Profile 2021

TOGETHER

Better Together | Stronger Together | Being Together

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

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A WORD ON TOGETHERNESS

“Together” is such a loaded word, especially after a year like 2020.

In a time when we’ve felt so isolated, estranged from our former lives, it’s taken some real creativity to cultivate a sense of togetherness. We all need help from others at some point: whether it’s drawing energy from the crowd as you’re bartending or performing, working together to enrich the lives of children or feeding the hungry masses, time has proven that we can’t get by on our own.

This year’s PROFILE is dedicated to the inventive ways members of the LOU Community managed to stay together no matter the odds. As we were forced to retreat in early 2020, and as we began to emerge in the second half of the year, the hope that we’d all be together again is what kept our community going.

PROFILE examines togetherness in its various forms, from telling the story of the barista who smiles at you from behind her mask each morning to spouses who team up to keep their

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PROFILE 2021

Profi le EDITORIAL

Anna Guizerix Jake Thompson

businesses and each other afloat.

In a post-pandemic world, which will hopefully be coming soon, it is my hope that we remember the times we longed to be with other people and will harness the power of togetherness even further.

As you read these pages, these stories will inspire you to help others, keep plodding along and do your part to make our community a better place for all who live here.

Every day, people in the LOU Community are saving lives. They’re advocating for positive change. They’re feeding the hungry. They’re not only surviving, but thriving.

We’re not out of the figurative woods with coronavirus yet, but it might not be out of place to say that we’ve gotten past the worst of it and can look forward to a bright, beautiful tomorrow.

This PROFILE is for you, our readers.

Oxford and Lafayette County is made up of extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. It’s an honor to tell your stories.

ANNA GUIZERIX, MANAGING EDITOR anna.guizerix@oxfordeagle.com

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2021

CONTRIBUTORS Carrie Stambaugh Jenna Mason Jared Redding Joey Brent Neely Mullen

DESIGN Jamie Dawkins Connor Martin-Lively Brittani Myers Kimberly Myers Briana Sansom

MARKETING Delia Childers Amelia Miller

PUBLISHER Rebecca Alexander

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A GUIDE TO PROFILE 2021

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PEOPLE AND PLACES YOU WILL FIND ONLY IN OXFORD BETTER TOGETHER

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Taariq David

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Gretchen Williams

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Megan Kingery Patton

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Hannah Gadd-Ardrey and Thomas Ardrey

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La Cosinita Sabor Latino

STRONGER TOGETHER

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Amanda and Lance Reed

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Bob Lloyd

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The TAVR team

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Health Care Heroes

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Right Track Medical

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Nicholas Air Pilots

BEING TOGETHER

50 26 ON THE COVER Andrew and Allison Ross Photo by Joey Brent Design by Connor Martin-Lively

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Blake Summers & Jonathan Kent Adams

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The Shell Brothers

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Rocket 88

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David and Susan Shaw

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Ross Dental

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Yalobushwhackers

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LHS Bowling

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HOSPITALITY, BRUH: TAARIQ DAVID REVOLUTIONIZES TOGETHERNESS •••

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BY JENNA MASON | PHOTOS BY JOEY BRENT

When Taariq David moved to Oxford, he did not blend in. Over six feet tall, Black and with dreads down to his waist, he stood out as a server at Andy’s Steakhouse, the first place he worked in town. The most common reaction to his presence was confusion.

“You’re not a football player,” people would say. “And you’re not Lil Wayne. What are you doing here?”

That was more than 12 years ago. These days, though he lives in Water Valley, David is a well-known and well-loved member of the Oxford community.

David began his career in the hospitality industry over 25 years ago in Washington, D.C. He started as a server at Mozzarella’s Café, one of Ruby Tuesday’s companies. He quickly moved up to management then worked at some smaller spots in the city. He moved to the island of St. Croix, where he continued working in restaurants, then to Oxford, where he started as a server at Andy’s and worked at Bottletree Bakery.

“Front of house,” he explains, “there wasn’t a lot of male presence, and there definitely wasn’t a Black male presence.” That’s what helped people remember him, though he had to adjust to living in the Deep South.

Sometimes he had a hard time understanding the orders of native Mississippians because of their accents, and coworkers encouraged him to slow down his own speech to the slower speed more common in the South.

After his first year at Andy’s, David left Bottletree Bakery and started working at Bouré in the back of the house. He moved into a position as a day bartender when a colleague moved out of state. He was offered the position because he’d impressed some of the Bouré management while serving them at other restaurants. He worked his way up to floor manager, but was strongly considering leaving Oxford.

“What is the only thing that would keep you here?” his manager asked. He answered, “The only thing that could keep me here is if

John [Currence] gave me a restaurant. And he doesn’t have any more restaurants.”

What David didn’t know at the time was that John Currence was in the process of purchasing Lamar Lounge on North Lamar Boulevard. Within a week, he received a text that Currence wanted to have a meeting with him.

“So, I go sit down in his office, and he goes, ‘You hear any rumors about me buying that place up the street?’ I said, ‘I heard some rumors, but I don’t really pay attention to that stuff here in Oxford.’ He said, ‘Well, I bought it, and I want you to run it for me.’ So I was like, ‘Alright. I guess I’ll be here for a little bit.’

“This is a James Beard Award-winning chef that’s saying he wants me to run his restaurant, and I didn’t even apply for the job,” he explains. “I mean, I would move somewhere for that, so I stayed.”

David continued to spread his hospitality wings while at Lamar Lounge. He began having conversations with entrepreneur Emily Blount about her vision for a new Oxford restaurant on the Square, what would ultimately become the remarkably successful Saint Leo. He credits that enterprise as a great confidence builder.

“It was a great experience as far as just knowledge and experience, you know what I mean? I was able to build something from the ground up. We didn’t even have a name for Saint Leo or a location when we first started talking about it. So, we went through the process of staffing, hiring, the application process, how are we training people, what’s the menu, what’s the focus, how’s this laid out [….] Every aspect of it. From the buildout to everything else. So, it was great to know that, ‘Yo, I can do this.’”

Since then, David has worked as the general manager of GRIT in Taylor, Miss., and as the bar manager at Lost Pizza Company. At the latter, he created a cocktail program where there wasn’t one and trained bartenders PROFILE 2021

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to concoct classic cocktails and original drinks. He also enjoyed taking a step back from running entire restaurants while he considered the next steps of his career.

He began delivering talks on hospitality in partnership with Whole Foods, the first of which drew comparisons between the Oxford restaurant scene and that of Detroit.

He found that Detroit’s fine dining scene was booming, as Oxford’s has in recent years, but the pool of workers in the city lacked the training and knowledge needed to speak authoritatively about the dishes and drinks they were serving.

“That was one of the challenges we had with Saint Leo,” he recalls.

“Breaking the perception of what food can be. All your vegetables don’t have to be cooked to death with no crispness to them. They can still be green and still be delicious and healthy for you.

Just trying to shift that perception — it’s tricky.”

In addition, finding staff members willing to devote time and effort to advancing their knowledge presented

another challenge. Many applicants were college students whose parents paid their bills.

“Kids [in Oxford] are driving Range Rovers; they don’t need jobs. They have cars that I’ll never own. They don’t need a serving job. So, they really don’t care enough to really study about what mezcal is and what makes tequila, tequila.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, another outlet came into focus for David’s passion for the hospitality industry. He had barely worked all year by the time June 2020, rolled around, and he missed the interaction with customers that his position at Lost Pizza Co. afforded.

“The restaurant industry took a big hit with what’s going on right now,” he says. “I never imagined that anything could affect the restaurant industry because it seemed like no matter what was going on in the world, people eat out. You can’t outsource it. I just never thought it would happen.”

So, Taariq decided to take his passion for hospitality virtual. He started David Hospitality Services,

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through which he works with new restaurants on their front and back of house training programs and bar training programs. His latest endeavor, Hospitality Bruhs, runs in a similar vein. Together with chef Sam Bullock of Detroit, David conducts livestream dinner parties and livestream happy hours, how-to videos, recipes and menus, cocktail and food demos, and more. Via the company’s Instagram page (@hospitalitybruhs), customers can watch demos, purchase merchandise, and connect to schedule their own virtual events.

Taariq describes the impetus for this model as completely organic. He had attended high school with his friend Paul Carr’s wife, and Paul went to high school with Sam Bullock. Paul introduced the two when he was hosting a small dinner party with friends during the pandemic. Paul had asked Sam to create a menu for the evening, then he wondered if Taariq could pair a cocktail with Bullock’s peach-glazed pork chops.

The rest is history and, perhaps, the future of hospitality.

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GET ROASTED: HEARTBREAK COFFEE’S ‘SEED TO CUP’ APPROACH •••

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BY JENNA MASON | PHOTOS BY JOEY BRENT

Heartbreak Coffee, now open on Sisk Avenue in Oxford, greets customers with gleaming white subway tile, an airy minimalist vibe, and the aroma of fresh-ground coffee beans. Owner Gretchen Williams held a soft opening for the location the weekend before Christmas, 2020. She says the space turned out better than she could have ever imagined.

Born in Oklahoma City, Gretchen moved to Kansas City at age 5 and lived there through high school. She attended the University of Mississippi from 2004 to 2008, where she studied exercise science.

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“Obviously I didn’t do anything with that,” she laughs, “but that’s actually what took me out to southern California. My last semester in school, I had to do an internship, and I went out there and I worked for the City of Long Beach in the Department of Health. And I didn’t like that at all, but I loved it out there.”

She recounts needing a job and Googling coffee shops in Seal Beach, where she was living, as she’d always been interested in working in a coffee shop. She found Bogart’s Coffeehouse within walking distance and was hired on the spot. She started the same day

she had applied.

Gretchen’s interest in coffee-roasting began in her own kitchen.

“The first couple times I did it was just on the stovetop on a burner, and I had no idea what I was doing. I roasted it, and I took it right off of the pan, and I brewed a cup and it was absolutely disgusting. And that was before I realized that you’re supposed to let it de-gas for 48 hours after you pull it off the roaster because it will be disgusting.”

Rather than give up, though, Gretchen threw herself into learning more. “It became a passion, and I was

more interested in why certain coffees tasted better than others,” she says.

“That’s what drove my passion: to figure it out and learn the science of it.”

After much research, Gretchen started Heartbreak Coffee in 2013 in Long Beach, California. “It was kind of just a hobby,” she explains. “I was roasting on a little half-pound table roaster inside my house and started selling coffee in 6 ounce jars because, to roast a full pound, it would’ve taken me almost an hour. Everybody was like, ‘This is such a cute idea,’ and I was like, “This is just time and cost effective for me.”

She began her business by selling at farmers markets and hosting pop-ups in her backyard. She would have a movie night, for example, and brew coffee and sell jars of coffee. She also held pop-ups at a few local businesses like West Elm, Urban Outfitters, and a flower shop in Seal Beach called Pebbles and Pop. Gretchen describes getting a lot of pushback from the local coffee community in Long Beach at that time because she was new to the trade.

“But you know,” she muses, “I think

I’m grateful that I didn’t learn somebody else’s way of roasting. I really had to figure it out. You know, I had to understand the roasting process, what was happening chemically to the beans throughout it and also how to manipulate the roast. It was all trial and error.”

When people started ordering more Heartbreak Coffee, she upgraded to a five-pound roaster to accommodate the volume of requests. “I got the

Volkswagen bus and did some pop-ups at different businesses in Long Beach.

And I decided to move back [to Oxford] about three and a half years ago.”

Since then, Gretchen has roasted and sold coffee in various locations in Mississippi. “This is my fifth location and hopefully the last, because that thing [her roaster] weighs 880 pounds, and it’s not fun to move.”

She anticipated that moving back to

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Oxford would be a challenge because coffee culture had already taken root out west.

“People [in California] already know what specialty coffee is. They’re used to drinking, you know, maybe lighter roasted coffee. So I knew that that was gonna be an adventure in itself, getting people used to drinking lighter roasted coffee and also just the idea—what is specialty coffee, what is this artisanal way of crafting coffee.”

She appreciates the time she spent selling at farmers markets after moving back to Mississippi. Doing pour-over coffees on site and selling beans directly to customers allowed her to converse with them about why she does what she does. The new location also features a pour-over bar so customers can “come in and see the roaster, see the roasting process, and […] have that experience and just have conversations.”

“There’s intention from seed to cup,” she explains. “Who we’re buying it from. The farmers, making sure they get paid a fair wage. Also, intention in the roasting process. Roasting it to accentuate the natural notes and nuances within those beans, to how we

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brew it. We only have one size of everything here, and that’s because there’s an intention in the ratio, the coffee-to-milk ratio.”

“It can be a little intimidating or confusing at first, but I think also people are excited to learn more.”

Heartbreak Coffee sources from providers who either have their own farm or work directly with the farmers.

They source only specialty grade beans, which are in the top 20% of coffee in the world. The farmers “hand-pick the cherries at a certain ripeness,” she explains, “instead of just going in there and tilling them all at the same time.

That’s going to make a difference in your cup.”

All their coffee beans are 100% organic and fair trade.

Heartbreak Coffee also sells a wide variety of baked goods, all made inhouse, including vegetarian and vegan options. Oxonian Stevie Self does most of the baking, but Gretchen is in charge of the gluten-free vegan doughnuts.

“One of the first years that I did Double Decker,” Gretchen recounts, “I remember thinking, ‘Well, I have coffee stuff, but it would be nice if I had some food or something out there, too. So I

tried my hand at making some glutenfree vegan doughnuts, and people loved them and started asking for them.” She credits Caffeinated Kitchen in California for inspiring her recipe.

Heartbreak also sources breakfast burritos from Ale Santiago, who is in the process of starting a food truck here called Sleepy Cactus. Ale prepares all the tacos for Heartbreak Coffee and for Uptown Coffee, which also sells Heartbreak brand coffee. Gretchen owns fifty percent of the latter business with hopes to purchase the rest very soon.

For Gretchen, offering vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free food options was a must, given that no one else in Oxford seemed to cater to those lifestyles. She also is vegetarian and missed the options she enjoyed while living in California.

Gretchen is grateful for the warm reception she has had in Oxford, and she looks forward to growing and introducing more Oxonians to specialty coffee. Heartbreak Coffee, located at 900 Sisk Avenue, Suite E, is open Monday through Saturday from 7am to 5pm and Sundays from 8am to 5pm.

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MULTI-FACETED MEGAN: HOW KINGERY PATTON KEEPS IT TOGETHER, WITH A LITTLE HELP •••

BY JENNA MASON | PHOTOS BY JOEY BRENT

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Megan Kingery Patton was born and raised in Oxford and graduated with an art degree from the University of Mississippi in 2002. When she began working as a server at Ajax, she expected the gig to be temporary.

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“I was going to be a famous artist,” she laughs. “Here we are in 2021, I’m still there.”

Megan had previously worked at Kalo’s, a Greek restaurant that has since closed, while she was in college.

She doesn’t mind having such a long tenure at Ajax, though, despite the myriad ways her life has changed since she started. “It’s comforting. I mean, one of the guys, he’s like a brother to me.”

Of Ajax owner Randy Yates, she says, “You couldn’t ask for a better boss. He always has your back, you know? And he’s always been very supportive of any life goings-on that you need time off for.”

In fact, many life-changing events happened at Ajax. She met her husband, Matt Patton, while she was working the bar one evening. A musician, Matt was in town for a gig. They chatted during her shift, and she told a coworker that night that she would marry him. She and Matt held their wedding reception at the restaurant.

An adoptive parent, Megan was also working a football weekend when she got the call that her daughter’s birth mother had gone into labor.

“I just remember running – I got the phone call – running through the dining room. It was packed, and I was running. Customers were cheering for me as I left. I was like, ‘I’m leaving! My baby’s being born!’”

That was in 2014. In 2018, the couple decided to get licensed as foster parents, and they have fostered four children so far. They are currently fostering a teenage girl.

“She’s been with us just under a month, so it’s new. It’s hard, but we keep doing it. We feel like it’s what we’re supposed to do.”

Megan adds, emphatically, “There’s a big stereotype with older kids in foster care. They get a bad rap. Not to say I wasn’t a little nervous about it, but they’re just like any other normal teenager. I think there’s a bad stigma to it.”

In addition to being a familiar face at Ajax, Megan is also known around Oxford and Water Valley, where she lives, for her impressive, hand-sewn quilts. She began to learn quilting in 2009, inspired by her grandmother. “She didn’t teach me, but I hated that artwork to end with her. So I just taught myself.”

She maintains a side business selling her pieces, which has helped her and Matt during the pandemic.

“I sold a lot last year, which was

great because Ajax as closed for so long. It was money I needed.” Matt plays bass for the widely known Drive By Truckers, so he has been out of work since March of 2020.

“We were in the two worst industries to be in [during a pandemic],” she explains. “A musician and a restaurant worker.”

Megan admits that returning to Ajax during the pandemic has been stressful and scary. She constantly has to remind people to wear masks and not to park in the restaurant’s curbside parking spaces. And she worries about working every day because she fears she might contract Covid-19. There have been some positive changes, too, though.

“We all pool tips now. Everything’s different. But it’s worked out well.

My table is also that other waitress’s table, so we all help each other. And I kind of like it, to be honest. I’m sure at some point it will all go back to the way it was, but for now, I feel like it’s working out pretty good for everybody, and everybody’s been happy with our new system.”

This collaborative dynamic has been helpful for Megan as she navigates fostering a new child.

Often, social workers will call while she is in the middle of a serving shift.

“I’ll be in there talking to the social worker while someone’s watching my tables. You know?

They all know, they’re all there to help me out, because they know I’ve got a lot going on right now.”

In regards to her hopes for 2021, Megan expressed, “I’m hoping to get that vaccine next month! I cannot wait. I want my dad to get it – he’s the first person I’m worried about. Then I’ll get it. I want my husband to get his job back….It’s just a lot of unknown. Everyone in his industry [is] just on hold, waiting to find out.”

She adds, with a laugh that underscores the stress of working in restaurants right now, “And I want people to be nicer.”

For a person that Randy Yates describes as “the conscience” of Ajax, that’s not too much to ask.

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CROSSTOWN CHOIRS: ARDREYS WORK IN HARMONY •••

BY NEELY MULLEN | PHOTOS BY JOEY BRENT

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What do you think of when you think about high school?

For some, squeaky linoleum floors or plastic lunch trays come to mind; for others, it may be backpacks bouncing, new sneakers and the prospect of finally stepping out into the world as your own person.

If you’re lucky, you remember a great teacher or two — a teacher like Hannah Gadd-Ardrey or Thomas Ardrey, a pair of music educators bringing up a new generation of Oxford-area students to understand music not only as an art form, but as a tool to understand themselves and the world around them.

“Music can put things into perspective that other things can’t,” Gadd-Ardrey said. “[…]

It’s not only about intrinsically feeling how music can affect change in you, but using that to change the world and using music as a positive tool for change and to make the world a better place.”

The married couple’s relationship started as many do — not as a love story, but, as Ardrey puts it, as a “like story.”

The two met and became friends while pursuing their master’s degrees at the University of Mississippi. Gadd-Ardrey, who grew up in Amory, entered the graduate program after competing her undergraduate degree at the University; Ardrey, an Alabama native, was new to Mississippi by way of Auburn University.

“We knew each other, and then I chased after her for several months,” Ardrey said.

After finishing their graduate degrees, the pair found themselves in a unique position — the opportunity to start their careers as music educators at rival schools in the same ZIP code.

“What kind of a one-in-a-million chance that would be for two teachers, not only just teachers in general, but as music teachers?” GaddArdrey said. “That’s pretty unheard of in a small place like Oxford. And so, yeah, I think it was just kind of fate that we ended up meeting and then getting jobs two miles away from each other at rival schools.”

Ardrey, who teaches choir, music appreciation and Advanced Placement music theory at

Oxford High School, was offered his position first; a year later, Gadd-Ardrey, who was student teaching at Lafayette Middle and High Schools, took a full-time position with the district as choir director and music history teacher.

The rest, they say, is history: the couple have served in their roles for seven and six years, respectively, and have distinguished themselves individually as educators.

In 2019, they earned a pair of impressive accolades, as Ardrey was named Mississippi’s Young Music Educator of the Year, and GaddArdrey was awarded the coveted title of Mississippi Teacher of the Year.

Before meeting each other, the pair were no strangers to living in a musical household—the couple says music was a generational fact of life.

For Gadd-Ardrey, daughter of a music teacher and a self-taught mechanic, it began on her family’s farm.

“I grew up with music all around me,” she said. “My aunt has an organ in her living room. […] It was just weird, like sitting in a living room, just a big organ. It’s just an electric organ.

It’s in there. And then you look outside and you see horses, and you’re like, ‘What, where am I?’ It’s a whole alternate universe. But again, when you’re growing up, you don’t realize that is abnormal, or that everyone in your family is musical.”

Similarly, Ardrey, who grew up playing in his high school’s band, was slow to realize his family’s musical singularity.

“In middle school and high school getting to sing in the church choir with my mom, or getting to talk with my brother-in-law about why this chord progression in this song is awesome or whatever, I grew up thinking ‘Oh, these are normal conversations that people have with their families,’” he said.

Now married, the pair say that their house is like a symposium, bringing their two distinct musical styles to a common ground. The couple says that, although their schools lie only two miles apart, their student bodies and audiences exist in different realms. This is reflected in their music choices; according to Gadd-Ardrey, her PROFILE 2021

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husband believes in “making music to make beautiful music.” She does the same, but capitalizes on the “cute factor” that comes along with directing 12-year-olds.

“The difference between our two schools, I think, and our audiences, is [that] Oxford is a little more transient,” she said. “You have professor’s children, you have people that are coming in and out; not a lot of generational ties. But in Lafayette County, I’ve got people who’ve lived here for five and six generations, more than that.”

However different their audiences and students, the two find themselves collaborating often, creating new traditions to bridge the gap between the rival schools.

“Our schools come together for the Crosstown Classic every year for the football game, and we sing the national anthem together,” GaddArdrey said. “It was really cool [to] 18

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show people that even though it’s the Crosstown Classic and you’re rivals that you can still have this community feel to an event that would otherwise feel pretty cutthroat.”

But for the couple, the best parts of their jobs aren’t the awards, praise or even the chances they get to collaborate with one another — they are the relationships they form with their students.

“It took me a long time to realize that teaching was my dream job,” Gadd-Ardrey said. “And it took me a long time to realize that it was okay to be a teacher, that you didn’t have to be a doctor, you don’t have to be a lawyer […] It’s where you can make a profound impact on someone’s life that won’t just last them for that day, but it could potentially impact the rest of their life.”

“I guess that’s my big thing,” she continued. “Just giving everyone a place to feel included.”

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TASTE OF HONDURAS: SOLIZ SISTERS BRING HONDURAS TO OXFORD TO OXFORD •••

BY JENNA MASON | PHOTOS BY JOEY BRENT

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To friends and family, they’re known as Jackie and Fafa. Together with sisters Janeth and Anyi, the Soliz sisters own and run La Cosinita Sabor Latino, a Honduran restaurant at the “three-way”

intersection of North Lamar Boulevard and Molly Barr Road.

Fafa, whose given name is Fátima, was the first of the sisters to move to the United States. She migrated to Oxford

in 2005. She is also the youngest of her siblings. After living in Oxford for eight months, she moved to New Orleans and worked cleaning houses and nannying for a family she still loves deeply. But she PROFILE 2021

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missed living in Oxford. She returned in 2008 and has never left. She doesn’t want to leave.

The same year, Jackie came to join Fafa in Oxford. She describes themselves as daughters of a single father who lost their mother 24 years ago. She admires her younger sister for making the leap to the U.S. first.

“She wanted me to come first,” Jackie explains, “but I didn’t have the courage because I had small children [in Honduras]. So, she decided she would be the ‘trampolín,’ (a Spanish expression for a ‘springboard’) to bring the rest of us here.”

Jackie arrived at five in the morning on July 28, 2008, and she went to work on July 29. The two sisters worked in Oxford cleaning houses, but they kept the memory of their mother alive by cooking her Honduran recipes at home and for friends. Jackie describes how her mother would cook and sell food from inside her home.

“She would cook and sell, cook and sell. And she would tell us, ‘Learn. Learn how to do this because one day it will help you.’”

“And we love it,” Jackie adds. “We all love it.”

The idea for La Cosinita grew organically. The two sisters cleaned houses during the week, and on the weekends, friends would ask, “Can you cook us something the Honduran way? Can you make us tamales? Can you make us something Honduran, and we’ll pay you?”

As more and more friends asked for meals, Fafa and Jackie began to advertise their cooking by putting 22

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announcements on Facebook. They alternated cooking in each other’s kitchens and always sold out.

“There was no other Honduran food in town,” Jackie explains.

Friends began to suggest they open a restaurant.

Jackie says that they had kept their eye on their current location for a long time, but every time she saw it was available, someone had just rented the space. Then one day, she came to fill her gas tank at the station across the street, even though it wasn’t close to her house.

“It was five in the afternoon,” she recounts. “And I don’t know why I went to get gas so far from home. But I saw that the owner was closing the location and putting up a ‘For Rent’ sign.”

She went over to ask the property manager if he was renting the space.

“Do you want it?” he asked. And he gave her the key on the spot.

“It’s incredible,” Jackie reflects.

“Incredible.”

Fafa and Jackie were still cleaning houses, but they spent their evenings and weekends painting and preparing the space. They bought tables and chairs one at a time, using their earnings from cleaning. They purchased nothing on credit. They remember many sleepless nights.

They both credit their husbands for unwavering support.

“You can do this,” they would tell their wives. “Follow this dream!”

Jackie marvels at the quick success they have had, especially having opened in the middle of a pandemic that has challenged the entire

restaurant industry. They regularly serve customers who’ve driven all the way from Tupelo or New Albany for their food, since no Honduran places exist there. Jackie is deeply grateful.

In large part she attributes the success of La Cosinita to their simple, authentic cuisine, which differs greatly from the Mexican fare most Americans are accustomed to.

“In Honduras,” she explains, “we don’t eat spicy food, though we do have salsas on the side. In some foods, we add a little pinch of sugar. For example, in spaghettis, we make them with a little touch of sugar. Soups are made with coconut milk, too. So it’s different. Different, but delicious.”

It’s that difference that makes customers eager to explore the various dishes that La Cosinita offers. Each order is made on the spot; even the tortillas are prepared by hand to order.

Fafa and Jackie source many ingredients directly from Honduras, including a banana soda that has become wildly popular. They also craft aguas frescas from the same fruits one would find in their home country: pineapple, mango and passionfruit.

In the four months since they opened

La Cosinita, which means ‘little kitchen’ in Spanish, certain dishes have become local favorites.

“Americans love our tacos,” Jackie says. “Tacos hondureños. And our steak quesadillas. Hondurans [love] the baleadas and the pollo con tajadas.

Mexicans tend to come for the soups and the tacos mexicanos that we make.

Because we make them by hand to order. They come here for that.”

In addition to these delicacies, customers can find pastelitos stuffed with chicken, rice, and vegetables, and sweet fried plátanos, green bananas native to Honduras. Despite ongoing construction on the storefront, La Cosinita is open for takeout and inperson dining Monday through Saturday from 6:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

When asked about their hopes for the future, Jackie smiles. She wants to continue to build a relationship with the Oxford community, though opening new locations isn’t out of the picture.

“That would be the dream!” Jackie exclaims. “But for now, we don’t aspire to so much. We want La Cosinita to food.”

“And,” she adds, “we want people to become more well-known here as the best in terms of Central American be glad to come here.”

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STRONGER TOGETHER

LEANING ON EACH OTHER THROUGH LIFE’S HIGHS AND LOWS PROFILE 2021

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BLESSED TO BE A BLESSING: AMANDA AND LANCE REED SERVE OTHERS WITH A SMILE •••

BY JAKE THOMPSON | PHOTOS BY JOEY BRENT

M

“My pleasure” is a phrase commonly used by Chick-Fil-A employees, but for Lance and Amanda Reed it is something they truly live their live by.

The couple moved to Oxford over 11 years ago to open a location of the popular chicken sandwich fast food restaurant, but their impact over the last decade-plus has reached beyond providing fried chicken and lemonade

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six days a week.

“I think that truly is our heart,” Lance said. “The mantra ‘blessed to be a blessing,’ I fee like certainly we’ve been blessed and God’s blessed us in many ways and we want to be a blessing to others we come in contact with, especially in the community.”

When the Reeds moved from Alexandria, Louisiana in 2010 they were

on their way to making Oxford a place where they felt like they have lived their entire lives.

One of the first ways they began making an impact in the community was the creation of Oxford’s Princess Ball in 2012. The event serves as a way to bring fathers and their daughters together for a special evening.

Reed started hosting it inside the

dining room of Chick-Fil-A and would have different seatings throughout the night, which would quickly fill up. The demand from fathers wanting to treat their daughters to a special night together necessitated a need for Reed to look for a more practice space to hold the event.

The idea came from an event that William F. “Woody” Faulk, ChickFil-A vice president of innovation and new ventures, would host in Atlanta.

Reed approached Yoknapatawpha Arts Council executive director Wayne Andrews and others and came up a plan to hold the event at The Powerhouse.

Chef John Currence and Elizabeth Heiskell have also joined in helping put on the annual event over the years.

The Princess Ball has drawn over 1,000 fathers and their daughters in recent years and taken place over multiple nights.

“We just kind of thought, ‘Hey, what can we do community-wide,’” Lance said. “We didn’t know what to expect. We learned a lot. …It’s kind of taken on a life of its own. It’s been really, really crazy.”

Reed once again provided to the community last year when he helped provide free face coverings during the COVID-19 pandemic. In early April of last year, the Oxford Board of Aldermen voted a mask mandate into affect, requiring masks or facial coverings to be worn indoors at businesses at all time.

Once the Double Decker Arts Festival was canceled for 2020, there were all the shirts made for the 25th annual weekend event that were of no use. That was until Reed came up with an idea to turn the shirts into

facial coverings with the help of someone in Memphis who was making his staff masks already.

Partnering with the City of Oxford and Visit Oxford, Reed turned the Double Decker t-shirts into 7,000 face coverings that residents picked up in a drive-thru at the Lafayette County Multipurpose Arena.

“We just wanted to give back in that situation,” Lance said. “We didn’t realize at the time what was going on with the pandemic and all of that. It was just a way that we felt like we could jump and serve and give back.”

Amanda Reed has also found a way to give back and support the community through her inspirational podcast called “Living out Loud with Alley and Amanda.”

The podcast, which she co-hosts with Alley Bell is to encourage women in everyday life and their faith. New episodes air monthly and they cover a wide range of topics with a guest who appears on each episode.

“Whether you’re a mom. Whether you’re married. Whether you’re single or you’re a college girl. I think that a lot of times we feel like we have to have it all together,” Amanda said. “Especially with social media it looks like everybody does but really no one does and we all need encouragement.”

The podcast started five and a half years ago and can be found on all major podcast streaming services.

Due to the pandemic forcing families to quarantine and shelter in place for long periods of time, Reed’s podcast served as source of advice for women who were feeling the strains on relationships “Alley and I have kind of found our PROFILE 2021

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groove over time,” Amanda said.

Whether it is through food, father“Because when we first started this was daughter dances, protection during a all knew and we were learning how to pandemic or via audio with words of do it. We are still learning.” encouragement and advice, the Reeds

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have proven they are in it for the long haul when it comes to giving back to a community that has provided them with so much over the last 11 years.

WILDROSE, BIG DREAMS: BOB LLOYD AND NELLI LEAN ON EACH OTHER IN TRYING TIMES •••

O

Oxonians are fortunate to live in a town whose local fabric includes those that don’t live here year-round. The LOU community is not whole without the University of Mississippi and, most importantly, its students and faculty and those alumni that go above and beyond to support Ole Miss and visit Oxford

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BY RHES LOW whenever they get a chance. They patronize restaurants, employ the help of local realtors to purchase homes, attend University events, and take advantage of local nationally renowned businesses such as Blue Delta Jeans or Wildrose Kennels. The LOU border extends beyond the county line and

reaches into communities across Mississippi and let’s just say it, the world.

Bob Lloyd is one of those citizens. He became endeared to Oxford when he attended Ole Miss and has graciously loved and supported the University ever since. Bob resides in Canton, with his wife Beth and their English lab, Nelli.

He is an avid hunter and outdoorsman and to him, a good dog is more than a pet; it’s a member of the family and a participant in their lifestyle. Based upon those parameters, choosing a new fourlegged family member is not a decision to be made lightly. Bob did extensive research and visited several kennel facilities across the country before he landed on a place right here at home.

“When the time came to prepare for

raising another dog, I knew two things that were equally important; a Labrador that could calmly comingle with people and be a complete gun-dog in the field.

After visiting several British Lab kennels, Wildrose Kennels became the clear choice for what I was looking for. A female yellow Lab that could be an everyday companion no matter where life took us while also performing in the outdoors. A Gentleman’s Gun Dog

nurtured by the positive training approach designed by Mike Stewart and company.”

When Nelli joined the Lloyd family in 2017, Bob began her education the minute they drove away from the Oxford Wildrose facility. He continued his work with her for seven months at home before she went back to Wildrose for an additional 4 months of instruction. The training is integral to developing the

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discipline and respect a canine family member deserves- it’s fitting Bob uses the term rearing rather than training.

He takes great pride in the process and feels their relationship is a direct result of the training process. For those of us that do not have animal companions (me), we don’t quite understand this level of commitment, but Bob puts it in perspective, “The training process is similar to how a parent invests time, love and wisdom with a child; or an employer with an employee,” Lloyd said. “If they feel your patience, love, trust and respect, the chances go way up for success. Having time to do these things with Nelli was a gift.”

The Wildrose training methods coupled with Bob’s patience and care created an immediate connection between Nelli and her owner. That relationship has blossomed over the years as they have continued to work and play together. Bob and his wife Beth share this type of relational respect for all of God’s creations from animals to people to the land.

It’s that respect and nurture that has helped them through the restrictive nature of 2020. Though their “day to day” didn’t change much, it’s that “day to day” that kept them sane.

There have been a lot of things they haven’t been able to do, but having to stay put has offered them a greater appreciation for each other, their farm and of course, Nelli.

“Yes, Beth and I miss our friends, interaction with people, and of course Ole Miss baseball this past year, but there is always something to do on the farm,” he said. “We manage the land, trees, wildlife, fish 32

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and all kinds of farm animals. It keeps us busy and provides a shelter away from the city and COVID. Being semi-isolated on the farm gave us more time to spend training Nelli and all the animals we call family. I know that is not the case for most folks and we are extremely fortunate.”

Bob, Beth and Nelli have found much more than just shelter there during COVID. “Our community has been the farm. The endless projects to improve the land, buildings and animals that live here. People everywhere have renewed interest in investing in their homes during COVID. When times are tough it’s human instinct to protect your shelter. We have enjoyed doing that tirelessly during the COVID months but are looking forward to getting past it!”

Getting past COVID is at the top of everyone’s wish list. That said, according to Bob, amidst any hardship (if we pay attention), we gain a greater appreciation for what we have and who we are – even for those like Bob and Beth, who likely had the wisdom to recognize that before COVID. Additionally, for dog owners and non-dog owners alike, Bob’s particular insight on rearing a dog is especially applicable during 2020 and 2021.

“With respect to COVID and my relationship with Nelli; it is a blessing waking up with your best friend that is always happy, never has a bad day, and is willing to go to the end of the world for you. Everybody should be lucky enough to have such a bright place in their life.

Having her as a constant

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companion during the pandemic has been extra special. With all the political unrest and division in our Country, we don’t watch the news or TV in general very much anymore. And with the threat of COVID everywhere, we have stayed close to home and learned new adventures to do together like; shed hunting in March, bass-boat fishing in

early summer, beach training in July, and ‘honoring’ with the farm animals this past fall.”

(For those not in the know: honoring is when a dog is taught to be respectful of another dog on point by mimicking that position when hunting as to not interfere with the hunt. It’s a practice typically not applied to farm animals,

but one Bob said is beneficial.)

Bob’s relationship with Nelli exemplifies making the most of what you have. Some of us have more, some of us have less but in review of their relationship, it’s what you do with what you’re given that defines who you are and helps you persevere. Even when the entire world shuts down.

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SAVING LIVES IS TEAMWORK: TAVR TEAM REVOLUTIONIZES OFFERINGS AT BAPTIST MEMORIAL HOSPITAL - NORTH MISSISSIPPI •••

BY CARRIE STAMBAUGH | PHOTOS COURTESY OF BAPTIST MEMORIAL HOSPITAL - NORTH MISSISSIPPI Caring for the hearts of north Mississippians is the passion of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement or TAVR team at Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi. During the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic the hospital rolled out the new minimallyinvasive heart procedure that is already changing the lives of patients across the region.

A TAVR procedure replaces a damaged heart valve without an extensive open-heart surgery, allowing a patient to spend less recovery time in the hospital as well needing less rehabilitation after the procedure. To date, 10 of these procedures have now been done at the Oxford hospital by Dr. Kevin Hall, an interventional cardiologist with Stern Cardiovascular. While Dr. Hall performs the procedure in the operating room, TAVR is really the culmination of a collaboration between an entire team of doctors, nurses, and technicians across several specialties.

The TAVR procedure treats a common heart condition that affects one out of every eight individuals over the age of 75, according to Hall, who said an estimated 2.5 million Americans currently suffer from the disease.

Symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, pain and swelling in the feet and ankles. Patients often are so short of breath they cannot do even simple tasks like walking to the mailbox, he said.

“The average patients’ survival is two years without treatment, it is vitally important at the onset of symptoms, or ideally before, that we are able to help these patients and lead them toward some type of treatment solution,” said Hall.

“Before TAVR came along, the only way we could replace the valve was by open heart surgery. Now we’ve advanced to a day and age where we can replace the aortic valve by a single puncture in an artery in the groin. We can travel up the aorta, which is the main highway to the heart and replace

the valve in the heart in minimally invasive ways.”

A TAVR replacement takes about an hour compared to four hours for open heart valve replacement and a patient is only required to stay overnight in the hospital versus several days. Usually within hours of the procedure, a patient can tell a big difference.

“We give them back their quality of life. That is what is so gratifying about this procedure. They come to you at their worst and they have so many symptoms. This intervention alone is able to get them out enjoying life again,” he said. “We want to give good outcomes to our patients. We have a great team of doctors and heart team members that are dedicated to our patients and we are really making sure that our patients and their families have good outcomes as it comes to aortic stenosis and the treatment of it.”

TAVR nurse coordinator Amy Parker is at the center of that team, ensuring a complex choreography of tests, appointments and consultations, all take place long before a patient is wheeled into the operating room. Parker first began working with heart patients at Baptist in 2015, on the Intensive Care

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Step Down Unit, where many openheart patients spend time after a surgery.

In 2018, she joined the staff of local cardiovascular thoracic surgeons and worked in the cardiovascular surgery clinic until asked to become the TAVR nurse coordinator.

Parker’s job is to lead the patient through the complex process of tests that determine not only if the patient is a good candidate for the procedure but what type of valve they will get. After a patient is referred to the program Parker schedules them to see Dr. Hall for an evaluation and to discuss the procedure.

If they agree to proceed, next comes a battery of high- and low-tech tests and more visits with the surgery team, which Parker also arranges.

“We try to get the patient in to do the testing and the visits in the least number of visits possible. With our cardiovascular thoracic and Stern group being here in the hospital it really helps. We can usually get their office visit and testing the same day. That is a really big help for the patient,” said Parker. She noted many of the patients who receive TAVR do not live in Oxford but in the surrounding areas. Previously they had to travel even further – to the Baptist

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Memorial Memphis location to have the procedure done.

Tests include an echocardiogram, a pulmonary heart test, a heart catheterization, a carotid artery ultrasound, as well as tests to classify the severity of heart failure and determine the patient’s frailty, or likelihood to survive an extended time period beyond the surgery. One of the most important tests is a coronary computed tomography angiogram (CTA), which uses contrast dye and CT technology to obtain highresolution images of the moving heart and its valves.

Parker said these images are sent to the valve manufacturers themselves, who consult with doctors to determine exactly which type of artificial valve would be the best for the patient.

Baptist currently uses one of two companies - Medtronic or Edwards – to manufacture the valve. “That’s kind of a joint effort there,” said.

Once the tests are all completed, Parker schedules a “conference” with a team of six to eight doctors, nurses, and technicians who will help perform the procedure. This includes Baptist Surgery Director Dr. David Russell, Dr. Hall, cardio thoracic surgeons Dr. Paul

Levy and Dr. Eva Proctor along with anesthesiologists and the heart catheterization team, which includes Director Dr. Bobby Robinson.

Once this team has gone over the results of those tests and determined the type of valve Dr. Hall will see the patient again, which Parker also sets up. At this visit the patient is given the “game plan” and all his or her questions are answered. Then, finally time to schedule the procedure, Parker manages this also.

When surgery day finally arrives, much of that conference team is in the hybrid operating room, although the procedure is minimally invasive the entire staff is prepared for an openheart procedure, should it need to happen, said Parker.

Parker said the multi-disciplinary team at Baptist has come together, despite the challenges of the pandemic and starting a new program in its midst, to create seamless, patient-focused process that has worked well so far.

Parker said they are still perfecting it.

“They were all fully onboard with going ahead with the program and being there for it,” she said, “Everyone has been working really well together.”

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BAPTIST MEMORIAL HOSPITAL - NORTH MISSISSIPPI COVID-19 TEAM PROFILES

BY CARRIE STAMBAUGH As the COVID-19 pandemic has raged around the world Oxford, taking more than 430,000 American lives, Oxford and North Mississippi have not been spared. Baptist Memorial Hospital - North Mississippi began seeing their first cases of patients with the virus in March.

Hospital administrators and staff quickly mobilized to make changes to hospital protocols to treat the incoming wave of infections, implementing measures to not only provide the highest-quality and cutting-edge care to save lives but to protect other patients and staff from contracting the disease.

Teams of doctors and nurses have been designated to care for the patients.

CEO Bill Henning said an entire floor and part of a second, have been designated for COVID patients only. In addition, parts of the Emergency Department and Intensive Care Unit have also been set aside to treat those patients.

According to Henning from April to November the hospital admitted 725 patients with COVID-19 as either the primary or secondary diagnosis. In December cases began to surge, with the hospital averaging between 40 go 50 patients a day, of those 8-9 patients are treated in the ICU daily.

That pace is now slackening to around 30 to 35 patients per day. Final numbers are still pending for the month.

ANNE CLAIR HENSON

Anne Clair Henson, of Batesville, is the nurse manager of the COVID-19 Floor. Henson has been a nurse at Baptist for the last decade and oversees the nursing staff responsible for caring for the COVID patients.

“Teamwork has always been important but now more so than ever.

Our team has really pulled together to support each other and to make our patient’s hospital stay away from the family the best experience possible,” she said.

One of the biggest challenges for patients beyond their illness is not being able to have the bedside support of their family.

Nurses have been going to extraordinary lengths to keep family members updated and connected.

“We make phone calls to update family members on their loved ones and conditions,” said Henson, noting they’ve been using FaceTime to allow family members to see their loved 38

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ones. When end of life situations arise, she said the Palliative Care team steps in to help make special arrangements for families.

Henson said she has been doing her best to maintain a work/home life balance as the p a n d e m i c continues. “Even though our coworkers and patients are always on our mind, we appreciate and enjoy the time we get to spend with our families,” she said. The same mix of patients, coworkers and family is what has kept her going, she added.

The public, she said, can help out the staff by taking the virus seriously.

“Stay home if you are not feeling well,” she said. “The virus is real and it does not discriminate who it affects.

Just because someone you know has a mild case doesn’t mean that you or your loved one would have the same experience with it.”

JENNIFER GARDNER Dr. Jennifer Gardner is a pulmonologist and a critical care physician with the Baptist Medical Group. Gardner, who is from Oxford, has been with the hospital for almost eight years. The effect COVID-19 has on a patient’s lungs has made her one of the most in-demand physicians in the entire hospital during the pandemic. She is She began treating her first COVID-19 patients in March.

While the number of cases has grown since then, the severity and the longevity of the disease has not. “The sheer volume of critically ill patients is much greater now, and we’re seeing more critically ill patients who are younger and were previously healthy compared to before,” Gardner noted.

She said she treats an average of 8 to 12 critically ill patients a day in the hospital’s ICU. She noted it takes a minimum of 10 staffers to care for one critically ill patient each day.

“We have an amazing hardworking team in ICU that step up every day to care for these critically ill patients. It takes the entire team; nurses, respiratory therapists, other collaborating physicians, custodians, secretaries, lab and radiology techs, just to name a few. This team of compassionate care givers are working tirelessly and have come together in an exceptional way to face these unprecedented circumstances. I

am very proud to work alongside each and every one of them,” Gardner said.

Remembering and “understanding that every patient is a real person and someone’s loved one, not just a ‘patient” or statistic,” has kept her going, Dr. Gardner said. “That person could just as easily be my family or friend. We are all the same and all in this together.”

She implored the public to help physicians who are struggling to maintain their life/work balance during this time. COVID-19 she said “can happen to you. It’s deadly. It’s highly contagious and you spread the virus a few days before you even become symptomatic. Please wear a mask, get a vaccine if you qualify once it is available, and come to the hospital early if you are sick.

Don’t stay home and try to touch it out,” she added, there are effective treatments for the disease but only when they are given early.

TERENCE GREENHILL Terence Greenhill is the nursing director of the Emergency Department, trauma, dialysis and nursing support. A registered nurse with a bachelor’s degree, he is certified in emergency and critical care nursing too.

Greenhill has spent 11 years working within the Baptist Health network. He only recently joined the staff in Oxford and still commutes from Memphis, Tennessee.

He was still at Baptist Memphis when it treated the regions very first documented case in early February but since only recently that time, he’s treated hundreds of COVID-19 patients. Their care involves “an innumerable” team, he said, “The doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, techs and everyone in the ED are the true front line when it comes to caring for these patients. From the early identification of

COVID-19 to current, these are the people who have had to adapt quickly based on the latest information available to keep themselves and others safe while still caring for our broad patient base.”

He notes the roughly 30 COVID patients he sees in the ED daily are no different than any other patients the ED treats

during “normal,” times. They all require “treatment, attention and education,” he said. “Every single patient who walks through our doors is dealing with an unknown, sometimes life altering, diagnosis.

As providers we use our training an expertise to help them understand the nature of that unknown while also trying to help them progress to the best state of health possible.”

Greenhill stressed the public needs to continue practicing the same precautions it has been asked to do since the pandemic began – good hand hygiene, wearing a mask, practicing social distancing and get a vaccine when it is available to you. He added, “If you believe you have been exposed practice additional caution for the safety of your friends and loved ones. It is not necessary to have a positive test to protect others.”

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WORKING TOGETHER: DRS. STEPHEN AND KATHERINE PANNEL •••

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BY CAITLYN CLEGG | PHOTOS CONTRIBUTED

Stephen and Katherine Pannel are no strangers to supporting each other through life’s challenging and changing times.

The pair — who met more than 15 years ago while undergrads at Delta State University — were each other’s rocks as they navigated the long and grueling hours of medical school.

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They were each other’s cheerleaders as they launched their careers as psychiatrists in one of the most underserved states in the country.

And they have been each other’s ally as they raise their three children and manage a houseful of pets.

So, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit last year and their lives changed

drastically, the couple didn’t cower.

Instead, Katherine Pannel, DO, who serves as Medical Director at Right Track Medical Group and at Senior Life Solutions in Winona, Miss., and Stephen Pannel, DO, ABPN, ABAM, who serves Chief Medical Officer for Right Track Medical Group and as Medical Director for Oxford Treatment Center, did what

they always have done: They worked together.

They embraced the chaos and uncertainty and helped each other juggle their roles as essential workers caring for the mental health needs of hundreds of North Mississippians with their roles as parents and spouse. As a result, they’ve found a refreshing sense of togetherness that they believe will make them even stronger moving forward.

Some responses have been edited for clarity.

Q: You both specialized in psychiatry and are now practicing psychiatrists. How did COVID have an impact on mental health this year?

Katherine Pannel: At the end of 2019 and into the beginning of 2020, I felt like people were really starting to talk about mental healthcare. And with clinics like Right Track Medical Group, we were starting to see more access to high-quality care. We were seeing less stigma and more treatment, particularly with the younger generation. The younger generation has no trouble talking about it or seeking treatment.

Stephen Pannel: I will say, on the downside, is that a lot of people who were making progress but were on the edge got pushed over. As we all know, the pandemic created a lot more anxiety and depression. The disruption in our daily lives – change of school, work, all of that – really destabilized a lot of people. I also work in addiction, and this pandemic has probably set the opioid epidemic back five years. We’re having more opioid deaths than ever before, and we’re seeing a lot of patients who were successfully managing their care before developing

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addiction problems.

and the kids. She’s always there to help like putting puzzles together, but it’s really out if there’s a hiccup. She’s a huge part been a lot of fun.

Obviously, as physicians, you two of our family and really makes things run Stephen Pannel: I’ll even say that are essential workers, so you didn’t like a well-oiled machine. this year was one of our most memorable get much of an opportunity to and enjoyable holiday seasons. We were work from home like many of us. Q: How did your family respond to able to stay here in Oxford and we didn’t What was your approach to the pressures of the pandemic? have to rush around or travel, so we were managing the risks and demands What were some ways you found able to focus just on us. of being at work every day during togetherness? a pandemic, plus your existing Katherine Pannel: With the Q: What about your marriage? obligations to your family? pandemic, it’s actually allowed us to How has the whirlwind of 2020 Katherine Pannel: You know, in the spend more time together than ever affected the two of you? beginning, it was very tough. Outpatient before. One of my jobs went to Stephen Pannel: I will say that, even clinics were closed, but those patients still telepsychiatry, so I was at home more. with all its challenges, 2020 has been have to have care. Both Stephen and I And since we weren’t allowed to do really great for our marriage. were trying to do telepsychiatry visits some of our normal social outings, the Katherine Pannel: I agree, and I while the kids were doing virtual way we would socialize is by doing things think we’ve gotten a lot closer. I would say schooling. It was total chaos. It took a lot together. this has been harder for me personally, of digging into my schedule and getting Stephen Pannel: You know at the I’m very social and have a big group of really organized. beginning of the pandemic, those months friends, and that’s been pretty much Stephen Pannel: It added an extra of April, May, June, where when we nonexistent. So, I really value the bond layer of planning to our daily lives, and normally would have traveled a lot. Since Stephen and I have, not only with each there was constant uncertainty. We had we didn’t do that and we had no family other but with our kids as well. to learn how to respond and react to that visiting, we spent a lot of time outdoors.

Stephen Pannel: Absolutely. I know uncertainty, both as physicians and The kids did a lot of swimming. It’s been a lot of 2020 hasn’t been positive, but parents. really great for our family. fortunately, it has been for us. For me Katherine Pannel: It’s true when Katherine Pannel: We’re also personally, I’ve been able to reconnect they say it takes a village, and we rely a lot having dinner at the table more. We with some hobbies I haven’t done much on our village. My sister is an occupational bought a lot of board games, and the kids for the past 20 years, like hunting and therapist here in Oxford. She works seven have gotten into those types of things that fishing. I’ve really appreciated the time to days on and seven days off. With her we weren’t doing before this. We’ve been get back into that and be with Katherine schedule, she helps a lot with the errands doing things a lot of families have done and the kids.

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IN 1866,

Oliver F. Winchester introduced a legendary brand to

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PRIVATE FLIGHT COMPANY PRIDES ITSELF ON TEAMWORK •••

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BY CARRIE STAMBAUGH | PHOTOS COURTESY OF NICHOLAS AIR

NICHOLAS AIR prides itself on team work. The private air travel company sets the bar high for collaboration across all areas of its operation to ensure its customers experience the highest level of satisfaction, booking to arrival.

“I started NICHOLAS AIR because we wanted to do things at a higher level than anyone had thought of before in this industry. We wanted to fly the newest fleet and we wanted that fleet flown by the best professionals in the industry,” said NJ Correnti, founder and CEO of NICHOLAS AIR. “I look around and I can see first-hand

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that we’ve done it, and I hear from our members that they too feel the difference in quality when flying NICHOLAS AIR. We talk extensively about our flight crews and how our team mentality creates a great onboard member experience, but our whole team here plays a huge part in providing a renowned world-class customer service level,” added Correnti.

Correnti founded the company in 1997 and it continues to be family-owned and operated, now doing business across North, South and Central America and the Caribbean. NICHOLAS AIR owns its entire fleet of aircraft, which include

six different types of planes. Its pilots are dedicated to flying one type of aircraft only.

“Everything we do here at NICHOLAS AIR takes a village — no flight is done without the careful coordination of five or six different business units coming together to accomplish 50 to 60 different tasks. The flights are simply the culmination of the hard work our folks do internally, a process that happens dozens of times per day,” said Chief Pilot Matt Caldwell. “Our pilots are the forward-facing figures in that mission and they work together as a crew to provide a

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safe flight, a clean cabin, and a comfortable experience for our members.”

“All aviators have standards in Cockpit Resource Management (CRM), but NICHOLAS AIR’s approach takes it to a new level.

You rely on your other pilot to help you properly plan for the flight, to maintain great situational awareness, and to ultimately carry through the NICHOLAS AIR mission,” added Captain Ross Bandy.

Vice President Peder von Harten said every team member from pilots to the administrators work toward the common goal of unparalleled satisfaction and service.

“Our pilots do an incredible job in flying the NICHOLAS AIR flag. I spend a lot of time around our fleet and see the pilots working together as a crew and working together with our whole team here to put the Member first,” said von Harten.

“They come to NICHOLAS

AIR because they acknowledge that it is different here, it’s special.

The way we present ourselves, the way we care for our fleet, and the reputation our pilots have earned as the consummate professionals they are, is why we’ve continued to grow at the pace we have.”

NICHOLAS AIR was well prepared and positioned when the pandemic began and has been able to take advantage of the silver lining in the clouds of 2020 as a result.

“Safety is paramount — every element of what we do is for the safety of our passengers and since Spring of 2020, it has adopted a new meaning for our crews,” said Caldwell. “Our members expect us to provide them with a clean, comfortable setting, and that starts with our flight crews, working as a crew, to detail and sanitize the airplanes before each customer flight. It’s one element that lets our members know that we care

about each personalized detail, and that the attention we pay to keeping their airplane in top shape is a team effort.”

A combination of privacy, flexibility and safety is what private flight can provide its customers at this time, which other forms of mass travel can’t, whether they want to look at a piece of real estate in a remote area, get away on vacation, or just visit family on the other side of the country without the risk associated with major airport.

“In general people want to control the uncontrollable,” said von Harten, noting that during a pandemic flying “private has allowed people to do that. Flying private is a safer option for people.”

“Commercial airline industry isn’t our competition anymore,” von Harten added, noting many private flight companies have seen an increase in interest and business as a result of the pandemic.

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BEING

TOGETHER

USING QUALITY TIME TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF OTHERS

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LOCAL ARTISTS AND COUPLE JONATHAN KENT ADAMS AND BLAKE SUMMERS DEVOTE THEMSELVES TO THE COMMUNITY •••

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BY DAVIS COEN | PHOTOS BY ERIN AUSTEN ABBOTT, JENNY ANDERSON AND PAUL GANDY

Jonathan Kent Adams, a Yazoo City native, came to Oxford mainly with the intention of getting a Criminal Justice degree at the University of Mississippi and then continuing on to law school, but the decision led him to live locally now for over a decade – and to become more committed to his home state than ever.

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His partner, Blake Summers was born in Central Valley, Calif., but came to the Hospitality State at an early age, living in Eudora, Miss. and attending Hernando High School. Summers is similarly determined to devote his work and efforts to bettering his community, but unlike Adams, Summers was drawn to Oxford

by what he described as his “attraction” to the well-known majestic Northern Catalpa champion tree located near the Ole Miss Student Union.

His sophomore year, Adams took an Intro to Art class as an elective, and soon, he said, “Art became a place for me to escape the judgment I felt coming out,

and a way I could talk to God when I did not have the words to say. I switched my major to art that semester.”

Adams said he began publicly posting his work through Instagram, which was relatively new at the time.

“I developed a following that started to support what I was doing, from around the country. Locally, I was invited to be a part of the Motel Art Show curated by Erin Austen Abbott.

She was the first person to push me to show my art to the public here,” Adams said. “I really love that show.”

Since then, Adams has shown his work around the state, and also New York, Miami and Spain.

The couple met during their junior year of college. They started getting involved with Code Pink, which is a dance night for the LGBTQ+ community. Summers has done a lot to perpetuate the event, and “create a space where people who are usually excluded in Mississippi feel celebrated,” said Adams.

“I think this is a big reason we have both wanted to stay in Mississippi – because we both want a Mississippi that is more inclusive for LGBTQ+ people.”

Summers began to pursue his craft professionally after graduating from the Department of Psychology, with a minor in Dance, as he’d been performing and choreographing during most of his time at Ole Miss.

According to Summers, dance led to other opportunities, although he would have never anticipated becoming a “nightlife host and promoter for the Oxford LGBTQIA+ community,” he said.

Code Pink: Oxford is an LGBTQ+ dance night, which has taken place at local establishments, including The Lyric, Proud Larry’s and Saint Leo Lounge, and is affiliated with the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies and produced by likeminded local organization OutOxford.

“It’s an event that creates a safe atmosphere for everyone,” said Summers – although the highly successful dance nights have been on hold since early in 2020, due to the pandemic.

“I love Mississippi, but it is challenging to live here when you are different. You don’t always have a place to go, and I am proud and fortunate to have the opportunity to

bring people together,” Summers said. “A silly pseudo-nightclub event in Oxford became a bonding culture.

We knew it was a privilege to have spaces to host queer events, and we have always treated the platform with intention. If you have a microphone and stage, you have a responsibility.”

Summers characterized the ‘Code Pink family’ as one of “fostering confidence and uplifting identity.”

As dance nights all throughout the nation have been on hold for the better part of a year, Summers has been directing focus on his work as a barista at Uptown Coffee, and as a teacher at Southern Star Yoga.

“I went from decorating gay club events and hanging mermaids from the roof of The Lyric, to decorating the coffee shop I work at,” he said.

“With the pandemic, I refuse to put my community at risk by having dance events.”

With regard to Summers’ seemingly ubiquitous presence around town, he said, “I’ll be honest, I’ve either worked or hosted an event at most of the businesses in Oxford. You’ve mostly likely seen me frolicking through alleys of the square on any given day.”

Adams’ work, which he calls “very solitary,” has also taken a backseat during the pandemic, but in his case to activism, as he’s devoted much of his time to protesting the Confederate monument on the Lafayette County Courthouse lawn.

“I would say I am shocked that the statue is still there, but after seeing a violent mob of Trump supporters, and one of them waving a large Confederate flag in our Nation’s Capitol... I’m not surprised,” he said.

“The pandemic, plus the growing awareness of violence against Black people by police in our country, made me really examine the ways in which I participate in racism by not speaking out to those who hold power,” said Adams, who imagines a future where there’s “a fountain, or something other than a Confederate statue at the center of our town.” He said, “a fountain could represent forgiveness and renewal – something we desperately need.”

With regards to their accomplishments and growth in 2020, the contemporary couple, who’ve been together for over seven years, celebrated some proud moments.

Among them, Adams said, was that it

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allowed him to look within himself and assess how he “can be a better community member.”

Summers became certified as a yoga teacher, and the two bought a house together.

The term “millennial power couple” has been used to describe Adams and Summers, although Adams says he “mostly gets cracked up thinking about the description.” While he agrees with the words millennial and couple, he questions the indication of ‘power.’

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“If we have any influence here, I hope it’s because we’ve challenged people in the community and helped create space and art that makes LGBTQ+ feel like they belong,” Adams said.

With regard to this flattering characterization, Summers said, “I think our awareness of self makes us seem like a ‘power couple,’ but we’re just two art kids that fell in love here. We create and share what we think is meaningful and true. We want others to find joy. Sharing makes people feel less

isolated, and that is important to us.”

As far as what’s in store for the near future, Adams has been working on a series of paintings that he says are in response to the past year, and intends to publicly display in time to come, while Summers says he intends to organize an art collective or dance troupe.

“I want to bring something fresh and exciting to Oxford,” Summers said. “I want to inspire and collaborate with friends. I want to share ideas and dreams with others.”

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CALCULATING SUCCESS: SHELL BROTHERS SOLVE FISHING WOES •••

BY JAKE THOMPSON | PHOTOS BY JOEY BRENT

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When Dan Shell IV and his brother William went into isolation and quarantine at their home in Oxford, they needed an outlet and that outlet became them sitting on a lake and fishing.

The activity was not only practicing social distancing, but it turned into a hobby that benefited others as the COVID-19 pandemic raged on during 2020.

The brothers Shell attend school in Memphis, but once the pandemic forced campuses to close to in-person instruction, they retreated back to Oxford, where fishing was their only escape from the confines of sitting in their house 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“We were stuck here so we were like, ‘Well, nothing else to do so we better find something,’” said Dan. “We like to fish and we just started. Every other day in the summer.”

They hit up all the lakes around Oxford and Lafayette County, including Sardis, Enid and Grenada Lakes.

Soon, the brothers realized they were becoming very successful at their hobby-turnedquarantine escape. The boat began filling with fish, more than they anticipated or had room for over those first couple weeks.

The plentiful bounty of fish soon became an issue back at home, as lack of storage soon became noticeable.

“We had no more room in our freezer,” Dan said.

A solution quickly presented itself when they would arrive back at the boat ramp from their time on the lake.

Other would-be fishermen would be striking out and not having any luck, while the Shell brothers would float back up to the boat ramp with a boat full of fish. So, they soon realized with no more room at home, they should share with those who may not be having as much success.

With the pandemic causing some families to struggle to make enough money to buy food and with grocery stores having trouble to keep food on shelves, finding other sources of food such as fishing became a necessity.

Knowing the other people at the boat ramps were either returning with nothing to show for their efforts or about to venture out onto the lake to try their hand, the Shells offered up their overstocked boat full of fish.

“It kind of started out just finding guys at the boat ramp and just asking, ‘Hey, do you want some fish?’” Dan said. “We kind of realized these guys really need fish, and they’re really appreciative of it. It just turned out of us starting a hobby, just catching some fish for the freezer to helping out other people, and it kind of evolved.”

The evolution occurred when their father, Dr. Dan Shell, a plastic surgeon in Oxford, began asking his patients if they would be interested in some of the extra fish.

Then, the paying-it-forward act grew even more when they would start meeting people at the Sky Mart located on College Hill Road.

“We just did that all summer, pretty much. Just giving fish

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“THERE’S ALWAYS A DEMAND FOR FOOD. THE REALITY IS PEOPLE ARE STRUGGLING WITH IT IN THE MORE RURAL AREAS. PEOPLE ASK US ALL THE TIME WHEN WE’RE GOING BACK OUT TO GET MORE FISH.” -DAN SHELL IV •••

away,” Dan said. “It was rewarding to us. We got to do something we love to do and help out other people in the process.”

A secret to the brothers’ success comes from years of paying attention in math class and using some basic trigonometry to find that “sweet spot” of the lake.

In a portion of the lake called a thermocline, which is also known as a thermal layer, there is a thin but distinct layer in a large body of fluid.

With the knowledge of where the thermocline is, once the brothers would discover it, they then would turn to some algebra and trigonometry to try and locate where the biggest population of fish would be.

Using something straight to form a right angle with the boat, they would

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then measure that angle with a flat part of the fishing pole with the angle of the fishing line. From there, they would then use co-sine, sine or tangent to find the depth.

“It really wasn’t hard. Just an angle measurement and a few calculations, and it was pretty easy,” Dan said. “It didn’t really take long. The first week we kind of struggled to get all the fish and I was like, ‘Hold on. There’s got to be a way to get it right where we want it.’”

Once the sweet spot was found, it was academic from there. During the summer months, the fish would stay in a consistent level in each of the lakes, making the mathematic approach easy to solve.

They never really expected a

pandemic to cause them to rely on teachings from Algebra 1 class that would in turn allow them to help members of their community who were struggling to find food during a global health crisis.

Once the pandemic subsides, or ends, the brothers anticipate getting back to some semblance of their normal lives and routines. Trips to the lake may not be as frequent as they have been the past year, but they are already being asked when that next fishing trip will occur that could help provide food on someone’s table.

“There’s always a demand for food,” Dan said. “The reality is people are struggling with it in the more rural areas.

People ask us all the time when we’re going back out to get more fish.”

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LET THE MUSIC PLAY: ROCKET 88 KEEPS TUNES PLAYING THROUGH THE PANDEMIC •••

BY DAVIS COEN | PHOTOS COURTESY OF ROCKET 88

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No band means more to Oxford music than roots rockers Rocket 88, led by singer-guitarists Jamie and Rosamond Posey along with bassist, singer and technical coordinator Nathan Robbins and keyboardist Eric Carlton.

According to Jamie, the band began booking shows at Rafter’s Music and Food venue back in September, when home football games began ramping up safety measures and COVID-related restrictions, enough so that more live music was able to occur in town.

“People are so starved for live music that you get a lot of response after you play,” Jamie said.

His wife Rosamond said the open-air environment of the venue “makes you feel a little safer.”

The four-piece group has been performing brunch shows every other Sunday, from roughly 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., with acoustic instruments (with the exception of Carlton’s electric piano) and plan to continue indefinitely.

The group’s recent socially-distant local performances have also included a sold-out (for a 45-person capacity audience) show at Proud Larry’s, which the couple likened to playing in their living room. “We’ve grown up playing

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“PEOPLE ARE SO STARVED FOR LIVE MUSIC THAT YOU GET A LOT OF RESPONSE AFTER YOU PLAY” - JAMIE POSEY that stage – it’s like home to us,” Jamie said.

“When you’re a musician, there’s a feeling that you get when you’re on stage. There’s a peace that you have. A lot of people think a stage is something

that would make you nervous,” said Jamie. “But for us, in the fraternity that is musicians, you get up there, and there’s a peace that comes over you, and you feel normal again for a time after you play the gig.”

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COMMUNITY MAINSTAYS: SHAWS KEEP HARDWARE STORE IN THE PEOPLE BUSINESS •••

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BY NEELY MULLEN | PHOTOS BY JOEY BRENT

To David and Susan Shaw, running a business in Oxford is much like being a part of a family.

The co-owners of Sneed’s Ace Hardware put it simply: we’re all in this together.

“It’s just like family, you know, Oxford is just our big family,” Susan Shaw said. “And we want to make sure they’re taken care of.”

David Shaw first started working at the store part-time in high school, and later transitioned to become part-owner and operator of the business after graduating from the University of Mississippi with an accounting degree. Susan Shaw, who taught math at Oxford Middle School for 12 years, joined the business in 2008, and now acts in a myriad of roles, from book keeper to office manager to HR. In 2017, the couple bought the business, and since then have committed themselves — now as a team — to maintaining the store’s position as a cornerstone of commerce throughout Oxford’s rapid evolution.

“It is funny sometimes when I hear somebody go, ‘You mean you work with your wife?” David Shaw said, laughing. “It works well for us, it really does.”

The couple met while they were students at Oxford High School, but didn’t start dating until they were both accounting students at the University of Mississippi.

“We got together one ball game weekend,” Susan Shaw said. “And that was that.”

Since then, the couple have sat front row to generations of customers, serving as witness to Oxford’s rapid progress and

growth.

“On move-in week, we have parents come in and go ‘When I was here in 1973, I used to go up on the Square,’ and so kids and grandkids of people who were here at Ole Miss know the store,” David Shaw said.

Without the masks, social distancing and other safety protocols taken as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, walking into Sneed’s feels much like walking into the past, into a place where individualized attention and personal relationships with customers are the norm.

Some of that may have to do with the business’s storied past.

The hardware store, which was founded in 1951 by Payne Sneed and Parham Shaw, David Shaw’s grandfather, was once one of three downtown local hardware stores; after 60 years and a move down University Avenue, it is the only one remaining.

“There’s a lot of people who shop with us because they want to be part of the community, too,” David Shaw said. “We want to do a good job, and they want us to succeed.”

And, while the Shaws say that Oxford has grown and changed drastically over their lifetimes, their dedication to the community has remained the same.

“It’s still kind of a community thing,” David Shaw said. “I don’t know that we’ve really changed our culture that much […] Our culture is to help people.”

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record of supporting community organizations like the Pantry and Yoknapatawpha Arts Council over the years.

“We’re trying to make sure that the community is being funded in a way that will help as many people as possible,” Susan Shaw said. “We do give some to St. Jude and whatever, but we try to keep our money in the community as much as we possibly can. Because that’s important to us, you know, these people are our customers, they’re our employees.”

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Shaws feel that their responsibility to the community has only heightened.

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allowed to stay open during all of this,” Susan Shaw said. “And so, we feel like that’s a part of why we really needed to give back because we were allowed to stay open.

Aside from monetary donations, from the beginning of the pandemic, the Shaws have worked hard to make health and safety a priority, requiring masks even before the city-wide mask mandate.

“We had a lot of people telling us, ‘We sure do appreciate y’all making us wear masks,’ because at the beginning, it wasn’t a thing,” Susan Shaw said.

“Just for our people, just for our employees, we didn’t want anybody getting sick.”

The Shaws say that their employees

are at the heart of their business, acting as the first touchpoint for customers to understand their help-first culture.

“2020 was a crazy year […],” David Shaw said. “Having a solid team is all the difference in the world.”

However, as much as they have done for the community, the Shaws don’t see themselves as alone in their dedication to bettering the city; instead, they see themselves as part of a larger movement to keep the Oxford united, even in difficult times.

“It’s kind of a mutual thing of everybody trying to do what we can for Oxford,” David said. “Oxford’s a great community to do business in, as far as I’m concerned. The city’s always been very supportive of what we’re doing.”

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SMILING THROUGH IT ALL: DRS. ANDREW AND ALISON ROSS KEEP EACH OTHER BEAMING •••

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Putting your hands in folks’ mouths for a living has always put dentists and their staff on the front lines of viral and bacterial exposure, but COVID-19 has taken that to a whole new level. Just as with any medical profession, doctors and their staff form a bond with their patients and feel a responsibility to them even beyond the edicts of the Hippocratic Oath. Unlike its associates in other fields of medicine, the dental profession went through a three-month shutdown in 2020. This left these medical

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BY RHES LOW | PHOTOS JOEY BRENT

professionals in limbo about their practices and the patients they care for.

Then when practices reopened it was to the tune of a very different song. A new world of PPP became a part of their day-to-day operations and each day, staff and doctors would put on their new armor and procedures to serve their patients safely.

Doctors Andrew and Alison Ross own and operate Ross Dental Clinic and during this whole mess, found that their support of each other (both professionally

and personally) has been their guiding light through the pandemic.

Both Doctors are thoroughly entwined in the LOU community and have been for many years.

Dr. Andrew Ross is an Oxford native and graduated from Ole Miss in 2005.

At 10 years old, he made the decision to be a dentist, largely due to the impact of his childhood dentist, Dr. Baker.

“He was a great mentor and encouraged me to pursue the dental profession,” Andrew said.

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This encouragement further inspired Andrew to set his sights on returning to Oxford to serve the community where he was raised. Dr. Alison Ross grew up in Jackson, Miss., and graduated from Ole Miss in 2007. She always knew she wanted a career in medicine, but was uncertain of the direction until college.

Alison’s decision to be a dentist was, in part, due to her love of art and science – she believes dentistry is the perfect blend of the two.

“The biggest reward is seeing someone either relieved of pain or flashing a new, confident smile,” Alison said.

Ross family history officially began when their passion for teeth and gums brought them together at the University of Mississippi Medical Center School of Dentistry. One can only assume their talent for working together and supporting each other began in the throes of this rigorous pursuit of the art of dentistry. Closing Ross Family Dental in the spring of 2020 due to state mandates was an extremely difficult time for the Rosses. But when they were able to reopen, they were committed to doing what needed to be done to ensure the safety of their staff and patients. To this day, they

screen everyone who enters the building. One can imagine this is an annoying routine, but the doctors believe it is in everyone’s best interest. Perhaps it is that commitment to serving others that has additionally proved to be so fruitful in their personal and professional relationship.

“I couldn’t have made it through 2011 when we originally opened our clinic without my wife,” Andrew said. “For 2020, we simply continued to rely on each other and our faith.”

Alison added, “We always try to just take one day at a time.

Andrew was a huge help to me professionally, because he took

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all of the emergency calls for our office while I stayed home with our children, since daycares were closed at the same time our office was closed.”

On top of all of this, Alison gave birth to their third child in the fall of 2020 and was out on maternity leave.

No doubt this doubled the workload of each spouse and required further patience and discipline to get through even the simple day to day.

Fortunately, it seems their priority of putting family first really helped with the energy needed for that end of day push.

“I start the day off at 7:00 seeing patients, but my real job begins when I get home at 5:00. That’s when I really have to turn it into high gear with three kids,” Andrew said.

Per the usual, Alison expounded, “Our working relationship and our family life are so closely intertwined that it’s hard to separate one from the other. I’m a better dentist because I have my husband’s support, and he understands how my day went and vice versa. We divide and conquer at home, too – Andrew cooks dinner while I pick up the kids after work.

He gives the kids their baths while I do the dishes. We lean on each other from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed. Sometimes you just 66

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don’t know what your day will bring, from home life to work life, but I find it comforting to know we are in it together.”

Both Alison and Andrew, through years of marriage and a year of COVID, still have a sparkle in their eye when they talk about each other – even in relation to work. It’s about knowing what works in your particular case and organizing the ins and outs of how to go about that arrangement. It just so happens that both Andrew and Alison feel the best part of their job is working with each other – and they make it work.

“Andrew is truly my best friend.

Work would definitely not be as enjoyable if we weren’t working together,” Allison said. “He makes everything fun! I realize not all couples could work well together, but I think we’re successful at it, because we each have different roles in the office, but we always have a built-in consult with each other and work well as a team.”

It’s been a hard year for all of us but between the good and the bad, there is joy. Alison and Andrew have found a way to let that joy surround all that they do together. It’s uplifting to take a card from their playbook and remember being with family is what we make of it.

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THE YALOBUSHWHACKERS: THACKER MOUNTAIN RADIO HOUR’S HOUSE BAND THROUGH THICK AND THIN •••

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BY DAVIS COEN | PHOTOS CONTRIBUTED

Members of the Thacker Mountain Radio Hour house band, the Yalobushwhackers, were quick to credit the long-running weekly radio show’s newest director-producer for helping them stay on board through the difficult past year, and on into 2021.

Despite all of the obstacles these unprecedented times have brought on – for pursuing any kind of musical group effort – the acclaimed local radio show’s staff and resilient house band have

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managed to work together to push forward, literally without missing a beat.

“Thank God, the producer Alice has tried to make sure that we have some kind of income,” said guitarist, singer, and Yalobushwhackers’ bandleader Paul Tate. The show has been broadcasting live from Off-Square Books on Oxford’s Courthouse Square since 1997 – and Tate’s been in the band since July 2016.

Alice Pierotti was the show’s director

for a short while at the beginning of last year, but then got officially hired as its Executive Director/Producer in August – at which point, she said, she “hit the ground running.”

Pierotti credits the leadership of the show’s board, and dedication of their small staff and interns, for ending 2020 with the same amount of new shows that they’d always had: a full spring season, three summer shows and a full fall season.

“THACKER LISTENERS BASICALLY WITNESSED A DYNAMITE LIVE BAND TURN INTO FANTASTIC STUDIO MUSICIANS BEFORE OUR EYES.” - ALICE PIEROTTI •••

Not only did they fulfill all scheduled calendar dates, but the mostly statewide-syndicated show’s broadcast-reach expanded to Tennessee in Memphis and Chattanooga, “So more folks can fall in love with the Yalobushwhackers!” said Pierotti enthusiastically.

“Thacker listeners basically witnessed a dynamite live band turn into fantastic studio musicians before our eyes. To a radio listener, it may sound the same, but the amount of work and skill required for listeners not to notice was the aim,” Pierotti said.

“Nothing replaces live performance, but the way in which the ‘Yalos,’ Jeffrey (Reed), and Jim (Dees) adapted to keep the show on the radio is nothing short of magic.”

In retrospect, she said a crucial decision was to include iPads for the band in the 2020 budget. According to Pierotti, things started out a little rocky with the new devices, and there were even concerns about the screen glow on stage becoming a distraction to the audience.

Yet, it was a saving grace, according to Pierotti, that the band became growingly adept at using the devices for shows – as the tablet computers

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soon became a crucial tool for coordinating the seemingly-live group performances, accompanying the remote Thacker Mountain Radio broadcasts through the months of social distancing.

“It was Alice’s idea, because she’s responsible for bringing the authors and the music onto the show,” said drummer Ricky Burkhead. “She pitched to us doing recordings, and the first eight of them were videos, and then we continued throughout the season with just audio recordings.

But it was her idea.”

Burkhead also spoke on bandmate Tate’s leadership role in coordinating the group through the technological process, which is now used by most typically-live entertainment shows aiming to involve their house bands through the challenging days of pandemic.

“Paul was the person who spearheaded every song. He chose the songs, and would be the first person to record his parts, which was vocals, guitars,” said Burkhead, an Ole Miss faculty member since 1995.

“He would always initiate the song, but some we decided on together after he suggested them. We usually PROFILE 2021

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went with the songs that he would suggest, and record.”

Tate – who works remotely from his residence in New Albany – also helped shed some light on his role as bandleader through the process: “The reality is somebody at the end of the day has got to make the decision of what we’re gonna do,” Tate said.

His background in music theory and composition made him the logical choice for preparing the charts, which serve as a musical roadmap for the other three band members.

Tate will lay down his part along to a ‘click track’ on the GarageBand program (included on every Apple computer) and then share the project file with Burkhead, bassist Slade Lewis and keyboardist Mark Yacavone, who will follow suit.

“Ricky has the most complex setup, with some really decent recording stuff,” Tate said.

Although many say it’s impossible to recreate the live music-feel without a real audience present, Tate and Burkhead both agree that taking on the task of remote-performing has been different, but not without assets.

“It’s a slower process in the sense that it’s more right-brained,” said Tate. “The other tends to be more physically and emotionally fulfilling, because you get to stand in front of people. The reality of it, is we haven’t had a whole lot to look at!”

Tate also went on to describe some of the music that the group’s been making recently, as “more rhythmically interesting” and “more complicated” than material they would typically perform. “It certainly has opened it up, in a positive way,” he said.

With regard to differences or similarities between live and remote recording, Burkhead said “it’s close to what we would do in a show, but we

have freedom to do more creative things. We have more time to put together a song, because for the show – even though Paul would send charts out days ahead of time, for us to look at and learn the tune – we only had 20 minutes prior to rehearse. Now that we’re recording remotely, we have a chance to lay some solid tracks.”

Pierotti, pleased at the challenges overcome by the group in 2020, said, “I’ve always subscribed to the notion if you want a difficult job done, hand it to an artist. Nothing illustrates that better than the music the Yalobushwhackers produced for Thacker Mountain Radio postpandemic.”

Jim Dees, host of the program since 2000, giving his house band a nod, said, “They did a great job all last year recording, producing, and mixing new tunes every week for our in-studio shows – all while shelteringin-place apart from each other.

They’re gearing up to do the same in 2021. Very proud of them.”

The show’s sound engineer, and owner of Oxford-based Taproot Audio Design, Jeffrey Reed, said, “These podcast shows have been well-received, and I hope we get to continue doing some of them when things go back to normal. It allows us to reach out to people we normally couldn’t approach, due to distance, tour schedules, et cetera.”

Thacker Mountain Radio kicked off its 2021 season in January, with guests that included Mississippi blues legend Bobby Rush, and Southern essayist Sean Dietrich.

Legendary North Mississippi music legend Jim Dickinson, who worked with Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, was the Yalobushwhackers’ founder and composer of the show’s theme song. Ruleville, Miss. native, Jerry Lee “Duff ” Dorrough was also a former front man for the group.

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A PERFECT STRIKE: SUMRALL’S ATTENTION TO DETAIL LEADS TO CHAMPIONSHIPS AT LHS

O

BY DAVIS COEN | PHOTOS CONTRIBUTED

Over the last six years, Lafayette High School has made a name for itself in athletics with numerous state championships ranging tennis, girls basketball, girls track, girls soccer and even bowling. The latter has experienced unprecedented success under new leadership from Corinth, Miss. native, Kelle Sumrall.

For Sumrall, it wasn’t always her plan to coach bowling, although it made up a

•••

large portion of her life because of her family’s bowling business and her personal success in the game. In grade school, Sumrall won four state tournaments in her local league and even had an opportunity to compete at LSU on scholarship, which she declined.

However, decades later when former coach Scott Jimennez stepped away and an opportunity opened, it seemed like the obvious choice to LHS athletics

director Greg Lewis and a few students interested in her expertise.

“The funny thing is, I wanted to be a basketball coach more than a bowling coach,” Sumrall said. “But it’s just how the cards played out. I love it. I never had a coach in high school because they didn’t have high school bowling in Mississippi… When I took over, I knew I had experience of knowing what it’s like to be in a situation like this as far as

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662.234.6152 2197 Jackson Avenue West Oxford, MS 74

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tournaments go, it being stressful and all, the competition in it all. I’ve had to learn a lot about how to teach someone how to bowl and other techniques.”

A pair of eighth grade students at the time, Jacob Robertson and Levi Freeman, made her transition a little easier. The two students already had plenty of bowling experience under their belt, but it took someone like Sumrall to go extra mile and plant the seed for current and future success. The big thing for her was having attention to detail at all times.

“I had an incredible group of guys who knew how to bowl,” Sumrall said. “I can’t take credit for any of their technique and what not.

Occasionally, I’ll talk about their footing or something. The team I took over, they had been bowling a while. They bowled here in town and were involved in it… the little things I go in to interject. The main thing I work on them is their mentality throughout a match. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told them to focus and follow through. Sometimes they’ll throw and have dejection on their face and I’ll them to forget about it. You have to get over it. Get

the spare. You can’t fall apart.”

Some were not as polished from the get-go as Robertson and Freeman, but that was the opportunity Sumrall had to teach and allow them to grow, experience she’s gathered in her sixyear stint at the district’s middle school.

“This year, I did have some younger guys on the team that haven’t been in situations Jacob and Levi have been in,” Sumrall said. “Sometimes I have to sub people out. It’s not a personal thing, it’s for them to grow and learn.

You grow, practice and get back right on track. You just have to breathe and calm down, they’ll respond to that and relax…bowling isn’t one of those sports where someone is keeping the ball from going in like in basketball. Your defense is the oil pattern. I end up being a conscience.”

It paid off, a couple times. The boys team won their third consecutive MHSAA Class II state championship behind Robertson’s 629 total score and 224 score in game three alone.

“Jacob is such an analytical person,” Sumrall said. “He analyzes everything he does. He’s so precise with what he does with the ball.

What I have to do is be that extra set

“I AM SO BLESSED TO BE ABLE TO BE WITH THESE KIDS AND WATCH THEM SOMETHING THEY LOVE, TO PLAY A SPORT THAT’S BEEN MY LIFE.”

of Oxford/Batesville/Clarksdale

- KELLE SUMRALL

662-281-1881

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servprooxfordbatesvilleclarksdale.com

Independently Owned and Operated of eyes. Jacob is very hard on himself.”

Freeman tallied a 567 total, followed by Xavier Wallace (558), and Tyler Coleman (473) and Walker Starnes (459). The girls team finished the state championship with a third place. Their highest mark in recent memory came against the odds off the hardwood.

“I have girls that are involved in a lot of other sports. That affects the amount of time they spend in bowling. I have girls that have a lot of potential,” Sumrall said.

Going into year four, expectations will still be there, especially bowlers

like Robertson and Freeman going into just their junior year, but the foundation is set in large part to people like Sumrall and the supporting cast around the squad.

“That’s the beauty of Lafayette.

It’s such a family atmosphere,” Sumrall said “We all love and support each other. We have a good support system. I just watch them and I think, I’m such a blessed person. I am so blessed to be able to be with these kids and watch them something they love, to play a sport that’s been my life. I told Greg (Lewis) one time, he doesn’t even need to pay me a dime for this.”

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