Profile Edition 2018

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Contents

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6 Column: Tim Kalich, 4 Greenwood has many people with vision who are willing to take risks

John Pittman, 6 2018 Community Service Award winner

Viking Cooking School, 53 Visitors learn about region’s culture as well as food preparation

Solon Scott Jr., 57 Longtime fuel industry executive has also contributed to his community

Dr. Henry Flautt, 61 Physician loves helping others while working in his hometown

Sarah Waldrop, 64 Founder of marketing business has learned many useful skills on her own Beth Williams, 67 Alluvian manager, chamber president says she likes to stay busy

13

43

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Express Grain, 13 Company plans to begin commercial production of biodiesel in spring Viking Range, 17 Company makes changes in the engineering and simplicity of its brand Brewer Screen Printing, 19 Business that started in a backyard shed has kept growing Seldom Seen, 23 Carroll County property is a popular choice as a quiet getaway Electrical & Construction Specialists, Inc., 27 Small airport lighting business has worked around the U.S., elsewhere

Greenwood Market Place, 71 Store has contributed to many local organizations over the years

North New Summit School, 31 School offers inviting environment to meet students’ needs

City of Refuge Ministries, 37 Church is focused on helping the community as well as preaching

Cyndi Savage Design, 42 Designer says she “fell into” field

Yolande van Heerden, 43 Artist exercises creative skills in classes and studio

Delta Strong Initiative, 49 Regional recruiting effort showcases strong labor, other assets

YouTube and creativity, 51 Website has proved useful for endeavors in many areas

R.H. Hunt, 73 Architect designed a number of prominent Greenwood buildings

80 Hickok Waekon, 77 Equipment manufacturer has a bright future, manufacturing director says

Dr. Jerryl Briggs, 80 Mississippi Valley State president represents his institution with pride Sunflower Diagnostic Center, 83 Ruleville clinic offers many health exams, other treatments

Bryant Farms, 87 Business specializes in locally grown beef fattened with corn and grain

Ronnie Stevenson, 89 City Council president is dedicated to boosting Greenwood

Likisha Coleman, 93 Davis Elementary principal wants her school to keep improving

Milwaukee Tool, 101 Manufacturer has big plans for expansion in Greenwood

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Publisher’s note

I

have taken a few risks in my life. I went off to college a thousand miles away from my home, and the first time I saw the campus, other than in pictures, was when I showed up to move into my dorm room my freshman year.

I decided to spend my junior year of college studying in England, knowing that once I crossed the Atlantic Ocean, there was no coming back to the States for at least nine months.

Then, in probably the biggest risk of all, I moved to Greenwood for a job at this newspaper, not knowing a soul, having never lived in the South or spent much time in small towns.

Nearly 36 years later, I’m still here, which shows either that I really like it, or that I became risk-averse with age.

One risk, though, I’ve never taken is one that put my bank account on the line.

Maybe I inherited that financial cautiousness from my father. My mother would say that they could have been rich if he had taken the chance and invested heavily in IBM in the 1950s when the office machine company was just starting to experiment with computers.

I do, though, admire those who take those risks, who put up their own money or leverage themselves heavily with creditors, to start a business, buy a business or expand into a new product line or service.

It’s the visionary risk takers who make

the U.S. economy go, and provide jobs for folks like me who are better at execution than they are at innovation.

It’s these kinds of risk takers who are the cover focus of this year’s Profile edition. And it’s not just those who take risks in business on whom we shine a spotlight.

Editor and Publisher Tim Kalich

Advertising Director Larry Alderman

City Editor David Monroe

Advertising Sales Linda Bassie Kyle Thornhill Amy Pleasants Mardy Thomas

Lifestyles Editor Ruthie Robison Staff Writers Lauren Randall Kathryn Eastburn Contributors Johnny Jennings Susan Montgomery

they could meet.

This DIY confidence is not a new trait.

It goes back decades. It’s one of the reasons why, when people compare cities and towns in the Mississippi Delta, Greenwood stands out. It just has always seemed to have more going for it than a lot of other places in the region.

For 32 years now, we have made exploring, understanding and explaining that specialness the focus of the Profile edition.

The 2018 version, all 104 pages’ worth, continues that effort to emphasize what works well in our community, not what’s broken. It’s our antidote to what often grabs the news headlines: conflict, crime and corruption. Profile is all about accenting the positive, not with exaggerated puffery, but with honest, comprehensive journalism that concentrates on the success stories, both of individuals and of organizations. We think it’s some of the best work we do.

We appreciate all those who let us tell their stories. We especially thank those advertisers who support this project, many of them year after year. There would be no Profile edition without them.

Their successes, as told in their advertisements, are a big part of this community’s bragging rights, too. When they do well, we all do well. Please support them, as they support all of us. Ô qáã=h~äáÅÜ

On the cover

Staff

Sports Editor Bill Burrus

Also we tell about those who take risks in all kinds of endeavors in this community, from the arts to religion.

They are part of the “DIY culture” in Greenwood. When you hear that acronym for “do it yourself,” you think of those who take on home improvement projects or car repairs on their own.

But the term also fits with those who have an idea and rather than letting someone else or someplace else do it, they ask themselves, Why not me? Why not here?

Like John Coleman at Express Grain, who at the age of 41 has already started three agriculture-related businesses in Leflore County, including a biodiesel plant that is getting ready to start commercial production in the next month or so. Or Yolande van Heerden, a delightful import from South Africa by way of Los Angeles, who is trying to turn her eclectic style of art into a full-blown sewing operation. Or Randy Adams, the son of a preacher who broke out of his comfort zone of being a “pew member” and started a church of his own.

Those are just a few of the many wonderful stories inside this issue of people in this community who have taken an idea and run with it, risking personal failure and in some cases even financial ruin because they saw a commercial, social or spiritual need that they were confident

Graphic Designers Demario Greer Anne Miles Production Manager Ben Gilton Circulation Manager Shirley Cooper Business Manager Eddie Ray Editorial and business offices: P.O. Box 8050 329 U.S. 82 West Greenwood, MS 38935-8050 (662) 453-5312

John Coleman, Yolande van Heerden and Bishop Randy Adams are among those exemplifying the “do it yourself” spirit being celebrated as the theme of this year’s Profile section.

Photo by Johnny Jennings

Cover design by Demario Greer

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WORSHIP “For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.”

Romans 12:4-5

We invite you to join us on Sundays and Wednesdays as we seek to learn, sing, worship and grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Each Sunday we broadcast our 11 a.m. worship service live on our website for those not able to be with us in person.

300 Main Street • 662-453-4680 • fpcgreenwood.org

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2018 Community Service Award winner: John Pittman

Glad to give back Longtime banker active in many causes

J

ohn Pittman had a lot of success in his 42-year banking career, but his decision to work in that field wasn’t all about money.

“One of the things that was important to me career-wise was to be in a business that really believed in the communities it had offices in and believed in giving something back,” the former president of Planters Bank & Trust said. “In banking, you will find that.

“Banks are very good community citizens or corporate citizens. They have a big investment in the communities they serve, or they do through their stockholders. So they want the communities to do well. And the Greenwood banks, I think, have done that. They’re very healthy.”

Pittman has done plenty of “giving back” himself over the years, lending his talents to a variety of organizations including ArtPlace Mississippi, The Salvation Army, the Museum of the Mississippi Delta, Habitat for Humanity/Fuller Center for Housing, the Greenwood Mississippi Cemetery Association and Delta Council.

“His ability to reach people, to connect people to a worthy local cause, is rare,” said longtime colleague Jim Quinn.

“People trust John when they are donating to a local charity or a need, and that trust takes years of building.”

A lifelong resident of Greenwood, Pittman said it’s about making his hometown a better place. For his continued work toward that goal, the Commonwealth staff has selected him for this year’s Community Service Award, which is presented annually in conjunction with the Profile edition. v v v

Pittman, 68, was born in Greenwood in 1949 to David and Myrtis Pittman, one of five children. After his mother died when he was 2, his father remarried, and a halfbrother was added to the family.

The late Sgt. John A. Pittman, who won the Medal of Honor for heroism in the Korean War and is the namesake of a Greenwood street, was not related to Pittman — but, he said, “I would be proud if he were. And I’m proud to have the same name.” Pittman, who spent six years in the Army Reserve, did meet the other John Pittman and considered him a fine man.

Pittman said Greenwood was “a very idyllic place to grow up.” He participated

John Pittman, shown with his wife, Kathryn, in their home, says he liked Greenwood’s small-town life growing up and still does.

“We will stay here the rest of our lives, I hope,” he says.

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in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and received useful guidance from his family and others, including people at First Presbyterian Church, where he remains active today.

Small-town life suited him then and still does, he said. “You could go almost anywhere, and of course we grew up riding bicycles. It was the mode of transportation, and you could go to Crosstown drugstore and read the comic books without ever buying them.”

In his elementary-school years, he attended North Greenwood School, which was led by Principal Kathleen Bankston.

The Grand Boulevard school now bears her name. “She was a sweet and fine educator who ran a tight ship over there,” he said.

Pittman graduated from Greenwood High School in 1967 and went to Mississippi State University, where he studied accounting for a while before his interest shifted to banking. He graduated in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in business.

“I almost went to work as a bank examiner in Memphis, but then the local bank called me to see if I might be interested,” he said.

That was Leflore County Bank and Trust, which Pittman remembers as “a good little community bank.” In 1974, it merged with Deposit Guaranty of Jackson, and after receiving some management training, Pittman began running a Deposit Guaranty drive-in branch on U.S. 82. He continued to move up until he became the Greenwood bank’s president around 1994. Then, after the bank was bought by First American in 1998, he became an area president, overseeing locations in Greenwood, Greenville, Clarksdale and Yazoo City.

But he decided he was a “community banker at heart” and left in 1999 to serve as president of a new Greenwood branch of Planters Bank & Trust. That began another successful phase in his career.

JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ “His ability to reach people, to connect people to a worthy

John Pittman, right, enjoys a catfish lunch during the 2014 Delta Council Annual Meeting activities. He was treasurer of the organization at the time. With him, from left, are Richy Bibb III, retiring Delta Council vice president; Tommy Gary, Delta Council past president; and Bob Morgan, Delta Council member.

local cause, is rare. People trust John when they are donating to a local charity or a need, and that trust takes years of building. ’’ Jim Quinn

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John Pittman, left, stands with Jim Quinn at a party marking Pittman’s retirement from Planters Bank in 2014. Quinn, who succeeded Pittman as president then, recently was promoted to an executive position at Planters’ Indianola headquarters.

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Richard Beattie Aubrey Whittington The Rev. Milton Glass Barbara Biggers Bill Crump Dr. John Fair Lucas III Belva Pleasants Dale Persons Alix H. Sanders Dr. V.K. Chawla Dr. Alfio Rausa William Ware Hank Hodges Allan Hammons Mary Ann Shaw

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The Rev. Calvin Collins Joe Seawright Fred Carl Jr. Donnie Brock Pann Powers Janice Moor William Sutton Charles Deaton Alex Malouf Irvin Whittaker Harold Smith Charles Bowman Howard Evans Aven Whittington

John Pittman, center, then-president of Planters Bank in Greenwood, cuts the ribbon at the official grand opening of the bank’s 7,800-square-foot headquarters on Medallion Drive in 2010. Surrounding him near the front are, from left, Rachel Downs, loan secretary; Bill Crump, chairman of the Greenwood-Leflore Industrial Board; Carolyn Manning, a member of the Planters Bank board; Mary Catherine Moore, customer service representative; Alan Ellis of Lawrence Printing Co.; Barbara Arnold of Cable One; Angela Curry, executive director of the Greenwood-Leflore Industrial Board; Pittman’s wife, Kathryn; and Pat Jones, loan secretary. Also on hand for the festivities was “Delta,” a 2-year-old vizsla featured regularly in the bank’s advertising.

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He proudly says Planters is a billiondollar community banking operation across the Mississippi Delta — adding, “Greenwood’s been a big part of that.”

But he also knew when it was time to step away, and he retired in 2014, although he continues to serve on Planters’ board.

“It’s been a good career path for me,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed it.”

He said he feels fortunate that his job allowed him to help people solve problems and realize dreams.

“It’s rare that I go to the grocery store or somewhere that I don’t run into somebody that I’ve known in my career, and we talk about a story or something that we put together to make things work,” he said.

For example, he remembers advice he gave one woman who was buying a manufactured home. “I told her to be sure and get a washer and dryer. And she’d never had one, and she thanked me every time I saw her for that,” he said. “It meant a lot. ... It makes you feel like, ‘Well, maybe I made a little difference for some people here.’”

Jim Quinn, who first met Pittman in 1990, accompanied him in his move from First American to Planters. Quinn said Pittman showed him the importance of doing business locally and how “knowing someone’s true character is 90 percent of the battle in lending.” He said his colleague also taught him that a person’s acts toward others have ripple effects, although they might not be apparent at the time.

“I owe him my career; I really do,” Quinn said.

John Pittman says he was passionate about helping make renovations happen at the Museum of the Mississippi Delta. From left, attending the opening of a museum exhibit titled “The Power of Children: Making a Difference” in 2016, are Jere Stansel, Pittman, museum Executive Director Cheryl Thornhill and Gene Stansel.

When Pittman retired, Quinn succeeded him — but, he said, those are “shoes that can never be filled.”

“You don’t replace someone like John,” said Quinn, who was recently promoted to an executive position in the bank’s Indianola headquarters. “You just try to

carry on what he’s already started.” v v v

Pittman said he felt fortunate that his employers encouraged community involvement, and he channeled his

interests in that direction — for example, his interest in the arts and education.

He once served on the board of the Greater Greenwood Foundation for the Arts, which was very active in bringing entertainment and artistic events to the area.

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He also was active in Communities in Schools of Greenwood-Leflore, which offered activities for at-risk students, and its successor, ArtPlace Mississippi, which focuses on artistic activities. Channeling young people’s interests into these areas makes a demonstrable difference, he said.

Then there is the Museum of the Mississippi Delta, which has been a passion of his. While serving on the museum’s board, he played a major role in the expansion there, which was done in 2014 and 2015.

“They’ve had a wonderful collection all these years, but it looked like an office building, inside and outside,” he said.

“And so I was really glad to play a role in that and bring in some people who helped us redesign the interior and the exterior.”

Cheryl Thornhill, the museum’s executive director, said the renovation began as a $200,000 project but grew to more than $400,000 in large part because of Pittman’s vision. “He always said if we were going to do it, we should do it right,” she said.

Pittman suggested more areas of the facility that could be upgraded and brought his financial skills to the planning. The project was helped by a $123,000 grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission, but “without him, we really wouldn’t have been able to raise the money that we did,” Thornhill said.

“He’s very humble, and he has really, really good ideas,” she said.

Although he is no longer on the museum’s board, he continues to offer ideas, and Thornhill still calls him. And he’s pleased with how the museum turned out.

“We’ve come a long way there, and that’s a wonderful educational tool for this community and this area,” he said. v v v

Pittman joined the Greenwood Mississippi Cemetery Association as an at-large member and now serves as its president.

He likes to say, “You know you’ve hit the fourth quarter in life when you’re on the cemetery board.” But the truth is that he saw a need: There was no money left to maintain Odd Fellows Cemetery and Odd Fellows East, which were formerly run by the Odd Fellows Lodge.

The board has helped to stabilize things, but Pittman wants to make sure the sites receive care for years to come.

“They’ve improved the maintenance and made repairs and cut trees and trimmed trees, but more than anything, it takes money for all this,” he said. “And we are in the process of establishing an endowment fund to provide for the longterm maintenance financially.”

Randy Clark, a fellow member of the cemetery board and First Presbyterian who also has known Pittman all his life, said Pittman has brought “muchneeded vitality” and leadership to the cemetery board.

“He brings his financial insight and his abilClark ity with the public,” Clark said. “He’s a very gifted people person and has a lot of contacts.”

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Pittman estimates that he spent about 40 years in the Kiwanis Club, 30 on the Salvation Army board and 15 on the Habitat board, among other organizations.

However, he has scaled back his activities in recent years, reasoning that “you can try to do too many things and you don’t do them well.” Still, he has remained active in ArtPlace, the museum, the cemetery board and the Beacon Harbor board as well as his church. First Presbyterian’s pastor, Dr. Rusty Douglas, is “both a good friend and a minister and someone who knows how to challenge me,” he said.

Douglas returns the compliment. “John loves the community of Greenwood, appreciates its people, is honest about its struggles, and always seems to have Greenwood’s best interests at heart. He knows how to get things done — Douglas which is no doubt why so many organizations have sought his leadership.”

Pittman and his wife, Kathryn, have a son, Richard, who is a doctor in Atlanta, and four grandchildren. A daughter, also named Kathryn, was diagnosed with a brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) at the age of 18 and died in 1999 at 21.

“She was very service-oriented,” Pittman said. “And frankly, before her death in June, she had been to Honduras

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on a medical mission trip in May. So she set an example for me.”

He said he has no specific goals other than to stay busy. His health is good, and he rides a bicycle regularly. He also enjoys woodworking and various home projects.

He and his wife have a home on Lake Washington south of Greenville and

another in Alabama. But, he said, “Greenwood is my home, and those are getaways.

“So I really don’t think I’d want to live anywhere else. Our friends are here. I know so many people in this town and have their cellphone numbers. We will stay here the rest of our lives, I hope.” n

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Express Grain

Preparing for growth A

Company to start biodiesel production

s far back as 2005, John Coleman envisioned getting into biodiesel production.

The 41-year-old president of Express Grain discussed the idea at that time with his father, Dr. Michael Coleman, a Greenwood ophthalmologist.

But it wasn’t until the company, which started as a grain-storage operation, purchased a then-shuttered oil mill in 2015 that production of the alternative fuel began to make economic sense.

“If you don’t have the raw materials, a lot of times it is hard to think about building a plant,” John Coleman said.

This spring, if all goes as planned, Express Grain will begin commercial production of biodiesel, using as feedstock the soybean oil produced at its adjacent crushing plant on River Road Extended in Green-wood.

It will be the latest expansion for a 10year-old company that operates a railbased grain terminal in Sidon, a grain storage facility in Minter City as well as the oil mill and biodiesel plant in Greenwood.

Up to now, Express Grain has been selling its soybean oil to biodiesel plants in the Southeast, but that will change when it starts producing the biodiesel itself.

The company expects to spend $7 million setting up the biodiesel plant, on top of a roughly $15 million investment it made a couple of years ago converting a mill that formerly crushed cotton seed into one that would instead extract oil from soybeans.

The goal is to produce 15 million gallons of biodiesel a year. It will be sold to refiners, who will blend the biodiesel with petroleum diesel, before sending the blend on its way to truck stops throughout the region. When the biodiesel plant is fully operational, it is expected to employ 20 workers, bringing Express Grain’s total employment to 140.

Biodiesel is produced in a chemical reaction that pairs vegetable oils or animal fats with alcohols, typically methanol or ethanol. Although biodiesel can be made from waste products, such as used cooking grease or catfish guts, nothing beats pure soybean oil as the feedstock, Coleman said.

“The best quality biodiesel comes from

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soybean oil. It is kind of like the gold standard,” he said. “It’s easiest to make; it’s the cleanest, best biodiesel.”

Josh Tabor, lab manager for the chemical side of the operation, said being able to use internally processed soybean oil is a big advantage.

“Here, we are both producer and consumer of our own feedstock,” he said. “We will be able to have input and control over the quality of our feedstock, not to mention it’s already pristine soybean oil.”

Tabor, whose resumé includes testing oil samples following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, will oversee the biodiesel chemical process, known as transesterification.

He said soybean oil has a lower rate of impurities, low moisture and less problematic elements than other material,

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Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated Greenwood Itta Bena Alumnae Chapter Meeting Date & Time: Executive Board - 3rd Monday of the month at 6:00 p.m.

Chapter Meeting - 4th Monday of the month at 6:00 p.m.

Contact: 662-299-4844 PO Box 365, Greenwood, MS 38935-0365

Chapter President - Cassandra A. Hart 1st Vice President - Cynthia H. House 2nd Vice President - Annie J. Lewis Treasurer - Contenina M. Magee Asst. Treasurer - Carla Lawrence Financial Secretary - Tonya H. Ball Asst. Financial Secretary - Syreeta Amos Recording Secretary - Belinda Robinson Corresponding Secretary - Ora Starks Sergeant-at-Arms - Hon. Gwendolyn Pernell Chaplain - Juanita L. Larry Parliamentarian - Hon. Betty W. Sanders Journalist - Barbara Gosa Historian - Sonja Jones

Officers: President - Jane Moss President-Elect - Larry Griggs Vice President - Cheryl Thornhill Secretary/Treasurer - Hunter Smith Sergeant-At-Arms - Margaret Clark Past President - Maxine Greenleaf Meeting Date & Time: Tuesdays at Noon - Greenwood Country Club Contact: 662-392-2623 P.O. Box 1825, Greenwood, MS 38930

Officers: President - Clark Bradley Secretary - Jerry Ables Treasurer - Jerry Ables Meeting Date & Time: Every Thursday, 12 Noon 662-453-4142 P.O. Box 546 Greenwood, MS 38935 Officers: President - Barbara Biggers Vice President - Dorris Kelley Secretary - Becky Avant Treasurer - Frank Warren Meeting Date & Time: 2nd Thursday of the Month at the Museum of the MS. Delta, 10:00 a.m.

Contact: 662-453-0925 1608 Hwy 82 West, Greenwood, MS 38930

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j~å~ÖÉê=`~êä=e~êäáå=ëÜçïë=íÜÉ=áåëáÇÉ=çÑ=bñéêÉëë=dê~áåÛë=ÄáçÇáÉëÉä=éä~åí=~ë=áí=éêÉé~êÉë=íç=ÄÉÖáå=ÅçããÉêÅá~ä=éêçÇìÅíáçå=íÜáë=ëéêáåÖK= such as beef tallow or poultry fat.

“For me personally — in my history — this is as good as it can get feedstockwise,” Tabor said. “I never thought we would be able to use these kinds of materials because in the past it just wasn’t cost-effective to use something that has such a high value on its own.”

The process of beginning a biodiesel plant is meticulous. Before being able to start production, the plant has been undergoing a series of tests on motors, pumps, sensors and monitoring devices.

The soybean oil, Coleman said, will run through the system at least once before adding any chemical properties to it, and then the machinery will be retested afterward. Once everything appears to be working, the oil will go through the machinery again but with the chemicals added.

“We will be testing the quality on a real kind of slow speed,” Coleman said. “You try to start up and hopefully not have to shut down too much. There will be shutdowns, and we will have to fix something, and make sure this is wired right.”

Manager Carl Harlin and Assistant Manger Bobby Bennett will be key players in the mechanics behind the roundthe-clock operation. Harlin will handle logistics while Bennett, who worked for 35 years for Greenwood Utilities, will be in charge of monitoring the electrical and computer components — what Harlin describes as “the brain behind what this instrument does and what it is supposed to do.”

Harlin said that Coleman’s business plan is “ somewhat unique in that we produce our own feedstock. If the biodiesel

JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ “I never thought we would be able to use these kinds of materials because in the past it just wasn’t cost-effective to use something that has such a high value on its own. ’’ Josh Tabor

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market is bad or non-profitable then we still have high-quality oil that can be sold.”

Harlin, who has been involved in the biodiesel industry for more than a decade, said working with soybean oil has provided new learning opportunities, such as how to refine glycerin.

“Typically to just the average biodiesel producer, glycerin is a by-product that costs you to get rid of,” he said. “We are actually going to take our glycerin and refine it and make it a value- added product.”

Glycerin is commonly used in the man-

ufacture of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

Being able to sell the by-product rather than discard it creates “a lot more job security,” Harlin said.

To produce the yearly 15 million gallons of biodiesel, the plant will need 10 million bushels of soybeans — a couple of million more bushels than the company is currently crushing. That should push it to consuming about 10 percent of Mississippi’s entire soybean crop annually.

Coleman said the operation does not depend on a perfect growing year for the

grain. Even soybeans damaged by too much rain or too little will be usable in biodiesel production.

“When we process the bean here at the processing plant, once the oil is produced, we actually refine that oil,” Coleman said.

“So even if a lower-quality bean is produced that year, we still can handle it and refine it. We just have extra losses.”

Besides the additional jobs the biodiesel operation is creating, there will be other ways that the plant contributes to Greenwood’s economic vitality.

“It is really helping boost this economy, too, this local economy,” Bennett said. “A lot of money is going into this, and we are trying to buy locally as much as we can.

That way we can put it right back into the local economy.”n

E

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Viking Range

Change for the better

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Manufacturer stressing quality, innovation

V

iking Range is no longer the company it once was. It’s better, its president says.

“We have really had to reinvent the way that we have looked at quality” and also had to “meet the standards of commercial industry in Middleby,” said Kevin Brown, president of the Greenwood-based maker of upscale kitchen appliances.

“We couldn’t do things the way we were doing.”

After the 2013 purchase of Viking by

Middleby Corp., the largest commercial kitchen manufacturer in the world, Viking transitioned from a strong focus on branding its name and the attractiveness of its products to a more recent message that highlights quality and innovation, Brown said.

“There was a culture of really looking at what I called the soul of Viking — the look,” he said. “Not necessarily looking under the hood.”

A former engineer, Brown has been instrumental in revamping the engineering and simplicity of the brand, said Tim Tyler, director of marketing.

“Viking has taken a huge leap forward, and the marketplace is starting to recognize and understand what has happened,” he said.

As part of this heightened focus on quality, the company has invested in manufacturing equipment that reduces time and creates better products.

One recently purchased machine, known as the “time saver,” ensures that customers don’t cut themselves on the sharp edges of appliances, a previously common complaint, Brown said.

“This is an investment that we just recently did that has been huge for our quality,” Brown said. “That is one exam-

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ple of something you would not have seen in the early days when we were just starting.”

He explained, “The attention to detail was there in the beginning, but as the competition gets tougher and consumer expectation gets tougher, that attention to detail gets harder.

“It’s not that the attention to detail wasn’t there, but the attention to detail had to evolve to go with all the complexities that we had.”

It also isn’t just about the quality of an appliance, but also the design and craftsmanship. “There is a lot of science and engineering in building an appliance, but in ours, there is a lot of art as well,” Brown said. “There is only so much you can do with robots.”

Over the last two years, Viking has worked with universities and the workforce to hone in on training, developing and hiring people with robotics and design skills.

“The design side of Viking is what I have been so excited about,” Brown said.

“We never wanted to lose our way there.”

It’s the classically sleek design, he said, that creates “the emotion that Viking is so good at.”

Simplifying the Viking brand has also helped with the engineering behind the products. In the first year or so after the purchase, Viking had more than 100 new product launches. This year, the manufacturer plans to release 40 to 50 new models and derivatives.

“In engineering, like other departments, it goes through morale issues if they are pulled in different directions and getting all this complexity and having to deal with that,” Brown said.

The company started peeling those layers away, he said.

Although Viking has focused on simplifying its brand, it still continues to push the boundaries on design trends and innovation.

One example is the minimalist movement, and Viking has appealed to that consumer by offering flushed appliances or blending appliances such as refrigerators with wood cabinets.

Also, there was the launch of the 5 Series refrigeration, which has now been

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Although Brown has led Viking’s journey through engineering and design,

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Tyler has been consistent in marketing the brand.

In 1984, Greenwood native Fred Carl Jr., a fourth-generation builder and founder of the company, invented the niche of commercial cooking equipment for households. Viking was riding the wave of the foodie movement, a time when chefs were becoming television stars and the product was in large demand, Tyler said.

“Basically what you get with Viking is you get professional performance for your home, or restaurant-quality results from your cooking equipment in your house, but it is safe for home use,” Tyler said.

Through the process of reinvention, Tyler said the company has found that there are better ways to market and brand.

For example, for product pictures the company formerly would go to New York and construct a set for thousands of dollars. Now, everything is handled through CGI, a Canadian firm.

“We created a moodboard and inspiration photos of what we liked and gave direction to this company,” Tyler said. “We are starting to do some video based on that.”

These videos have not only saved the company significant funds and time but also kept up with the current trends in marketing.

“You have to reinvent yourself to be able to be agile and to be able to keep up with the market,” Brown said.

Showrooms have also become an important tool for Viking in reaching its target market. The strategy is to bring people into the showroom, show them the latest models and direct them to a dealer, Tyler said.

Viking’s customers range from the weekender to the traditionalist to the trendsetter, Tyler said. They are usually more than 45 years old and have annual incomes of $100,000 or more.

Viking recently opened showrooms in Chicago and New York, and there are plans to open more.

Although Viking has appealed to customers, designers and culinary influences all over the world, the company has still maintained its brand in Greenwood. It has The Alluvian hotel and spa and the Viking Cooking School, which have brought in visitors from far away.

“One of the talents that I think we have transitioned to is capital allocation — capital resources of people, money and funding — and to be focused where it needs to be at that time,” Brown said. “Sometimes in any business, those are hard decisions.

We don’t always agree with those decisions, but it’s good to be focused.”

Tyler agreed and said the plan is to bring in key dealers to provide training and to bring “influencers in the culinary world” to Greenwood and give them the Viking experience.

He described this as “bringing people to Greenwood, and really telling them the Viking story and what we are about — showing them the heart and soul, the people, who the company is, the experience, and just share with them that experience so they can express that to who their customers are.”n

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Brewer Screen Printing

Images of success

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Family staying busy at longtime printer

A

fter a long career in the printing business, Alton Brewer finally acted on a desire to start his

own.

Brewer

had

worked for both Greenwood Printing and Lawrence Printing companies for many years, when he took the plunge and set up shop

in 1977.

“We started with a $15 mail-order kit in our backyard shed,” Alton said. “The first thing I printed was a T-shirt for my little girl, Laurie.”

From that inexpensive kit, Alton and his son Barry have grown the business to where it is today — a successful screen

printing service in a nice, large building on Grenada Boulevard.

In those early days, the next product was a “strictly generic posted sign,” Alton said. “We bought old plates from the Commonwealth, cleaned them up, cut them down and made posted signs. The trouble was, they were so durable, there were still many in use after 40 or 50 years.

Once we went through those, we started doing a few caps. We bought a one-color press to print caps and T-shirts.”

He said, “My big break came the year I started. It was election year. We did lots of campaign signs. Of course, the next year, we realized we couldn’t count on that again,” he said. So they looked for other printing jobs.

In the beginning, Barry did not realize the potential for screen-printed T-shirts. “I had no idea there was such a demand,” he

said. “A local store gave me a big order.

They promised to take it. No one was doing it at the time. We’ve come a long way from those early shirts. They took them as they promised, though.”

In addition to shirts, they discovered another printing need. Transformer companies were stenciling their own decals.

The Brewers stepped into that market as well. Alton continues that part of the business, while Barry tends to T-shirts.

Barry had always helped with the business as a young person but realized he liked it while in a vocational program in high school. “I had a job at Seale-Lily Ice Cream. As a student I was paid less — $18 for 10 hours a day. Others were paid more for the same work. So I got another job at a print shop. I made $14 a day and was off every weekend.” He went to college at Mississippi Delta and then worked

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at Otasco in Greenwood before coming to work with his dad.

After the third backyard building, the Brewers bought a tanning business on Grenada Boulevard. They added on to the building, and today the larger more functional building is still working for them, although Barry said he wishes they had more space.

Having the building brought some needed separation from the business and their personal lives. “When we were in the backyard, customers would come at any time. Now when we go home, we’re done,” Barry said.

“When this building became available, I was afraid Dad wouldn’t have any interest,” Barry said. “One day I mentioned this to him. He was all for it. We went in together. It was the best move we ever made,” Barry said.

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318 Howard Street

Greenwood, Mississippi 38930

662.453.2114

thealluvian.com

THE ALLUVIAN HOTEL • THE ALLUVIAN SPA • VIKING COOKING SCHOOL • GIARDINA’S

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The business suffered a setback this year when a fire started on Jan. 11 in the back wall, damaging the work area. The company continued working and taking orders in a temporary setup in the front part of the building in late January with reconstruction in progress, Barry Brewer said.

“We are way ahead of schedule and hope to be completed and moved back in on March 1,” he said in January.

Both Brewers said that in the early days, they learned the work as they went.

“We don’t do anything the way they teach it now. You can go to Google and learn. We did a lot by trial and error. We find out what works, and we still learn something new once in a while,” Barry said.

Now they take advantage of improved ability to create designs using computers.

“It used to be harder. You can find many designs online,” Barry said.

Barry said he’s not sure how many shirts he prints, but the number is high.

“The UPS driver is flabbergasted at how many shirts we do.”

Alton and Barry say one reason for their survival, while many other printers have gone out of business, is their frugality. They will purchase new equipment as needed, but they continue to use what works. Some equipment still in use is as much as 50 years old. “And when it comes to finances, “you learn to budget for the times when business is lower,” Barry said.

“Some people borrow a lot of money to

start a business. We didn’t do that. We stayed in the backyard sheds until that became difficult. Our customers’ opinions of us would go down when they saw we were in the yard,” Barry said.

The Brewers still print shirts for stores.

They also do class and family reunions, team shirts, and shirts for most any occasion.

“Our suppliers will send a sales rep.

They’re amazed at how primitive we are.

Most people use a tunnel dryer with a conveyer belt. the dryer we’ve got is better.

I built it when I was in high school,” Barry said.

Rather than bragging about new equipment, Alton likes to show off a couple of old pieces they still use. One such piece is a cutter that is used every day. Barry said hat purchasing the cutter caused a bit of dissension in the older Brewers’ marriage.

“I thought my mom was going to divorce my dad over that cutter,” he said.

But the older Brewers are still married, and Alton is still working at 81. There is congeniality among those who print Tshirts locally, Barry said. While in the past, some businessmen bragged about “putting us out of business,” today they help each other out. “If someone runs out of something we will loan it to the other,” Barry said.

The T-shirt screen printing business shows no signs of letting up, and neither do the Brewers. “I’d like to build another addition,” Alton said. n

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Seldom Seen

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Natural beauty

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Carroll Co. land used for recreation, gatherings R emote. Out-of-the-way. Little known. Secluded.

All are fitting synonyms for Seldom Seen, a rural Carroll County property that over its life span has served multiple purposes, including wedding venue, hunting and fishing site, tree farm, camp-

site and home to wildlife and people alike. spot before resuming their play.

A rutted gravel road onto the property Gordon Ditto, manager and caretaker provides a bumpy entrance to wide, open of Seldom Seen, lives in a house on a largfields bordering a glittering pond. An open er lake within this bucolic 450-acre setshed stands nearby, and across the road, ting. a rugged cabin.

Ditto was a boy when he first met the Next to the pond, at the foot of a gently then-owner of Seldom Seen, Dr. Reed sloping pasture, a simple altar and open Carroll of Greenwood, and visited the chapel structure is a welcome post for a place that has become his home. great blue heron. From up above, he sur“I’ve been coming out here as far back veys the pond below for something to eat. as I can remember,” he said.

Three dogs scamper and tumble across Initially, Ditto came out as a Boy Scout, the fields, then stop and rest in a shady one of hundreds nurtured and led by Dr. pqlov=^ka=melqlp=_v=h^qeovk=b^pq_rok=

Carroll when the Greenwood physician first formed Troop 107 in 1966 and remained involved in scouting for most of the next 40 years.

Troop 107 became Troop 200, the Boy Scout organization out of First Presbyterian Church that is still thriving in Greenwood.

Carroll, said Ditto, loved hosting large events at Seldom Seen, and in addition to bringing his troops out to camp and helping them earn merit badges, he regularly hosted regional camporees for Scouts

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from all over the Delta.

Those events that featured competitions and group activities continue to this day, Ditto said.

“We still do a lot with the Scouts.”

In addition to being a general surgeon with a busy practice and a devoted Scout leader – Carroll was awarded the Silver Beaver Award in 1975 by Boy Scouts of America, the highest award given to a civilian — Carroll was a tree farmer. He brought a love for living things to the task.

“He loved wildlife management,” Ditto said. “He just liked to watch things grow.”

Named Tree Farmer of the Year by the Mississippi Forestry Association in 1992 and Southern Regional Tree Farmer of the Year in 1993, Carroll was recognized at the national level for his commitment to sustainable forestry practices combined with wildlife and soil conservation, all carried out at Seldom Seen.

Those practices are continued by Ditto.

“We harvested around 250 acres of pine in 2001 and replanted 15 years ago in March,” Ditto said.

He grows and mows hay in the meadows, clears roads, piles brush for wildlife habitat, clears timber and even tends to the small vineyard Carroll planted, trying to do it just as Carroll did when he was

still living.

Carroll passed away in 2005 and is buried in a cemetery on the property.

Greenwood attorney and Scout leader Floyd Melton III was one of Carroll’s Scouts, too, and appreciates what Seldom Seen has meant to so many men, young and old, in the Delta.

“It’s been amazing for the Scouts,” Melton said. “Dr. Carroll made it that way, and Wilson and Gordy have kept it that way.”

He refers to Ditto and Dr. Carroll’s son, Wilson Carroll, a Jackson attorney who now owns Seldom Seen.

Melton said his troop had their first spring camporee at Seldom Seen in 2016 and camped out there another time this year.

“I went there when I was growing up,” Melton said. “We did our orienteering and all sorts of things out there.

“I’ve taught the canoeing merit badge right there in that little lake. It’s protected from the wind, and it’s small enough so they can’t float off but they can still paddle around.”

That continuity over generations is precious, both Ditto and Melton agree.

Ditto was involved in building the cabin used by Scouts to this day, and in building

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The Carroll family home at Seldom Seen, appropriately named “Tranquility,” was built with assistance from Boy Scouts and young guests at the 450-acre tree farm under the supervision of former owner Dr. Reed Carroll. Carroll passed away in 2005. the Carroll family’s log home that sits on 62-acre Carroll Lake, one of four bodies of water at Seldom Seen.

Melton is now a leader in Troop 200, the same troop from which he matriculated as an Eagle Scout, and he lauds Dr. Carroll’s vision of “letting these kids get out and learn about nature, learn about themselves, spread their wings and learn by being taught by other scouts and leaders.

“What’s amazing is how similar my experiences at Seldom Seen were to today’s Scouts’ experiences there,” he said.

“We had a blast then; we have a blast now.

They’re learning the same things now as we learned then.”

Over the years that he has managed the property, since 2009, Ditto has seen Seldom Seen used for other purposes as well.

In 2009, “Y’all Fest,” a daylong music festival was held there.

Hunters and fishermen lease rights to use the property each year, he said, and he keeps the habitat in good shape for them.

In 2010, he built the small chapel to accommodate requests for weddings at a peaceful, rural setting.

This simple altar and open-air chapel is the site of weddings at Seldom Seen.

Guests might even catch sight of a great blue heron that likes to post near the spot.

“We’ve had 17 weddings over the last seven years,” he said. “We kind of stumbled into that sideline.”

Ditto cleans out the large, open-air shed for wedding receptions that pour over onto the surrounding meadows and to a smaller pavilion next to the water.

Greenwood photographer Caroline Stuckey often uses Seldom Seen as a place to make portraits of her clients.

Stuckey said she knew about the property because her family leases hunting rights there. She recognized it would make a great background for photographs.

“I like the natural beauty of the place,” she said. “I also like the fact that most people don’t know about it, to tell the truth.”

Indeed, it would be rare for a photo ses-

sion to be interrupted at Seldom Seen by invading cars, people, noises or other nuisances.

Stuckey said she likes to take her customers to the catfish pond where the colors of the trees in the background change throughout the year. She also likes a path leading from the Scout cabin to the pond with “a lot of cypress trees in the background.

“I take pictures out there usually in the fall and spring,” she said. “The spring has a lot of green and new beginnings, and fall has lots of oranges.”

Another favorite spot for photos is next to the family house, in a stand of bamboo “as big around as your leg,” she said, bamboo that grows as tall as the surrounding trees.

Whether it’s for a wedding, to have a photo made, for a hunting or fishing expedition or a Boy Scout Camporee, a trip to Seldom Seen is as lovely and fleeting as its name. Ditto said he can’t be sure, but he believes Dr. Carroll knew of a plantation by that name and just liked it.

Out of the way, remote and secluded, Dr. Carroll’s 450 acres are loved by many and known by not too many, Seldom Seen, just as he wanted it.n

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Electrical & Construction Specialists, Inc.

Lighting the way

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L

Business does work around the world

eo Murphree Jr. is a huge part of one of the best-kept secrets in Greenwood.

His airport lighting company, Electrical & Construction Specialists, Inc., is small but does big things around the world.

ECS is known in the airport electrical industry for rotating beacon repair and rehabilitation and installation that is

second to none.

“We’re small,” Murphree sad of the company that has three full-time employees.

“But we’ve been blessed by the good Lord to keep getting

calls from all over. We’ve redone beacons that have gone to places like Bosnia, Japan, Greenland.”

Murphree, the owner and president of ECS, prides himself on carrying those “hard-to-find” parts and accessories. He says that, and the company’s reputation for great work in the military and civilian fields, is why ECS does business all over

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the globe. “I never know where the next call is going to come from,” he said, “and that’s one of the things that makes this job exciting.”

Murphree has worked closely with Joey Brooks for nearly 30 years to make the company a success. Brooks does it all, but you can him ECS’s chief technician if you have to give him a title.

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Greenwood’s wheels are turning, business is booming, and the City of Greenwood is busy planning for a productive 2018!

We are excited about completion of our new Rail Spike Park and the fully renovated Greenwood Police Station. Community events will return bigger and better than ever, with the Viking Half Marathon, Que on the Yazoo, Stars and Stripes, and Bikes, Blues & Bayous rolling out the red carpet again this year. Come see why Greenwood’s motto, “The Sky is the Limit” proves to be a statement on which to build and bring success for the year ahead!

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They have built such a strong reputation, Murphree said, that the original manufacturers of beacons — such as Crouse-Hinds, Manarco and Halibrite — recommend ECS for all work and restoration on their equipment.

The outside of ECS’s shop, located on Enterprise Drive, can sometimes look like a graveyard for old, weathered beacons, but that’s before they are sandblasted, primed, painted and rewired.

The company has brought back to life some beacons that were 70 years old, but Brooks said the many of the beacons that pass through the shop were built in the 1970s.

“We were the first people in the world to give a two-year warranty on our beacon work and to put lighting asserters on them,” Murphree said.

Although ECS is well-known for its beacon work, Brooks said, “We work on anything and everything dealing with airport lighting.”

ECS is also approved by the FAA for onsite airport lighting troubleshooting services along with designing and manufacturing of custom remote air-to-ground lighting controls, manufacturing of custom control panels for obstruction lighting and monitoring and designing of heliport remote control lighting panels.

The on-site troubleshooting is one of Brooks’ favorite parts of his job.

“There is never a dull moment because things are always changing in this line of work,” Brooks said. “One day it might be a beacon, tomorrow it might be a lighting regulator and the next day a control panel.”

Murphree’s company also produces custom-designed control buildings for airport lighting and custom lighting control panels that include radio, receiver and timers.

Between the two of them, Murphree and Brooks have more than 60 years experience as airport lighting specialists.

Murphree said there is no school out there today that can train people to do what he and Brooks do.

“I’ve got 65 PhDs from the school of hard knocks, and I am looking for No. 66,” he said.

Brooks had no school-taught electrical training before joining forces with Murphree. His interest first developed as a hobby.

Brooks worked on the farm for Leo Sr., and that’s how he wound up working for Leo Jr. At age 76, Murphree has been blessed with excellent health and has no plans to retire anytime soon. Heck, he’s having too much fun to even think about that.

“Nobody’s getting rich off this, but it’s truly a blessing when you look forward to going to work every day,” he said. “When people ask me about retirement, I tell them I can’t even spell that word.”

Murphree grew up in Greenwood, the son of a farmer. His grandfather, W.E. Lanham Sr., was an electrician, so maybe that’s where his interest in that field was spawned. It developed during his teenage years.

“It was just a passion of mine. I piddled with electronics while in Scouts and was working on radios and making them talk when I was 15,” he said. “Then after college, I decided a wanted to learn electricity the right way. I worked for two different local electrical outfits before Don Stephenson and I formed our company

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on March 1, 1964.”

So there Murphree was at the young age of 22, putting together a startup.

“We had $125 apiece and 30 days credit, so like I’ve said before, the good Lord has been good to me,” Murphree said.

His partnership in Murphree and Stephenson Electrical lasted 17 years.

That company’s last big project was the Henderson Baird Building in Greenwood’s industrial park.

Murphree earned his pilot’s license in 1964 and soon became interested in airport lighting. In 1967, he put in the first FAA-approved lights at the GreenwoodLeflore Airport. It was his first project in that field.

“I asked a million questions, threw out a bid and got the job,” he said.

He became more and more interested in airport contracting work. In the early 1980s, Murphree formed ECS after specializing in airport lighting for many years leading up to the formation of the new company.

ECS moved out of contracting work about 25 years ago and into what it does now. a “I had to step out on faith and allow the good Lord to lead me in the right direction,” he said of the formation of ECS.“It’s been a fun ride, and we’re hoping we’re blessed enough to keep this thing going.” n

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“Nobody’s getting rich off this, but it’s truly a blessing when you look forward to going to work every day.

When people ask me about retirement, I tell them I can’t even spell that word. ’’ Leo Murphree Jr.

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North New Summit School

Reaching higher

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Student numbers, offerings keep growing

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tarting an educational business is not exactly like launching other types of businesses, but it takes many of the same personal attributes — courage and vision among them.

Dr. Nancy New, who grew up on a farm in Avalon, is the founder of New Learning Resources.

She began her business of helping children with a handful of student. This has grown to two full-time

schools and four learning centers, as well as online programs.

“New Summit School, in Jackson, grew from five students I was helping after school. Their parents wanted me to work with them full time. I knew we needed a strong name, so I used my last name along with Summit, which to us means reaching new heights,” New said.

“We have been in the same location on Lelia Drive, off of Lakeland Drive in Northeast Jackson, since ’98. We’ve expanded, re-built as we grew.” Now New Summit serves 250 students.

In 2004, New opened North New

Summit in Greenwood. The Greenwood school has grown from just a few students to nearly 200. It also serves many online and summer school students. New said she was asked by parents and other educators to come and help students who needed services.

“We started North New Summit in a small office in a shopping center and moved into our current building in 2008,” she said. “I sat in front of this building and wondered how I would be able to afford it.

Banks have been very good to us. They’ve provided us with the necessary funding due to our good credit.”

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Susan Floyd has been the North New Summit director since the school’s inception. She said she saw and bought into New’s vision after meeting her. An educator, Floyd was working as a trainer for Viking Range in Greenwood.

“I left Viking knowing Dr. New’s vision was something I could believe in,” she said. “She has a heart for education and helping people. When she sees one need, she finds another. Any way she can help she will.”

The North New Summit students assisted with the move. “It showed what a family we had become. Students went

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jìëáÅ=íÉ~ÅÜÉê=j~êä~=jÅ`äÉää~åI=ëí~åÇáåÖI=äÉ~Çë=ëíìÇÉåíë=áå=`Üêáëíã~ë=ãìëáÅK=qÜÉ=ëíìÇÉåíë=ïáää=ëÜ~êÉ=íÜÉáê=í~äÉåíë=ïáíÜ=åìêëáåÖ=ÜçãÉ=êÉëáÇÉåíëK=pÅÜççä=ÑçìåÇÉê=aêK=k~åÅó kÉï=ë~áÇ=ëÜÉ=ÉåÅçìê~ÖÉë=ëíìÇÉåíë=áå=ÄçíÜ=kÉï=pìããáí=pÅÜççäë=íç=é~êíáÅáé~íÉ=áå=Åçããìåáíó=ëÉêîáÅÉK and got their dads’ trucks and trailers and moved their desks here. They were so excited,” Floyd said. Since that first move into the building on John Pittman Drive, the school has been expanded twice more.

New said many students can benefit from the services provided by both New Summit Schools. “All types of students need services. Many students thrive with individual attention,” she said.

New Summit’s reputation as a specialpurpose school grew by mostly word of mouth and success stories.

“My sons were in middle school, then high school. They were even some of my best advertisements. They had friends who needed additional help,” New said.

“Our funds were very limited. I look back and think, ‘Did I really do that?’”

While New Summit and North New Summit are special-purpose schools, that does not mean all students have learning issues. Some may be taking a traditional college-prep route or an advanced route, and others need more academic assistance, usually in summer school.

“We offer an inviting social and academic environment. It lets each individual thrive. I really think for our diverse environment, we try to guide with cáêëíJÖê~ÇÉ=ëíìÇÉåíë=ëÜçï=çÑÑ=íÜÉáê=Ü~åÇã~ÇÉ=`Üêáëíã~ë=çêå~ãÉåíë=~ë=íÜÉó=ÖÉí=êÉ~Çó=íç=äÉ~îÉ=Ñçê=íÜÉ=ÜçäáÇ~óëK=få=Ñêçåí=êçïI=Ñêçã respect. Our students get along well,” Dr. äÉÑíI=~êÉ=^îÉêó=d~åíI=jçääó=eçää~åÇI=~åÇ=`~ÇÉåÅÉ=eçéâáåëX=áå=Ä~Åâ=êçïI=Ñêçã=äÉÑíI=~êÉ=ióÇá~=g~ÅçÄëI=w~ÅÅÜ~Éìë=`~ãéÄÉää=~åÇ New said. `Ü~êäÉó=mÉÅçìK Floyd agrees. “I’ve been very impressed with our students through the years, how schools have accreditation by several that was needed to grow the school at that curriculum became an accredited organizations, including the well-known New Summit. “I taught, ran the school online high school. they’re accepting of diversity.”

In addition to the two full-time schools, Students can leave either of the two Southern Association of Colleges and and pretty much cleaned the building,” schools knowing their diplomas will be Schools, as well as the Mississippi she said. For the formative years years in New Learning Resources has centers in Jackson, New wrote curriculum, copy- Hattiesburg, Oxford, Madison and accepted by community colleges, vocation- Department of Education.

In the beginning, New did everything righted and marketed it. Later some of Tupelo. al schools, and universities, since the

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New’s son Zach, who is in charge of school expansion, said New Learning Resources has master’s level dyslexia therapists who go to other schools and provide dyslexic therapy. “Our goal is to take services to schools that may not have them,” he said.

Dr. New is also involved with Families First for Mississippi, a nonprofit that provides services to promote family stability.

“I love this state. I want it to grow in all ways, for my family, my grandchildren and everyone else’s. Anything I can do to help, I’m all in,” she said.

For Nancy New, as for all business owners, financing is always an issue.

“Funding can be a nightmare. You can’t run a school on just tuition,” she said.

“Concern never leaves you about the budget. Many years ago I learned to juggle a lot of balls at one time. I never put all my eggs in one basket. It could come up empty.”

Besides tuition, New looks for grants from businesses and government, as well as individual donations. Like other schools, the New Summit schools hold the usual fundraisers. “It’s a balancing act.”

There were times when people urged Dr. New to quit and go back to regular employment in the public schools, but she was committed to her vision, and her mother, Mable Whitten of Greenwood, urged her on. After retiring from the health department, she often came to the school to lend her encouragement to students and faculty.

After Mrs. Whitten’s passing 2½ years ago, the school established a garden in her memory, bringing plants from her yard.

Dr. New is working now to see that her legacy continues. Zach New works full time at New Learning Resources. Among other duties, he oversees construction at the schools. Her other son, Jess, is an attorney and helps with legal matters.

“Our family goal is to keep the services going for communities and to keep wonderful staff on board,” Nancy New said.

“To continue doing this, we have to be financially stable. It has become larger than I can handle. Susan does a great job.

We keep good co-workers who have the vision we have.”

New said she hopes in a very few years to step back to an advisement and support role. “I want to continue to stay involved in the needs we have in our state. I want to see more family services provided.”

As founder of New Learning Resources, Nancy New can see many successes, and many opportunities for the future.

“I don’t regret any of it,” she said.n

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‘Welcome to the City’

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City of Refuge Ministries

Church attracts worshippers from near, far

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qÜÉ=`áíó=çÑ=oÉÑìÖÉ=jáåáëíêáÉë=éê~áëÉ=íÉ~ã=éÉêÑçêãë=~í=~=ëÉêîáÅÉK=cêçã=äÉÑí=~êÉ=oÜ~åÇá=^Ç~ãëI=açå~áó~Ü=_çäíçåI=`Üáèìáí~=^Ç~ãëI=açåÉíí~=_çäíçå=~åÇ=p~íóå=^Ç~ãëK ishop Randy Adams says his church, City of Refuge Ministries, was “born out of necessity.”

When Adams left his job as assistant pastor at Greater Restoration Revival Church, he was just looking to visit other ministries and be a lay member for a while. But people from within and outside his congregation had other ideas.

“They came to me and were like, ‘OK, well, where are you going? Because we’re going with you,” he recalled.

Adams, who had worked in ministry for years and is the son of a pastor, had never led a church before. But he had learned a lot about church organization over the years, so he decided to take the plunge.

“I just talked to the Lord about it, and we just were prompted to start a ministry,” he said. “Because I didn’t want them to just kind of be out in the street, so to speak — not attending any service anywhere.” v v v

Adams, 53, grew up in Greenwood and graduated from Greenwood High School in 1982. After spending three years in the Navy on the USS Milwaukee in Norfolk, Virginia, he returned home with no idea what he wanted to do next.

He said he was “a bit of a wild child” growing up and never thought he would be a minister. He was one of 11 children of Bishop Everett Quincy Adams — six of whom went on to be ministers, including five pastors.

He grew up in his father’s church, Restoration Revival Church on Avenue I,

which is now named Greater Restoration and located on Carrollton Avenue. He began attending church seriously in 1988 and became a junior deacon, then deacon, then elder, then assistant pastor.

“My father, who was bishop over the entire organization, saw a lot in me, and so he kind of groomed me for ministry,” Adams said — although, he added, “I came kicking and screaming every step of the way.”

He said his father saw potential in him to be an administrative leader as well as a minister. “Whenever he came to me and was telling me about the next step, full of humility, I (said), ‘Nah, you know, I’d really rather not. I just want to be a lay member; I just want to be a pew member,’” Adams said. “But he wasn’t having any of that, so here I am today.”

His brother, Fredrick, took over as bishop after their father had an aneurysm, and Randy Adams moved up to his assis-

tant. That proved to be a learning experience, too.

“If I can be his assistant, I can be anybody’s assistant,” Adams said, “because he is a no-nonsense, straightarrow kind of guy, and it’s great.”

Once he became a pastor, it was nothing like what he expected, and he made mistakes. But he found he had the tools to handle it.

“Being the son of a pastor, seeing my father start his own ministry and everything, it was a struggle for us growing up in it,” he said. “But because of what I learned from him, much of what he had to go through we didn’t have to go through.” v v v

City of Refuge held its first service on July 6, 2008, with about 20 people present, but it took a while for the nondenominational church to find a home.

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Bishop Randy Adams has a lot of help from family at City of Refuge Ministries. From left are his daughter, Rhandi, holding her son, Nasir; Adams; his wife, Mable; and daughters Michelle and Chiquita. The church’s name comes from Psalm 46:1: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Adams. She said she likes that he gives It was first housed in a building on Park people freedom and “allows all of us to Avenue, holding services alternately use our gifts freely.” between there and the seniors’ center. It Carolyn Banks said she first checked also met at Friendship Missionary out City of Refuge at the encouragement Baptist Church for a time and even had of her husband, who wasn’t a member but one service at the National Guard had visited there.

Armory.

“I felt something draw me here, and I “We were just kind of a ragtag bunch of had been in church all my life,” said people,” Adams said.

Banks, whose family includes several Then they found out a space was availministers. “I felt like this is where God able on Lamar Avenue and arranged to sent me.” buy it — and once they had a home, they started offering more activities. Those v v v now include a choir, a praise team, a youth musical group called the Refugees, City of Refuge has between 250 and 275 and ministries for men, singles and marpeople on its roll, and about 50 attend a ried couples. typical service. Then again, it’s not a “typMembers also visit nursing homes, colical” congregation; it includes regular lect food for the needy and donate supattenders from places such as plies for schools. In addition, the church Hollandale, Durant, Kosciusko, Jackson has bought space next door that will and even Memphis — some of whom house a youth program, just to give young Adams met years ago while serving as an people a safe place to go. evangelist.“It’s not like a traditional min“We’re really big about doing stuff in the istry, where everybody is local and so you community,” Adams said, “because worcan just do stuff,” he said. “It takes some ship is important, but for me, it’s more logistics.” important what happens when you put Swims said people often are invited to a the microphone down after a sermon on particular event and return because they Sunday. ... I think it’s tragic to be part of a like what they see. They might have been community if the community doesn’t even led there by their spouses or started know who you are.” attending because their children took part Cassandra Swims, a member of City of in activities there with other children.

Refuge, said she followed Adams from his “The parents want to know, ‘Why are previous church because she “knew that Joseph Turner, assistant pastor at City of Refuge Ministries, leads prayer during a his teaching was solid and sound.” recent service. He says he loves the enthusiasm of the members there. “We’re not you leaving Grenada going to Greenwood “You need a leader that can teach you that church that you’re used to,” he told the congregation. “We scream, and we to church?’” she said. “Then they’ll decide to come, and that’s how some of the the word of God effectively, where you can holler, and we do all that good stuff.” parents end up coming here — because understand and apply it to your life,” she Jackee McClee, an ordained minister, their children are so excited about the said. “He teaches on a level where every- philosopher or whether you are a baby out also came to the new location with Gospel of Jesus Christ.” one can understand, whether you are a of kindergarten.”

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Mechanical Contractors, Design, Build, Plan & Spec, Negotiated

2606 Baldwin Road โ ข Greenwood, MS 38930 P. O. Box 8106 โ ข (662)453-6860

PageQN Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

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McClee said City of Refuge also has welcomed people who have struggled with drug use, homelessness and other problems.

“We make it our business not to be judgmental to those people but to help them along the way so that they can grow and let God deliver them,” she said. “And we just love them in the midst of it all.”

McClee said the church has issued a challenge for each member to bring in at least one more member. Visitors are greeted with a smile and the words “Welcome to the City.”

If City of Refuge can grow, it can take on more tasks in the community, such as

addressing crime and poverty, she said.

“We want to be able to reach those who won’t necessarily get the Gospel,” she said. “And we want to be that city that sits at the top of the hill. We want to shine, for people to be drawn to us who don’t feel like they have a place anywhere else.” v v v

Adams, who lives in Grenada, worked at the Commonwealth from 1985 to 1989, first in the mailroom, then in the camera/plate room and the press room. He went on to spend 19 years working in the press room at The Daily Star in Grenada.

Now he works as a security guard at Greenwood Leflore Hospital and is a domestic violence counselor for Greenwood Municipal Court.

He said keeping City of Refuge running and financially sound is a challenge, but he has plenty of help. His staff also includes two of his daughters: Rhandi, who is youth minister, and Michelle, who is music minister. He and his wife, Mable, also have a third daughter, Chiquita, who lives in Oxford.

He never took classes in ministry, so he’s had to learn a lot on the job. Even though he’s accumulated a lot of knowledge, he said he’s still not comfortable

being in charge and doesn’t think he ever will be comfortable with it.

“It’s such a great responsibility,” he said.

“The thing about ministry — and it’s probably the reason why I came kicking and screaming the whole way — is you’ve got people whose lives you touch. And they entrust you to such a degree, until you’re impacting people’s lives. ... Who can walk into that lightly? Who can ever be comfortable with that?”

Still, it helps to have devoted people around him.

“I have people who really love their church, and that’s great for me,” Adams said.n

Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 PageQO molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

Cyndi Savage

Striving for perfection Designer has many projects going at once

C

yndi Savage, a Greenwood interior designer, laughed when asked if she had decided how her girlhood bedroom would look.

“It was my first design job. Everything was strawberry pink!” she replied. “I was 8 at the time. It did matter to me. It’s always mattered to me.”

She turned to Beth Barger, also of Greenwood and Savage’s associate in Cyndi Savage Design, and commented, “You were probably the same way.” Barger smiled.

Savage, who grew up in Grenada, earned bachelor’s degrees in home economics and business from Belhaven University in Jackson, and she tucked an art minor into her education there. She’s been employed in fashion merchandising, and she worked for the furniture store Ethan Allen in Jackson. She spent 13 years as store manager at Malouf Furniture in Greenwood, and 14 years ago, she started working as a freelance interior designer.

“Design work — I just kind of fell into that. Everything I have done has led to this business. That’s what’s so great about everything in life and where it leads you.”

And the people it brings into one’s circle.

Some years ago, Barger wanted some help with the interior of her kitchen and called Savage. They were a match.

“We could read each other. We knew what each other thought,” Savage said.

“We had the same aesthetic, and we just kind of jelled.”

Savage continued, “Beth was doing great faux finishing at that point. She truly is one of the best people for that.

(Soon) she was doing a lot of work for me and with me.”

Barger remembered, “One of the best things Cyndi asked me to do is that she had this client who loved this certain wallpaper.” It cost a bunch, maybe $500 a roll.

“She brought it over to me and said, ‘Do you think you could reproduce the look of this wallpaper?’ I looked at her like she had lost her mind, but she was dead serious.

“We did this bathroom. I remember the homeowner coming in and going, ‘Well, Cyndi, I trust you.’ It ended up being gorgeous, but it was quite an experience.”

The idea, always, is to create interiors that reflect the client’s needs, wants and taste. A job might be as simple as refresh-

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ing a room with a couple of new pieces of furniture, accessories and maybe some paint. Or it might be more complex and demand such things as cabinetry, lighting and flooring. Savage simply is not capable of completing a job that’s not perfect.

“A lot is trial and error. We plan a lot ... but a lot of times you get in there — and we are going to make it happen — but we are going to have to change something to make it happen,” Savage explained. “So we have to come up with many wonderful things, thinking this is not going to work at all, and all of a sudden it comes together. And you are thinking, ‘Wow, we are geniuses.’”

“It’s all about communicating with the client,” Savage said.

Barger said that over the years of their

association, “Every job she did, when we left, it looked just like the client.”

The firm works not only in Greenwood but elsewhere in Mississippi and other states, and Savage likes to keep about 14 projects going. Last year, the business had 21 interior-design projects. The office is located in a former home improvement store at the foot of Veterans Bridge on Walthall Street. There’s plenty of space there, everything from fabric samples to furnishings, plus a business office, where Pam Buck is the manager.

Over the years, Savage has handled interiors for homes, of course, but also commercial buildings and even dorm rooms. The styles have ranged from traditional to Bohemian to country French to mid-century modern and even extremely

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modern.

There are do-it-yourself aspects to what they do. A lamp might need modification, maybe a different kind of shade. Or cabinets or furniture might have to be custom-made. What is needed and why is hardly a point of discussion between Savage and Barger. “We finish each other’s sentences,” Savage said.

Also, the two are partners in a design store, The Feathered Nest, located inside a vendors mall in Jackson. They are busy.

“There are days in which I wish there were 10 or more of Cyndi,” Barger said.

But their work together adds up to more than one plus one.

Savage explained, “Synergy happens when it happens, and it just happens with the two of us.”n

PageQP Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

Yolande van Heerden

Making old things new

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Designer passes on love of sewing, creativity I

n Japan, tattered fabric that has been patched over again and again, to maintain its usefulness, is referred to as Äçêç. Literally, the word translates to “rags” or “scraps of cloth.”

Philosophically, Äçêç symbolizes the idea of using everything and wasting nothing.

Yolande van Heerden says Äçêç drives

everything she does as an artist.

“It’s a userfriendly idea, making stuff out of things that have already been used,” van Heerden said

during a tour of her Main Street studio, headquarters of her small business, Tomboy Art. Long tables are heaped with stacks of multicolored fabrics. Some are elaborately hand-printed, collected from around the world. Van Heerden races from one piece to another. A bold print from Ghana featuring images of the shoes Michelle

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Obama wore on a trip there. An elegant floral piece printed in the Netherlands. A swatch from her native South Africa imprinted with the face of Nelson Mandela.

Her hands linger on each piece, measuring its thickness and flexibility.

“The fabric has to speak to you,” she said. “I like to touch it and feel it.”

Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 PageQQ molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

PageQR Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

She crafts bags from these textiles imprinted with birds, peacocks, leopards and flowers. Small zipper bags. Larger sling bags. Bags of many shapes and sizes, each conceived as a unique and useful piece.

Beyond the tables are heaps of used clothing, used drapes, used tablecloths, used sweaters — anything that can be repurposed with a little cleaning, pressing, cutting and sewing. From these she makes skirts and dresses, each patched together in a singular design, melding shape, color and texture.

Van Heerden sells her bags on Etsy, the online crafts marketplace, to people all over the world. The skirts and dresses she sells to individuals, at art markets and crafts shows.

“I call it Tomboy Art, but I want it to become Tomboy Art Industries,” she said.

“I want this to get to be a place where I can employ people to help me sew, so I can make up new designs and find new markets.”

It’s a vision that has grown from seed over the past six years since van Heerden relocated to Greenwood, her spiritual and physical home. v v v

“April 1, no joke, it will be six years since I first moved here,” van Heerden said.

In 2012 she traveled cross-country to Mississippi in a mini-van with her pets, a “mama sheep and her baby.”

The sheep live out near Teoc now with friends. Van Heerden, her dogs, a cat and her partner — blues historian/radio host Scott Barretta — live in Greenwood, near the Yazoo River.

She made her way to Mississippi gradually after befriending Greenwood cookbook author Martha Foose in Los Angeles years ago. The day van Heerden accidentally cut off the tip of her finger on the meat slicer at the restaurant where she worked, Foose showed up and assumed her job.

Van Heerden said she was immediately enamored of the way Foose talked — Çê~~~~ïáåÖ out her îççççïÉäë the way Southerners do — and a lasting friendship was formed. Eventually van Heerden traveled to Mississippi to visit Foose at her family’s farm, Pluto. Van Heerden worked for the shoe company Skechers in its international export division for four years and then finally gave up the corporate life, settling on relocation to Greenwood.

“It reminded me so much of South Africa here,” she said. “There’s a slowness, where people are so much more relaxed about everything.”

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When she was a girl in South Africa, van Heerden began designing and making her own clothes out of necessity.

“I started to sew when I was 12 or 13, playing around on my mom’s sewing machine,” she said. “I think it came about because we were quite poor. I could sort of invent my clothes to wear because I wasn’t going to get the chance to have new clothes bought.

“I could take things and sew them together and design and change them. I found I really liked to do that. It was exciting.”

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She laughs at the memory of crafting shoes out of pieces of leather, cut from a horse bridle and reins.

Van Heerden came to the U.S. as an exchange student at 16, stayed a year in a small town in Montana, returned to South Africa and ultimately decided to immigrate back to the States.

Always, she made and studied different

arts and crafts.

A major breakthrough in her craft came about around 2006, when she discovered on Etsy a woman who wrote a book on how to do serging — a sewing technique using a machine that cuts and sews simultaneously, using four threads and two needles. “It blew all my creative juices wide open,” van Heerden said. “I like it

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because I’m not someone inclined to sew from a pattern. It allows me to create new stuff from things people throw away, like old sweaters.”

In a corner of the studio, a mannequin wears a dress made of panels of cashmere, sewn together on a serging machine, a pastiche of former sweaters transfigured into something altogether elegant and new.

Van Heerden makes skirts in a similar manner, enjoying the freedom to cut away and add pieces as she sees fit, to fulfill the design she has in mind.

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We’re proud to announce Leflore County is now a Certified Work Ready Community.

When businesses must focus on cutting costs, and good jobs are harder to find, communities that use industry-recognized skills credentials to improve their workforce have the advantage.

Across the nation, ACT Work Ready Communities are improving the skills and work readiness of the workforce while giving area businesses an efficient, reliable way to identify skilled job candidates.

Key to the ACT Work Ready Communities initiative is the ACT National Career Readiness Certificate® (ACT NCRC®), which is designed to measure and close skills gaps among workers and job seekers. The ACT NCRC is a portable, evidence-based credential that certifies essential skills needed for workplace success—reading for information, applied mathematics, and locating information.

We’re proud to be an ACT Work Ready Community with a total of 661 certificated workers.

For more information about being a part of our ACT Work Ready Communities effort, contact Angela Curry at 662-453-5321 or angcur@glcedf.com / P.O. Box 26 / Greenwood, MS 38930

PageQT Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

Most recently she has turned to quilting, using all manner of fabric both new and used, all hand-stitched. A recent quilt incorporating artist Lauren Stennis’ proposed redesign of the Mississippi flag appeared in a pop-up show at the Mississippi Museum of Art. Another, made with children in a summer art class, hangs in the entryway of the Museum of the Mississippi Delta.

“Quilting is a free, free form,” she said, sighing a little at the thought of creating a form rather than following a prescribed formula. v v v

The floor of Tomboy Art is littered with hundred of strips and small scraps of fabric, clipped by hand or the serging machine in the service of van Heerden’s art.

None of it is wasted.

Three large dog beds in the studio, covered in bright fabric, are stuffed with remnants and scraps she swept up and bagged.

“I don’t really make those to sell,” she said, pointing to the dog beds. “I’ll sell them if someone wants them, but I make them to use the scraps. They’re really soft.”

Other pieces of scrap are sewn together in long ribbons van Heerden uses for gift wrap. Every piece she sells is customwrapped, either in fabric or in previously JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ up asp ee rd, and tied “I wrap everything I together w i t h sell, because it’s these strings of always fun to get a cobbledtogether gift. Something ribbon. “ I happens to your w r a p verybrain when you open ething I sell, beit up that makes you cause it’s always remember the fun to get a gift,” experience. ’’ she said.

“SomeYolande van Heerden thing JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ happens to your brain when you open it up that makes you remember the experience.”

Van Heerden says she is constantly thinking about how her work is displayed and presented, something she learned while working for Skechers. “It’s all marketing, marketing, marketing.”

She also says soon she will take a couple of months to just settle in and think about new work, but there is little evidence to support that theory.

She is planning a new line of coats and hoodies made with denim, her current fabric of choice. The gift shop manager at the Mississippi Museum of Art has expressed interest in carrying her skirts in the shop.

In another corner of her studio, she crafts custom-made signs out of vintage, cut-up license plates mounted on wood rescued from a demolition business. She said the license plate signs are her biggest seller on Etsy.

She makes greeting cards using found

Left: Yolande van Heerden issues last-minute instructions to her sewing students at ArtPlace Mississippi, just prior to 2017’s “Project Runway” show of students’ work. Above: This vivid textile print comes from Ghana and depicts the shoes Michelle Obama wore when she visited there as first lady.

Students at ArtPlace Mississippi’s Grown Folks Art Club contemplate and carve designs onto linoleum blocks in a January art class with Yolande van Heerden.

objects and photographs, unique collage creations she sells, among other places, at Turnrow Book Co. Between sweeping up the floor, sewing a quick bag and wrapping a purchase for a customer on this wintry afternoon, she catalogues a list of upcoming classes she will teach in Greenwood and elsewhere in the months to come. v v v

In January, she launched her Grown

Folks Art Club, an adult class to be held every other Thursday evening at ArtPlace Mississippi, where she also teaches teenagers to sew and holds Saturday art classes for kids.

The first Grown Folks class was an introduction to linoleum block printing.

The next was to feature thrift store painting re-dos, a craft unique to the 53-yearold instructor’s sensibility.

One example posted online shows a classic seascape, one that might have hung in your grandparents’ living room or

maybe above the bed in an old Holiday Inn, with a cartoonish green sea monster painted in, rising up from the gray, foamy sea.

“I want it to be a fun, grown-up, community thing to do at night,” she said. “We might make memory boxes one week, do a little embroidery another, some papiermache, something relaxed and fun.”

Van Heerden has also recently been added to the Mississippi Arts Council’s roster.

She’s one of a group of artists across Mississippi available to conduct classes for community organizations or groups of any kind. Recently she led a slow-stitch quilting workshop for a group in Greenville, sponsored by the Delta Arts Alliance.

“It’s an all-day thing,” she said. “I guide people and provide all the materials.”

She cherishes the fact that in her adult classes no two pieces ever turn out alike.

“Everybody makes something very different, because everybody’s personality comes out,” she said. “This is art. It’s just done with fabric.”

At Grown Folks Art Club, van Heerden demonstrated to a group of eight students how to draw and transfer a pattern, how to cut it in reverse on linoleum blocks, how to ink the block and how to transfer the design to paper.

She showed her students how she likes to use pages from old books for printing, ripping the worn, printed pages from their binding and turning them into something new and unexpected.

Her students watched intently, some of them doodling designs on the paper tablecloth, some sipping wine as they listened.

Van Heerden waved a carving knife in the air, like a conductor’s baton.

“Don’t try to make it perfect,” she said.

“Perfect is boring.” n

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Delta Strong Initiative

Strength in numbers

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Four-year initiative promotes region’s assets

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“One of the main efforts with Delta Development Department for Delta want to tell a valuable story that others team of economic developers, Strong is trying Council. will be interested in,” she said. “We want spearheaded by Delta Council, to make our “Let’s generate our own.” to showcase our strong labor, our strong decided that it was time to take the luck, and not be Angela Curry, executive director of the quality of life, buildings and sites, and our region’s manufacturing future into its dependent on Greenwood-Leflore-Carroll Economic strong infrastructure.” own hands rather than waiting on somethe state or con- Development Foundation, believes Delta The idea of marketing the region colone else to bring companies large and sultants or any- Strong will change the way companies laboratively came from Delta Council’s small its way. one else,” said think about putting their operations in leadership and county economic developFrom that decision sprung Delta Mike Philpot, rural areas. ers who wanted to stay competitive with Strong, a regional recruiting effort rolled director of the Industrial and Community “We want to tell a different story, but we communities and states across the nation. out last year. pqlov=_v=i^robk=o^ka^ii=n melqlp=_v=i^robk=o^ka^ii=^ka=`lroqbpv=lc=abiq^=`lrk`fi

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The goal of the privately funded fouryear initiative is to become a “major player in the attraction of manufacturing, distribution and warehouse operations,” according to its information pamphlet.

Tom Gresham, the 10-year chairman of the economic development committee for Delta Council, and Frank Howell, a longtime senior staffer at Delta Council, presented the initiative to economic leaders in all the counties covered by Delta Council Most jumped on board.

“We have got some really good people that live and breathe economic development every day,” Gresham said.

Following the initial sign-up, a year of preparation for the initiative began. It involved conducting extensive market research, branding the effort and developing a website.

Philpot joined the project in June, roughly a year after it was founded.

For the prior 21 years, he had been running a similar regional program in Jackson, Tennessee.

By pooling their resources, the participating counties are able to stretch their recruiting dollars, while also looking at ways that a county can benefit even when a company locates with a neighboring one.

Tony Sinclair, Greenwood Utilities’ CEO and the recently appointed chairman of the Greenwood-Leflore Industrial Board, said that the Delta Strong initiative simplifies the process of recruiting companies by enabling the prospects to look at the Delta’s assets in one place.

“Delta Strong prompts us to think regionally but act locally,” he said. “That is a winning strategy — to promote our positive attributes and create synergy.”

The Delta Strong team has compiled information on each county’s infrastructure and available manufacturing sites. It has also created customized pitch books designed to cover any prospect’s questions or concerns. In the process, it’s tried to make communities aware of how they can make themselves more attractive to companies that are considering a relocation.

“Economic development is more than just going out looking for jobs,” Gresham said. “You have to make your community attractive to people.”

Philpot said Greenwood was already in good shape when it comes to industrial recruiting, but like every community, there are always things on which to improve.

Recently, Leflore County, with the encouragement of Delta Council, became an ACT Work Ready Community, which signifies it has the workforce to meet the needs of many businesses. The designation was achieved after a specified number of current workers or future members of the workforce took an exam that measured their aptitude in skills such as reading and mathematics.

Philpot said the work ready status helps Mississippi stand out because not every state utilizes the program offered by ACT, the company best known for its college-entrance exam.

“I just don’t think other states are really promoting that on the front end,” he said. “When we give that empirical information to companies, it makes a very positive impression.”

Curry agreed, and said that the certificate is a valuable way to validate Leflore

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County’s workforce.

A skilled workforce has been a great marketing tool for company calls and presentations, Curry said. So, too, has been the growth in Greenwood of other manufacturers, such as Milwaukee Tool, which late last year announced another expansion that is expected to push its employment total to around 1,000 in Leflore County.

“I think we have some world-renowned companies already located here. It helps us tell a story when we are trying to

recruit other companies,” Curry said.

“That is a really good marketing tool for us in Greenwood.”

Leflore County and other Delta Strong counties are also honest about their challenges.

“The bad part is we have got empty buildings that aren’t being used,” Gresham said. “The good part is we have got empty buildings in communities that are ready for jobs, ready for some type of manufacturing.”

For companies that may want to build,

the Delta Strong website includes a calculator that helps determine how much it would cost to construct a facility in the Delta.

The calls on industrial prospects started last June. Through January, Delta Strong had identified and met with 27 companies. The goal is to meet with at least 100 prospects by the end of 2019, convince between 10 and 16 of them to make site visits and produce at least five announcements of company expansions or relocations.

Philpot said the recruiting team averages about seven calls on business prospects per trip. The excursions have been to as far away as Canada and California.

Gresham cautioned, though, not to expect results overnight.

“This is a process that takes time. You can’t just say, ‘OK, I went and visited Company ABC today and tomorrow they are ready to locate,’’’ Gresham said. “It is developing a relationship with the prospect, them developing trust in us and our data, and them ready to make that decision and that investment.”

Curry said industrial recruiting is extremely competitive and, as with most sales efforts, there are always more noes than yeses.

“It can be disappointing. You do work very aggressively,” she said. “This community — Leflore County — we give it our all every time. We put our best foot forward, but sometimes there is another community that just will win out over us for various reasons.”

Curry is optimistic, though, that the results will come, thanks to the “stronger, more aggressive, more organized effort” that Delta Strong provides. n

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YouTube and Creativity

Online inspiration Website has tips for do-it-yourself tasks This actually happened: A rental van needed gas, but the driver and a friend couldn’t find the tank. Who knew that it would be hidden by the door? Somebody on YouTube.

Computers and mobile devices, especially smartphones, have changed how people look for information when they are baffled or when they are simply wondering such things as what’s best for a frozen pipe.

With everything from instructions for housekeeping hacks and how-to videos, the internet’s a paradise for those who choose (or would like to think about choosing) to do something themselves. They run a search on the Web or maybe head straight for fåëíêìÅí~ÄäÉëKÅçã. Many times, they look for a YouTube video.

Ask Tamira Brown. She and her friends use YouTube every day, and sometimes more than once a day.

“One time, I was trying to open a can of cinnamon rolls, and I really had no idea how to do it. I went to YouTube and looked at how it was done,” said Brown, 21, of Greenwood, an honor student at Mississippi Valley State University who will graduate in May with a degree in business administration.

Really, she’d never opened one before. She does, however, know a good bit more about applying makeup.

Why? YouTube. It’s her go-to place, not only for lessons in creating the newest looks but also for academic help.

Students, she said, use it for tutorials in all kinds of subjects, including college algebra and calculus or computer technology.

Josh Beattie, who works for Staplcotn, also has years of experience in repairing computers in homes and businesses throughout Greenwood. He said, “I’ve used YouTube for all my repair research. Whether it’s a cellphone, tablet or other electronic devices, I’ve always resorted to YouTube for visual instructions. ... I watch a lot of videos that provide “unboxing” or reviews of new technology. It’s good to watch someone else give his or her opinion of a product that you might be interested in purchasing as they are opening it for the first time. “ Both Beattie and Brown turn to YouTube for video gaming walkthroughs when they get stuck in the games and don’t know how to move forward. And Beattie’s daughter, Jasmine, 16, has something in common with Brown and her crowd.

But Jasmine doesn’t just watch videos; she makes them. Her dad said she uploads about one a week on her channel, “ItsJasmineJoy.” Here’s a link for one that’s recent: óçìíìKÄÉLcdéësäkvgdb. It’s titled, “REVIEW Too Faced Chocolate Chip Palette + NEW MAKEUP!” One can, by the way, get yoga instruction on a YouTube channel, Soul Rises, furnished by local instructor Liza Jones. The channel offers a complete series for beginners as well as meditations.

Of course, there’s no charge. YouTube, according to Wikipedia, was founded 13 years ago by three men who worked for PayPal. Google bought it for $1.65 billion in stock in 2006, the same year YouTube was Time magazine’s Person of the Year.

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If you walk around a restaurant, you will find people on smartphones, and it’s likely some of them will at some point have checked the internet for instruction.

Eric and Holly Miller were having lunch in Greenwood at Veronica’s not long ago. Fred and Margaret Clark were doing the same across the room. Both couples said the men were more likely to check the internet, and YouTube in particular, for do-it-yourself instructions.

“Usually, they are pretty good about how things are done,” Fred Clark, a lawyer, observed. He’s used it to learn how to construct a French drain, and once he broke

a cable connection on the back of a television set. A YouTube video explained how to install a new one, which he did, and that was a satisfying experience.

Eric Miller, a banker, had a similar reaction when he used a video to find out how to fix a refrigerator himself.

He discovered a part for the compressor was needed, so he bought one and made the repair.

His wife noted that he had used YouTube for other projects, and he smiled.

“I also fixed the golf cart,” he said. “I am kind of nerdy, I guess.” n

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Viking Cooking School

A taste of culture

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Chef teaches about history as well as food

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ach week, the Viking Cooking School brings tourists from across the Southeast — and even from all over the United States — to Greenwood.

From learning to perfect the art of frying chicken to crafting a genuine Delta hot tamale, classes consist of weekend vacationers, day-trippers, passersby who decided to stop in Greenwood, and Leflore County locals, all there to add a few new culinary skills to their repertoire.

Classes are typically booked to full capacity, and those interested in taking one usually need to sign up about a

month in advance — even longer for the most popular classes.

On a chilly Saturday morning in January, nine students trickled into the Howard Street cooking school, across from The Alluvian.

As they waited in the school’s retail store to be called into the French Quarter Fare class, they looked around at all the kitchen gadgets and novelties that are commonly seen being used by professional chefs on TV cooking shows.

Chris Byrd, who teaches the class, then corralled the students into a room in the southeast corner of the building, where

large plate-glass windows look out on the downtown street scene nearby.

Byrd, a former Greenwood resident who now lives in Oxford, travels back to the Delta a couple of Saturdays out of the month to teach cooking classes.

The South Mississippi native learned how to cook in his grandmother’s kitchen.

“I was usually by her side,” he said. “I love food and just the emotion that comes with it.”

Byrd doesn’t have a formal culinary education. He is a chef by hobby. His day job is in human resources, having previously worked for Viking Range for 16

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years. During that time, he began teaching cooking school classes on the side.

“It’s my passion, and it’s my hobby,” he said. “And I get to do it in my home state and in Greenwood, which I love. People might not think of Mississippi as the epicenter of food or culture, but then coming here, it dispels some of that. People say, ‘I was surprised to see that you have such a nice hotel and a cooking school,’ and that brings me pride being from Mississippi.”

Byrd said the Viking Cooking School has been offering the French Quarter Fare class year-round for the past five or six years.

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The class offers techniques in making “I’m a big food historian, so I Cajun and Creole classics. Byrd said he is drawn to this type of cuisine, having like to tell a story — give you grown up near the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

“I’ve always loved New Orleans and the background on something that food culture,” he said. “I’ve always enjoyed teaching this class because of the maybe you don’t know. ’’ history. It is one that I take those recipes, and I do make those outside of work.

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The table is where the students would He offered some history about Cajun densed milk lemons, to name a few. He “We wish we could recreate that at home, enjoy the fruits of their labor at the end of and Creole dishes. “I’m a big food histori- then demonstrated proper technique for right? So we make it as least intimidating the class with a family-style meal. an, so I like to tell a story — give you the each step, including using a tart tamper as possible.”

Already prepared by Stacy Falls, who After introductions, the attendees were background on something maybe you to press the graham cracker crumbs firmsplit into two cooking groups and gath- don’t know,” he said. ly into the bottom of each paper-lined cup. assisted Byrd, was the sweet Chantilly ered in the kitchen area.

Then the fun began.

After the overview, the groups broke off cream, which would eventually be piped into a rosette on the top of each tartlet for “You are always teamed up with other Byrd showed the class how to prepare and began cooking. people, so if you are a novice to someone the dessert — bite-size lemon icebox pies.

The ingredients were pre-measured garnish.

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Two French Quarter Fare class members dredge oysters in a cornmeal mixture before frying them. The oysters were the main fixture in po’ boy sliders.

Ingredients for chicken and sausage jambalaya heat up on the stove in a 5-quart cast-iron Dutch oven.

The finished product of the French Quarter Fare cooking class included shrimp ravigote in mini phyllo cups, oyster po’ boy sliders with remoulade sauce and chicken and sausage jambalaya.

A mixture of shrimp ravigote ingredients is stirred. The word “ravigote” comes from the French work “ravigoter,” which means to invigorate.

After the groups popped the bite-size pies into the oven, Byrd continued with the class and talked about each of the ingredients of the shrimp ravigote in mini phyllo cups.

Next the class tackled the main dish — chicken and sausage jambalaya.

The class ended with frying oysters for po’ boy sliders and making a remoulade sauce.

Byrd taught techniques, such as how to properly hold a knife or how to slice an onion, interacted with the class, told interesting stories related to each dish and even spoke a little French.

“It’s fun,” he said “It’s a fun environment, because everyone is here to have a good time. We have to balance that with cooking.”

After the two groups were finished cooking, they each prepared their plates and sat down and enjoyed a meal together.

“It’s fun to see the dynamic of the class, because usually people don’t know each other,” said Byrd. “They will come in twos or three people, and by the end of the class, it’s very common they will find somebody they know or someone they went to school with. It’s such a small world, and I see that in our classes all the

time. By the time the end of the class rolls around, they form bonds, and even some have continued on to be friends afterwards and continue to do things together.

I love that about it.”

Amy Hamilton and Jessie Somoza, both of Atlanta, traveled to Greenwood with their husbands, who came to do some duck hunting.

French Quarter Fare was their second Viking Cooking School class.

“We either do the spa or cooking or both when our husbands go duck hunting,” said Somoza.

She said what’s most beneficial to her is “to hear a chef say, ‘You don’t need all of that lemon,’ or ‘Wait until you taste it, and see if you need more.’”

Amy said she enjoys being able to “eat what you cook, so you know how good it is.”

“It’s fantastic to be able to taste your reward,” she said.

The class was a Christmas gift for Winston and Emma Folk, a newly married couple from Michigan City in Benton County.

“It was awesome,” Emma said about the experience. “It was stuff that we wouldn’t normally cook at home, but now we might because those lemon icebox pies

All the fixings for the oyster po’ boy sliders, including remoulade sauce made by the class, and the shrimp ravigote in mini phyllo cups are set out on the table.

were amazing.”

Emily Coady and Mark Boswell of Lake Providence, Louisiana, were also gifted the class for Christmas.

“We live in a town that’s smaller than Greenwood but comparable. It’s a Delta community, it’s really small, but we don’t

have an anchor like Viking,” said Coady.

“We would just love it if we had something to bring people there.”

The couple often travel throughout the Delta. Greenwood, Boswell said, is much more vibrant than some other Delta towns, and it feels alive still.” n

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Solon Scott Jr.

Businessman still busy

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olon Scott Jr. says leaving school at the age of 20 to help his mother run the family business was the best decision he ever made.

This will be his 61st year at the helm of Scott Petroleum Co. and its widespread enterprises.

After his father passed away in 1957, Scott, his mother, Elizabeth, and his brother, Steve, grew the business into what it is today.

“We have been blessed to have a lot of great customers and great friends that have helped us have a great business here,” Solon Scott said.

The company now has 27 locations spread over three states — Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana. It employs around 325 workers.

Born and raised in Itta Bena, Scott, who just turned 81 this week, spent his entire life in the fuel business, but it wasn’t until his father’s death that he became fully involved.

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“We have been blessed to

have a lot of great customers and great friends that have helped us have a great business here. ’’ Solon Scott Jr.

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“At the time, I was too young to even know what was going on, and (my father) more or less ran the business,” Scott said.

In 1932, Solon Sr. started what was then known as Scott Butane Gas Systems. According to his son, the family was second in the state to get into the butane business.

The two sons inherited from their

father the business, which they ran together for years until Solon Jr. later bought Steve’s share.

In the 1970s, the business was renamed Scott Petroleum Corp., after the decision was made to expand into other fuel markets, such as gasoline and diesel.

“It just made us an all-around company.

A lot of the tractors were going off of butane and propane and going into diesel,” Scott said.

Scott attended Mississippi State University, Mississippi Delta Community College and Delta State University before he returned home for work.

“I didn’t know what I was doing, and we didn’t have but two trucks at the time,” he said.

Before serving as president, Scott was answering phones, delivering gas, setting tanks and collecting from customers. He has lived in Greenwood since 1984, but his corporate headquarters remain in Itta Bena, in the same building where the

business began. Scott said he has no plans to retire.

In addition to running Scott Petroleum, Scott has ventured into other business opportunities — some local and others outside the state.

In 1967, Scott, his brother, and a family friend, Durwood Strain, started Triple S Farms, where they grew cotton, soybeans and rice. After the farm split, Scott continued to farm, but he shifted from row crops to catfish.

In 1987, he opened America’s Catch, one of the largest catfish processors in the United States. The company is owned by his two children — Solon III, who serves as president of America’s Catch, and Liz Barrett.

In 2006, Solon Jr. built a biodiesel plant in Greenville.

At one point in his career, he was also involved in building an underground storage facility for propane gas in a salt dome in Petal.

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He also owned a liquefied natural gas trading business in Texas. He has since gotten out of both ventures.

He also built one of the largest fertilizer distribution centers in Greenville but later sold it to Gold Kist Inc., a farmers’ cooperative.

When he isn’t working, he dedicates his time to charitable organizations.

Of special interest recently has been helping the Leflore County Humane Society raise money to build a new animal shelter in the Greenwood-Leflore Industrial Park.

“He has absolutely been by our side from the very conception of the shelter,” said Aubrey Whittington, president of the society’s board. “He has worked tirelessly trying to help fundraise, contribute and give us business advice and financial advice.”

Scott’s wife, Teresita, is Whittington on the Humane Society’s board. He spent some time in New Orleans visiting animal shelters for ideas for Leflore County’s.

“I think anybody who is interested in animals and the well-being of animals in this county will be appreciative of what the Leflore County Humane Society is trying to do,” Scott said in an earlier interview.

Whittington said Scott is a wonderful and caring friend who likes to get things done in a proper manner.

“He is such a generous philanthropist around Greenwood, and I am so thrilled that he wanted to help the animals,” she said. “This new shelter is going to be very functional and sound.”

Scott has also worked with the Boy Scouts of America. A former Boy Scout himself, he enjoyed his time and learned different skills, such as working in groups and tying various types of knots.

Floyd Melton III, a board member for the Chickasaw Council, said Scott has been instrumental in keeping the Boy Scouts in Leflore County active.

Scott at one time ran the Friends of Scouting fundraising campaign.

Melton Melton said it was the best campaign he had seen.

Scott was honored last fall with the Chickasaw Council’s Distinguished Citizen Award.

Bill Litton, chairman of the award committee and a fellow supporter of the Boy Scouts, said Scott has worked in every aspect of the program except on the troop level.

“He has been a big supporter with not only his finances but his time,” Litton said. “I think he believes in the Scouting program and what it provides for the youth — not only in Leflore County but also in the region.”

Litton said Scott is not looking to be recognized for his contributions but rather prefers to be in the background.

“He is a very astute businessman, but he realizes for a community or a region to thrive or survive, you have got to support the community,” Litton said. “He has been a big supporter of the community in all aspects.” n

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Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 PageSM molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

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PageSN Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

Dr. Henry Flautt

D

Longtime physician loves his work

r. Henry Flautt says he was destined to practice medicine in Greenwood. It was in his blood.

“I remember when I was a child, my grandfather used to bring me (to the hospital),” he said. “I would see him sew people up in the emergency room.”

Through the years, Flautt has built a name for himself as an internal medicine physician. He is now serving his second stint as the chief of staff at Greenwood Leflore Hospital.

“My No. 1 goal is to try and recruit new physicians,” he said. “A lot of our physicians are older, and we need to try and get some new guys and gals here to take it to the next level.”

He also hopes to keep up the hospital’s reputation.

“I want the community to continue to know what a great hospital we have here,” he said. “We are lucky to have a hospital.”

During Flautt’s time practicing in Greenwood, he has been a part of almost every committee at the hospital.

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The 56-year-old Greenwood native graduated from Pillow Academy and studied biology and chemistry at the University of Mississippi. At first he didn’t get into medical school and spent some time working in construction.

Flautt continued to have the desire, though, to follow in his family’s medical footsteps.

He has fond memories of shadowing both his grandfather, Dr. E.M. “Dick” Meek Sr., a general practitioner who did surgery, and his uncle, Dr. E.M. “Dick”

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Meek Jr., an obstetrician and gynecologist.

While he was in college, Flautt would often scrub up and watch his uncle perform surgery. When Flautt was a youngster, he remembers a moment when his grandfather took him to the delivery suite to see a baby being born.

“I thought I wanted to go into OBGYN,” he said. “I got into medical school and noticed that the OBGYNs just stayed up all the time. They never got to sleep.”

He eventually settled on internal medicine and did a three-year residency in the field at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

“First I thought I was going to go into family practice, but then one of my advisers in my training program said, ‘When you go into internal medicine, you start learning how to take care of the sickest of

the sick, and then you kind of work backwards,”’ Flautt said.

He enjoyed being able to work with patients with varying illnesses and diseases rather than one particular specialty.

“The whole picture of taking care of my patients — that’s what I liked about it,” he said.

After finishing his residency, Flautt moved back home to Greenwood in 1994, where he started his practice with Dr. Wally Moses, who died in January, and Dr. Kenneth Hines.

Flautt said both internists mentored him and taught him how to practice medicine after he finished his training. He now splits his time between his primary care office and the Leflore Rehab Center, where he and Dr. Charles Nause Jr., a family practitioner, are medical directors.

“Of course, I love what I do,” Flautt said.

“You don’t know if you are going to have somebody having a heart attack or just taking care of somebody and their diabetes — trying to help families with their loved ones who have dementia, Alzheimer’s.”

Dr. Ricky Goldberg, a gastroenterologist and fellow Greenwood native, said he has known Flautt all of his life, and he is an incredibly smart and talented physician.

“He is an excellent person. He cares a lot about his patients, just generally a good guy,” Goldberg said Working in his hometown has been a good experience for Flautt, who, while his children were growing up, found he was able to spend ample time with them despite the long hours of his profession.

“I always made it home every night to eat with my family, even though I would

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PageSP Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

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Flautt and his wife, Mary Haley, have three daughters: Mary Steele, 26; Katherine, 24; and Suzanne, 20. The two oldest also work in health care, and the youngest is considering it, he said.

The couple have known each other since they were born and often joke about having an arranged marriage.

“There is this picture of her father hold-

ing me when her mother was pregnant with her,” Flautt said.

“We have known each other all of our lives, and our families, we all grew up together.”

When the physician isn’t working, he enjoys woodworking, hunting and just being in the outdoors.

“I just enjoy going, being outside, turning my phone off and just kind of watching the world.” n

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Sarah Waldrop

A mind for marketing Business owner has taught herself a lot

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arah Waldrop has built her marketing consulting business from the ground up.

“I feel like I have always had to prove myself, and I feel like there are definitely things that I still don’t know,” the 26-yearold said.

Yet, when an opportunity presents itself, Waldrop doesn’t back down.

She is self-taught in most of the services, including website and graphic design,

offered by her business, Waldrop Creative.

“I have watched YouTube videos and just kind of getting on there and playing around with stuff,” she said.

At one point, Waldrop watched an entire YouTube video in French but followed the informative video step by step.

She is not afraid to make mistakes, she said.

An Atlanta native, Waldrop attended

Mississippi State University, where she fell in love with marketing.

“I really love to promote products and make people realize what they are already thinking,” she said.

“I enjoy the whole process, from the beginning or the little bitty ideas that grow into a huge campaign or the final graphic product — just how much influence you really have.”

While in college, she considered focus-

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ing on sports and events, but after several internships she found it time-consuming and stressful.

Waldrop still wanted to pursue a career in marketing, and the perfect opportunity presented itself in 2013.

After she graduated from Mississipi State, she moved to Greenwood to work for Viking Range. Later, she married her husband, Matthew, whom she met at MSU.

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p~ê~Ü=t~äÇêçéÛë=ÄìëáåÉëëI=t~äÇêçé=`êÉ~íáîÉI=çÑÑÉêë=ÜÉäé=ïáíÜ=ëçÅá~ä=ãÉÇá~I=Öê~éÜáÅ=~åÇ=ïÉÄëáíÉ=ÇÉëáÖåI=~åÇ=éìÄäáÅ=êÉä~íáçåë=Ñçê=áíë=ÅäáÉåíëK For four months, she worked as a brand manager for the Greenwood-based manufacturer of upscale kitchen appliances.

The whole experience was like a crash course in marketing, she said.

“I learned so much in such a short term, and I feel like I was given a lot of responsibility right off the bat, which was really cool.”

After she left Viking, she went to work for HomeFront Home Improvement Center. In April 2016, she began to consider starting her own business.

“What I was doing at the time, I knew I could do for other businesses as well,” she said. “I loved the idea of making my own schedule and making my own hours.”

She said she saw a need for marketing for small businesses in Greenwood.

Although it was an intimidating task, her past experience in social media and the other skills she picked up at Viking helped her get started.

In the beginning, her in-laws, Brian and Tonya Waldrop, helped spread the word.

“My father-in-law was really encouraging, and I was super scared at first,” Sarah Waldrop said. “He was like, ‘Just go out there,’ and he gave me some points to say” when she made her pitch to potential clients.

The first client she lined up on her own

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was Delta Streets Academy.

Waldrop is in charge of keeping the private school’s website updated and organized, shooting video and photography, and writing newsletters and mail outs.

“The skill, as far as the marketing

aspect of it, speaks for itself,” said T. Mac Howard, head of school at Delta Streets.

“It has been well- received.”

At the end of last year, Waldrop helped the school with a highly successful fundraising effort that generated $125,000 more than the previous year.

“She played a big part in getting the word out and sharing the story with our donors,” Howard said.

Waldrop offers help with social media, graphic design, website design and public relations for all of her clients.

“The graphic design’s all self-taught.

Pretty much everything I have taught myself how to do,” she said. “I learned a lot about social media from Viking and some of my co-workers there.”

Waldrop said that having her own business forced her to focus heavily on effectively managing her time.

“I thought I had time-management skills before, but now I really have to have time-management skills,” she said. “You can so easily be consumed with your work, and I think that is a great thing, but you have really got to find the balance of getting the job done and then having a life, too.”

She believes her business is different than other groups or services out there because of her ability to be honest and develop relationships with her clients.

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“I really love to promote products and make people realize what they are already thinking. ’’ Sarah Waldrop

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“I like to have a good relationship with people I am working with,” Waldrop said.

“I like to ask a lot of questions because I feel like you have to get to know people to find out what their needs are. I am not afraid to tell my opinion.”

Aimee Dunn, a Realtor with Sims Realty and Development, has been working with Waldrop for a year. She said that Waldrop is very self-motivated.

Waldrop creates advertising that shows across social medial outlets different properties that Dunn has listed.

“I really felt like it was important to look at things in a new way and offer a fresh perspective on marketing,” Dunn said.

Waldrop hopes to grow her start-up.

Her goal is to “have a steady business that I can rely on ... ,” she said. “I would never want to quit or shut it off.” n

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Beth Williams

Happy in a small town Alluvian manager also is chamber president

S

he was born in a small town.

“Greenwood is enormous compared to Magnolia, where I grew up,” said Beth Williams.

A native of the Pike County town, population around 2,400, Williams met her now-husband, Steve Williams, at Mississippi State University, where they both attended college, and returned to his hometown of Greenwood after a stint in Jackson.

“He was a Delta boy who wanted to come home,” she said. “Initially, I said I would live here for two years to see if I liked it.”

Beth Williams was surprised by how much she liked and quickly grew to love Greenwood. Now she is an important ambassador for her adopted hometown in her new role as president of the Greenwood-Leflore County Chamber of Commerce.

A busy mother of three — two daughters, ages 12 and 15, and a 7-year-old son — Williams also serves on the Greenwood Youth Soccer Organization’s board and on the parents association of her kids’ school, Pillow Academy.

She does mission work through children’s activities at her church, St. John’s United Methodist. And, oh, yes, she’s the general manager of The Alluvian, where she sits among plush pillows, beneath one of the pieces of Mississippi art hanging at the contemporary boutique hotel.

“Between work and the chamber and three kids, sometimes I don’t know what end is up,” Williams said, hands asplay as if to say, “Go figure.”

But Williams, 43, is a self-assured woman who clearly knows what she’s doing in all aspects of her life — working, raising a family, volunteering and making her community a better place for everyone to live.

“I prefer to be busy,” Williams said. “The busier I am, the more productive I am.” vvv

When Williams and her husband moved to Greenwood in 2000, she went to work for Viking Range.

That was during the heyday of Viking CEO and Greenwood native Fred Carl’s expansion of Viking’s presence in downtown Greenwood.

In the spring of 2003 when the hotel opened, Williams was hired as a full-time

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events manager.

“I had some background doing that. I coordinated parties and events at the hotel; then when the previous general manager moved away in 2005, I took her job.”

Since Williams took the reins at The Alluvian, the hotel has enjoyed a national and international reputation as a topnotch luxury boutique hotel and a pre-

mier destination, not just in Greenwood but in the entire state.

Williams also supervises managers of the hotel spa, the Viking Cooking School across the street and Giardina’s, the restaurant located in the hotel.

“They all report to me, and we coordinate planning,” Williams said.

Her primary duties are multiple and varied — managing the day-to-day activi-

ties of the hotel, its marketing and sales, budgeting and booking.

“Weekends are busiest,” she said, gesturing toward the lobby where a group has just arrived on this Friday afternoon for a weekend stay.

The Alluvian, she explained, depends not so much on seasonal travelers but on a “target drive-in market,” meaning anyone living within three hours of

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PageSV Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

Greenwood who’s looking for a great weekend getaway.

“We host a lot of supper clubs, birthday clubs, bachelorette groups, things like that,” Williams said. “We get book clubs who come and stay at the hotel and enjoy Turnrow Book Co. while they’re here.”

During weekdays, the hotel is more likely to host corporate travelers attending board retreats or meetings or just wanting a place to stay while conducting business in the area.

Williams coordinates with management of all the various entities within the hotel to create programs designed to meet the needs of specific guests, such as the team-building program at the Viking Cooking School. Employees of companies staying at the hotel take custom-designed classes to work on team skills.

“They divide into separate teams, then work together in small groups to create a portion of a meal,” Williams said. “It’s an opportunity to interact closely, and it brings out their individual personalities.” vvv

Coordinating group efforts to create something unique is one of the pleasures Williams has experienced through 15 years volunteering with the Chamber of Commerce as well.

“I started out volunteering because, as a citizen, I really appreciate all the events that enhance our quality of life here in Greenwood,” she said. “I love all the festivals and events the chamber sponsors.”

Williams did whatever was needed, volunteering at the chamber’s annual Stars & Stripes events and many others.

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As a local businesswoman, she also recognized the networking possibilities available through participating in the chamber. She sends her employees from The Alluvian to chamber trainings and seminars, and recommends they participate in the Chamber’s Young Professionals group for social and business networking.

Twelve years ago, Williams participated in Leadership Greenwood, a chamber program, and two years ago she became an officer.

“It’s a four-year commitment to be an officer,” she explained. “This is my third year. I was vice president, then presidentelect. This year I’ll serve as president, then for a year as past-president.”

With a small staff of only 2½ paid employees, the chamber relies on volunteers, including its officers, for its many programs in the community. As president, Williams said, she will help the staff create events and new programs.

“Every year I’ve created goals I’d like to see us achieve that year within the chamber’s mission statement.”

That mission statement meshes nicely with the way Williams sees fit to live as a citizen of Greenwood, working to improve the quality of life, helping to attract businesses here and having fun while doing it.

Williams’ goal for this year is to help plan and implement a new Women in Business group at the chamber.

Additional plans include a revamp of the Leadership Greenwood program, possible renovations at the chamber’s headquarters on U.S. 82 and providing more educational opportunities for members.

“Recently, we offered a seminar on home-owning for younger businesspeo-

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Beth Williams says that between her duties at The Alluvian, the Chamber of Commerce and as the mother of three schoolaged kids, she sometimes doesn’t know “what end is up.”

Pictured here are, in back from left, Mackenzie Williams, Beth Williams and Steve Williams; and, in front, Sam Williams and Campbell Williams.

ple,” she said. “I want to see more of that kind of thing.”

Regardless whether she’s driving kids to a soccer match, planning a stay for a group at The Alluvian or volunteering at the Chamber of Commerce, Beth Williams is purposeful in her abundance of activity.

Greenwood, she believes, has much to offer someone looking for a place to start a business or raise a family.

“Our guests at The Alluvian are always surprised by how much there is to do here,” she said.

She hopes that through the chamber’s work, people who live here will choose to stay, and those who go off to college or to try living elsewhere will have a good reason to come back.

“With any community,” she said, “the more you get involved, the more you love it.” n

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Greenwood Market Place

All about service

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Store stays active in community endeavors

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ome shoppers may just see Greenwood Market Place as the spot to fill their grocery list, but there is so much more to know about this employee-owned store.

Derrick Simpson, store manager, and his 111-member staff do a lot of things behind the scenes for the betterment of the community and surrounding areas.

“We try to stay very involved in the community and give a little something back,” Simpson said. “We don’t do it for a pat on the back; we do it to help make a difference.”

Greenwood Mayor Carolyn McAdams said it’s great to see Greenwood Market Place take a personal interest in the community.

“Gosh, you cannot put a price on what that store does for the city. They donate to every event the city of Greenwood is involved in, like the Stars and Stripes, and they are a major sponsor of our City Employee Appreciation Picnic and are always helping feed our first responders,” he said.

The Salvation Army of Greenwood and

the Greenwood Public School District, according to Simpson, are two of the groups that the supermarket is especially involved in helping.

Lt. Jamaal Ellis of the Salvation Army has been touched by the generosity Simpson and his workers have shown since Ellis moved to Greenwood about two years ago.

“Derrick Simpson is a dear friend to our organization. He and his staff will do anything they can Ellis to help. They touch the lives of a lot of people who never know where the help came from,” Ellis said.

“When the military plane crash happened last year, I called Derrick at 9 a.m. about getting lunch to the recovery site. He made 200 home-cooked meals happen for us in about two hours.

“That group always has a how-can-weserve attitude. There are a lot of groups that help out in this community, and we’re thankful for them all, but none

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pÜçééÉêë=ÅÜÉÅâ=çìí=~í=dêÉÉåïççÇ=j~êâÉí=mä~ÅÉK=i~íÉê=íÜáë=óÉ~êI=íÜÉ=ëíçêÉ=áë=ëÅÜÉÇìäÉÇ=íç=ÖÉí=~=Ñ~ÅÉJäáÑíI=ïáíÜ=áãéêçîÉãÉåí=ÅçãáåÖ=çå=íÜÉ=áåëáÇÉ=~åÇ=íÜÉ=çìíëáÇÉK= seem to do so with such frequency as the Market Place folks.”

That giving attitude starts at the top of the store.

Simpson is a member of Salvation Army’s advisory board.

Under Simpson’s direction, Market Place also provides assistance to the VFW, Altrusa Club’s Angel Tree, Greenwood Utilities’ Power Week, the Leflore County Humane Society as well as many schools, churches and other like groups.

Market Place won the GreenwoodLeflore County Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business of the Year award in 2017. Beth Stevens, executive director of the chamber, said the store is such an asset for Greenwood.

“You always see nonprofit groups, from the United Way to Boy and Girl Scout troops, churches and sports teams, utilizing Market Place’s front door as a way to raise money for various activities. They are so genuine and helpful and very rarely do they say no to the community,” Stevens said.

Simpson has been the store manager in Greenwood since 1993. The store is flourishing under his direction and will later this year undergo a huge makeover, inside and out. But there have been plen-

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“We did take a beating until the new wore off that store. We did some things and made some upgrades to get shoppers back, but we didn’t try to chase Wal-

Mart,” Simpson said. “We learned that shoppers still want good service and a smiling face. They want a handshake and a thank-you for their business, and that’s what we’re all about.”

Simpson said having a good, experienced management staff makes his job

much easier.

Simpson, 50, has 35 years’ worth of experience in the grocery business with Food Giant Supermarkets, Inc. — the last 25 here in Greenwood. He began working with the company in Starkville when he was 14.

Kenneth Storey founded Food Giant in 1969 and built it from one store up. He sold the company to an employee stock ownership plan upon retiring March 1, 2000. That’s when Market Place became an employee-owned store. Then in 2004, Food Giant was bought for stock by Kentucky conglomerate Houchens Industries, a 100-year-old employeeowned company. It is the 106th largest privately owned company in the country, according to Forbes Magazine, and one of largest employee-owned companies in the United States.

The Food Giant division operates 500 grocery stores in 14 states and employs more than 12,000.

Houchens has been completely owned by its employee stock ownership plan since 1988. Upon starting work at Market Place, Simpson said workers begin to earn Houchens stock immediately but aren’t eligible to draw on that benefit until they are fully vested with the company after seven years of employment. n

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R.H. Hunt

Leaving a ‘thumbprint’

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Late architect’s work has had lasting impact B

ob Franklin, a Chattanooga, Tennessee, architect, mused about the impact of his profession. It can, he said, leave a “thumbprint.”

That’s what another Chattanooga architect, the late Reuben Harrison Hunt, did throughout the South during a 51year career that began in 1882. Franklin, whose architecture firm houses Hunt’s papers, grew up with views of Hunt’s buildings populating his home city. So have many Greenwoodians.

Hunt’s work during the late 19th century and early 20th has left an architectural legacy in the form of hundreds of public buildings — churches, courthouses, schools, banks and more — across the South. These buildings have imprinted themselves on succeeding generations.

He designed six in Greenwood and at least 113 in Mississippi. “He brought a

very cosmopolitan design aesthetic to Mississippi that we wouldn’t have had otherwise,” said Jennifer Baughn, chief architectural archivist for the state Department of Archives and History.

Hunt was among a number of architects from out of state who brought “a whole new way of looking at buildings that we hadn’t had before.” The buildings they designed were constructed from steel and masonry, for example, rather than wood.

Of those in Greenwood, two no longer exist: the original Greenwood public school building, built in 1900 on the Davis Elementary School property, and destroyed by fire in 1980, and an addition to the Reiman Family Hotel, which was located on Front Street at the present-day site of Regions Bank. The remaining four not only are still in use but have been renovated and expanded in the more than

100 years since each was built. n Leflore County Courthouse, 306 W. Market St. The original neoclassical building, topped by its bell-tower clock, was constructed in 1905. n The Romanesque Revival sanctuary of First United Methodist Church, 306 W. Washington St. The sanctuary was erected in 1898. n The original 1905 sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church, 300 Main St. The church’s current sanctuary faces Main, and the facade of the older one, which has been converted into the church’s parlor, can be seen from West Washington Street n The Historic Elks Building, 102 W. Washington St. The Neoclassical Revival building was constructed in 1913.

Hunt also was hired to design buildings in other Mississippi communities In 1898, he designed the original building of Moore

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R. H. Hunt

Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 PageTQ molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

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Memorial United Methodist Church in Winona, and in 1892, the old administration building at Millsaps College. He was the architect for 18 college, school, church and commercial buildings in Columbus, including the Lowndes County Courthouse. He designed buildings erected in Oxford, Starkville, Hattiesburg, Aberdeen, Houston, Meridian, Natchez, Yazoo City, Vicksburg, Lexington, Clinton, Corinth, Belzoni, Laurel, Greenville and Jackson. His firm had a field office in Jackson, and another in Dallas.

His work in other states ranged from the First Baptist Church on Linden Avenue in Memphis to The Tabernacle in Atlanta.

Within towns and cities, the styles of his buildings differed, much as they do in Greenwood. But he did copy designs from one community to another.

“In fact, Hunt often copied the designs of his own buildings, modifying a feature here and there,” Gavin Edward Townsend wrote in his history, “R.H. Hunt: Master Architect of Chattanooga.”

Townsend continued, “Second Presbyterian in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, is essentially a mirror image of First Baptist in Elberton Georgia, both designed in 1898. Hunt used virtually the same design for Bute Street Baptist Church in Norfolk, Virginia, and First Methodist Church in Greenwood,

Mississippi. ... Such standardization made possible the firm’s impressive output.”

A century later, the effect on Chattanooga, where Hunt’s buildings include a federal courthouse, remains significant, said Franklin, who has a family connection to Hunt dating back two generations. “My grandfather came up out of Georgia Tech and went to work for R.H. Hunt,” Franklin explained.

Hunt’s structures, he said, “are the core buildings of our downtown. They are the most elegant that we have left, and the most historical.”

The same might be said of Hunt buildings at other locations, including Greenwood. Baughn believes their appearance affects how the community sees itself. “If you grow up in a town that has those kinds of buildings, you have a wider view of the world,” she observed.

And perhaps a connection exists among locations that have similar buildings. “In places like Greenwood and Columbus — they have an affinity,” she said. If someone from Greenwood were to drive through a community with R.H. Hunt buildings, that person might think, “Oh, that church looks familiar.”

She continued, “To me, what ties his buildings together from the start to finish of his career, (although) they went through different styles, is that he had a confidence in what he was doing.” n

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Hickok Waekon

Quiet, active company

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Plant supplies testing equipment to many

M

any folks driving past by Hickok Waekon, formerly Supreme Electronics, on Carrollton Avenue couldn’t say exactly what the company does.

Some people remember working at Supreme and know about the testing equipment made in the past, but they might not realize where the company is today. It supplies test equipment for companies such as Bosch Automotive Service Solutions and Snap-On Tools, as well as vehicular emissions test equipment for Opus Inspection and others.

“Most domestic automotive dealerships have some piece of automotive test equipment manufactured in the Greenwood facility,” according to Greenwood native Rick Allen, the plant’s manufacturing director since 2012.

The company also makes critical cockpit instrumentation for GE Aviation,

Learjet/Bombardier and other major aerospace companies that is used in commercial and military aircraft such as the C-130 and F-18, Allen said. In addition to the aircraft industry, Hickok Waekon makes instrumentation for the locomotive industry — “a lot of products for the transportation industry.”

Allen, who has been with the plant for 30-plus years, went from working in the company stock room to running the Greenwood operation. He studied engineering at Mississippi Delta Community College and Mississippi State University.

MDCC, he said, “had a tremendous program.”

Allen said one goal of his is to expand the company’s role in the community and let people know what is going on at the plant. “We’ve been the quiet company. We already participate in community charitable activities, such as Boys Club and

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^åíÜçåó=_êáëíÉê=ïçêâë=~í=~=Åçåíêçä=é~åÉä=çÑ=~=`k`=ãìäíáJ~áñ=íìêåáåÖ=ÅÉåíÉêK=qÜÉ=ã~ÅÜáåÉ=Å~å=êìå=OQ=Üçìêë=~=Ç~ó=~ÑíÉê=ÄÉáåÖ=éêçÖê~ããÉÇ=ïáíÜçìí=~å=ÉãéäçóÉÉ=éêÉëÉåíK Salvation Army. We’re trying to come up with more creative ways of supporting the community,” he said. The company also belongs to the Greenwood-Leflore County Chamber of Commerce and Mississippi Manufacturing Association.

Though the company now employs 38 people, down from its high of around 200 in the late 1940s, Allen said he believes the future is bright for Hickok Waekon, for several reasons. “The aerospace industry in Mississippi is growing. People would be surprised at the growth. There are aerospace companies in Batesville, the Golden Triangle and South Mississippi — a lot of opportunities here.

We’re going to be chasing that business.”

Another reason for his optimism is the support the company is receiving to expand. “We’re working with Angela Curry, of the Greenwood-Leflore-Carroll Economic Development Foundation, with the Mississippi Development Authority and with the Small Business Administration,” Allen said.

“The Delta Strong Initiative of Delta Council is very important to us. I’m very encouraged by all the support we’re getting from these institutions,” he said.

“We are just starting to sell more products as a contract manufacturer out of Greenwood. I want to really dedicate more time to that endeavor. With our efforts to increase our contract business in Greenwood, I would expect to see growth of 20 percent-plus per year for the next few years,” Allen said. “Our design engi-

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neering and sales group in Cleveland, Ohio, is designing products for new markets that we have great potential to be successful in.”

The Greenwood company had $6.5 million in sales during 2016, up from $4.8 million the year before, Allen said.“We are in the development of receiving the AS9100 quality certification, a recognized quality standard in the aerospace

industry, which will be a help to selling our business,” he said.

A number of the plant’s metal processing machines have the capability to operate “lights out” 24 hours a day, he said.

The company also works at being environmentally friendly. “We produce no wastewater discharge, and we use leadfree solder.”

In addition to creating important equip-

ment for the transportation industry, Hickok Waekon is also an FAA-approved repair facility.

Jewell Williams founded Supreme Electronics in 1928, in a garage near Main and Henry streets, producing a Radio Set Analyzer. In 1928 it moved to Howard Street and in the 1940s had three buildings in that area including all three floors of what is now the Super Soul Shop in Greenwood. In 1947 all operations were moved to its present location on Carrollton Avenue, replacing a Southern States baseball field. “Radio was just beginning. There were a lot of electronics,” Allen said. Later it was sold to Hickok of Cleveland, Ohio.

Allen said the current business environment in Mississippi and the United States is very good for Hickok Waekon, and he believes the company will make the most of those opportunities.

Allen also says his employees give him reason to be enthused about the future.

“They’re knowledgeable, skilled and flexible,” he said. “I have been fortunate to surround myself with some real winners in the manufacturing world.”

“We will continue to grow and expand in Greenwood. Selling your manufacturing capabilities is a competitive business, but we have all the tools and equipment necessary under one roof to be successful manufacturing products for many industries,” Allen said. “I couldn’t imagine being in any other business or in any other location.” n

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Dr. Jerryl Briggs

Still in college

I

MVSU president is passionate about job

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t’s easy being green, says Dr. Jerryl Briggs, president of Mississippi Valley State University.

Dressed in a dark forest-green suit with a brighter green lapel pin, Briggs said he acquired the Valley wardrobe, suits in multiple shades of green, when he first came to the university in late 2014 to work alongside his predecessor, longtime colleague and friend Dr. William Bynum.

When Briggs was named president in October 2017, he was already dressed for success at MVSU. “I’m a representative of the institution,” he said. “It’s important that people not only hear my passion but see my passion.

“Colors mean more than just the way they look.”

“What are we doing well?

We’re teaching our students to be engaged and involved in the world. ’’ Dr. Jerryl Briggs

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higher education.”

Graduation from Xavier led to graduate school at Louisiana Tech, where Briggs earned a master’s degree in human relations, supervision, leadership and engagement.

He worked at colleges and universities all around the eastern United States and eventually earned his doctorate from the College of William and Mary in educational policy, planning and leadership.

“I often say I went to college and I never left.”

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Picture a boy, a studious boy working hard to succeed at McDonogh No. 35 High School in New Orleans. His sister before him has set an example of excelling in school, and teachers expect the same from him.

His mother, who didn’t go to college, is single and works multiple jobs to support both kids.

She is dismayed by the kids she sees losing their lives to the streets and to rough elements in the Crescent City, but she is determined they’re not going to have her kid.

Varna Briggs, Jerryl’s mother, who died in 2005, put education “at the forefront of our experience growing up,” Briggs said, and “instilled in my mind that I would go to college.”

Briggs is not ashamed to admit, and has done so in public many times, that he’s “a self-proclaimed Mama’s boy.”

The school Briggs attended was the first public school for African-Americans in the state of Louisiana, and in 1992-93, 10 years after Briggs graduated, was recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence by the U.S. Department of Education.

Eighty-six percent of students who attended McDonogh No. 35 went on to college when Briggs was a student there.

He said it was the perfect place for a kid like him.

“I didn’t miss one day of high school.

Not one day.”

Young Briggs enlisted in the Marines at the end of high school and served six years.

At a Rotary Club meeting earlier this year, he told attendees, “If you’re a

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Marine, you’re trained as an infantryman, a grunt, no matter what your job. I decided I was going to be a communications specialist. That’s a grunt with a radio on his back.”

In all seriousness, he continued, being in the Marines gave him discipline and an inclination toward service.

While still in the Marines, Briggs attended Xavier University in New Orleans, the only historically black Roman Catholic institution of higher learning in the country.

Already tendered in the value of education by his mother, and raised in a public

school with an important historic pedigree among African-Americans, Briggs soon came to appreciate the value of historically black colleges and universities like Xavier.

“I went there to become a pharmacist,” Briggs said. “But after one year, I decided I didn’t have a passion for that and switched to chemistry education.”

“I became involved in discussions with my adviser, an important mentor. I told him I really wanted to work at a university, but I didn’t know exactly how that would work,” Briggs said.

“He taught me how to evolve to work in

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Jerryl Briggs doesn’t much like talking about the personal details of his life. He’d rather talk about Mississippi Valley State University and the work he has set out to do there.

But just for the record, here is what he is willing to reveal about himself that the community might not already know.

He is 56 years old.

He is not now nor has ever been married.

He has two sons: Isaiah, 27, who lives in Illinois; and Jerryl Jr., called “Deuce,” 9, who lives in Ohio.

He cherishes times when he can be surrounded by family.

He unwinds by playing golf and attending sports events, as many as possible.

He’s a self-professed sports fanatic.

Most of his activities outside of work, including attending sporting events for as many MVSU teams as possible, revolve around the university.

His friend and predecessor at Valley, Dr. William Bynum, said what you see – composure and focus – is what you get with Briggs.

“I used to always say Jerryl has more finesse and I’m more in your face,” Bynum said.

But beneath that sober and measured exterior, Bynum observed, “he’s got a certain fire there in terms of intensity.”

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That intensity is on full display when Briggs talks about the value of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and specifically about Mississippi Valley State University.

“To understand the value of an HBCU, you have to understand that historically in America, educational opportunities for African-Americans didn’t exist at all or were limited,” Briggs said. “From inception, they have been open to any and all individuals seeking a higher education.”

And though some would argue that as state universities accept and enroll more African-Americans and become more racially integrated, the need for HBCUs is not as great, Briggs emphasizes that HBCUs still graduate more black students than all other universities combined.

At the same time, he said, they are evolving to be more inclusive in terms of races and ethnicities represented among their enrollees.

In Mississippi, that is one of the goals of the Ayers settlement, a civil rights lawsuit that ended with a cash payout over a period of time to HBCUs, including Valley, with the caveat that they increase their enrollment of students other than African-American.

“We’re working on that at Valley, but it has to be for the right reasons, not just reaching an arbitrary numerical goal,” Briggs said.

“It’s more important getting communities to understand that this opportunity could be right for them as well, that you can come here and you can get a good education. That has to be our focus.”

What HBCUs do best, he said, is continue to fulfill a historic mission — in Latin, áå=äçÅç=é~êÉåíáë, an ancient contract in which the university in a sense takes on the role of parent, focusing on life skills training and academics to help students prepare to be more involved in community life, and to become leaders.

“What are we doing well? We’re teaching our students to be engaged and involved in the world.”

Nowhere is that role more important

than in the Mississippi Delta, from which most of Valley’s students come. Many also come from families in which they represent the first generation to attend college.

“Half of our students in the incoming class still are the first in their families to attend college,” Briggs said. “It’s still a factor. If we weren’t here, that student might not consider higher education as a viable option.”

The importance of Valley to the Delta, and especially to Leflore County, cannot be exaggerated, he said.

“Think of what this community would look like without it. Think of past generations of students and what it meant to come to Valley, then to become leaders.”

Then there’s the economic impact of the university with its $45 million to $50 million in assets.

But for Briggs, it’s all about educational opportunity.

Balancing the task of orienting students and their families to the realities of college and offering quality academic programs can be a challenge, he said — precisely the challenge he’s been seeking all of his professional life.

“My vision for Valley is to keep growing,” he said.

That means increasing capacity for a larger student body by building new dorms and academic buildings and finding the funding to do that. It means making sure that more students don’t simply enter as freshmen but stay all the way to graduation. It means hearing the concerns of faculty and academic departments, their frustrations, their hopes and dreams.

“I need to give all of them assurance their voices are heard,” he said.

It’s a lot to take on, but Briggs, the man in green with the steady demeanor, feels confident he is up to the task.

“I’m a ‘glass half full’ kind of guy,” he said, a smile spreading across his face.

“It’s important for me to talk about successes as well as challenges.

“I want to make sure that everyone at Valley hears the value they bring to the university.”n

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Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 PageUO molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

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Sunflower Diagnostic Center

Personal service

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Ruleville facility offers tests to women, men

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bright light among Delta healthcare alternatives, Sunflower Diagnostic Center aims to to offer “service with a personal touch.”

A satellite operation of North Sunflower Medical Clinic in Ruleville, the clinic is set up to do basic diagnostic tests mainly for women, but men are invited to the party, too.

A tastefully decorated clinic right on the main drag of downtown Ruleville, the

Diagnostic Center’s soft ivory-colored walls, attractive art work in the examining rooms and warm decorative details are designed to put patients at ease and even invite them to stay a while.

Women’s annual health exams are a big draw, including mammogram, Pap smears, sonograms and bone density examinations. The clinic offers walk-in screening and will refer to primary care physicians in cases where advanced test-

ing or treatment is required, and it can do gall bladder tests with its sonogram equipment as well as many other basic diagnostic tests.

Additionally, clients can get advanced cosmetic and skin care treatments here, including hydrafacial, injectables and fillers, all from certified clinicians.

Overseeing the diagnostic center is Alice Pyles, director of radiology at North Sunflower’s main campus.

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“One of the neat things we’ve started offering here is low-dose CT scans for lung cancer screening,” Pyles said.

This particular program is aimed at patients 55 to 80 years old who were packa-day smokers for 30 years. They must have stopped smoking no earlier than the past 15 years to qualify for the ongoing screening program that looks for nodules in the lungs and, if detected, follows their progress.

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“The idea is to catch lung cancer and treat it when it is more curable, before it metastasizes,” Pyles said.

Thirteen percent of all new cancer cases diagnosed are lung cancer.

Medicare doesn’t pay for the lung screening regimen, but private insurers are on board, according to Pyles.

As the diagnostic center’s administrator, she is charged with getting the word out to medical practices across this part of Mississippi about the lung cancer screening program and other services available at the center. She has visited doctors’ offices in Cleveland, Sumner, Charleston and Mound Bayou, letting them know the center is here, centrally located in Ruleville, and ready to do basic screenings on patients in need of a check-up.

“If someone comes here for a mammogram, and there’s a finding that indicates the need for a breast biopsy, we’ll refer them to a doctor,” Pyles said. “We want to make sure they get followed up.”

Jodi Barnett, a nurse practitioner certified in gerontology and women’s health, provides women’s annual exams and can tailor the exam to each woman’s specific needs. “She can get a Pap smear while she’s here getting her bone density exam, if she needs it,” Barnett said.

Osteoporosis assessment is the key purpose of bone density exams, a condition best caught early in its development for effective treatment.

The potentially crippling disease affects one of two Caucasian women, rendering them potentially at risk for hip fracture and other debilitating bone crises.

African-American women are less susceptible but should still know their baseline bone density.

Identifying and treating patients with risk of fracture who have not yet sustained a fracture, medical experts say, will substantially reduce the long-term burden of osteoporosis.

Barnett and the clinic’s X-ray technician are well trained to use DXA, the nonsurgical, low-radiation technology for measuring bone health, and can prescribe lifestyle and diet changes as well as medical interventions to help slow the progress of bone degeneration.

Medicare is mandated to cover the cost of osteoporosis screening for patients at risk for the disease, thanks to the federal Bone Mass Measurement Act (BMMA), and Barnett and others at the diagnostic center can help determine if a patient qualifies as at risk.

BMMA mandates coverage for followup bone density measurements every two years, or more frequently if medically necessary.

Not medically necessary but certainly valuable in terms of overall health is care of the body’s largest organ — the skin.

Olivia Ellis, who lives in Greenwood, has recently been certified to offer Hydrafacial treatments with trademarked machinery that removes impurities and adds nutrients to the newly polished facial surface.

An aesthetician in training, Ellis said Hydrafacial is ideal for a clinic setting like this one because it is multi-step, is noninvasive and involves no down time or accompanying irritation.

Solutions dispensed from the machine “put the right thngs into the skin,” such as antioxidants and peptides, according to Ellis.

The waiting room at Sunflower Diagnostic Center is welcoming and warm, like the rest of the clinic designed to offer “service with a personal touch.”

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“If someone comes here for a mammogram, and there’s a finding that indicates the need for a breast biopsy, we’ll refer them to a doctor. We want to make sure they get followed up. ’’ Alice Pyles

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Taking care of women’s ongoing health and skin care needs at Sunflower Diagnostic Center are, from left, nurse practitioner Jodi Barnett, North Sunflower Medical Clinic Director of Radiology Alice Pyles and certified Hydrafacial technician Olivia Ellis.

She offers 30-. 60- and 90-minute Hydrafacial treatments to teenagers struggling with skin problems and to adults trying to maintain a healthy, glowing exoderm.

Ellis points to a filter from a treatment on a recent patient that shows impurities removed from the skin in the process. Her own skin, glowing and smooth, has vastly improved with the treatment, she said.

Ellis, who just started at the Diagnostic

Center in January, will work alongside Jackson-based plastic surgeon Dr. Erica Bass, who comes to the Ruleville center each month to provide injectables such as Botox for wrinkles primarily on the forehead and around the eyes, as well as hyaluronic acid-based fillers used to replace volume lost with aging in cheeks and around the mouth.

Kybella, an injection used to dissolve fat under the chin, is also administered by

Dr. Bass.

All of the procedures Bass provides at the Diagnostic Center are purely cosmetic, but she also offers consults for people interested in plastic surgery. At this time, she operates only in Jackson and not at the North Sunflower Medical Center.

All of the women practitioners at the Sunflower Diagnostic Clinic look forward to seeing the clinic grow as it continues to offer a one-stop shop for basic diagnostics and a place to satisfy skin care needs.

Conveniently, using the clinic is as easy and welcoming as walking in the door.

“One call fits all,” said Pyles.

To have questions answered or to set up an appointment, call 662-756-4000.

The Sunflower Diagnostic Center is located at 101 E. Floyce St., and is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.n

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Bryant Farms

Best of the beef

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Owner of business focuses on quality

illy Bryant’s family has had the good fortune of eating “farm to table” before that phrase became popular, and he wants to expand that opportunity to other families.

Bryant buys Black Angus yearlings, grown locally, and puts them on a special feed program for a couple of months before taking them to be processed. The cattle are kept at the family home along Miles Road in Carroll County.

“I love watching them thrive. I never solicited any business, but over the years, friends knew what I did for my family and wanted to buy meat,” he said.

“I can raise your beef for half the price at a grocery store. It is wrapped, labeled with your name, the type of cut and the date of processing,” Bryant said. “The beauty is you know it’s had no drugs of any kind, no growth hormones or antibiotics, none in the system of the animal. I raise them in a no-stress environment and feed them non-medicated feed. They don’t drink out of a stock pond. I give them the same community water my family gets.”

To buy the meat, customers simply have to tell him whether they want a whole or half beef. The whole will render

about 500-600 pounds of meat, and a half beef will run 250-300 pounds. As soon as the meat is processed and begins the aging process, it has a number and a name and becomes the customer’s, he said. That meat is not mixed with any other beef.

A whole beef will result in about 46 roasts, 120 pounds of ground beef, and about 40 big, thick steaks — T-bones, ribeyes, porterhouse and sirloin, Bryant said. “The customer doesn’t have to have coolers to pick up the meat. It is frozen, and you can put it on your back seat.”

After processing for about 18 days, the

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meat is taken to a butcher. “Right now, I have only one processor and butcher I approve,” he said. “There’s no mystery about my beef. I can show you the mama of the calf from local growers.”

Although he cares for them like pets, Bryant said he considers the cattle food and has no problem with their winding up in the freezer. “It’s just like going to get a cabbage from your garden,” he said.

“They love me. I look forward to getting home every day and feeding my cattle, doing my chores,” he said.

Bryant’s methods have been refined through the years.

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“In the beginning, I tried having them just eat grass and a peanut protein. We didn’t really like the taste, so I began feeding them corn and grain. It builds them up, results in a high-quality beef marbled with fat,” he said.

“My cattle are all gentle. We don’t want any wild ones,” he said.

His definition of low stress even includes keeping flying pests from bothering the cattle. “Being trained in entomology, I have a few tricks. I keep all that under control.”

Although he prefers his own homegrown beef and other meats he has harvested, Bryant said he will purchase from grocery stores when he runs out. “I’m not saying it isn’t good, or safe, but much of what you buy in stores comes from large, crowded feed lots in the Midwest. Cows have a patch put in their ear with growth hormones to make them hungry, and they’re shot up with antibiotics.”

Bryant learned how to feed the cattle from friends active in the 4-H program.

“I asked my neighbor and one of my best friends, John Sabin, about going in together feeding cattle,” he said. “We started a little hobby project to fill our freezers. People heard about it. Two years into the project, John moved to the coast.

I was doing it on my own. I started with three, then four. Before I knew it, I needed a bigger space. Sam Bass, my neighbor to the north, had given me the use of a barn and three acres. Later he sold me an 8-acre lot in front of my home. It was a blessing to be able to buy it.”

Cattle in small numbers are his main focus, but Bryant also raises rabbits for sale. “People who are on strict high-protein, low-fat diets for heart problems buy them,” he said. “We like them. We cook them on the grill like steak.”

He also raises lambs for slaughter in the spring and puts at least 50 chickens in his family’s freezer, along with turkeys, deer and fish from his lake. “All of our kids were raised on meat I raised or killed,” he said.

In his day job, Bryant works as a crop consultant.

“It’s my job to take care of, nurture and squeeze every ounce of yield out of the crops. I like the people, equipment and everything about it. It’s also why I enjoy cattle — taking something small and making it big, watching it grow.”

A move to Greenwood by Bryant’s family — his father, Bill Bryant, was pastor of First Presbyterian Church from 1973 to 1980 — allowed him to get involved in agriculture at a young age. “It was just in my blood. When I was 15, I worked for a crop consultant. I knew I wanted to be outside, and you got to ride a motorcycle.

“The first year, I said I’d never do that again. It’s hot, and hours are long,” he said. But after that first year, he returned, and the work grew on him.

After graduating from Pillow Academy, he went to Mississippi Delta Community College with some friends who would go home in the summer and work on farms.

He would work for crop consultant Bill Harris. After MDCC, Bryant went on to graduate from Mississippi State University in agronomy and became a crop consultant.

“From the age of 15, it’s the only job I’ve ever had. From mid-April until midSeptember, there are no days off,” he said.

“I teach Sunday School at St. John’s, but

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other than that, I’m working.”

In the off season, he discusses with farmers what seed varieties to book for the next season. He also runs and works out. “I get up at 5 a.m., lift weights, and use a rowing machine. It’s all about getting in shape for the next crop season. I work hard at that. Feeding my family

good, high-quality food is part of that fitness,” he said.

Only one child, Hallie, age 14, remains at home with Bryant and his wife, Debbie; five others have grown up and left home. A son, Clayton, is a sophomore at Delta State University. “All of the sons-inlaw are involved in the outdoors, wildlife

or agriculture,” he said.

One day when he retires, Bryant said he plans to raise livestock and have a large garden.

“I just love to watch things grow,” he said.

Bryant can be reached at 662-299-8143 or at íÜÉÄêó~åíÑ~êãë]Öã~áäKÅçãKn

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Ronnie Stevenson

Proud of his roots

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City Council president believes in service

R

onnie Stevenson was taught to give back and serve his community at an early age.

At 56, he has dedicated his life to helping Greenwood in his role as president of the Greenwood City Council and as a businessman.

“My life is good,” he said. “I am thankful for where I started and for where I came from.”

Born in Chicago, Stevenson moved to Greenwood with his brothers and sister when he was 4 years old. He has lived

here ever since. His house is just a block away from that of his parents, Sidney and Jo Evelyn Stevenson.

Ronnie Stevenson attended Greenwood High School and played offensive guard on the football team. At one point, he played with Kent Hull, who went on to a long career in the NFL. “I always liked football but wasn’t ever any good at it,” he said. “I am a big Greenwood High School football fan.

Probably in the last five years, I have only missed about one game, home and away.”

After he graduated high school, Stevenson studied business administration and accounting at Mississippi Valley State University. During this time, he worked in New Orleans for two years in a co-op program with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Although he had always enjoyed and planned to be in business, his first job out of college was teaching science at Threadgill Elementary School. He quickly decided after one year that teaching was not his calling, he said.

Stevenson worked for different finance companies over the years, including American General Finance and City Finance, but for the last 23 years he has worked at Credit Plan of Greenwood Inc. “I just wanted to be in business, and I really wanted to work for myself,” he said.

“I am not self- employed, but I do work for a corporation that treats me as a partner of the company. That is the reason I have been here for 23 years.”

While he was working downtown at City Finance, Stevenson first saw the

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woman who would become his wife, Samaria, walking toward the Howard Street location of Trustmark National Bank.

“I saw her going into the bank in a brand new car — I don’t know if she caught my eye or the car caught my eye — and I had to find out who she was,” he said.

Stevenson asked a friend to introduce him to Samaria. From there, the relationship took off.

“We were at Greenwood High School at the same time but didn’t really know each other,” he said.

Ronnie and Samaria, a registered nurse, have been married for 29 years.

They have four children: Ronald II, 27; Quenton, 23; and 18-year-old twins Lennie and Justin.

“He is a strong family man, and I admire him for his hard work and dedication to his family as well as the Greenwood community,” said Jerome E. Winston of his close friend.

“He is one of those kinds of friends that you can talk to,” Winston said. “He is very informed and knowledgeable.”

Stevenson has also been a Realtor for 30 years. He said his favorite part is seeing how excited people get during a closing on the purchase of a home.

Yet, his most well-known position is serving as president of the City Council. A councilman from Ward 3 for 14 years, Stevenson has served as the council’s president since 2009.

“People know that they can call me at any time, work or cell, and that I am going to address their situation,” he said. “I have never failed to address any person’s situation that has called me.”

Mayor Carolyn McAdams said she has known Stevenson since before she was elected mayor. “I have enjoyed getting to know his mother and father, Samaria, the children — wonderful people,” she said.

McAdams commended Stevenson for his work as McAdams president, especially his fair-mindedness.

“He always does the right thing for the betterment of Greenwood,” she said.

Stevenson has stayed active in the community. He enjoys serving as a deacon at his church, East Percy Street Christian Church, and as a member in nonprofit organizations, such as the Rho Gamma Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and the racial reconciliation group Mission Mississippi.

“I only believe in being in nonprofit organizations. I am in it to serve,” he said.

“If it’s about a profit, the greed gets in there. I don’t believe in that. I only believe in nonprofit and helping the less fortunate.”

In his spare time, Stevenson enjoys playing golf and riding his motorcycle. He is a member of the Greenwood Cobra Motorcycle Club and has taken trips on his Honda Gold Wing to Greenville, Jackson and Dallas.

“Being a youngster, I would just see the motorcycles driving up and down the highway,” he said. “I grew up on Martin Luther King Drive. I would just sit on the porch with grandparents and see motorcycles riding by. I always said, ‘One day I am going to have a motorcycle.’”n

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PageVP Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

Likisha Coleman

‘Expect more’

Davis Elementary School Principal Likisha Coleman says her school’s goal is to receive an “A” rating from the state.

Principal is a motivator who shows love “E

xpect More From Yourself.”

A big sign in the entryway to Davis Elementary School sends students that message every day.

“Davis Elementary is a ‘B’ School,” another sign says, referring to Mississippi’s assessment ratings.

“Davis Elementary’s goal is to be an ‘A’

School!!!” the sign goes on.

These messages are motivational tools for students, and they also represent the motto by which Davis Principal Likisha Coleman lives her life.

An achiever always striving to achieve more, Coleman’s ambition for her students and herself knows no limits.

A mother, an educator, a soldier and a community volunteer, she knows the

meaning of hard work and leads by example. vvv

“I found my way to Greenwood with my mom when I was in high school, shortly after the LA riots,” Coleman said.

Dressed in a smart white winter suit, the 40-year-old educator leans forward across her desk when she talks, carefully

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forming her thoughts into direct statements.

Born in Boston, she grew up in Los Angeles and, in the early 1990s, was a student at George Washington High School. When riots broke out in southcentral LA following the exoneration of police officers in the beating of Rodney King, National Guardsmen patrolled the campus of Coleman’s school.

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Greenwood Office 1705 Highway 82 West Greenwood, MS 38930 Phone: 662-453-6432 Fax: 662-455-1841

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PageVR Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

LIkisha Coleman marches in the 2017 Veterans Day Parade.

“Students were harassed by police,” Coleman said. “They couldn’t discern looters from students, and it was easier to control students.”

Coleman and her mother made the difficult decision to move to Greenwood, where Coleman’s grandmother lived.

Coleman had visited Mississippi during summers growing up, but moving here after Los Angeles, she said, was a shock to the system. “I was accustomed to going to the opera, to museums, going camping,” she said. “I thought I had gone into the dark ages when we moved here.”

Coleman adjusted by playing every sport Greenwood High School offered. A “pretty good basketball player” by her own estimate, she had been heavily into school and extracurricular activities at her previous high school and continued in that vein after moving to Greenwood.

She graduated high school in 1995, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in elementary education at Mississippi Valley State University, went on to Delta State University for a specialist’s degree in administration and supervision, and joined the Army Reserves, kicking off a second career in the military.

Her first job as a teacher was at Dickerson Elementary School in 1999, and she also worked as a bus driver for the school district.

After Dickerson closed, Coleman moved to Threadgill Elementary, where she worked under Principal Percy Powell,

who became an important mentor.

“I talked with him about what it takes to run a school, and he said, ‘I think you’d be a good principal,’” Coleman recalled.

After a year, Powell let his young protégée run one of the buildings at Threadgill, keeping classrooms equipped, helping to recruit highly qualified teachers and generally making sure the building was conducive to learning.

In 2009, having moved from the classroom to administration, Coleman became assistant principal at Davis under Principal Arnold Harris, who was there only a year.

The next year she became principal.

Harris and Powell had taught her well, and Coleman quickly began instituting strategies she learned from her mentors.

“Come to work early. Be the first to arrive and the last to leave. Establish personal relationships with the students.

Document well. Ask: What would you want people to know about you? What would you want to leave behind?”

Coleman smiles as she recites the credo by which she lives and works, a work ethic she passes on to the teachers who work for her, continually improving Davis Elementary. vvv

In 2009, Davis had an “F” rating from the state.

“At that time, the Mississippi

Likisha Coleman takes part in the Delta Sigma Theta “Go Red” heart health event at Greenwood Leflore Hospital in February 2017.

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Department of Education had come in and set some pretty tough standards,” she said. “The requirements were huge.”

Coleman learned that one of the most important tasks of a principal is to sell people — students, parents and employees — on the business of education.

“Can you convince people that they can do this? That’s the key question,” she said.

She and her teaching staff started with the children, rewarding small successes.

“I chose the biggest and baddest kids to influence most,” Coleman said. “I made big and bold claims to teachers and other schools. I told (then-Superintendent) Margie Pulley we wouldn’t ever be an ‘F’ school again.”

Davis raised its rating to a “D,” then a “C.” Over the last eight years, it has received a “B”rating three times.

“We’re giving everything we’ve got to be an ‘A,’” Coleman said.

She acknowledges that the task is not easy and that there’s sometimes pushback for the demands she makes on parents and kids as well as teachers.

“What we’re asking parents and students to do is hard,” she said. She asks every student to attend extended school and Saturday school. During scheduled breaks in the school calendar, her teachers send kids home with “break packets” — work to do over the holiday so that they continue to learn.

Teachers are expected to put in long hours and to develop relationships with students that extend beyond the classroom.

The result of those demands is undeniable. Coleman said she estimates the last 10 valedictorians and salutatorians at

Davis Elementary School Principal Likisha Coleman makes demands on parents and students as well as teachers in her efforts to boost the school. “What we’re asking parents and students to do is hard,” she says.

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Greenwood High School went to Davis.

Those students all memorized the school creed, penned by Coleman, and recited it every morning and at every school function, just as current students continue to do. f=~ã=~=a~îáë=bäÉãÉåí~êó=_ìääéìéI=~åÇ f=~ã=ÇÉëíáåÉÇ=íç=ÄÉ=~=ÅçääÉÖÉ=ÄçìåÇ=ëíìÇÉåí KKK= I= the creed begins. lÄëÉêîÉI= ïçêäÇI ï~íÅÜ=ãÉ=ëç~ê>=it ends.

“I wrote it my first 10 minutes on the job,” she said. “There have been just a few changes over the years.

“You have to believe in something to succeed.” vvv

them tick, at which they can excel, setting them on a path to success.

And the key to success is serving other people.

In her own life, she exemplifies those principles as a school leader, looking for that spark in every individual student at her school, and as a first sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserves, training soldiers.

She is the first female first sergeant in the 173rd Quartermaster Company, headquartered in Greenwood.

“It’s like being a principal all over again,” she said. “We drill every month, but I work at it every day, doing paperwork and other duties.”

Coleman entered the Reserves as an E1. The highest she can go is E-9. At 30 years of service, she hopes to be a sergeant major.

She has completed everything but her thesis in pursuit of an education doctorate degree and hopes to work at central administration, learning the school system “from the bottom to the top.”

“Serving others is powerful,” she said.

In her spare time, in addition to raising her 15-year-old son, a student at Greenwood High School, she teaches tae kwon do at the Youth Center on Wednesday nights, participates in Delta Sigma Theta and American Legion events and serves on the board of United Way of Leflore County.

From time to time, she allows herself some relaxation and takes in a movie, but what truly gives her pleasure is working.

“School and the military are two careers where you’re never off,” she said. “I love encouraging others to do something

great.”

Coleman said people underestimate children, getting in the way of their greatness. “Every child at this school knows their own achievement level and their target for growth,” she said. “They understand the concept of growth. People think they don’t, but they do.”

A stalwart principal and first sergeant who never strays from her mission, Coleman is ultimately driven by a universal motivator that anyone can understand — love.

“I tell students openly that I love them,” she said. “How can you not love them?

Children are honest, and they love everyone until you give them a reason not to.

“In 19 years, I’ve known thousands of children that unconditionally love me back.” n

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What Likisha Coleman believes is this: Every kid has something that makes

Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 PageNMM molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

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PageNMN Greenwood Commonwealth/Thursday, February 22, 2018 molcfib=OMNU =================================================================================================================================================================================

Milwaukee Tool

Looking to add workers

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Manufacturer preparing for expansion G

ood, reliable workers make a big difference for a company. Just ask anyone at Milwaukee Tool, including Shirley Peyton.

As part of her responsibilities at the power-tool company’s Greenwood plant, Peyton puts together events celebrating the accomplishments of individuals among the plant’s 750-person workforce.

She also organizes charitable activities that support the Community Food Pantry, the Salvation Army and the Chris Hope Foundation, which helps fund St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Peyton, who lives in Jackson and works in Greenwood, was part of a group of 180 employees who launched the Greenwood operation in 2001.

“A lot of that group of folks are still with us,” Peyton said. “They set the tone.”

She continued, “I think Milwaukee Tool came to Greenwood and has been able to change the dynamics of the (workforce) culture.” But she and Jack Bilotta, the Milwaukee vice president who manages the plant, would like to locate many more equally reliable potential employees.

There’s always some turnover, and also, the plant is expanding. This year, it will add a new facility — the former Delta Distributing Co. warehouse and office, which is a half-mile down Sycamore Avenue from Milwaukee’s two other buildings in the Greenwood-Leflore Industrial Park.

Bidding on construction is expected to begin in March, and renovations should be finished during 2018, Bilotta said.

Of the buildings currently in use, one covers 175,000 square feet and is used for manufacturing accessories, such as Sawzall blades. The other, 220,000square-foot building is partly occupied by Milwaukee’s tool repair operations, which take up 100,000 square feet. After the building is renovated, all of it will be devoted to manufacturing. Repairs and service will be moved to the new 57,000square-foot site.

Milwaukee plans to add 300 or more jobs in Greenwood, enlarging the workforce to 1,050. Bilotta is looking for a significantly larger, energized and reliable workforce.

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He acknowledged that education deficits and a declining population in general affect the size of the labor pool suitable for industrial employment. But neither of these is the main barrier.

“We can teach them if we can get them to come to work. Attendance is one of our biggest challenges,” he said. “We could grow a lot bigger in Greenwood with an abundant workforce.”

Milwaukee is investing $33.4 million in the Greenwood expansion plus two more in Mississippi — one at the company’s plant in Jackson and another at its distribution facility in Olive Branch.

Everything Milwaukee manufactures or services in the state is shipped out through Olive Branch. Across the three facilities, the company expects to create 660 new jobs in four years.

The company also plans to enlarge its headquarters in Brookfield, Wisconsin, where it will add 350 office jobs and raise the total number of employees there to 1,300. In 2011, the company employed 300 people there, according to Milwaukee Business Journal.

“Our growth has just been phenomenal,” Bilotta said.

Milwaukee Tool, which makes equipment for construction professionals, employs 3,000 people nationwide and 1,600 in Mississippi. Half of the latter are in Greenwood.

In Greenwood, some areas of the plant operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “Our goal is to have a plant that runs 24/5,” Bilotta said. “It’s not about cost. Ideally, it’s what you want to do so that people have a work/life balance.”

The plant, among other benefits, has a clinic that allows employees to get medical treatment without taking a day off to go to the doctor.

Peyton said, “I think what we have here is the best of what we have (available) in Greenwood. Trying to grow beyond that is a challenge.”

And Bilotta said employees who devote themselves to regular attendance and good job performance can expect to be rewarded. “They will succeed,” he said.

“They will move up. They will have growth opportunities in the company.” n

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