND PETER JOYCE PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOM BECK AND AUSTIN BRITT

EE THAT GRILL OUT THERE?” says Betty Jo Campbell, as she sets a platter of ribs on the table. “We used to sit out on the highway with that and sell food.” Which, to me, is a good of the best sign: I’ve come to believe that—in the Delta at least—some from food is hard to track down. It’s food that’s cooked out of love, scratch—and with no big marketing plan.

“S

be a hungry Which means to get the best out of the Delta, you’ve got to a barbecue grill, or traveler. Keep your eyes peeled for the drift of smoke from lunch—or just for a placard at a country grocery describing the day’s plate the back roads. listen for word of the favored restaurant from farmers who know just such a spot. Housed inside an old service station in Indianola, Betty’s is owned, Campbell got her start at a grocery store that she and her husband when the B.B. King where they served take-out barbecue on weekends. In 2008, It’s been a Museum opened, they made a savvy move and opened a restaurant. hit ever since. ever-growing Feeling hungry on the road? Here’s a few selections from our have the food. sure they list of road-trip finds. They may not have the flash, but

Feeling hungry on the road?

DELTA MAGAZINE 2017 | 63

Take along a copy of the May/June 2017 issue and check out “e Hungry Traveler” feature for a listing of great places to grab anything from shrimp to steaks to burgers in almost every town.

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GREENVILLE

1927 Flood Museum

Exhibited in the oldest structure in Downtown Greenville, this museum presents the history of one of the greatest natural disasters the United States has ever known. On ursday, April 21, 1927, at 7:45 a.m., the levee at Mounds Landing, eight miles north of Greenville, broke due to the pressure from the swollen Mississippi River and created the greatest single crevasse ever to occur anywhere on the river. View actual ﬂood artifacts and photographs illustrating the ﬂood’s impact on life and death during the four months Greenville and the Mississippi Delta were inundated. 18 South Hinds Street, (662) 378-6998

Greenville History Museum

Housed in the meticulously restored Miller Building, the museum provides a unique glimpse into life in Greenville from the late 1800s through the 1970s. A fascinating collection of memorabilia, artifacts, photographs, and news clippings take visitors through each day of the historic 1927 ﬂood as well as other important events and cultural collections indicative of the area. 409 Washington Avenue, (662) 335-5802, greenvillehistorymuseum.com

Greenville Air Force Base Museum

e base opened for training in August, 1941. e Greenville Army Flying School instructed thousands of U.S. airmen and women, as well as NATO cadets, Air Force firefighters, and emergency medical personnel. is museum tells their story from the darkest days of WWII through the Cold War, including the incident in 1960 when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace, flown by Gary Powers who was trained at the Greenville base.

Century of History Museum at the Hebrew Union Temple

Mid Delta Regional Airport, (662) 334-3121

e Century of History Museum details the contributions and culture of Greenville’s Jewish residents since 1867. Important memorabilia as well as stories and photographs are displayed here. 504 Main Street, (662) 332-4153, hebrewunion.org or isjl.org/mississippi-greenville-encyclopedia.html

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Winterville Indian Mounds and Museum A National Historic Landmark, the Indian Mounds at Winterville constitute one of North America’s most signiﬁcant pre-Columbian archeological sites. Twelve mounds, including the massive 55-foot-tall Temple Mound, contrast dramatically with the ﬂat Delta landscape. e on-site museum tells the story of an advanced North American civilization that once thrived in this location from about A.D. 1000 to 1450. 2415 Highway 1 North, (662) 334-4684

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INDIANOLA

B.B. King Museum

Housed in a restored brick cotton gin building where a young B.B. King worked in the 1940s, this museum commemorating his life opened in 2008. It includes an extensive collection of artifacts owned by King as well as displays and exhibits about his life and the lives of other musicians of the delta region and the culture where the blues arose. Exhibits include interactive exhibits, King memorabilia and stories as it seeks to help preserve the Delta Blues and its culture by promoting its importance. Fittingly, shortly after his death in 2015, King was buried in the memorial garden at the museum. 400 2nd Street, (662) 887-9539, bbkingmuseum.org

GREENWOOD

Museum of the Mississippi Delta

e Museum of the Mississippi Delta, founded in 1969, is at the crossroads of Delta history and art. e extensive collection includes artifacts related to agriculture, Native America, regional military history and one of the Delta’s most extensive collections of regional art. e archaeology collection, on loan from the L.B. Jones Trust, is immense, and includes the largest collection of Native American trade beads in the southern United States. e Museum also boasts a room dedicated to the agricultural history of the region. Artifacts and furniture from Malmaison, the home of Greenwood Leﬂore, and numerous military history items are also highlights of the antique collection. ere is a Civil War-era cannon and a model of the battle of nearby Fort Pemberton. 1608 Highway 82 West, (662) 453-0925, museumofthemississippidelta.com

CARROLLTON

The Merrill Museum & Gallery

e Merrill Museum tells the story of Carroll County, from Indian days to the present. Exhibits include antique bottles, arrowheads, Joy’s Toys and family items from the John S. McCain family and author Elizabeth Spencer. Built in 1834, the Merrill Building has served as a mercantile, bank, furniture and casket factory, temporary courthouse, dry cleaners and residence. 601 East Jackson Street, (662) 237-6910, carrollcountyms.org

YAZOO CITY BELZONI

Catfish Museum and Visitors Center

Located in the renovated IB&B Depot, the Catfish Museum and Welcome Center is a testament to the history and culture of the land and its people. Video presentation shows the complete story of the catfish from fingerling to frying pan. Presiding over the outside exhibit is “King Cat,” the world’s largest catfish, measuring over forty feet. Outside the Catfish Museum and Welcome Center, sculptures fashioned from spawning cans, hatchery tanks, and seining nets dot the landscape. In fact, Belzoni boasts the largest collection of outdoor sculpture per capita in the State. 111 Magnolia Street, (662) 247-4838, belzonims.com

Sam Olden Historical Museum

e museum features exhibits from Civil War days, to the great Yazoo City ﬁre of 1904, as well as those depicting World War I, the history of Main Street School, now the Triangle Cultural Center, the 1927 ﬂood, political history, items from the daily lives of Yazoo’s early citizens and the contributions of Yazoo County’s many famous sons and daughters. 332 North Main Street, (662) 746-2273, visityazoo.org/sam-olden-historical-museum DELTA MAGAzINE 2018

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VICKSBURG

Old Courthouse Museum

e Old Warren County Court House - Eva W. Davis Memorial, built in 1858, stands today as Vicksburg’s most historic structure and is the town’s crown jewel both architecturally and historically, towering above the city on a hill. Hallowed by history, it has been a museum since 1948, filled with items reflecting Southern Heritage, from pre-Columbian artifacts to fine portraits, furniture, china, silver, an original Teddy Bear given to a local child by eodore Roosevelt, tools, clothing and the largest collection of Civil War memorabilia in the South, including a Confederate flag that was never surrendered. rough it’s history it has hosted such guests and speakers as Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, Booker T. Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, and William McKinley. is is a must-see for history buffs! 1008 Cherry Street, (601) 636-0741, oldcourthouse.org

Old Depot Museum

e Siege of Vicksburg is brought to life by the 250-square foot diorama of the battleﬁeld with 2,300 miniature soldiers and the ﬁlm “e Vanishing Glory”. e museum houses 250 ship models, with exhibits of tow boats and river boats, large Civil War gunboat collections and U.S. Navy vessels named for people and places in Mississippi. 1010 Levee Street, (601) 638-6500, theolddepot.net

Yesterday’s Children Doll & Toy Museum

e Wonder of Childhood, children and toys captured in over 1,000 dolls dating back to 1843 in an historic setting. Collectors, children, and doll and toy enthusiasts will revel in the magniﬁcent and extensive displays of dolls and toys of the 19th and 20 century. Take a self guided tour & visit with owner and curator Carolyn Bakarich as you enjoy, remember, and take yourself back to those years when you saw life through the eyes of a child and happiness was a simple toy. 1104 Washington Street, (601) 638-0650, yesterdayschildrenmuseum.com

ROLLING FORK

Visitors Center and Museum

is little gem is located near where Teddy Roosevelt famously pardoned his “Teddy” bear and Union forces gave up after attempting to push their way to Vicksburg via the Delta’s overgrown creeks. Operated entirely by volunteers, this onestop museum hosts top-quality display cases and informational displays. Artifacts range from prehistoric Native American ceramics to possessions of Muddy Waters. 352 Walnut Street, (662) 873-2232, cityofrollingfork.org

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YAZOO

Main Street Yazoo City

Glenwood Cemetery

Yazoo City’s historic Main Street was once on the verge of becoming a ghost town. Today, we are glad to say that historic Main Street is not only surviving but thriving! Come Shop, Eat, & Stay on historic Main Street in Yazoo City.

Author and Editor Willie Morris is buried 13 paces to the South of the grave of the "Witch of Yazoo" whose legend he made famous in his novel Good Old Boy. Willie, who grew up in Yazoo City, wrote two novels about his boyhood that have been made into movies. Glenwood is the second “Spookiest Cemetery in the US” according to a 2012 Huffington Post poll.

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Blue Front Cafe Owned and operated by bluesman Jimmy "Duck" Holmes, this is the authentic Mississippi Delta “juke joint” where the world-famous original Bentonia Blues was born and can still be heard. The Blue Front Cafe, located in the town of Bentonia in southern Yazoo County, is considered the oldest active juke joint in Mississippi.

Historic Yazoo Known as the “largest single area” to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places, comprising both residential and commercial areas, the Yazoo City Town Center Historic District can be viewed on a self-guided Walking or Driving Tour of homes or churches. This Old House Magazine selected the area as one of their “Best Old House Neighborhoods” in 2012 for its many 19th- and 20th-century examples of Queen Anne cottages, Greek Revivals, and Colonial Revivals.

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Yazoo Restaurants The culinary culture of Yazoo County is as varied and as notable as her land and people. Yazoo County is home to producers of fine foods and treats found and recognized worldwide. With over 30 locally-owned restaurants and eateries, you are sure to find something to satisfy every craving.

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BATESVILLE

Batesville Main Street

Panola Playhouse

We invite you to visit downtown Batesville to enjoy the shopping with our local merchants, to attend the various special events – and to rediscover a warm and welcoming way of life.

Batesville Mounds

The Panola Playhouse, founded in 1962, is one of the longest, continually-running, live theatres in the state of Mississippi. This unique, 120 seat theatre has been host to hundreds of wonderful performances over the last fifty-two years. The Panola Playhouse season includes comedies, dramas, musicals, and children’s shows.

A journey of time & nature: Step into the Past - Take a Tour • View Native American Mounds from the Woodland Period • Trek wilderness trails in the historic Mississippi Delta region • Watch for birds, butterflies, deer, and all of nature’s creatures • Watch for trains on the Grenada Railway • Take photos, learn, exercise, write, rest, reflect, & create memories

Como Steakhouse Our Delta is known for its steakhouses, but for a tender, charcoal grilled steak of serious proportion, there’s only the Como Steakhouse.

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Crowder Duck Hunting

Sardis Lake

Golfers have Augusta. Duck hunters have Crowder. If you're lucky, you might know somebody that knows somebody, and we hope you do!

Sardis Lake is known as the nation’s premier crappie fishing lake, but the bass fishing draws amateur and professional anglers from miles around. Most folks around here also know to enjoy the camping, picnicking, water sports and family fun. Stop by the Sardis Marina. If you don’t own, we rent!

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RULEVILLE

Downtown Ruleville North Sunflower Medical Center North Sunflower Medical Center offers a wide range of services such as Sunflower Clinic open EVERYDAY, State-of-the-Art Surgical Center, Cardiology, Outpatient Cardiac Rehab, Inpatient & Outpatient Rehabilitation, Long Term Care, Hospice and much more. Stop by and see our beautiful memorial garden and visit our website today www.northsunflower.com for a full list of services.

Downtown Ruleville is a beautiful area to visit. Located around Rule Park, downtown Ruleville offers shopping, banking, The Hollywood Museum, The Lion’s Den (an African Animal Collection), 1933 Restaurant, three murals, the patriotic plaza and more. Downtown Ruleville is home of the Blues Trail Markers for Greasy Street & Jimmy Rogers as well as our “Hot” & “Cold” water towers and a walking trail complete with benches and lighting for nighttime walks/runs.

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Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden The Great Ruleville Roast The Great Ruleville Roast is our annual fall festival organized by Ruleville Chamber of Commerce board members. The Great Ruleville Roast & Run is always held the last full weekend in September and offers live entertainment, BBQ contest kick off & fireworks Friday night & pancake breakfast, arts/crafts, children’s activities, classic car show, BBQ competition and more on Saturday. The Great Ruleville Roast & Run has grown each year and continues to be a great success for Ruleville. Come visit our small town and see why people in The Delta are saying, “Take ME To Ruleville!”

Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden is a wonderful place to visit. Fannie Lou Hamer was an American voting rights activist and civil rights leader. She was instrumental in organizing Mississippi Freedom Summer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later became the Vice-Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, attending the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in that capacity. Her plain-spoken manner and fervent belief in the Biblical righteousness of her cause gained her a reputation as an electrifying speaker and constant activist of civil rights.

Greasy Street Greasy Street is located in downtown Ruleville, and The Mississippi Blues Trail erected a marker in recognition of our historic Greasy Street. Front Street was the first commercially-developed zone in Ruleville, with its name stemming from its location fronting the railway line. The block was supposedly nicknamed “Greasy Street” because years ago café owners would throw old grease on the street to keep down the dust. Musicians would play on Saturday afternoons when the street was crowded with residents of nearby plantations who came to town to shop and relax. 56 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

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CLEVELAND

GRAMMY ® Museum Mississippi Downtown Shopping

The Museum features permanent and traveling exhibits, contentrich interactives, and films that educate and inspire music lovers of all ages. The Museum covers the history of recorded music of all genres while showcasing Mississippi’s impact on American music.

Long ago, farmers scattered across the Delta would congregate on Cotton Row in downtown Cleveland to bring their finest harvest to market. Today this Historic Crosstie Shopping District offers a diverse array of specialty shops, antique stores, boutiques and cafés within the area. Downtown you will also find the Martin and Sue King Railroad Heritage Museum, featuring the largest O-Gauge model train in the State.

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Entertainment

Cleveland is a hotbed of activity for live music and entertainment. On any given night of the week, both local and touring artists can be found in the restaurants in the area. With venues such as the Bologna Performing Arts Center, that presents national touring productions, and the Delta Music Institute’s recording program at Delta State University, Cleveland is the place to be to get immersed in the sounds of great entertainment.

Pottery Destination Many folks make the trek to Bolivar County to visit world-famous pottery establishments McCartys Pottery of Merigold and Peter’s Pottery in Mound Bayou. While you are shopping at McCartys, visit the incredible Gardens of McCartys, as well as The Gallery lunch spot. Both Peter’s and McCartys are a must-visit to peruse the coveted pieces made from Delta clay.

www.visitclevelandms.com • (662) 843-2712

The Spirit of the Blues The early 1900s saw an influx of migrant workers in the Delta. Aspiring musicians gravitated to the Cleveland area because Charley Patton called it home. More specifically, he called Will Dockery’s Plantation home. Dockery Plantation is a fabulous place to feel the spirit of the Blues. As B.B. King famously said of Dockery, “…You might say it all started right here.” There are 18 blues markers that stretch from the Mississippi River Road Highway 1, to the Blues Highway 61. Be sure and stop by the office of the Delta Center for Culture and Learning and see the Cast of Masks featuring plaster castings of famous bluesmen and women by artist Sharon McConnell. DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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VICKSBURG

Vicksburg National Military Park

McRaven Tour Home

Established on February 21, 1899 to commemorate the siege and defense of Vicksburg, the 16-mile tour road of the park includes 1,325 historic monuments and markers, 20 miles of historic trenches and earthworks, a 12.5-mile walking trail, 144 emplaced cannons, a national cemetery, an ironclad Union gunboat, and two antebellum homes.

Named the “most haunted house in Mississippi” and the “third most haunted house in the United States,” McRaven has a haunted history of over 160 years. Popular for being built in three different periods, National Geographic called it the “Time Capsule of the South.”

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Downtown Vicksburg Catfish Row David Cohn wrote that “the Mississippi Delta begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg.” Today’s Catfish Row features a children’s art park and splash fountain, riverfront murals, museums, the Levee Street Marketplace and LD’s Kitchen—Vicksburg’s home to great catfish and Tuesday night blues.

Stroll the brick-paved streets of our historic downtown and visit our boutique and antique gift shops, art galleries and fantastic dining. Experience one of the Great American Main Street Association’s Top 10 Main Streets in the USA in downtown Vicksburg—Simply. Uniquely. Southern.

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Vicksburg’s newest restaurant, 10 South Rooftop Bar & Grill, overlooks our beautiful historic downtown with spectacular views of the Mississippi River, Yazoo Diversion Canal and Centennial Lake. The area’s only “open air” grill with a full bar features specialty burgers, barbecue, seafood and other Southern specialties.

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LOWER DELTA PARTNERSHIP

Muddy Waters Blues Trail Marker

Mont Helena Experience Helen Johnston Harris’s and Henry Vick’s tragic love story in Mont Helena, the beautiful home atop a ceremonial Indian mound. Tickets to Mont Helena: A Dream Revisited 2017 performances will go on sale by phone on Feb. 2 , at 9 a.m. www.monthelena.com

Visit the birthplace of Muddy Waters, the “father of modern Chicago blues” in downtown Rolling Fork.

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Carved Bears Tour the 12 chainsaw carved bears of Rolling Fork. Another one of these incredible works of art is created each October during the Great Delta Bear Affair.

Mississippi Mound Trail Unveiled in 2016, the Mississippi Mound Trail has 6 markers in Sharkey and Issaquena counties. www.trails.mdah.ms.gov

Rolling Fork Visitors Center and Museum Artifacts from prehistoric residents may be viewed at the Rolling Fork Visitors Center and Museum.

We invite you to come meet the Delta you didn’t know, explore the stories you’ve never heard, and feel the ever-present warmth of our Deep Delta. www.lowerdelta.org DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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OXFORD

New Hotels The Inn Crowd: With so many delighted visitors flocking to Oxford, more every day, it was inevitable that the best names in hospitality would arrive here too. From inviting boutique hotels to the established brands beloved by seasoned travelers, Oxford’s Inn Crowd welcomes visitors with more than 300 new rooms.

Pop Up Oxford JANUARY 20–27

Sitting pretty: Dont’ just see Oxford, experience the city at a higher level of enjoyment from your ultra-comfy spot on one of Oxford’s famed Double Decker Bus Tours. These cheery red British imports are available for charter, and can be manned by local historians sharing the real stories of this fascinating city. Genuinely delightful!

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All Oxford, all in one week: Get packed for a week filled with excitement from the Small Hall Songwriters Concert to kick off the week followed by the Hotel Hop and then the Oxford Art Crawl, the national tour of the Sound of Music at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts and a world-renowned tapestry and rug weaver at the University Museum there is something offered for everyone! The week rounds out with the 8th annual Fiber Arts Festival with lectures, classes and demos. Plus great dining, lodging and hospitality every day! For a complete schedule of events, visit www.popupoxfordms.com.

Historic Downtown Square Talk about local color: When your’e looking for just-right fashions in all your favorite hues, there’s no better place than The Square, where enticing and value-packed boutiques share pride of place with delectable dining and a side order of irresistibly rich history. Gather up great finds; gather with your friends for great food and conversation.

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Double Decker Bus Tours

New Restaurants More flavors, more favorites: Merely a glance at the expanding menu of Oxford choices tells you that this is a city passionate about food and falvor. And in a city steeped in great stories, we understand that delicious meals are the centerpiece of delightful experiences and memories. Moments to savor around every corner in Oxford!

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WATER VALLEY

Watermelon Carnival Casey Jones Railroad Museum

The Watermelon Carnival will kick off August 3-4, 2018 and feature that juicy, fleshy goodness for you and your group of melon-lovers to enjoy. Additional bonuses include: a classic car show, explosive fireworks, live music and dancing, arts and crafts, a BBQ cooking contest, dog costume contest, walk/run race, watermelon games (eating, throwing & seed-spitting), largest watermelon contest, and of course FREE ice-cold watermelon slices so the family is never bored.

The Water Valley Casey Jones Railroad Museum is located at the corner of Main Street and Blackmur Drive in the formerly thriving ICRR Depot. Admission is FREE to the public. Special hours for the Watermelon Carnival weekend (Friday & Saturday) are 8 am - 5 pm. Please visit the Casey Jones Railroad Museum website for additional information about this historic landmark. www.caseyjonesmuseum.com

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Crawford Sports Complex Shop Downtown Water Valley merchants invite you to a superior shopping, dining, and entertainment experience on Main Street. Overflowing with charm, the picturesque Main Street is lined with locally-owned businesses.

Located at the far south end of Main Street, this 36-acre complex is one of the most popular city locales for youth and adults. Tennis courts have recently been added. Fields for baseball, softball, soccer, and football are flanked by a lighted, quarter-mile track.

2018 Upcoming Events Fri & Sat, Aug 3 - 4 Watermelon Carnival Sat, Nov 10, 9 AM - 3 PM Business Holiday Open House Fri, Nov 30, 5:30 - 9 PM

"Christmas in the Valley"

Sat, Dec 1st @ 1:00 PM City Christmas Parade Sat, Dec 1st , 4 - 7 PM Christmas Tour of Homes

Christmas in the Valley Christmas in the Valley will kick off November 30, 2018 at 5:30 pm with family fun, late night shopping, music and more. The event is sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and provides horse-drawn carriage rides, pictures with Santa and Frosty, who always brings snow with him on his visit. The chamber also follows that event with the Christmas Tour of Homes on December 1, from 4 pm - 7 pm. wvchamber@bellsouth.net | www.watervalleychamber.info | FB: Water Valley Area Chamber of Commerce

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PHILADELPHIA

Lake Pushmataha Located adjacent to Geyser Falls Water Theme Park and Clearwater Key, Lake Pushmataha offers the very best in fun and recreation. It is a 285-acre fishing lake that was constructed in 2000 and opened to the public in the summer of 2005. It offers fishing from the bank as well as handicapped-accessible piers. Picnic areas with grills are readily available, making it a popular destination for family-oriented fun and recreation. For more information, visit our website at www.choctaw.org.

Chahta Immi Cultural Center Chahta Immi Cultural Center explores the history of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians through exhibits on Choctaw Artforms. It is located in the Choctaw Shopping Center and offers a multimedia experience for visitors along with providing a cultural education for all. Visit their retail shop to purchase unique items such as baskets and beadwork and call 601-650-1687 for more information.

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Ham Jam Arts Festival The Ham Jam Arts Festival is held each April in downtown Philadelphia. Each year, thousands of visitors gather in downtown Philadelphia for this one of a kind event. It features arts and crafts vendors, kids area, a Memphis In May sanctioned BBQ contest and local entertainment. A 5K Run and Walk kicks off the festivities on Saturday morning followed by a full day of family fun.

Downtown Shopping Philadelphia is blessed with small town charm and lots of great downtown shopping. No matter what you are looking for, our local shops offer lots of great options. Be sure to check out the latest fashions or pick up that gift for a special someone while you are here.

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Williams Brothers It is a step back in time when you visit Williams Brothers in Philadelphia. It was started in 1907 as a general merchandise store and has been owned by the same family all these years. Today, you can find everything from bacon, cheese, saddles, shoes and wire all in one place. It is like no other store you will visit and offers a sense of nostalgia to anyone to stops by.

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TUPELO

Elvis Presley® Birthplace Museum and Chapel The Elvis Presley Birthplace and Museum is Tupelo’s signature and most significant landmark. The humble two-room dwelling where Elvis Presley was born is the centerpiece of a 15-acre Elvis Presley Park that includes, among other exhibits an “Elvis at 13" statue and Elvis’ childhood church. 306 Elvis Presley Drive • Tupelo, MS 38801 • 662-841-1245 www.elvispresleybirthplace.com

Healthworks! Kids Museum Tupelo’s HealthWorks! Kids’ Museum is a hands-on, interactive museum aimed at educating our kids to live healthier lives. A total of 18 curriculum-based attractions are available for kids of all ages to enjoy and it is only the second center of its kind in the United States. 219 South Industrial Road • Tupelo, MS 38801 • 662-377-5437 www.healthworkskidsms.org

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Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo

Tupelo Automobile Museum

Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo is a unique staple of the City of Tupelo. It is home to over 300 animals representing 87 different species. Feature attractions include the Monster Bison Bus Tour, an open air ride that tours the open grounds of roaming bison, camels, giraffes, yaks, longhorns, and zebras to name a few. 2272 North Coley Road • Tupelo, MS 38803 • 662-844-8709 www.tupelobuffalopark.com

Tupelo Automobile Museum is a car lover’s dream come true. It is home to over 100 antique, classic and collectible automobiles chronologically displayed in the 120,000-square-foot facility. The impressive collection ranges from a 1886 Benz to a 1994 Dodge Viper and a Lincoln once owned by Elvis Presley. 1 Otis Boulevard • Tupelo, MS 38804 • 662-842-4242 www.tupeloauto.com

Natchez Trace Parkway The Natchez Trace Parkway, a 444-mile national park with 10,000 years of history, links Natchez to Nashville. It is an All-American Road and one of the nation’s most unique national parks for motorists, cyclists and hikers to enjoy. Now, it is a National Park headquartered in Tupelo and it is one of the Top 10 National Parks in the U.S. 662-680-4027 / 800-305-7417 www.nps.gov/natr and www.scenictrace.com ©ABG EPE IP LLC Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM. Oﬀ.

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ARKANSAS DELTA BYWAYS

Winter blues got you down? Lift y o ur sp iri ts and e nri c h y our brai n by v i si ti ng one o f the m any hi sto ri cal muse ums a nd s it es al ong Ark a nsas D el ta By w ay s, the 15 c ount ie s in e a s t e r n A r k a n s a s . S t a y a t o n e of o u r 1 1 s t a t e park s, v i si t the three nat io nal wi l dl ife refug es a nd the St. Fra nci s Na ti ona l Fo rest a nd ev en wi n a li tt le mo ney a t Sout hla nd Gre yho und Park . You ca n st il l fis h a t any o f our ma ny l ak es , pl ay go lf , o r j ust re la x. D o n ’ t l e t t h e c o l d w e a t h e r ke e p y o u i n s i d e .

The Museum of Arkansas Grand Prairie, Stuttgart Keeper of more than 10,000 artifacts, the museum depicts the history of agriculture and the pioneers who farmed the land from 1800s to 1921. Outbuildings include a one-room school house, a Lutheran church and a prairie home. Open Tues-Fri, 8-4 and Sat, 10-4, www.grandprairiemuseum.org, (870) 673-7001.

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Village Creek State Park

Lakeport Plantation, Lake Village

The last nine holes of the 27-hole Andy Dye signature golf course opened in 2012. The rolling terrain of Crowley’s Ridge and the backdrop of the surrounding hardwood forest combine for a challenging level of play at this outstanding public course. Villagecreek@arkansas.com, for tee times, call (870) 238-5226.

Built in 1859, the house has new permanent exhibits installed in Fall 2012 based on years of research in family records, archives and oral histories. They tell the stories of the house, the restoration and the people who lived and worked at Lakeport. Tours are Mon-Fri, 10 and 2, lakeport.astate.edu, (870) 265-6031.

Central Delta Depot Museum, Brinkley

Southern Tenant Farmers Museum, Tyronza

Located in a restored 1912 railroad depot, the museum contains exhibits focusing on the 1815 Louisiana Purchase Survey, along with photographs, exhibits and an extensive record collection of Louis Jordan, famous rhythm and blues musician from Brinkley. 100 West Cypress, call for hours (870)589-2124.

The historic Mitchell-East Building and adjacent former bank include photographs, oral histories, and artifacts focusing on the first integrated farm labor movement in the nation and the South’s farming system of agriculture. Mon-Fri, 9-3 and Sat, noon-3, stfm.astate.edu, 870-487-2909.

To see these and learn more, visit our website: www.deltabyways.com, or call for a brochure, (870) 972-2803. This ad paid for with a combination of state funds and Arkansas Delta Byways regional association funds. 64 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

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CLINTON

Culture History Clinton contains centuries of fascinating history. Choctaw Indians lived on the land prior to settlement and traveled the Natchez Trace - an original portion of which is located in Clinton’s Nature Center. During the Civil War, the Union army occupied Clinton while traveling to the pivotal Battle of Vicksburg. Antebellum Houses and neo-Grecian architecture are just two types of buildings you will find on the city’s historical tour. Get started at the Clinton Visitor’s Center where you can grab a cup of coffee and browse displays of artifacts, photos, and historical documents.

Visit the gallery of one of Mississippi’s most celebrated artists, watercolorist Wyatt Waters. Local musicians perform regularly on the streets of Olde Towne. The annual outdoor music festival, Red Brick Roads, features local singer-songwriters and regional bands while visitors enjoy over 30 craft beers in the festival beer garden. Musicians perform busking “Sidewalk Sessions” to provide evening strolls on Main Street with a live soundtrack. On Sunday afternoons, the Clinton Visitor’s Center hosts Olde Time Music Jam Sessions.

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Education

Shopping

Clinton’s Mississippi College is the oldest college in the state and the first coeducational college in the United States to grant a degree to a woman. The A-rated Clinton Public School District is recognized as one of the top school districts in the Southeast. The Clinton High School Arrows are bolstered during a city-sponsored pep rally on Main Street called “Cruzin’ with the Arrows.” The rally celebrates Clinton High School’s marching band, nationally-recognized show choir, Attaché, varsity cheerleaders, coaches, staff, and football players.

Visitors enjoy a variety of shopping and dining options, whether on our brick streets or across the city. Whether you’re a casual collector or a serious antique shopper, Clinton has a wonderful variety of antique shops as well as a flea market. Spend an afternoon browsing a charming bookstore. Beautiful independent boutiques are filled with unique gifts, trendy clothes, and exceptional home accessories.

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There’s no day like a day on Arkabutla Lake

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Carrollton • Mississippi

Where Past is Present

History is alive and well in Carrollton, Mississippi. Our historic homes range in date from 1828 to 1936. These family dwellings are open for tours during the annual Pilgrimage or by appointment for groups. dĂŬĞ ĂŶ ĂƌĐŚŝƚĞĐƚƵƌĂů ǁĂůŬŝŶŐ ƚŽƵƌ ĂŶǇƟŵĞ͕ ďǇ ĚŽǁŶůŽĂĚŝŶŐ the Carrollton Walking Tour app on your smart device, featuring Walt Grayson. Available on iTunes or Googleplay.

www.VisitCarrolltonMS.com

Join us for our

Annual Pilgrimage & 2018 Pioneer Day Festival

October 5th & 6th

Perfect for church groups, history enthusiasts and families. To schedule a tour, call 662-237-6910 or email us at CarrolltonMsTours@gmail.com

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The Original Museum Mile– see how deep the Delta really is.

Pat Thomas h , son of bluesman man James “Son” Thomas h can a often be b foound playing at the Highway ay 61 Blues Museum in Leland.

From art to aviation, and hometown heroes to literature, there’’ss something ffor orr everyone on the Delta’’ss Museum Mile. Greeen Gr nvville History M Mus useum

1927 Flood Museum u

Jim Henson Delltta Boyyh hood Exhiibbit

409 Washington Avenue, Greenville

118 South Hinds Street, Greenville

William Alexander Percy Memorial Liibbrary & Delta Writer’s Exhiibbit

E.E. Bass Cullttural Arrtts Cen ntter / Armiittage Herschell Carousel

341 Main Street, Greenville

323 South Main Street, Greenville

“Cen nttury of History” Hebrew Union Tem mpple &M Mu useum

Hig gh hway 61 Bllu ues Mu Museum

Mid Delta Regional Airport,t Greenville

307 North Broad Street, Leland

Lake W Waashington Historical M Mu useum

Mississiipppi Wildliffee Heritage Museum / Ou uttdoor Hall of Fame

970 Lake Washington Road East, Glen Allan

The Paattriot aatt Greenville Cemetery South Main Street, Greenville

304 North Broad Street, Leland

206 Broad Street North, Leland

Win ntterville Mounds 2415 Highway 1 North, Winterville

Air Force Base Mu Museum

504 Main Street, Greenville

www.visitgreenville.org i it ill • (8 (800) 800) 467 467.3582 3582

Convention & Visitors Bureau

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Friday - Sunday April 6 - 8, 2018 Mississippi’s Premier Tandem Rally Following nationally-recognized cycling routes throughout Ridgeland, Mississippi

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!!"# # ) ( ' % & % $ * +Perkins and Muddy Waters, Ike Turner, Sam Cooke, % Pinetop other music legends once lived and worked here, so N it’sėonly " U W Q K T U G festivals, the nationally natural they left quite a mark. Frequent recognized Delta Blues Museum, Ground Zero Blues Club, and friedBlues and crumbed grits tartare in vierge of CatThat’s Headright, Delta and Folk Artwith aresalmon only the beginning sauce. That may not be your first thought when it comes to food what you’ll find. Check visitclarksdale.com for the dates of our offerings here, but we are becoming known for our food as much as many festivals, thenofplan to come immerse yourself in the blues. The rich and collision cultures here has resulted in authentic same cultureand that produced thesetamale music and legends. Lebanese Italian restaurants, barbecue diners, a Mennonite bakery, soul food in juke joints and clubs, as well as exciting dishes like the one above created by two Australian transplants. It’s time for a road trip.

662.627.6149 visitclarksdale.com

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4N NEW

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FO L E Y, AL | 7 MII LE S F R OM T H E BEA CH

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A fun place to bring out the kid in music lovers.

Producer’s Studio

The Roland Room

Fascinating Artifacts

Produce a new song with Keb’ Mo’

Experience performing onstage

See costumes, instruments and more

Our revolving special exhibits and artifacts make GRAMMY Museum® Mississippi a must-see for music fans of all ages! • Explore all aspects of the recording process and the history of the GRAMMY Awards® • Browse 28,000 square feet of unique artifacts and experiences that tell the stories of legendary artists

GRAMMY® Archives

Interactive Music Table

Find every award winner here

Learn who influenced your favorite artists

800 West Sunflower Road / Cleveland, MS 38732 www.grammymuseumms.org / P: 662.441.0100

• Learn about Mississippi’s important impact on modern music

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TH E A L L UVI A N H O T EL • T H E ALLU V I AN SP A V I K I N G C O O K I N G S C H O O L • GI ARDI NA’ S

325C Howard Street | Greenwood, Mississippi 38930 | 662.451.6750 V I KI NGCOOKI NGS CHOOL .C OM

76 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

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Lod g ing & E v e n ts L akes i d e L o dgi n g 10 mi m nutes fr o m Squ are an d U n iver s it i y c o t t ages an n d r oo ms gr oup tr ans po r t a ti o n a v ai l ab le ww ww.f armsteadwr.c com

(662) 223-3272 72

Play a . Stay a . Repeat.

For information an nd reser vations: 1- 866 - 615 -9125 | river walkvicksburg.com 1046 W War arrenton Road, Vicksburg, MS 39180 Must be 21 or older. Ma nagement reser ves a l l r ight s. G a mbling problem? C a l l 1-888-777-9696. ©2018 R iver wa l k C asino • Hotel. A l l r ight s reser ved.

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EXPERIENCE THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA through prehistoric fossils, Native American pottery, Civil War history, cotton farming and regional art. • 12,000 yr. old Mastodon • 14th Century Pottery • Spanish Colonial Beads • World War II • Civil War • Swamp Room • Art Gallery • and more 1608 Highway 82 West Greenwood, Mississippi Mon - Sat 9a.m. - 5p.m. Phone: 662-453-0925 museumofthemississippidelta.com

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M O N DAY – S AT U R DAY 9 AM – 5 PM

M O N DAY – S AT U R DAY 10 A M – 5 P M

A F T E R H O U R S & SU N D AY, BY A P P O IN T M E N T

D E LT A B L U E S M U S E U M . O R G • 6 6 2 . 6 2 7. 6 8 2 0

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Nan Sanders and the late Pam Mathews standing by one of the first sculptures installed in the garden at the BPAC.

Artistic Installation The Mathews-Sanders Sculpture Garden, recently expanded into downtown Cleveland, cements the town’s identity as a growing arts center. BY BOYCE UPHOLT • PHOTOGRAPHY BY RORY DOYLE

n 1999 the lawn in front of the Bologna Performing Arts Center wasn’t too pretty. It was dirt, mostly, with a walkway that led nowhere, hedged with the same ubiquitous crepe myrtles found in so much public landscaping. It matched the sense some had of Cleveland at the time: Clarksdale had a blues museum; Greenwood had plans for 80 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

a boutique hotel; but here the local identity hadn’t been fully formed. Then Pam Mathews arrived in Cleveland. “Within a month of her moving to town, I got a call one morning,” Nan Sanders remembers. “She said, ‘Come out to the BPAC; I want to talk about something.’” Mathews was the wife of then Delta State

University president David Potter, and like Sanders she was a painter. She wanted to talk about that scrappy lawn and her vision to transform it into a sculpture garden. “In my mind, a garden was not what I was looking at,” Sanders says. “But I said, ‘If you say so.’ And she knew.” The two formed a committee and set to work sending out a prospectus and selecting works. The next fall eight sculptures were installed on the BPAC lawn, and the Hazel and Jimmy Sanders Sculpture Garden was born. This name, which has since changed, honored Sanders’s in-laws, who contributed the funds for the garden’s launch. The process worked so well that now, fifteen years later, it’s hardly changed, which is not to say that the garden itself hasn’t changed. Each class lasts two years, and at the end a purchase prize is named. When the budget allows, other works are purchased too, and the garden now has a permanent collection of thirty works. Many are tucked away across DSU’s campus, and some are on the grounds of the GRAMMY Museum® Mississippi. This year, for the first time, through a partnership with the town of Cleveland, some have been installed downtown. Another change is more sorrowful: in 2002 Mathews was diagnosed with brain cancer. She passed away in 2004. Sanders was determined to see Mathews’s vision through. By 2007, she and her committee had worked with a landscape architect to build a weaving path through that once-barren lawn. The shape of the path reflects the curves of “Wind Harp,” a sculpture by Wayne Trapp that won the inaugural purchase prize; it remains a signature piece

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A sampling of sculptures on display at the Bologna Performing Arts Center, the GRAMMY Museum® Mississippi and on the green strip in downtown Cleveland. DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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in the garden. The path also allows people to view the sculptures from all sides as they walk through the garden. When she first got involved with the garden, Sanders knew little about sculpture. “It’s been a real awakening,” she says. She has come to appreciate how sculpture transforms the experience of space—sometimes in ways “you’re not really conscious of.” She’s learned about the complex process involved in making such massive works—from aesthetics to physics to material skills. “It doesn’t just happen,” she says. Nan also credits the success of the garden to the incredibly dedicated group that works with her all during the year. They are Michael Stanley, Ron Koehler, Rori Herbison, Laura Beth Lott, Laura Howell and Myrtis Tabb. Their differing talents combine to make the work very rewarding and special. Now Nan is becoming something of an evangelist for sculpture. She hopes that in the future the garden can fund youth workshops. It’s an art form, she knows, that is seldom offered in schools. She says she aims to challenge viewers with the works. The classes include some pieces whose “meaning” might be more obvious—human-like figures or faithful recreations of familiar objects like guitars. But she also has more “esoteric” pieces that might make viewers pause and think. The garden taps into local talent: 82 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

Michael Stanley, the chair of the DSU art department, has a piece in the permanent collection and is always working to determine where more sculptures might fit into the university campus. “Broken Arrow” by Lawson King is on display downtown. King, who graduated in 2017, was the first DSU student to have a piece placed in the garden while still a student. He created the work in part to honor Professor Ethan Schmidt, who was tragically killed on campus in in 2015. “As a native Deltan, being included in the first round of sculptures downtown is really special to me,” King says. “I’m honored to be a part of this amazing group of sculptors. It’s been especially touching how this process has connected me with Ethan’s family.” The growth of the garden has paralleled Cleveland’s emergence as an arts town. Building on the longtime reputation of the DSU art department and the high-quality programming at the BPAC, the university’s Delta Music Institute and the GRAMMY Museum keep talent churning through town. “It all happened kind of organically,” Sanders says. “The sculpture garden just fits in so beautifully.” Which is why the expansion to downtown Cleveland is so fitting: it shows that it’s not just the university, but the whole town, that is invested in the arts. Rori Herbison, the executive director of

the Delta Arts Alliance, believes that “collisions” with art can have a lasting impact—it’s like you’re living inside art without even fully noticing. “Outdoor sculpture does that,” says Herbison, who serves on the sculpture garden’s committee. “You don’t have to come through the front door of a gallery. You don’t need an appointment. You don’t need money. A generation of kids is walking by pieces absorbing the fact that their community values art.” This, Sanders notes, is just what Mathews envisioned. “Pam really believed that in the presence of art, whether you understood it or not, it elevated your consciousness.” It’s fitting, then, that along with the expansion, the garden is undergoing one other change: its name was recently quietly changed to the Mathews-Sanders Sculpture Garden—honoring both its visionary and its benefactors. Herbison interviews each of the artists whose work is featured, and one of her standard questions is what the artist hopes for his or her work. She says she hears the same answer again and again: “I hope it makes people take pause.” “Some of these pieces are six months, eight months of work,” Herbison notes. “And they’re asking you for ten seconds. They’re asking you for one look back.” DM

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The Who’s Delta Connection The Wild Ride of Maxene Harlow BY AMANDA WELLS • PHOTOGRAPHY BY AUSTIN BRITT

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CIRCA 1973: (L-R) Bassist John Entwistle, singer Roger Daltrey, drummer Keith Moon and guitarist Pete Townshend of the rock band, The Who. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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John Entwistle, Pete Townshend, Keith Moon, Roger Daltrey, during one of their summer tours in the 1960s. (Photo by RB/Redferns)

“M

y mother always said I was the biggest dreamer,” says Maxene Harlow of Clarksdale. “She was right.” When we visit, Max has just wrapped up her “Chronicles of Yarnia” knitting group that meets weekly 2,200 miles from her native Sacramento, California. Her colorful attire, lively demeanor, and willingness to tell it like it is quickly sets the stage for an intriguing conversation. From a young age, Max made a point to have a good time and to never take herself too seriously, an attribute that clearly still rings true. We sit in an activity center that’s a far cry from the lively places she’s been. I’m here to learn about her storied life—and storied it is, to say the least. It’s Maxene Harlow with John Entwistle safe to say Max never thought talent for sewing would lead her down a she’d find herself living in Mississippi, but path with twists, turns, valleys, and like her mother’s sentiment, she’s also the mountaintops—and eventually the wide type to never say never. open spaces of the Mississippi Delta. “My Throughout her life, Max’s natural 86 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

mother was a talented seamstress,” remembers Max. “The Barbie clothes she made were very sought after and she dressed her children beautifully. I remember a lady in the beauty parlor once told her that she had the best dressed children.” This artistic nature is one that Marlene passed down to her daughter, who used her talents to have a little fun. “When I wasn’t invited to prom, I made my brother’s velvet tuxedo and he looked fantastic. Then, he dared me once to run against the most popular girl in school for JV cheerleader. I made this get up, went out there basically making fun of her, and then I won. I like to think my outfit had something to do with it.” “It wasn’t a big stretch for me to make a career as a seamstress,” says Max. “It’s something that I’ve just always been.” Max would prove to take this love of design and

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clothes to a level beyond cheerleading uniforms. After parting ways with “one of many boyfriends,” Max took her talents to Los Angeles, where she specialized in men’s tailoring. She was befriended by renowned costume designer Judy Evans (of Golden Girls and Designing Women fame), who advised Max to not join a union, but to go to work for musical acts. In the late 70s, Max landed a costume gig working on the Sha-Na-Na television series, where fate would have it that she met Keith Moon, the drummer for The Who, one of the most famous rock bands on the music scene at the time. “He came in at 10 a.m., still drunk from the night before,” remembers Max. “I was to fit him for a gold lame’ suit. In his drunkenness,

he insisted on wearing high, gold platform boots.” That day marked the beginning of a close friendship between Max and Keith, one that would end when Keith died in 1978. Keith introduced Max to John Entwistle, The Who’s bass player, who was working in Los Angeles as the musical director for The Kids are Alright, a “rockumentary” about the band. “At the time, I moonlighted as a waitress at the Rainbow Bar and Grill on the Sunset Strip,” says Max. “Celebrities and musicians didn’t realize their seamstress was also their waitress. I would swipe some tiger print number from the wardrobe closet during the day and prance around at night in it to make good tips. I

was a chameleon and could be whatever I needed to be.” John, married to his high school sweetheart, began to relentlessly pursue Maxene, the cocktail waitress he couldn’t seem to shake. “I was not about to be labeled a homewrecker,” says Max. “I refused to go out with him.” When John and his wife separated, she began to soften. By Halloween of 1980, Max had moved to London with John, who she says was the yin to her yang. “We would finish each other’s sentences and we shared the same dirty and mischievous sense of humor,” says Max. “I was definitely a fish out of water in London.” As she remembers partying with Mick Jagger and DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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Top left: Harlow in Clarksdale with her husband Richard Bolen; Top right: Harlow attending an event with Entwistle; Bottom photos: Harlow with Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, and Zak Starkey, The Who’s current drummer and son of Ringo Starr of the Beatles.

Jerry Hall. “When Jerry would drink just enough, her Southern accent would ooze out.” Instead of clinging to London society, Max found her place with The Who, who became her family. “I was their wardrobe mistress. I was in charge of the flamenco boots and making sure the backup singers were outfitted just right. I would cut up t-shirts with a pair of scissors and they’d rip them off and throw them to the crowd. It was a lot of fun and a wild time, for sure.” Max would call England her second home for sixteen years. John’s divorce took years to finalize, but once it was, he and Max tied the knot at the White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada on September 21, 1990. Looking back, Max says the wheels had started to come off before they ever stood in front of Elvis to make things official. By the time the two were married, Max 88 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

“I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution Take a bow for the new revolution Smile and grin at the change all around Pick up my guitar and play Just like yesterday Then I’ll get on my knees and pray We don’t get fooled again.” – Won’t Get Fooled Again by The Who says John had already begun an affair with Lisa Pritchett Johnson, who would go on to live with John until his death. “We partied and we were addicts,” says Max, sadly. With her marriage quickly unraveling and her addictions taking the front seat, Max reached a breaking point.

“My friend Nicole Winwood (wife of musician Steve Winwood) invited me to an AA meeting and it was the very best thing I could have done.” With her husband “suffering from Peter Pan Syndrome and never wanting to grow up” and Maxene newly clean and

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sober, things went from bad to worse. Max lived in the couple’s Los Angeles home while her husband remained in England. When the marriage finally dissolved, Max moved to Reno, Nevada and then settled in Lake Tahoe, California with her young son Olivier. It was there, Max found her connection to the Mississippi Delta. Through her recovery, she met Richard Bolen, a Clarksdale native. The two would soon fall madly in love and marry. After sixteen years in Lake Tahoe, Max followed her husband to the flatlands of the Delta to care for Richard’s aging father. “It was a bit of a culture shock,” she laughs about settling down in the most mystical place on earth. But, in just over a year since she arrived in Mississippi, she’s managed to dig her heels into the community. Max has set out to take full advantage of what Mississippi can offer and what she can offer Mississippi. Like she has long been known to do, Max has jumped head first and full throttle into Delta life, embracing the culture, the art, and the magic it holds. She’s collaborating on writing a musical for her community’s at-risk children that’s anti-drug, anti-gang, and pro-arts. “This area is known as the birthplace of music, but the beauty I’ve seen is that it’s still happening,” she says. “It’s still going on! There is so much talent in our young people.” Max teaches a knitting class in Oxford and her yarn bombing can be seen around town on various landmarks, adding a bit of color to her surroundings. “The pace is definitely slower than any other place I’ve lived,” she says, but adds that it’s quite nice. She also spends time supporting Richard’s efforts to revitalize Clarksdale’s downtown area as an arts and culture district by dedicating signs, memorials, and paintings to musicians, artists, leaders, athletes, and the like that have ties to Clarksdale. Maxene, the storied “Seamstress for the Band,” is on a whole new revolution—a revolution that consists of making a life for herself—and others—in what she would probably consider the most unlikely of places. DM

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Whiskey sits obediently during a successful hunt.

Fowl Play & Family Fun Making memories in the great outdoors BY SHERRY LUCAS • PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHARLES SMITH

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Ben, B.C. III, Ali and Randy Rogers trolling on a morning hunt.

unting in Mississippi is an enjoyable past time for many. B.C. Rogers III is hard-pressed to pluck a memory of his first duck hunt, as pervasive as this lifelong passion has been. It simply always was. Is. Will be. Even in his office, across the parking lot from Persnickety in Madison, he’s surrounded by it—artwork, a fraction of his collection of vintage duck calls, his line of hunting accessories, a family snapshot in camo, a framed desktop photo of “the greatest dog ever,” now gone. Over his shoulder is his wedding gift from his wife, Kim. The painting by Jean Wilkes shows him and that great yellow Lab, Mossy, on the water’s edge, fishing, at the spot where he and Kim got engaged. A dog bed in the office hints at another generation wrapped up in the sport. That’s where his black Lab, Whiskey, son of Mossy, often spends the day close to his best friend. Rogers co-owns Persnickety with his mom and dad, Randy and Ben Rogers, but Delta roots hold firm in this family. He’s originally from Morton, and his mother’s family, the Meltons, stretch back generations in Greenwood. In 2015, he launched his own line of classic hunting accessories and gear, Wren & Ivy (named for his daughter, five, and son, B.C. Rogers IV, nicknamed “Ivy,” who is two). Those leather goods on a high shelf in his office glow with a supple sheen. He happily shows off recent gifts from buddies—a hand-

turned duck call by Josh Raggio and a hand-braided duck lanyard by Ryan Watson. “Is that a gorgeous gift?” He turns to grab another duck call by Raggio, in yellow cedar burl and maple. “Isn’t that awesome?” Tickled, he can’t resist a quick blow, filling the room with wild quack or three. “Beautiful!” His old preacher, the late Rev. Chuck Moody, carved the decoy that holds a proud place. Moody baptized him; Rogers was a pallbearer at his funeral. The thread that touches every surface knits his family together in traditions that span hunting seasons and holidays for decades, and a lineage that stretches back almost a century. “My father was one of those early duck hunters,” Rogers says. At a time when most just shot ducks when they wanted to eat a few, his dad and others were passionate about calls, decoys and hunting—the art of the sport. “He married a girl, my mom, from Greenwood and you know what? She fell in love with duck hunting, too.” In fact, the family history follows her line back to B.C.’s greatgrandfather Randall Blewett Schlater, and the Delta land he purchased dating back to 1919. The Ran Company, as the family

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Left to right: Ali, Coleman, McNeil, Weathersby, John and Bonner Dinkins. Randy and Ben Rogers, B.C. III, (holding Ivy) Kim and Wren Rogers with faithful labs Lawson and Whiskey Rogers keep the group company.

Sunrise over the duck hole.

Randy and B.C. III in the duck blind in the early ’90s.

company of farms Schlater created is known, still has a company meeting, “essentially a family reunion” each December at Christmas. The descendants of the Melton family still duck hunt together each year. “Last year, one of my best hunts of the year was with my cousin Floyd (Melton), my cousin Brett Wilson and my cousin Floyd’s son, Floyd IV—it’s a neat legacy. “We’ve been continually hunting waterfowl and other wildlife on that land for 98 years. That’s incredible! And wonderful,” he says. “I don’t have any memories of not spending all of duck season at the duck camp,” Rogers says. There’s no beginning.” Always was. Is. Will be. Born into the life, he fell in love with it, too, and the shared passion bolstered family bonds. “When you’re at the camp, what’s the worst that can happen? You’re in this sanctuary, sort of literally and figuratively, as a

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family. It’s an incubator for being close.” Faith and life lessons he and his older sister, Ali, learned from their parents, have a role, too, in that closeness, he says, “but it’s in large measure because we spent so much time outdoors together.” His enviably close relationship with his dad is reinforced by the sport. “My dad’s an awesome guy, first of all. But second of all, when you hunt together and you give a young man a firearm, he’s holding a deadly weapon. So, he can either act like a man and be responsible, or he doesn’t get to go. “When you hunt together as a family, everybody’s treated as an equal at some primal level. It’s still father and son, but there’s an equality in that that makes you bond as equals—as friends.” Their duck camp in Morgan City has been a family retreat for thirty-five years. Kim entered the fold, fast. She grew up in an

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The Hotel Blind

avid hunting family, primarily whitetail deer. “I have two brothers and a dad who were sweet enough to let me tag along,” she says, but she’d never been duck hunting when she first met B.C. They started dating in October 2008, “so it was real quick afterwards that I got introduced” at that season’s start. She loved the social ease. “I kept going, ‘Where has this been?’ Why have I been quiet for hours in a shooting house when I could have been with family and friends and very comfortable in a duck blind?” Their kids see the same shared passion in their parents that Rogers sees in his. Thanksgiving and Christmas are centered at the camp. “It’s where we have our family time,” he says. To this day, Rogers is the duck camp youngster. “You develop these roles and then you sort of stay in them, and that’s really neat,” he says of such camp characters as the funny guy, the gung-

ho duck hunter, the avid shooter, the guy who’s into duck calls and the guy who’s all about the dogs. “I was a sponge for all those guys. I became passionate about all of those aspects. I didn’t pick just one. “We run hunt tests and field trials with our dogs. Some of my best friends make duck calls for a living. Now, we make leather and canvas gear for waterfowling and upland game hunting. It just worked out that way.” The stories of others flesh out Rogers’ earliest experiences for him. “They told me that I used to take a BB gun and my dad would call ducks and land them on the water. Normally, you shoot ducks as they’re coming in. But he would land them on the water and make everybody not shoot. And then I would try to shoot one with my BB gun. And then, they would all shoot— and they would all say, ‘Good shot, B.C.!’ like I got one.

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Ben and Randy Rogers in the ’80s.

B.C. III with his father headed for a hunt.

Whiskey on a retrieve.

He knows now, “There’s a pretty good chance I didn’t kill a mallard with a Daisy Red Ryder,” he says, laughing, “but, boy, you couldn’t have talked me out of it when I was six!” Rogers was five when his uncle gave him his first hunting dog. His mom let him keep the pup, but she got to name the dogs. “Until I went to college, I had Sister, Darlin’, Honey—my mom did that just to mess with me. Can you imagine being a thirteen -year-old boy with all those grisly old duck hunters, going ‘Here, Darlin’, here, Darlin’!’—I had to do that,” he says, laughing. “So, now my dog’s name is Whiskey.” Thanksgiving and Christmas are big feast days at the camp, but every weekend, if not every day there, is a feast day, too, with the family’s love of cooking together. They plan, count who all’s coming, “and we cook enough for three times that many.” Now a third generation is growing up, groomed in the tradition. “We go up on Wednesday and then we do Thanksgiving on Thursday and then it’s opening day of duck season, which is like Christmas morning for our family, on Friday.” DM B.C. with daughter Wren on her first trip to the duck blind. 94 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

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A successful morning in the Delta cypress.

CYPRESS BEND DUCK 6 Mallard duck breasts Greek Seasoning 5 ounces red wine 2 tablespoons red pepper jelly a dash of soy sauce 1 tablespoon Tiger Sauce a dash of wasabi soy sauce ¼ stick butter

Butterfly Mallard duck breast or other large ducks (if teal or wood ducks do not butterfly). Cover breast liberally with Greek Seasoning. Melt butter in skillet and add breast. Cook breasts on each side until they are medium rare. Remove breasts and add wine on high heat. Cut breasts into strips. When wine has cooked down, lower heat and stir in red pepper jelly, Tiger sauce, soy sauce and wasabi soy sauce. Stir and simmer for a few minutes. Add duck back and simmer for 5 minutes. Serve over rice.

DELTA DUCK ROAST 24 1 1 1 10 to 12 ¼ 2

mallard duck breasts ounce packet ranch dressing mix (1¼ ounce) packet au jus mix cup butter pepperoncini peppers cup Worcestershire Sauce cups red wine fresh ground pepper, to taste

Grease slow cooker with bacon grease and place duck breasts in the cooker. Add liquid ingredients, ranch dressing mix and the au jus mix. Place peppers on top of mixes and add butter on top. Cook for 8 hours or until fall-apart tender. Note: We serve this dish as an appetizer on crackers, on rolls with cheese and mustard or over rice as a great main dish.

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A Delta Modernist

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HOME

Bentley Tibbs and the Allure of Home BY AMANDA WELLS • PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHARLES SMITH

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Two of Tibbs’s favorite pieces in the living room are the vintage daybed by Karl Matthison and the round mirror in the square frame by Holly Hunt.

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The homes exterior is a study in simple lines.

hile Bentley Tibbs is every bit the modern, forward-thinking man, the allure of a past life spent in the Mississippi Delta beckons him, making an appearance in both his work, his home, and the way he looks at life. The celebrated architect now lays his head in Dallas, Texas, but his heart still lies deep in the fertile soil that grew him. A childhood spent between Cleveland, Mississippi and the family farm in Hushpuckena may seem too simple for some, but the architect describes the richness of such an upbringing as overflowing with inspiration. “It was unbelievably rich,” he remembers. “The very first—informal—part of my architectural education was running around old barns, climbing on hay bales in Hushpuckena with my brothers as the light was falling through open roofs. It was the exposure to old buildings like Mr. Johnny’s gas station. I was lucky to have those experiences as a child. Those sensual experiences stay with you. I can still smell it, hear it, see it, and taste it.” While Bentley credits his parents for helping to shape his eye and his interests, he also gives them credit for, perhaps most importantly, giving him the freedom to find his own way in life. His father, Dr. Robert Tibbs, a long-time local physician, encouraged him to explore history when he left for college at 98 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

Rhodes, Delta State, and Texas A&M, respectively. “I really believe he always knew I would turn to architecture,” says Bentley, who explored other studies before settling on architecture as a second year senior in college. “After I declared architecture as my major, I was home one Christmas and he pointed to some books on a shelf that were all about the Renaissance, the Byzantine era, and the like. When I opened those books, I saw where, as a child, I had scrawled in the margins. He knew me and I believe knew what road I would take all along. But, he wanted me to figure it out and make that decision on my own.” Bentley went on to finish architecture school under the instruction of many great professors that helped to further cultivate his artistic eye. He dove into the study of European and British architecture, an experience that melded with his Mississippi upbringing to create a unique aesthetic that’s been dubbed “Southern Modernism.”

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In Bentley’s bathroom, an upholstered screen from Pat’s home, paired with a unique copper bathtub, creates a cozy nook in what is a typically utilitarian space.

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Zinc panels wrap walls in the home, create an unexpected element to the dining room and kitchen.

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“I wanted to stain my cabinets but couldn’t afford it at the time,” says Bentley. “So, I painted them Mink by Benjamin Moore and now, ten years later, wouldn’t have it any other way.” Backsplash tile is by Ann Sacks.

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Bentley treasures his mid-1800s English china cabinet. “I love old pieces because I see myself as a caretaker of them.”

When Bentley finished school, he set out to leave Texas, scouring for jobs along the East Coast. But, as fate would have it, Texas called him back, as he landed a job with the iconic Frank Welch. “Frank was a Texas regionalist whose work is quintessential Big Sky Country,” says Bentley, whose reverence and admiration for Frank are obvious. After five years of working with Frank, Bentley decided to go out on his own. “I went into Frank’s office to let him know and he insisted that I finish the jobs I had going in his office,” he remembers. “Looking back, I realize that he was essentially giving me part time work so I could feed myself while I got started my own. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to know him.” As Frank likely saw, Bentley had the talent and the drive to make a name for himself. After twenty-three years in Dallas, he’s done that and more, becoming a go-to in the area for modern architecture. Perfect evidence of his aesthetic is his own home, Santa Clara, in Dallas’ Little Forest Hills neighborhood. A decade ago, Santa Clara was mere 900 square foot “generic as can be” simple home, making it the perfect clean slate for Bentley to work his magic. Now, the home is Bentley’s respite from the world – a modern space with no modern technology. “You won’t find a television or a computer here,” he says. “There’s enough noise at work. The only thing you’ll hear here is the big clock.” Instead of coming home and turning on a television, Bentley spends his time

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entertaining or working in his rose garden. “I’m part of the Dallas Rose Society, but I still have to call Jane Dunlap when I have a question,” says Bentley of Cleveland’s very own resident rose expert. “She gave me the formula for my fertilizer and everything. My rose garden always reminds me of home.” Santa Clara is well thought out in many ways—a hallmark of Bentley’s work. With wood tones and natural materials making up clean lines, the space is simultaneously sleek and warm. “I lived in a studio apartment downtown and I always loved the idea of one big room, which this home is a take on,” he explains. Adding to the juxtaposition of modern meets traditional are Bentley’s belongings which have been collected over time. His furnishings consist of antiques from all eras, a love of which he inherited from his mother Pat. “Mom has nice stuff,” he laughs. “They say you know a woman is from the Delta when she has a little land and a lot of silver. But, she taught me to realize things are good because of what they are, not because of what they cost. If things are beautifully made and crafted, they are worth something. Without flat out saying it, she taught me to apply that concept to people too. People aren’t worth more because of how much money they have, but who they have crafted themselves to be. She taught me to see the beauty in people and in things because of what they’re truly made of.” From a 1950s daybed to an Eames lounger to a mid-1800s

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Painting of woman by Mississippi native Miles Cleveland Goodwin.

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Tibbs’s keen eye for design is evident in his cleverly appointed bedroom.

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Little pieces of the Delta can be found throughout Bentley’s home in the form of McCarty pottery.

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English china cabinet, Bentley takes pride in pieces that are well designed and come with a story. “I love old pieces because I see myself as a caretaker of them,” he says. “If they’ve been around for 150 years and I’m the owner to mess them up, that’s a shame. I see it as me taking care of them in this lifetime before they go on to someone else in the next.” The art collection found throughout the home is more a collection of stories than wall decoration. The large-scale piece in his bedroom was a gift from his graduate professor Joe Self, who created the piece to represent Joe, his wife Tracy, and Bentley and his partner Larry, complete with geographic coordinates of each of their births. Much of the home’s art, such as the piece hanging over the show-stopping copper bathtub, is Bentley’s work. “Sometimes while I’m working on a project, I paint on the side, and the piece becomes representative of my other work,” he explains. Some of Bentley’s favorite pieces in his home are those by Mississippi native Miles Cleveland Goodwin. “One year, on my birthday, I took the day off and decided to go to Valley House, a great gallery here in Dallas,” he says. “The owner Cheryl, not knowing I was from Mississippi, said she had an artist she really thought I would like. She pulled out these paintings by Miles and I got all weepy because they were like looking at scenes straight from Hushpuckena.” Bentley would go on to collect multiple pieces of Miles’ work. “I have found my way here in Dallas and am lucky to have a second home here,” says Bentley. “But Cleveland and Hush will always, always be my home. I can’t shake it.” DM One of Tibbs’s favorite paintings by Mississippi native Miles Cleveland Goodwin. DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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EASY LIVING ON THE BOGUE Treasures old and new in a richly-imagined renovation BY BRENDA WARE JONES• PHOTOGRAPHY BY GREG CAMPBELL

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Custom bookshelves filled with family memorabilia now line the walls of what was once the dining room.

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Between the slate floors and coffered ceiling, family antiques and collectibles fill the living room.

AT FIRST, THE PLAN WAS SIMPLY TO RENOVATE THE KITCHEN, update the

master bath, and add a closet, according to this Gunnison couple. At least, that was the modest idea they had in mind at the outset. But, as so often happens in cases like this, one thing led to another. When it was done, the “before” and “after” shots tell a story of a love affair with a chosen dwelling. Although this house looks and lives like a luxury vacation home, the owners live there year-round, relishing country life indoors and out. In fact, thanks to the crowning touch, a partially screened outdoor porch, they can enjoy both at once.

A collection of found treasures is on display.

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A wall of vibrant local artwork is set off by the cool colors and warm woods in the master bedroom. Below; an expanded, state-of-the-art master bathroom includes ample storage, dressing, and vanity space.

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Clean lines dominate the versatile kitchen, where pops of color and texture in the artwork (the one below the microwave by the owner herself!) and accessories add interest. McCarty pottery and African baskets lend earthy texture.

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The house, clad in aged redwood, is situated on a 13-acre property, which had formerly been a quail farm that shipped all over the country. After purchasing the property three years ago, the couple removed several buildings that had housed the hatcheries, and proceeded to make the three-bedroom house their own: rearranging rooms, adding their treasured pieces new and old, and making sure that plenty of family history was on display. “We had been living at my husband’s hunting club, nearby, but after the last flood, we decided to move to the other side of the levee,” says this wife of an avid hunter, whose trophies festoon the walls of this 4,500-square-foot dwelling. In addition to local deer, there are many exotic trophies, and skins on the floor, that the couple acquired during hunting safaris in Africa. Their trips to Zimbabwe and Mozambique yielded heads and pelts of Cape buffalo, duiker, wildebeest, leopard, and zebra, just to name a few. The single-level house is entered from the front porch, through a gracious foyer furnished with an antique secretary and chest. The view straight ahead is of the new library, formerly the dining room. Flowing naturally from the library via a wide cased opening, the den features a stone fireplace flanked by French doors. A coffered, beamed ceiling and random-laid slate flooring lend gravitas. Off the den is another Delta must-have: a paneled “man cave” filled with evidence of many a successful hunt at home and abroad. To the right of the entry hall is the dining room, which the prior owners had used as the living room, and to the left is the spacious master bedroom, the original focus of the renovation. This suite now boasts an all-new, expanded bath, dressing area, and luxury closet. Yet another vintage mahogany chest in the vanity area is topped by two of her favorite collectibles: a cicada and a giant six-inch-long katydid, preserved in shadow boxes. Quirky grace notes like this are what make exploring the place so intriguing to visitors. Collections abound in these rooms: tortoise shells, ivory, and antique cut glass among them. But it is their art that gives them the most pleasure on a daily basis. “We have collected works from several Mississippi artists over the years. We really enjoy this, and our guiding principle is that we only buy what truly speaks to us,” she claims. “I love to walk though my house and see art that makes me happy.” She reels off a long list of favorites: Gerald Deloach, Duff Dorrough, Pryor Buford, Bill Jackson, Rick Anderson, Tommy Goodman, Terry Simmons, Chesley Pearman, Andy Roberson, Carolyn Norris, Jamie Tate, JoBeth Janoush, Cetin Oguz. But perhaps prized above any other work is a painting done by the late, legendary Lee McCarty, best known for his pottery. “We were so

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“

The porch can be enjoyed yearround and has quickly become everyone’s favorite room.”

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Copper, cedar, stone, and treasured family pieces make this superbly comfortable new porch seem generations old.

stopping entertaining space, which includes a fireplace surrounded pleased to have found this piece at an auction, just before he passed by ample seating, and a fully-equipped kitchen featuring a stainless away,” she recalls. It goes without saying that many McCarty pottery gas grill, sink, fridge, and icemaker, all set into a luminous copper pieces have found their way into the couple’s décor, as well. countertop along the righthand wall. More family history is found “We turned the old dining room into a large library with custom in the dining table, which was once in his grandfather’s country store bookshelves,” she says, “and this is the room where lots of our family nearby. memorabilia is on display.” On the walls Through the wall of screen, there is a are framed letterheads from businesses view of the bogue beyond the patio. The owned by her grandparents and greatdictionary defines “bogue” as a “bayou, grandparents, photographs of their stores stream, or waterway,” but the owners in Indianola, and wedding invitations define this one as a prime place to view from both sets of grandparents. From the abundant wildlife in the region: her husband’s side there is an antique turkey, waterfowl, and of course, deer. writing table that once belonged to his The couple certainly made many great-grandparents, and filling the shelves changes, gutting the kitchen, stripping are many vintage books from both sides old wallpaper and painting every room, of the family. “Trying to ‘marry’ both our styles was made easier by using all these refinishing the hardwood flooring, refamily pieces,” she claims, “and along Part of the landscape for decades, the old barn still stands tiling all bathrooms. But one of the most with our art pieces that we have loved on the property as a nod to days gone by. interesting changes is the one they acquiring, it’s what makes the house belong uniquely to us.” decided not to make: tearing down a very old barn and shop in front The kitchen, which was another of the initial projects that led to of the house. “Over time, we have grown to love the character it the total re-do, is now a sleekly functional, all-white workspace that adds,” she notes. also offers bar seating allowing family and friends to visit with the “Everyone who spends time on the other side of the levee says chef. Above the sink, a small “treeline” landscape painted by Pryor that once you go over the levee all the problems stay on this side, Buford Lampton brings the outdoors in. and that there are no problems on the other side,” she concludes. But when the weather is just right, the place everyone wants to “We feel the same way about this house. We cannot wait to get be is what many consider the very best part of the home: the home each day to enjoy our place. I guess you are never really enormous, newly-added outdoor porch, with a screened wall along finished with your home; it keeps evolving. We look forward to the rear façade. The owners pulled out all the stops for this showwhere it will lead!” DM DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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THE GREAT BEAR HUNT

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A walk through history in modern times BY HANK BURDINE • PHOTOS BY MARGE SELBY SELF

IN THE SPRING OF 2016, a dedication ceremony was held for the Theodore Roosevelt Visitor Center a few miles south of Onward, Mississippi. The location is right on the side of Highway 61 and very close to Smede’s Plantation, where in 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt disembarked from an Illinois Central train at a cotton loading ramp to begin what has been called the most important hunt on American soil.

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here is much history associated with the Mississippi Delta. We all know the story of how the President of the United States had been promised the first bear on a hunt that had been set up by Stuyvesant Fish, president of the Illinois Central Railroad, and native Mississippians John Parker, E.C. Mangrum, Huger Foote and Senator Leroy Percy. Upon Percy’s request, the Metcalfe brothers, Clive and Harley, enlisted their trusted friend, ex-slave and Confederate Cavalryman Holt Collier to lead the hunt. Collier, and his pack of bear hounds, were renowned throughout the South as being among the best there was. King Cotton had caused the deforestation of a good bit of the Mississippi Delta by the turn of the century and about the only remaining bear habitat was in the South Delta, through which the Big and Little Sunflower Rivers, Steele Bayou and Deer Creek flowed. It was a deep, primeval and untouched wilderness, choked with dense forests of virgin hardwood timber and laced with almost impenetrable canebrakes, the favorite lair of the Louisiana Black Bear. It was into this morass that the small hunting party rode on horseback to a primitive camp that Holt and his fellow guides had hacked

President Theodore Roosevelt on 1902 bear hunt leaving camp on the banks of the Little Sunflower River. (Photo credit Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library)

Clive Metcalfe and Holt Collier in 1917 on Newstead Plantation. (Photo courtesy of Lelia Wynn)

into the bank of the Little Sunflower River. The President did not get a bear and refused to shoot a tethered 300-pound bear that Holt Collier had run right by the very log where Roosevelt had been given explicit instructions to stay. Because of a decision to return to camp for a bite to eat, the President missed his chance, and in an ensuing fight with the bear hounds, once the bear bayed, Collier ran into the melee and clubbing his rifle, hit the bear at the base of his skull, stunning the bear and allowing the bruin to be lassoed and tied to a tree. A cartoon in the Washington Post by Clifford Berryman entitled “Drawing the

Line in Mississippi” led to the creation of the world-famous children’s toy, the Teddy Bear.

1902 Bear Hunt Re-Creation Simon Roosevelt, great grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, had spoken at the dedication ceremony remarking on the significance of the 1902 bear hunt and importance of the reforestation efforts through U.S. Government conservation programs of mass amounts of bottomland acreage. As a sitting board member of the Boone and Crockett Club, a premier conservation and record-keeping

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Author James McCafferty discusses bear hunting in the Mississippi Delta with Judge Bard Selden soaking it in.

organization founded by his great grandfather, Simon knows firsthand the importance of habitat restoration and the role it plays in the resurgence of the Louisiana Black Bear into its natural environment. Thousands of acres have been put back into trees along riverine corridors connecting vast areas of state and federal wildlife preserves thus creating travel lanes and denning places for the recovery of a viable bear population through natural replacement and growth. Through these efforts, the bears are coming back and growing in healthy numbers in certain areas of the Delta. Location efforts through tagging and radio transmitter programs have allowed state and federal game officials to track movement and population increases throughout a vast area of our state.

The bears are back and growing in healthy numbers! As I visited with Simon and others, including Holt Collier’s great niece, Anne Marie Parker, it dawned on me that I knew personally many of the direct descendants of the original hunting party that was on the 1902 hunt. I began to envision a reunion of that group and what an important event that would be in the annals of hunting history to have an opportunity to gather together descendants of the participants of what has been called the most important hunt ever to be held on American soil. Due east, and not many miles from the original hunt along the Little Sunflower River, is my friend Howard Brent’s 4,500-acre hunting preserve. Panther Tract is a model of conservation efforts in habitat restoration

Sid “Bo Weevil” Law and David Dewhirst accompanying the hunt. 118 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

with a beautiful lodge that can comfortably accommodate many guests. Nestled along the northern boundary of the huge Panther Swamp Wildlife Preserve and Delta National Forest and bounded by the Yazoo and Sunflower Rivers and Wolfe Lake, this pristine area is a wildlife mecca, including the evasive and habitat destroying feral hog. Why not host a hog hunt on horseback and have as many of the descendants as possible attend and participate? Once I mentioned this to Howard Brent, the charge was on and plans began to fall into place. We were going to have a black bear/wild hog hunt re-enactment. We decided to have the hunt in February, prime time for wild hog hunting and during the time that bears were hunted in olden days. Guest lists were compiled and hog

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Bo Weevil and Harley Metcalfe III discussing the 1902 bear hunt.

Hank Burdine and daughter Alden Dewhirst as you will always find them, on horseback. Hank on Clue and Alden on Hank.

Melody Golding and her custom made hog sticking knife. “The only meat this knife has ever stuck is a porterhouse steak at Doe’s Eat Place.”

Caretaker emeritus, Theodore Roosevelt Brown.

Author Minor Buchanan discussing the 1902 bear hunt held close by. DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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Wild hog hunter extraordinaire, Rob Stigall and Wendlandt Hasselle-Selden on seasoned hog hunting pony, Stumpy.

The Presidential tent where Simon Roosevelt slept under a buffalo rug.

Kat, a registered yellow black mouth cur. (Photo by Jennifer Stigall)

Photographer Jane Rule Burdine on the job.

Jane Rule Burdine and hog hunter Rob Stigall.

Hunt coordinator Hank Burdine atop Clue. (Photo by Huger Foote)

Minor Buchanan tells of the 1902 bear hunt.

Simon Roosevelt, Frank Dantone, Rob Stigall and Governor Phil Bryant enjoy a lull in the action. (Photo by Jennifer Stigall) 120 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

Hollidae Morrison with Harley Metcalfe’s great grandaddy’s bear knife.

Lisa Percy listens while sitting on a bear skin rug.

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Ann Currie on Moonshine and hog dog take a well deserved break from the hunt. (Photo credit Melody Golding)

hunter emeritus Rod Stigall was contacted to lead the hunt with his pack of mixed breed hog dogs. Fellow horsemen and horsewomen were contacted, and before long, the die had been cast and the reenactment was set. A twinge of excitement was in the air as we all realized we were going to be involved in history in the making. The hunt was on. Like the 1902 bear hunt when secrecy and privacy was evermore prevalent at the request of President Roosevelt, guest lists had to be kept to a guarded minimum. Minor Buchanan, author of Holt Collier: His Life, His Roosevelt Hunts, and the Origin of the Teddy Bear agreed to come and give a talk on the original 1902 hunt. Author James McCafferty, who had just written The Bear Hunter: The Life and Times of Robert Eager Bobo in the Canebrakes of the Old South would be in attendance. Direct descendants of the original hunting party included Billy Percy, Simon Roosevelt, Huger Foote, Harley Metcalfe and Anne Marie Parker, Holt Collier’s great niece. Ardent sportsman, Governor Phil Bryant accepted an invitation and came to hunt. A campsite had been set next to the woods with huge logs to sit on hauled in and set around a large fire pit dug in the ground. Efforts were made to depict and recreate the original campsite with a large canvas guide tent erected very similar to the one President Roosevelt slept in over a hundred years before. Suitable bedding was supplied with a large buffalo rug placed over the top for warmth. Simon Roosevelt looked forward to spending the night on the ground within twenty miles of where his great grandfather had once slept.

Julia Reed and Raymond Longoria observing the action from a Polaris Ranger.

Early on the morning of the hunt, and after a wonderful evening at the Panther Tract lodge the night before, complete with a sumptuous feast and much frivolity and conversation around the roaring fire, not to mention the guitar picking and singing that always goes along with an evening at

A still life panther guards the main lodge at Panther Tract Plantation.

Panther Tract, the day broke cold and crisp with excitement in the air. Buckets of hot coffee were consumed as horses and hunters and hog dogs, yapping and squealing with excitement, arrived and began getting tacked and geared up. Saddles were cinched tight on prancing horses; Kevlar vests and electronic tracking collars were fitted on the hog dogs, and four wheelers and Polaris Rangers were gassed and revved up in anticipation of a glorious day afield. A hog

hunt in the wilds of the Mississippi Delta is not a picnic nor is it like an English attired fox hunt, scampering over hill and dale. Wild hogs are very dangerous animals that can turn and hurt you or your horse without a moment’s notice. Once bayed, a wild hog will fight with utter abandon, ripping and tearing anything within his reach with razor sharp tusks that can grow to four inches in length. A cornered hog is not a happy camper, and it is a true test of skill to take one with a knife, which is the best way to dispatch a hog in the thickets of the swamplands of the Delta. The hunters, those few that would stay close to the dogs and follow them into the thickest part of the swamp, included Simon Roosevelt and Governor Bryant. Soon the dogs struck a trail and the hunt was on. I had instructed the rest of the followers on horses and all-terrain vehicles to stay behind a bit and on the roads that crisscrossed the hunting preserve in order not to get in the way of the dogs or the progress of the hunt. What a glorious day it was with good hunting, good camaraderie and good times had by all. Hogs were taken and no dogs were hurt. During lunch, back at the lodge, talks were given around another roaring fire, telling of the original hunt and the importance of the people involved in that occasion that happened over a hundred years prior. History was made again in the south Delta. We were all proud to be a part of it. DM

The Theodore Roosevelt Visitor’s Center is sponsored by Wildlife Mississippi and upon completion is to be managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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Second Printing Now Available

Exclusively available through McCartys, the authorized dealers of McCartys pottery, and the offices of Delta Magazine

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FOOD

Easy. Quick. Nutritious. Sheet pan meals and crockpot soups are the answer to winter weeknight dinners BY CINDY COOPWOOD AND CORDELIA CAPPS • PHOTOGRAPHY BY WILL JACKS

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ooks like sheet pan dinners are here to stay. They are a simple way to pull a healthy meal together, with easy prep and even easier cleanup. Simply throw almost any combination of ingredients onto a baking sheet and you will have the perfect onedish meal. Roasting lends a crispy, brown goodness that intensifies the flavors of most foods, so feel free to substitute your favorite veggies and protein. The possibilities are endless!

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HERBED SALMON WITH GREEN BEANS & CHERRY TOMATOES Variation: Asparagus would be an excellent substitute for the green beans in this recipe. 4 1 3 to 4 2 3

salmon filets, deboned and with skin-on pound fresh green beans, whole cups heirloom cherry tomatoes shallots, sliced garlic cloves, minced salt and pepper, to taste 4 to 5 tablespoons olive oil 2 to 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar herb mixture*

Herb mixture: 8 cloves of garlic handful parsley, thyme, oregano, basil and a little rosemary, chopped 1 tablespoon olive oil ¼ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. For the herb mixture, make a paste with all chopped herbs, garlic, olive oil and salt and pepper. Season salmon filets with salt and pepper. Place on one side of sheet pan and spread herb mixture on top. Arrange tomatoes on other side of the sheet pan and season with salt, pepper and drizzle balsamic vinegar on top. Place green beans in the middle, topping with sliced shallots and rough chopped garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil. Cook for approximately 20 minutes until salmon is firm and slightly brown and tomatoes are bursting.

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PORK CHOPS WITH BRUSSELS SPROUTS AND BABY POTATOES Variation: Boneless, skinless chicken breasts with broccoli and potatoes would make a similar meal. 6 3 1 1 1 1 ½ 2 1 1

boneless pork chops tablespoons olive oil ounce package of ranch salad dressing mix teaspoon smoked paprika tablespoon oregano dry teaspoon ground black pepper teaspoon salt pounds baby potatoes pound Brussels sprouts, trimmed and quartered tablespoon fresh parsley chopped

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray. Place potatoes, pork chops and Brussels sprouts on the baking sheet, drizzle all with olive oil and toss well. Mix together the ranch seasoning, paprika, oregano and pepper and salt. Rub the seasoning over pork chops (and potatoes, if desired). Roast for 35 to 40 minutes or until the pork chops are cooked through and the potatoes are fork tender. Watch closely, being careful not to overcook pork chops depending on their thickness. Garnish with chopped parsley then serve immediately.

Tip: Be sure to cut veggies so they are

about the same size. This helps to be sure they will cook at the same rate.

SAUSAGES WITH CARROTS, APPLES AND ONIONS Variation: A mixture of beets, sweet potatoes and fennel would also be delicious with the sausages. 4 2 1½ ½ 1 2 2 2 3

large pork sausages large Granny Smith apples cut into cubes pounds small red potatoes pound baby carrots large red onion cut into wedges tablespoons parsley leaves chopped tablespoons fresh rosemary chopped tablespoons maple syrup tablespoons olive oil salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl combine the apple cubes, potatoes, carrots, onion, parsley and rosemary. Drizzle with syrup and olive oil, season generously with salt and pepper then toss well to coat. Spread apple and vegetable mixture on a large sheet pan. Place sausages in and around the vegetables. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden and cooked through.

Tip: Line your pan with parchment paper or foil first, for super easy clean-up!

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Nothing is better on a cold winter’s day than a big bowl

of hearty soup, except possibly coming home in the evening and knowing it’s hot and ready to eat. If you have a couple of cans of beans and tomatoes you’re halfway there. BLACK BEAN SOUP WITH QUESADILLAS 2 1 1 4 4 2 1 ½

cans black beans, rinsed & drained onion, chopped red bell pepper, chopped cups vegetable or chicken broth garlic cloves teaspoons cumin teaspoon salt teaspoon pepper sour cream, diced red pepper and avocado slices for garnish

Place the beans, onion, bell pepper, broth, garlic and cumin into the slow cooker. Season with salt and pepper. Set to cook on low for 6-8 hours. Puree the soup until smooth. Top with sour cream and diced red pepper. Serve with quesadillas.

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BACON AND SCALLION QUESADILLAS 1 to 2 tablespoons vegetable oil Flour tortillas Grated sharp cheddar cheese Bacon crumbles, (preferably fried and hand chopped) Chopped scallions Garnish with your choice of sour cream, bacon, cheese, green onions or salsa

Generously top one tortilla with cheese, then add bacon and chopped scallions. Place second tortilla on top. Swirl oil in medium hot pan and slowly brown quesadilla on both sides giving the cheese time to melt. Top with garnishes of your choice.

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Toasted courtons are also a delicious topping for this soup.

RUSTIC TOMATO SOUP 2 2 1 ½ 1 5 4

tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil large yellow onions, finely chopped tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper jar roasted red peppers, rough chopped or pulsed in food processor cloves garlic, minced (about ⅓ cup) 28 ounce cans whole tomatoes, drained, pulsed in food processor to desired consistency 6 cups chicken stock 2 teaspoons dried thyme 2 large sprigs fresh basil, finely chopped Sour cream and basil pesto for garnish

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When it is hot, add the onions and 1 teaspoon of the salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions have softened, about 3 minutes. Add the sliced garlic and continue to cook, stirring, for 3 minutes longer. Transfer the sautéed vegetables to a 6-quart slow cooker and add the tomatoes, chicken stock, thyme, basil sprigs, remaining 1 tablespoon salt and black pepper. Cook on medium-high for 6 hours, stirring occasionally. When ready to serve, taste and adjust the seasonings if necessary. Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with a dollop of sour cream and pesto.

GRILLED CHEESE ON RYE The distinctive taste of Rye bread adds a boost of flavor to an ordinary grilled cheese. Rye bread Cheddar cheese Monterey Jack cheese (or cheeses of your choice) Mayonnaise Butter

Spread bread slices with mayonnaise and layer with cheeses. Spread outsides of bread generously with butter. Grill in a medium hot pan until cheese is melted and sandwich is brown on both sides.

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LENTIL AND HAM SOUP 1½ 1 1 1 3 2 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ 32 1 8

cup dried lentils cup chopped celery cup chopped carrots cup chopped onion cloves garlic, minced cups diced cooked ham teaspoon salt teaspoon dried basil teaspoon thyme teaspoon dried oregano teaspoon black pepper ounces chicken broth cup water teaspoons tomato sauce

In a 3½ quart or larger slow cooker combine the lentils, celery, carrots, onion, garlic and ham. Season with basil, thyme, oregano and pepper. Stir in the chicken broth, water and tomato sauce. Cover and cook on low for 8 to 9 hours. JALAPEÑO CORNBREAD 1 1 ½ 1 1 ½ ¼ 2 2 ¼

cup all-purpose flour cup yellow cornmeal teaspoon baking soda teaspoon salt cup buttermilk cup unsalted butter, melted cup sugar large eggs jalapeños, seeded and diced cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and generously coat a 12-cup muffin tin with nonstick spray. Combine flour, cornmeal, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together buttermilk, butter, sugar and eggs. Pour into dry ingredients and stir just until moist. Fold in jalapeños and cheese. Spoon batter evenly into the muffin tray. Place into oven and bake for 15-17 minutes, until lightly brown and slightly firm to the touch. DM 128 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

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Delta Magazine’s

LET’S EAT.

BYOB

BRING YOUR BREAKFAST LUNCH DINNER BRUNCH RESERVATIONS FULL BAR OWN BOTTLE SERVED SERVED SERVED SERVED RECOMMENDED LIVE MUSIC CATERING FACEBOOK TWITTER INSTAGRAM

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good eats guide

Fat Baby’s Catfish House

3670 Highway 61 / Cleveland / (662) 721-9001 fatbabyscatfishhouse.com Fat Baby’s serves the best fried or grilled catfish, shrimp, ribeyes, frog legs and catfish gumbo in the Delta. Our signature menu item is the famous catfish bread. You’ve got to try it! Fat Baby’s Catfish House only serves U.S. farm-raised catfish. Fat Baby’s on Highway 61 is a family-oriented, buffet-style restaurant, plus short-order items and take-out orders. Live entertainment Friday nights, 5pm to 8pm. We offer the best plate lunches for dine-in or take-out 7 days a week, 11am to 2:30pm and one of the biggest buffets of the best-prepared catfish and chicken in the Mississippi Delta.

Doe’s Eat Place

502 Nelson Street / Greenville / (662) 334-3315 / Paducah / (270) 443-9006 Monroe / (318) 737-7169 / Biloxi / (228) 271-6377 People worldwide visit the Delta to hear the blues and to taste the savory steaks and hot tamales offered only at Doe’s Eat Place, family owned since 1941. First-time visitors entering through the front door are pleasantly surprised to find themselves in the kitchen. Family style, family welcomed, that’s the charm of having a Doe’s experience. Specialties are 2- to 3-pound steaks, homemade hot tamales, French fries from a cast iron skillet and Aunt Flo’s famous salad. Dinner, 5:30 to 9pm. Closed Sunday. Hot tamales on sale from 9am to closing. New locations at Margaritaville Resort in Biloxi and in Monroe, Louisiana. Now open in Ridgeland and Florence, Mississippi also in Springfield, Missouri. Franchises available.

BYOB RR

Airport Grocery

3608 Highway 61 North / Cleveland / (662) 843-4817 airportgrocerycleveland.com A family-owned icon of the Delta where you can slow down with the rhythm of the blues, fill up on good times, and enjoy out-of-this-world food at a down-to-earth place. Menu favorites include house-made Delta-style tamales, old-fashioned burgers, BBQ smoked in house, charcoal-grilled steaks, and farm-raised catfish. Discover a comfortable, eclectic atmosphere with an impressive collection of nostalgic memorabilia, with some for sale. Just like the relics on the walls, blues musicians tell a story of the wear and tear of days gone by. Musicians from Eden Brent, Fingers Taylor, and Blind Mississippi Morris have given remarkable performances on our humble stage. Private dining room available. Catering offered for any occasion. Kitchen open Monday through Saturday 11am to 10pm; Sunday 5pm to 9pm. Full bar with large selection and Mississippi-brewed beer. RR

Giardina’s

314 Howard Street / Greenwood / (662) 455-4227 thealluvian.com A legendary institution enjoyed by generations in the Delta, Giardina’s offers a well-tested menu dating from 1936. A unique blend of sophistication and warmth, Giardina’s is the perfect setting for any event. Seating includes fourteen private booths, a main dining area, and a bar that connects to The Alluvian Hotel. In addition to the steaks, seafood, and pastas from the founder’s native Italy, Giardina’s kitchen continues to offer innovative southern cuisine with the chef’s ever- changing specials and menu creations. Giardina’s is open for dinner Monday - Saturday from 5:00-10:00pm.

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R E H E A R S A L D I N N E R S ŭ P R I VAT E P A R T I E S ŭ M O N T H LY W I N E D I N N E R S T W O F O R T U E S D AY ŭ W I L D G A M E S E L E C T I O N 5960 Getwell Road 3165 Forest Hill Irene Road 88 Union AAvvenue 1001 E. Jackson Avenue Southaven, MS Germantown, TN Memphis, TN Oxford, MS 38655 662.232.8855 662 .890.2467 90011.249.5661 901.5277.5337

www.mesquitechophouse.com

Save Ro o m Fo r D ess e rt For 50 years, The Crystal Grill has been serving Delta classics to generations of families milies for lunch and dinner. The Crystal Grill is known fo or its generous portions and legendary desserts. Locals know ow to save room for dessert. What will you try? OPEN TUESDAY - THURSDAY, SUND S AY 11 11:00 00 AM - 99:00 00 PM SATURDAY - SUNDAY 11:00 AM - 9:30 PM 662.453.6530 423 CARROLLTON AVENUE GREENWOOD, MISSISSIPPI facebook.com m/TheCry stalGrill

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Health, Fitness and Recreation W

ell, the holidays have come and gone and New Year’s resolutions have been declared, promising (hoping?) to lose weight and return to a healthy lifestyle. Our

busy lifestyles often dictate the amount of time we can devote to our workouts, but one’s age, fitness goals and general health are others factors which should also be considered when committing to a regimen. We’ve asked several health and fitness professionals to share their favorite tips for success as we enter the new year, including goal-oriented training, ways to stay committed and nutrition suggestions. Whether your goal is weight-loss, more strength and mobility, or taking a “fit-cation” to go on a yoga retreat or run in a destination race, you will find just the encouragement you need to get started! – C.C.

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TODD M. DAVIS, CPRP Dave Heflin Professorship Director, Recreation Leadership & Outdoor Education

FAVORITE FITNESS GADGET

PHOTOS COURTESY TODD M. DAVIS

I believe it is important to relate fitness to purpose. For example, we spend time in Idaho every summer and winter, while there we participate in numerous strenuous outdoor activities such as hiking, mountain biking, canoeing, white water kayaking, rafting, rock climbing and snowboarding on a daily basis. These all require strength, endurance, and a high level of fitness. I encourage people to find their purpose and what will motivate them to stay fit: a 5K, half-marathon, triathlon, mud run, something—and sign up and pay for it!

TANGLEFOOT TRAIL

GoPro HERO3: I love to document my outdoor experiences to share with friends and family.

OUTDOOR SPACES FOR PURPOSEFUL FITNESS IN THE DELTA Trail at Delta State » Walking/Fitness University - This asset has a half-mile

Birding at Dahomey Wildlife Refuge

track, paved path with lighting and fitness equipment to engage the whole body. Walking Path in Downtown » Crosstie Cleveland - This paved path runs through town with ample lighting and great scenery to engage walking and jogging safely. State University Natatorium - Open for » Delta lap and fitness swimming, this Olympic size pool offers a total body swim workout and there are classes for learn-to-swim available.

Kayaking at Great River Road State Park

Wildlife Refuge, near Boyle » Dahomey Offers trails and a wildlife observation tower. This is a great location to go for a mini-hike, backroad biking or bird watching. tanglefoottrail.com

IF BIKING IS YOUR THING, trek over to New Albany and check out the Tanglefoot Trail. A National Recreation Trail, it is Mississippi’s longest Rails to Trails conversion. It stretches forty-three miles through the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and through seven quaint Mississippi towns. You’ll most likely begin or end your trail experiences near New Albany’s historic downtown. The birthplace of William Faulkner, this town is vibrant with restaurants, boutiques and shops!

Biking along the Tanglefoot Trail

National Wildlife Refuge, near » Tallahatchie Cascilla - Beautiful location for boating/canoeing, hunting and fishing River Trail, near Greenwood - Provides » Yazoo access to walking and hiking on forty-five acres of pristine batture forest habitat. River Road State Park, Rosedale » Great Open for biking, hiking, and canoeing and other outdoor enjoyment.

SAFETY TIP

Always wear neon orange clothing in locations where hunting is a priority.

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Head to the River

For more outdoor recreation opportunities

hile the river itself is public property, the woods alongside are not. And despite their wily nature, they are muchprized hunting land. Much of the batture is now privately owned, but here are spots where you can still head to the river.

For more details on Mississippi River access, see rivergator.org.

Vicksburg Downtown Vicksburg is no longer on the river proper, but from the downtown rooftop grill at 10 South (1301 Washington Street) you’ll have one of the Delta’s greatest view. There’s also the I-20 Bridge, and, just upriver, the aptly named Riverfront Park (4100 Washington St).

Issaquena County There’s no boat ramp, but Shipland WMA (off Highway 1, just north of Fitler) offers a chance to camp, hike, and hunt in the batture. Just over the levee in Mayersville is the Mayersville Boat Ramp (access via Court Street), an underused site with a marvelous view.

Washington County Each February you have a rare chance to look down from above on the shipping channel: run (or walk) across the Greenville Bridge as a part of the Mississippi River Marathon. Warfield Point Park (Producers Drive, Greenville) also offers campsites, picnic pavilions, viewing deck, and bonfire pit.

Bolivar County Dennis Landing (north of Pershire) is mostly just a boat ramp, but Terrene Landing (Terrene Landing Road, Rosedale) has a wooded turnaround that’s good for a picnic. 140 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

RORY DOYLE

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Coahoma County Friars Point Landing (just north of Friars Point) is often too muddy for launching a boat, but it’s great for bankside fishing. Upriver, the Delta Boat Ramp (also known at Montezuma Landing, for an old sunken steamboat) is a rough ramp, but a beautiful spot, with old, tall trees and lots of open space. Quapaw Landing (Farrell Road) sits on a backchannel, which gives you a view of the river’s deep nature, and the Delta’s northernmost bridge, on US-49, offers one more view.

RORY DOYLE

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Tunica County Once a hotspot for casinos, Mhoon Landing is still sometimes a party spot. It offers bathroom facilities and covered pavilions for picnickers. There’s a must-stop upriver at the Tunica County River Park (1 Riverpark Drive, Robinsonville), two viewpoints, a nature trail, a museum, and modern facilities.

DeSoto County The northernmost river access in the Delta, DeSoto Landing (just west of Walls) includes a few picnic tables and a long dirt road at the river’s edge. A nice launching point for a canoe or kayak day-trip to the Tunica River Park. DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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There are many free YouTube videos making yoga easily accessible. CLARE ADAMS MOORE Sunnywild Yoga studio “I love yoga because it is a sustainable practice that always allows opportunity for growth in mind, body, and spirit. The trending barrier to starting a yoga practice is fear. Overcoming that fear of trying something new that allows your physical body to learn movement again is the first step.

GREEN DETOX SOUP 1 leek 3 garlic cloves, minced 3 stalks celery, diced 3 carrots, thinly sliced 1 to 2 zucchini, chopped 1 to 2 squash, chopped 1 small head broccoli, broken into bite-size florets 1 bunch collard greens or 2 to 3 heads baby bok choy, torn into bite-size pieces 8 cups vegetable stock garnish with parsley or cilantro Add all ingredients (except collard greens and bok choy) to stock pot, bring to boil for 10 minutes. Turn heat to low and simmer another 15 minutes. Add greens toward the end of cooking time to avoid overcooking.

PHOTO BY LAURA BETH LOTT

HEALTHY RECIPE

TOP BENEFITS OF YOGA

» Increases strength, balance, and mobility in everyday life, as well as

protection from injury that may occur during cross-training and other activities

» Increases self-esteem through movement; also teaches controlled breathing not only in yoga, but on and off the mat

» Improves coordination, reaction time, memory and balance. These factors promote independent living for the elderly and reduce “symptoms” of aging

» Reduces the need for pharmaceutical treatment of many chronic

conditions including fibromyalgia, back injury, hypertension, diabetes, insomnia, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; can be an effective treatment for addiction

Clean eating and plantbased living go hand in hand with yoga.

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KRISTY BRIDGERS Certified personal trainer

» Try to get sweaty at least 5-6

Instructor, Orangetheory Fitness in Oxford Follow on Facebook or on Instagram @INSIDE_OUT_FIT

» Find an exercise you love and

days a week.

Have a plan and work your plan. I strongly believe you have to pencil in your workouts as well as your food plan. Also, food prep and having a workout buddy are excellent ways to help you stay accountable. Studies show those who write out their goals achieve their goals at a significantly higher rate than those who do not. So for the new year get a new notebook and write those goals out and celebrate daily, weekly and monthly with that workout buddy!

When traveling you must be prepared. I always have a few fitness pieces and a cooler with me, so I can make healthy snack choices. TRX band, kettle bell, mat, resistance band, medicine and stability balls

Travel snacks

pound ground pork or chicken small bag cole slaw mix teaspoon garlic, minced teaspoon grated ginger tablespoons soy sauce cup chopped green onions

• 50 jumping jacks • 40 running men • 10 triceps dips • 20 squats • 10 side planks (each side)

In a skillet, brown meat until crumbly. Stir in slaw mix and cook till crisp-tender. Add garlic, ginger and soy, distributing evenly and cook 1 to 2 minutes. Add green onions and gently stir in. Seasonings may be adjusted to taste.

Raw almonds, overnight oats, cut up veggies and fruit, pre-made protein shakes—you can just add water wherever you are!

an hour class at the gym! Run along side your kids on their bikes or throw in some tricep dips on a park bench. Ten to fifteen minutes a few times a day can quickly add up to a full work out. do any time of day if you can’t get to a class:

EGGROLL IN A BOWL 1 1 1 1 2 ¼

» A workout does not have to be

» Here’s a quick circuit you can

HEALTHY RECIPE

Travel fitness pieces

will stick with—something that gets your heart pumping. Exercise should be a joy not a chore!

Repeat 3-4 times

BALANCE FITNESS Owners, Georgia Tindall and Lauren Caston

DELTA LOVE PHOTOGRAPHY

Georgia Tindall and Lauren Caston, owners of Balance Fitness in Cleveland, believe in a ‘balanced’ approach to exercise. “I feel you see the best results by confusing your body by doing many different types of classes, instead of always doing the same thing. I love classes that mix cardio and strength training, and try to add in Yoga or Pilates a few times a week,” says Georgia. They agree that keeping the core strong is very important. “My favorite classes combine intense cardio and strength, like Tabata and Step, but they also have TONS of core work,” says Lauren. “Keeping the core strong is so important as we age for preventing injury and improving balance.”

THEY’RE EXCITED ABOUT

⤴

Real Ryder spin bikes are coming to the studio early this January. They mimic outdoor cycling with handlebars that move, allowing to work the upper body and core. 150 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

Georgia’s nutrition tips • Try to follow a plant-based diet with certified organic produce, if possible. • Make your plate as colorful as possible! I love looking at a plate of veggies knowing I am filling my body with exactly what it needs. I eat tons of veggies, beans, grains and nuts. • I try to steer clear of meat and dairy products.

Lauren’s nutrition tips • Drink LOTS of water! It’s so important to stay hydrated and flush the body of toxins. • I try to follow the Food Guide Pyramid, where the main source of energy comes from vegetables and fruits, small amounts of lean meat and healthy fats and little to no sugars.

HEALTHY RECIPE GO-TO VEGGIE SALAD living lettuce mixed with spinach red onion, chopped red bell pepper, chopped avocado, chopped black beans dried cranberries sunflower seeds Tessemae’s Organic Green Goddess dressing few dashes of Sriracha sauce Shredded rotisserie chicken can easily be added if desired. Mix ingredients to taste. Yum!

• My favorite snacks are nuts, fruits and some kind of nut butter.

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High Standards Encouraging Staff Comprehensive Care H E M AT O L O G Y A N D O N C O L O G Y

Ja c k s o n | Vi c k s b u r g Ja c k s o n O n c o l o g y. c o m

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HISTORY

Kentucky FriedChicken Comes to the Delta Greenville was the first stop BY NOEL WORKMAN

“He had an ad in the paper,” Ernest Buehler said. “If interested in Kentucky Fried Chicken, write to Colonel Sanders at this address in Louisville, Kentucky,” the ad read. “And if really not interested, please don’t bother him because he was sixty-five years old and very, very busy,” Buehler explained to Roberta Miller in a 1977 oral history interview at the Percy Library in Greenville.

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“AT THAT PARTICULAR TIME, the Colonel didn’t have any money,” Buehler continued. “He was starting out. He was sixty-five and they had moved the highway and put him out of business in Corbin, Kentucky, so he got his pots and things that he used to cook chicken, and seasonings, and he’d come around to see if he could interest you in cooking chickens according to his recipe.” By that time, Buehler knew a good bit about restaurant operations in Greenville. In 1944, he and his wife Verna opened a drive-in restaurant a block from E. E. Bass

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OLD PHOTOS COURTESY OF KFC CORPORATE

Ernest and Vera Buehler

High School and called it the Fountain Terrace. A decade later they moved their restaurant to Highway 82 East calling the business Buehler’s Terrace and offering their customers car hop service. “Colonel Sanders wanted him to take the whole state,” recalls Buehler’s grandson Bill McGough, a retired doctor in Greensboro, North Carolina. KFC’s records only go back to 1969 with documents signed by Bill Beuhler, Ernest’s son. But family members say that in 1959 he signed on to the Kentucky Fried Chicken business, as the Colonel Harland Sanders’s thirteenth franchise. Today, there

Bueller’s Granddaughter Maury McGough and Bueler’s son Bill and the Colonel. DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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Colonel Harland Sanders congratulates the Buehlers for their service with Kentucky Fried Chicken which Sanders founded. They were celebrating the 20th Annual KFC International Convention in Miami.

are 14,577 KFC restaurants in 120 countries with 5,003 in China and 372 in India. Colonel Sanders wanted Ernest Buehler to take the whole state, according to McGough “but Grandpa said he was too old and did not want that much responsibility—so he only took towns in the Delta and ended up with two in Greenville and one each in Clarksdale and Greenwood.” “I just paid him a nickel for each chicken sold,” Buehler said, “and he’d never check up on you. He said, ‘I’ll take your word for it.’” “I asked him why he didn’t check up, and he said, ‘I’m going to leave that up to you, sir.’ The Colonel said, ‘If I make you money, you’ll give me my part, too, and I’m not uneasy about that.’” “In the mid-1960s a group of investors led by John Y. Brown, a former Kentucky governor married to Miss America Phyllis George, bought out the Colonel for three million dollars and paid him a million a year to be the image. The nickel per chicken was changed to five percent of gross. “That’s when Papa stopped selling beer and blue plate specials,” McGough said, “although he never stopped selling ‘Buehler Burgers.’” “Back in the 1960s,” McGough continued, “racial integration was a problem

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An early Buehler’s ad in the Delta DemocratTimes.

for many Delta restaurants, but Grandpa always said that everybody’s money was the same shade of green—and had no problems with all of that.” “We had just been in the short orders business,” said Buehler’s daughter-in-law (and occasional cashier) Coco Bueller, “and were probably known best for our big hamburgers with our juicy mustard-based slaw.”

And the Greenville High School crowd stuck with the Buehlers. “It was open late,” remembers Patty Pehl Davis, “and was always the go to place after a big out-oftown dance in the Delta.” When Buehler saw the Colonel at KFC’s 1976 convention in Miami, he said, “Colonel, that Kentucky Fried Chicken has been good to us.” Sanders replied, “You’ve been good to Kentucky Fried Chicken. If it hadn’t been for a lot of old-timers like you, I never would have made it.” “It was one of the miracles of the food world because he was busted when he started traveling,” Buehler said. “He was living off Social Security. Twenty years later he was a multi-millionaire,” Buehler said. “Colonel Sanders and his wife were delightful,” remembers Coco Buehler. “We attended a number of KFC conventions, and the Colonel was a really nice guy who always took an interest in you doing well,” she said. Thirty-seven years since he went to the big chicken shack in the sky, Colonel Harland Sanders is more present than ever, with various comedians portraying him in television spots. Former Guns N’ Roses guitar legend Patrick Carroll is famous for wearing a KFC bucket on his head. At one point, Buckethead, as he is widely known, changed to a plain white bucket with no KFC logo, but subsequently reverted to his

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trademark KFC bucket. As long as there’s been KFC, there’s been the Colonel. From the moment he started selling his patented finger-lickin’ good chicken in North Corbin, Kentucky, outside a gas station in 1930, he was the face of the product. And as he expanded the brand (the first official Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise opened in Salt Lake City), Sanders himself cruised around the country to court Buehler and other investors and partners with his glorious plan to popularize Southern comfort food. He began franchising in 1952, essentially creating the template for future fast food franchises. And more than six decades later, his spirit of entrepreneurial chicken-slinging lives on. “Part of how he grew the company was by developing solid franchise partnerships across the US, some of which are still in place today,” said Kevin Hochman, US President of KFC. “In fact, many of KFC franchisees only own one or two restaurants, so ensuring they make our hand-prepared world-famous Kentucky Fried Chicken consistently in our kitchens across the US is no easy feat.” “I rode from our Sunflower County farm with my Uncle Waldemar Prichard in the late 1950s to attend the weekly Tri-State Stockyard livestock auction in Greenville,”

recalls Jo G. Prichard of Jackson. “After the auction wrapped up, we went to Buehler’s for lunch. “While having a great blue plate special, I noticed this strange contraption on a table behind the counter. I asked about the device and was told it was a fryer for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

“I thought to myself, ‘Now isn’t this the stupidest idea in the whole world. Who in their right mind in Mississippi—the home of the best friend chicken in the world— would ever want a piece of Kentucky fried chicken? I bet they won’t sell a dozen pieces a day!’ Boy, was I ever wrong!” he admits. Sanders emerged in a time when burgers were king, specializing in a product that traditionally takes a lot longer to cook than patties. But that didn’t stop him. His name isn’t Private Sanders, after all. He streamlined, becoming the first fastfood operation to use pressure cookers and developing a twenty-five minute streamlined process that every single KFC still uses. Slow food suddenly got fast because of the Colonel. All these years later, the Colonel remains one of the most recognizable faces in the game, whether his smiling face is being used to shill weird fried-chicken hot dogs in Korea, the legendary Double Down Nashville hot chicken or the same old bucket of Original Recipe that’s been fingerlickin’ good since the Depression. He is the original—and the ultimate— spokesman-mascot. Everyone from Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas to Papa John owes the Colonel a debt, and so do the people who operate every fast food restaurant in America. In 1981, the Delta KFCs were purchased by Vic West of Laurel. DM

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EVENTS

Blues Traveler and Jonny Lang, February 17 in Tunica

FESTIVALS, MUSIC & FUN THINGS TO DO January 12

Tunica Resorts

January 27, 7:30 pm

The Temptations

Malpas Dance Company

Horseshoe Casino

Ford Center

January 13, 5 pm

Oxford

Community Reading of “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Square Books

January 13

Muddy Magnolias The Orpheum Theater

January 14

Southaven

Oxford

Oxford Hotel Hop The Graduate, Chancellor’s House, Courtyard Marriott, The Inn at Ole Miss popupoxfordms.com

January 24, 7:30 pm

Oxford

The Sound of Music Cleveland

The Sound of Music

BOOK SIGNINGS

Bologna Performing Arts Center

Thomas Pierce

Oxford

Oxford Film Fest

Clarksdale

Clarksdale Film & Music Festival

The Afterlives January 18, 5 pm: Square Books, Oxford January 19, 5:30 pm: Turnrow Books, Greenwood

Oxford

Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility, Aquila Theater

Jamie Quatro

Ford Center

January 23, 5 pm: Square Books, Oxford

February 14

Steve Yarbrough

The Unmade World

Landers Center

Cleveland

Premier Wedding Showcase Grammy Museum

Tunica Resorts

Blues Traveler and Jonny Lang Horseshoe Casino

Fire Sermon

Southaven

Katt Williams

February 17

Bologna Performing Arts Center

Delta Cinema, New Roxy

Cleveland

Hamlet

February 15

Ford Center

Cleveland

Bologna Performing Arts Center

Ford Center

February 13, 7:30 pm

January 21, 5-9 pm

February 22, 7:30 pm

Michael McDonald

oxfordfilmfest.com

Landers Center

January 26-27

Oxford

The Birdland All-Stars featuring Tommy Igor

February 7-11

Kevin Hart Irresponsible Tour

January 25, 7:30 pm

February 5, 7:30 pm

February 6, 7:30 pm Memphis

Hamlet at BPAC on February 6

Oxford

January 29, 5 pm: Lemuria, Jackson January 30, 5:30 pm: Turnrow Books, Greenwood January 31, 5 pm: Square Books, Oxford Maude Schuyler Clay & Ann Fisher-Wirth

Mississippi February 6, 5 pm: Square Books, Oxford February 16, 5:30 pm: Turnrow Books, Greenwood Steve Cavanagh

The Plea February 26, 5 pm: Square Books, Oxford Tayari Jones

An American Marriage February 28, 5 pm: Square Books, Oxford

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t For the 11th time since 1979, the e dance world

comes to Jackson, to Thalia Mara Hall, where histor y will be made.

June 10 -23, 2018

• Ballet’s current & future e stars • Two weeks of thrilling performances • Gertrude C. Ford Opening ning Ceremony featuring Joffrey Ballet dancers • Arts, Lecture & Film series ries • Aw wards Gala & Grand P Prix Ball • International Dance School chool usaibc.com/study

Tickets on sale January 16, 2018 usaibc.com/attend

2014 Gold Medalist Gisele Bethea & Michal Wozniak Photo by Richard Finkelstein Welcoming John Meehan as 2018 International Jury Chair

The official international ballet competition for the United States by Joint Resolution R of the U.S. Congress. Presented under the auspices of the Interna national Theatre Institute, Internationaal Dance Committee, UNESCO. Funded in n part by grants from fr the Gertrude C. Ford Foundation, Mississippi Development Authority uthority, Visit Jackson and South Arts rts in partnership with the National Na Endow wment for the Arts, a federal agency, and Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency gency.

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DELTA SEEN

Maude Schuyler Clay and Bill Dunlap at Southside Gallery in Oxford on November 16 Photos by Randall Haley

Lauren Beyers with Julie and Billy Chadwick

Scott and Cindy Coopwood with Bill Dunlap

Ellen Meechum, Glenn Ray Tudor and John Winkle

Martha Kelley and Vicky Armstrong

Ygondine Creasy with Paul and Alison Moyers

Gena Jones, Lori McLeod and Tiffany Couch

Billie Allio and Norma Boudreaux

Carson Myers and Erin Lee

162 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

Jordan, Cindy and Thomas Coopwood, Bruce Levingston, Linda Spargo, Scott Coopwood, Maude Schuyler Clay and Campbell McCool

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Rhythmic Circus at Bologna Performing Arts Center in Cleveland on November 30 Photos by Bill Powell

DELTA SEEN

Prentiss and Eric Howell

Harvey Fiser, Beverly Massey and Laura Howell

Sean and Susannah Wessel with Hilda and Kirkham Povall

Carla Parker and Santa Claus

Walker, Deborah and John Christopher Cox

Darlene and David Breaux

Dinesh and Parveen Chawla with Kirkham Povall

BPAC Staff: Amber Foster, Cade Holder, Jay Griffing, Lloyd McDowell, Paula Lindsey and Laura Howell

Nancy Armstrong and Kerri Mosco DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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DELTA SEEN

Elizabeth Heiskell Book Signing at the home of Jed and Amanda Turner in Cleveland on December 1 Photos by Bill Powell

Jane McCaslin, Elizabeth Heiskell and Alinda Sledge

Elizabeth Heiskell with her father Will Gourlay Debbie Powell and Debbie Abide

Carlysle and Terry Meek with Becky Gourlay

Luke and Elizabeth Heiskell

Amanda Turner, Elizabeth Heiskell, Kitty Kossman, Charlie Capps and Jane McCaslin Jane Ellen Bobitt and Ginger Pepper 164 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

Ginger Pepper, Nan Sanders, Terry Routman and Kitty Kossman

Brooke Tims, Elizabeth Heiskell, Beth Joel and Mitzi Garrett

Signe Adams, Charlie and Cordelia Capps

Jamie Jacks, Lisa Cooley, Elizabeth Heiskell and Desira Janoush

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100th Greenwood Chamber Meeting at Leflore County Civic Center in Greenwood on November 2 Photos by Roy Meeks

Rose and Charlie Bowman with Janice Moor

Dameon Shaw, Kendall Tanner and Dale Pearsons

Margaret and Meredith Allen

Beth Stevens and Mike Philpot

DELTA SEEN

Christopher and Alexandra Johnson with Shelley and John Paul Walker

Ryan and Caroline Strawbridge, Chris and Katie Jones with Swayze and Matthew Hicks

Abigail Newsome with Marcus and Deborah Banks Wade, Megan and Powell Litton

Michael Joe Cannon with Brandi and Lance Gregory

Brad and Claudette Hawkins with Andra Chapman and Alan Ellis

Betty and Rusty Douglas with Cheryl and Kyle Thornhill

Charles and Glo Wright with Betty Gale and Tim Kalich DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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DELTA SEEN

Kelly Nations, Mary Neff Stewart, Kimme Hargrove

Delta Supper Club at Linden Plantation in Glen Alan on October 13 Photos by Tate Nations

2017 Kappa Alpha Court of Honors at Fairview Inn in Jackson on October 5

Christy Prine and Elizabeth Taylor

Abbie and Stewart Robinson with Whitney and Amy Claire Smith and Amanda Wells Cameron Dinkins

Art Spratlin, Jon Turner, Dick Wilson, Scott Coopwood and Jimmy Maxwell

Swan Yerger, Bill Murdock, Al Hopkins and Donald Hopkins

Haley Fisackerly, Jon Turner, Darden North and Joe Gibbs and Arthur Johnson Jordan Coopwood 166 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

Photos by Megan Phillips

Beth and John Hinkle

Allan and Alice Fanning

Monty Simpkins, Nap Bryan, Lee Paris and Stan Viner

George Pickett, Wayne Ferrell and Ward Van Skiver

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Boy Scout Awards Ceremony at Greenwood Country Club in Greenwood on November 16 Photos by Johnny Jennings

Dr. and Mrs. John Fair Lucas with their grandson William Flowers

Mo Powers, Solon Scott and Dale Pillow

DELTA SEEN

Mike Barranco and Rob Spiller

Dr. and Mrs. Henry Flautt with Dr. and Mrs. Charles Nause

Mr. and Mrs. Watson Pillow and Guy Ray

Rickey Robertson, Casey Manning, Cathy and Bill Allen Teresita Scott and Mrs. and Mrs. John Doty Porter

Tony Sinclair, Hank Reichle and Shane Stevens

Wayne and Linda Dreher, Solon Scott and Bill Ward

Richard L Fisher, Scout Executive, Solon and Teresita Scott being presented Distinguished Citizen Award

Tim Fondren, Bill Cook and Tom Jennings

Melanie and Matthew Hodges, Amanda Snell, Lanny Kennedy, Myra and Lester Myers DELTA MAGAZINE 2018

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Thefinalword Remembering Memphis and The Peabody BY DR. LEE OWEN t has been a long time since I was a young boy on a cotton plantation in the Mississippi Delta. One of my special memories is of trips up Highway 61 from the Mississippi Delta to Memphis and The Peabody Hotel. Back then the highway had two lanes and it was as straight as an arrow. The cotton fields, crossed by cypress bound bayous on each side, reached almost as far as the eye could see. The very top of the Delta was where the hills on the east and the river on the west converged. The road would rise into Tennessee just south of Memphis going straight up into the hills. Then, a huge transition would occur in the landscape as old 61 turned into Third Street in downtown Memphis. And there sat, like a huge brick box with windows, “The South’s Finest, one of America’s Best,” The Hotel Peabody. Aunt Lucile would swing the big car into the back of the hotel. The doorman, Moses, would run up to our car and happily say, “Welcome, Miss Lucile.” The cold air in the hotel had a smell distinctly its own. It was the air conditioning of the ’40s and ’50s in hotel lobbies and movie houses. The odor of smoke and perfume and good bourbon drifting down from the “Creel Room”, hearing Mississippi friends saying, “Hi, Lucile,” seeing bell boys and Memphis businessmen and a little man in a uniform with a pill box hat calling out “Page for Mr. Donaldson” and elegantly dressed Delta people was my first introduction into a sophistication I had never experienced. Food was always high on the list of things to do on our trip. Breakfast would be in the basement of the hotel in the cafe. Lunch was most often down toward the river on Union Avenue at a place called The Little Tea Room. Across the street from the front of The Peabody was Jim’s Place which had the reputation of the best steaks in Memphis. At age eight I was more or less turned loose in the Peabody. I would ride up and down in the elevators. There were four of them, all operated by men who knew me. My big adventure was to go to the top floor, get off, and wander around. On one end of the top floor was the Skyway, the place for dinner guests with an orchestra which played every night on the band stand. During the day the Skyway was empty, and I

Dr. Lee Owen grew up in Shelby, Mississippi. He attended Vanderbilt undergraduate and medical school and he served as a pediatrician in Jackson, Mississippi for fifty years. He and his wife, Sophie, live in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

168 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

really thought it was spooky. On the west end was the wonderful “Plantation Roof”, the open air club with scattered tables and a replica of a plantation house. I learned later it was the home of the ducks. There were five movie houses along Main Street in Memphis. The Malco had the “Mighty Wurlitzer” which would come up out of the floor being played by a little man. This happened between each show. Shopping was important to Aunt Lucile and she would make it to all the department stores. To the south was Goldsmith’s still run by the Goldsmith brothers. Going north was “Levy’s Ladies Toggery.” Lowenstein’s on Main Street was the store I liked best because of the wonderful toy land they had on the eighth floor every year before Christmas. There were special places on the four corners where Monroe crossed Main Street. Broadnax Jewelry store on the southwest corner, was the perfect place for young men from the Delta to buy engagement rings. Lowenstein’s Department store was on the north west corner. Walgreens on the south east corner was to me the best place of all. They had long candy cases holding my favorite cinnamon hard candy. On the fourth corner was the Wm. Len Hotel. The Wm. Len was where we would stay if it was a “bad cotton year”. Street cars ran from downtown Memphis out to Overton Park. It was very exciting to ride the street car and go to the zoo. One of the last things we did before returning home to the Delta was to stop at a florist, buy flowers and go out to Elmwood Cemetery, and put flowers on family graves. Some of the graves in Elmwood dated back to the yellow fever epidemic and to the Civil War. I always thought of the trip home as long, but I do believe I slept through most of it since I would be awakened by the words, “Wake up…We are back on the place, old man.” I might explain that the term “out on the place” was frequently used in the Delta to refer to a plantation. The trips to Memphis would eventually end. But in my memory they are stamped never to be forgotten. DM

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