Profile 2022 - Oxford

Profile 2022

home NO PLACE LIKE

BRAINS | HEART | COURAGE

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LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER

These are times for heart, brains and courage T he sign welcoming visitors to Oxford boldly says “Greatness Starts Here.” In this second year of the COVID pandemic, we still feel that statement is true, but that greatness is manifest in a whole new way in the people survive, thrive and serve others.

This year’s PROFILE theme was based loosely on the things the characters in “The Wizard of Oz” felt that they lacked.

The scarecrow, the tin man and the lion discover that brains, heart and courage was not a wish that could be granted, but something they already possessed. We wanted to tell the stories of people in our community who make a difference because of their brains for service, their heart for other people and their courage to survive

difficult situations.

Each section of PROFILE is broken into these three themes, people with heart, people with brains and people with courage. As you read these pages, we hope these stories will reaffirm the greatness of the people in Oxford and Lafayette County. These are our favorite stories to tell.

This PROFILE is for you, our readers. Oxford and Lafayette County is made of extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. It’s an honor to tell your stories. And, like at the end of the Wizard of Oz, we realize, there is no place like home.

REBECCA ALEXANDER Publisher

2022

Profile

There’s no place like home PUBLISHER Rebecca Alexander REGIONAL EDITOR Stacy Graning EDITORIAL Jake Davis Maya Martin CONTRIBUTORS Joey Brent Bonnie Brown Rhes Lowe Bruce Newman DESIGN Ambrosia Neldon MARKETING Mike Haskins Amelia Miller Olivia Nash A supplement to

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Contents TABLE OF

31 38 47 53 53

Brain

IN THE FAMILY A Q&A with Dr. Jean Gispen, daughter of Dr. Jean Guyton HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS Keith Kessinger strives to make Oxford feel like home for his customers COMMITMENT TO CARING Dr. Tanya Fitts built practice dedicated to doing good for her patients A NEW PERSPECTIVE Doctors Julie and Ricky Hicks approach medicine with faith LEADING WITH HEART UM student Bobby Hudson focused on bettering community through pandemic

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e l fi o Pr 2022

Heart A HEART FOR HELPING Denise Strub gives back through role at North Mississippi Exchange Family Center SERVING WITH A BROKEN HEART Father Joe Tonos shows compassion for others despite personal sacrifice SHARING A LOVE FOR MUSIC Clint Jordan’s passion shines through his inustrument, teaching business CALLED TO SERVE Lafayette County Volunteer of the Year helps children through CASA program

Courage REDISCOVERING HER VOICE Tanisha Bankston uses her own trauma to help victims of assualt, child abuse STRONG FOR HER SON Marketia Pitts shares experience of dangerous pregnancy, dlievery

ON THE COVER Father Joe Tonas believes no one gets to heaven without a broken heart — but that’s no reason not to serve others.

home IKE NO PLACE L

U R AG E EA RT | C O B R A IN S | H

Photo: Bruce Walker LIC ATION OF A SPECIAL PUB SMEDIA, LLC OXFORD NEW

FEBRUARY

2022

Heart Oxford residents show love for their community, empathy for others, and passion for service through work and volunteerism

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DENISE STRUB

A heart I for helping

By Maya Martin The Oxford Eagle t takes compassion and heart to not only recognize what is wrong in your community, but to reach down and lift other people up in their time of need. Anyone can look at the world outside of their window and note all the issues they find, but it takes a brave heart to go out and make active change.

“I will probably never make a big splash,” said Denise Strub. “I’ll never change the world, but I can change my portion of the world.”

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And Strub is doing that one person at a time.

Strub, Regional Director of the North Mississippi Exchange Family Center, sits behind her desk in the center’s office located just off Highway 30 as she explains one of her personal beliefs.

“I can do whatever I can to benefit my community, to help and I just like that aspect.”

Strub couldn’t have picked a better position to help her achieve that goal. The NMEFC is an autonomous organization connected to the National Exchange Club, an entity designed to exchange ideas and information with like-minded individuals about how to better serve their communities.

“[The NEC] supports us financially, mentally and just any way they can,” Strub said with a laugh.

The NMEFC will celebrate 25 years of service to the community September 2022. The family center services Lafayette, Marshall, Union, Pontotoc, Calhoun, Yalobusha, Panola and Tate counties through multiple programs and projects.

Although autonomous, both the national and regional organizations work under a national project to prevent child abuse. In the 1980s, Dr. Edward R. North Jr., of Jackson, founded the National Exchange Club Foundation for the Prevention of Child Abuse when he took office. North’s compassion and

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sympathy towards children created a national initiative that is still going strong.

“He had seen a lot of child abuse increase, it was ticking up and it concerned him,” Strub said in explaining the organization’s creation. “He thought that would be a good project for the Exchange Club because we all work to benefit our communities. What’s needed in one community may not be needed in another but we all work to improve our communities.”

Strub did not expect to get involved with the organization. She already had a job as a journalist working as editor for the Delta Democrat Times and Lottery Player’s Magazine before moving to Cleveland in 1993 and becoming the managing editor for The Bolivar Commercial.

Joining the Mississippi Exchange Club was somewhat of a happy accident.

“I started going to meetings and I thought — this is what you get for paying attention — I thought they needed somebody to take over the bulletin,” said Strub. “Every club does a bulletin

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HE A RT per meeting.”

Strub only planned to fill-in as a bulletin writer for three weeks but before she knew it, by 2004 she had been a club member of the Exchange Club of Cleveland for three years.

“I was doing the bulletin and you kind of moved up the ranks,” she said. “You get on the board, you lead projects and you get on committees. I became a board member, I served as president over three different times over my time in Cleveland and became a district president.”

Strub’s accomplishments within the exchange club doesn’t end there. As time went on, Strub became a Volunteer Field Representative with the club which was an exciting opportunity to act as a liaison between the NEC and the local clubs.

Strub eventually went on to serve on the NEC board and served her last year in 2021. The time felt short, but she said being

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“

“I will probably never make a big splash. I’ll never change the world, but I can change my portion of the world.”

Denise Strub

”

a part of the board was a learning experience.

“Since being on the national board, you learn so much about the inner workings of different areas, different programs and projects and child abuse prevention sort of became more interesting,” said Strub. “I was put on the board here [in Oxford] for the center and when we needed someone to fill in and try and get things back up, I

applied for it.”

Strub intended to leave her job with the newspaper but then The Bolivar Commercial closed after 104 years of publication.

“I was expecting to leave the newspaper, not for it to leave me,” she said. “But things work out the way they do.”

Now, Strub resides in Oxford as regional director and has since April 2020. “It’s such a valuable program and we can offer so much,” she said. “I want to do it all but I want to do it all right.”

After coming to Oxford, Strub recognized the exchange club lost its connection to the community, to their entire purpose of existing.

Many residents are not aware the NMEFC even exists or a program had to end due to lack of involvement.

“We’ve lost a little bit of connection, but over the last six months it has been completely overwhelming for me,” said Strub. “It opens up your heart to realize that you

are helping someone in need.”

Child abuse prevention may be the primary initiative, but the NEC is committed to helping anyone in any way possible. With audible emotion in her voice, Strub recounted how the NMEFC was given the opportunity to help a teen mother in desperate need of help. The young lady was waiting outside the NMEC center for help when Strub encountered her.

“She had nothing and she needed everything,” said Strub. “I was fortunate to have recently received a really significant donation of items from the Mississippi Public Health Institute.”

NMEFC was able to give that teen mother, and many other mothers in their Raising Mothers to Rise program, car seats, baby bottles, tubs, diapers and other necessities. “[The teen] came in to get a breast pump and she was in tears to know that somebody was able to help her,” said Strub. Many teen

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According to Strub, the young mother will be joining the NMEFC’s Raising Mothers to Rise program, an initiative that serves pregnant and parenting teen mothers in North Mississippi.

“It just made my heart feel good to know that I’ve helped somebody,” she said. “That we helped somebody. Even if it’s just one person you’re making a difference.”

This one act of kindness and compassion can stem other problems as well. Strub hopes the NMEC can continue its service and stem the tide of abuse. When you take away any worries about day to day necessities, it allows people to live freer and less debilitating lives.

“Without that financial stress, it helps to reduce abuse,” she said.

“Sometimes that’s the trigger …

Even that little bit can help and,

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hopefully, we will be able to help more. It’s a good heart feeling to know that you’re trying to do something good.”

The NMEFC will continue to work through programs such as Raising Mothers and Stop The Abuse Now — an initiative dedicated to educating children on abuse and how to talk about it with adults — and Give Care, a program that supplies comforting or necessary items to children who have been displaced due to neglect or abuse, house fires, homelessness or natural disasters.

Outside of their programs, Strub and NMEFC members continue to reestablish that connection with the community and push as much heart into their work as possible. As time has passed, donations have begun to flow in and more people have begun to seek out the NMEFC for help.

“We’re making progress and I’m really excited about that,” she said.

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JOE TONOS

SERVING with a heart made to be BROKEN

HE ART

By Maya Martin | The Oxford Eagle

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I

n the third book of 1 John, the author ponders to the reader in the 18th verse on how one can have worldly possessions, see their fellow man in need and yet have no compassion to give to them.

The writer asserts that the root of Christianity is to reflect the love Jesus Christ had for the world onto others. “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”

The Rev. Joe Tonos of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church is making it his mission to lead his parishioners to share the word of God and to carry out and continue the work of Jesus Christ on Earth.

Tonos was born and raised in Greenville, Mississippi, which is considered to be the heart and soul of the Delta. Within this area full of rivers and waterways, he grew up in a multicultural environment filled with people of all races and colors including immigrants from Germany, Italy, China, Lebanon, and Syria — the latter two are where his parents

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“I really can’t understand, sometimes, the irrational prejudice if there is such a thing. It’s people just holding on to their ideas about race, God, sex and religion and I would say that it shaped me.”

Father Joe Tonos

originated.

Growing up in a diverse area created an attitude of innocence to many prejudices he might have encountered elsewhere, Tonos said. Race, religion, ethnicity wasn’t a huge factor in his life.

“I just didn’t even think there was a world out there,” he said. “I never really thought about what the rest of the world was like. I saw a bit of it on TV.” When he eventually ventured beyond Greenville, he encountered other people’s prejudices but it also

”

opened his eyes to how little he knew about the world around him.

“I really can’t understand, sometimes, the irrational prejudice if there is such a thing,” said Tonos.

“It’s people just holding on to their ideas about race, God, sex and religion and I would say that it shaped me.”

Religion was a key factor in his adolescent life. The Catholic Church was a prominent institution in Greenville which is different from most places in Central and North Mississippi, according to Tonos.

“I grew up in sort of a Catholic context, grew up in a Catholic home and went to Catholic schools,” he said.

When asked what they want to be when they grow up, most children say a scientist, firefighter or a singer, but Tonos knew he would probably become a Catholic priest from a young age.

“One of the things Catholic boys used to be asked to think about is becoming a Catholic priest. I took that seriously — I was the only one in my class to think that it was serious— and the only one in the history of my parish to take it seriously.”

After being ordained as a priest in 1994, Tonos spent time at the St. Richard Catholic Church in Jackson, then another seven years as a youth director and director of vocations among other positions for the diocese. After 10 years of service in Jackson, Tonos moved to Oxford in 2004 and has settled into the area.

Tonos has made community service and community outreach a sizable part of his tenure as priest of

HE ART the parish. The church regularly gives to the poor or the disadvantaged who are in need of help.

In 2020, St. John held a drawdown event to fund Interfaith Compassion Ministry Director Lena Wiley’s finances after Wiley completed a kidney transplant in 2019 and any additional medicine she would need. Wiley, a long-time community volunteer, does her part in the community to find shelter for the homeless, food for those suffering from hunger and other necessities for people who need them.

St. John hosts Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and any organizations or groups who need their services.

“We don’t serve them because they’re Catholic,” said Tonos. “We serve them because we’re Catholic.”

According to Tonos, it is important for the Catholic Church to serve others with a heart open to being used and broken.

“The heart for me is the hardest thing,” said Tonos. “I have this saying that you can’t get to heaven without a broken heart. If you put your heart in a golden box and it’s never broken, that means it’s

never used.”

This saying isn’t telling people to go out and get into toxic relations, but to allow yourself to feel compassion and love for others and to act on those feelings without counting the cost.

“One of the symbols of Christianity is Jesus with a sacred heart with thorns all around it and it’s got a fire coming out of it, which shows that his heart broke for us,” said Tonos. “I think that’s something to really consider. The care of the heart is the care of other people and allowing it to be broken.”

However, Tonos recognizes how daunting the idea could be to others.

“I don’t know how super successful I am, not only with my parish but with anyone because that’s a lot to ask,” he said.

Though it may be hard, the priest believes it is the only ticket to reaching heaven.

“I just think that if you keep your heart in a glass case or keep it on ice and don’t allow it to go out there and to love — love deeply— it’s useless,” said Tonos. “You’re just too preserved. You didn’t use that gift and that talent; the heart is also a talent.”

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CLINT JORDAN

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love music Sharing a

By Rebecca Alexander The Oxford Eagle

C

lint Jordan came to Oxford to pursue a doctoral degree in English but also made money on the side as a roving music teacher going to people’s homes. He found that teaching music and working with students was much more his passion than English and decided to pursue teaching mu-

for

sic full-time.

When Austin’s Music was looking to get out of the business, he and Robert McGehee decided to take over as owners, with Donna Downey continuing as a music teacher. That was in 2014 and today Oxford House of Music has seven music teachers with students split nearly evenly between piano and guitar. They also teach a variety of other instruments including

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M w t g

voice, banjo, violin, mandolin, dobro and bass.

When asked how the pandemic affected the business, “Oddly enough, it increased it,” said Jordan. “An absolute blessing. When COVID happened, we shut down and began doing distance learning over zoom and video for a few months. We wound up with more students. I guess people were stuck at home and looking for things to do. We came out busier than going in.”

When Oxford House of Mu-

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sic was able to open back up, they followed new protocols for health reasons.

“Little hands still have to be shown how to form a chord on guitar or piano,” said Jordan, “but we still follow reasonable safety measures.”

Learning music has an impact on students’ lives. Clint pointed to a young boy who started when he was six and was given an outlet to express things that can’t be expressed any other way.

“I always knew he would play music and do something artistic, but the boy found a way to express himself artistically

and now sings as well as plays” said Jordan.

He pointed out another student has gotten into music theater because taking music lessons gave her the confidence to pursue it.

“Without the initial push music lessons provide, it’s questionable if she’d ever have found that avenue of study.”

When asked how teaching is different than in the past, Jordan responded that they still have a spring recital, but he calls it a Pickin’ Party. It is less formal and allows them to get up in front of their peers and play. Jordan is up there on stage playing along with them,

so they’re not alone in front of a large crowd.

The other difference is that the advent of streaming has killed the idea of what is a timely song. When you search for a song on Spotify, the algorithm is not exclusively based on time, but on the type of songs.

“It could be a 400 year old melody, or it could be Tom Petty that pops up in your playlist. The other day, a 10 year old asked if I had ever heard of Frank Sinatra. And now, it seems that every young person now really knows the Beatles.”

When asked what advice he has for parents who are thinking about music lessons for their children, “Be patient.

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Make it fun. Encourage them with whatever they accomplish that week. Tell them that is good. It takes time” Jordan said.

House of Music also has older students, retirees who come in saying they had either always wanted to learn to play and were looking for something to do, or they had taken lessons when they were younger and wished they had never quit.

Mr. Clint, as his students call him, is very glad to be able to teach music to his students and to work with the teachers at Oxford House of Music.

“They’re all top notch folks, real professionals. I can safely say that we have something for everyone here. We can teach all styles, all ages, and most times of day. It’s a real gift, and I hope we can share it with as many people as possible. Music is good for everyone, and that’s a fact.”

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MICHELLE ROUNSAVILLE

CALLED TO SERVE

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Lafayette County Volunteer of the Year helps children through CASA program

By Jake Davis | The Oxford Eagle

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“In the beginning it’s “heartbreaking because you see

all the terrible circumstances the kids have been through, but you know that, once you meet them, we’re working towards making things better for the kids. So you focus on that instead of their past.”

Michelle Rounsaville

M

ichelle Rounsaville began volunteering for CASA after reading “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption”

by Bryan Stevenson during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The book, which was turned into a feature film in 2019, details Stevenson’s experiences as a criminal defense attorney working to overturn the wrongful conviction of Walter McMillan.

It also lays out other examples of wrongful incarceration, including chapters dedicated to children serving life sentences.

“For some reason it just broke me. I started crying reading these chapters and it was just heartbreaking,” she said. “I wanted to know what I could do, so I reached out to a friend of mine who’s a foster parent and they told me about CASA.” CASA, or Court-Appointed Special Advocates, is a national organization that

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trains volunteers to advocate for the best interests of children entering the foster care system.

The organization was founded by Seattle Superior Court Judge David Soukup in 1977, and has since expanded to 49 states and the District of Columbia. Each state’s program is responsible for developing its own budget, often funded by local governments and private donations.

Erin Smith founded the Lafayette County branch of CASA in November 2018. The organization served 115 children in 2021, reporting more than 4,000 hours of service from volunteers.

Forty-two volunteers from various walks of life work for CASA in Lafayette County.

They are assigned one case at a time, with exceptions for sibling groups and demand.

Cases are typically resolved within 10 to 12 months, but extenuating circumstances sometimes cause a case to drag out for multiple years.

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CASA does not require any formal education or legal experience for its volunteers.

Instead, applicants undergo an extensive training process that includes multiple interviews, thorough background checks and 30 hours of initial training.

CASA volunteers are appointed to cases by a judge, and keep in contact with the child’s biological parents, foster parents, teachers, guidance counselors and doctors to get a full understanding of the child’s needs. They submit reports back to the court detailing the child’s home and school conditions and make recommendations based on the child’s needs.

For children in the midst of constant change, CASAs are often the sole constant. Children can bounce between foster families, schools and CPS workers, so a CASA serves as the unifying figure in their lives.

Those involved with CASA learn that entering the foster system is one of the most traumatic experiences a child can endure. While the system aims to provide secure homes

for children with nowhere else to go, it often continues a cycle of abuse and neglect that leads to more problems down the road.

Studies show that 44% of children placed in foster care are arrested at least once, compared to just 14% of the general population. Nearly 90% of children with five or more foster placements will enter the justice system at some point in their lives.

Rounsaville says her work as a CASA can be emotionally draining at times due to the dire circumstances of the children she advocates for, but also notes that it has provided some of the most rewarding experiences of her life so far.

“It’s been the hardest, but most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done,” Rounsaville says. “It’s heartbreaking, but it can be so joyful as well.”

Children are removed from their homes for a variety of reasons, namely abuse or neglect. The circumstances of each case can vary greatly, with some parents eager to complete the steps to get their children back while others struggle to get their own lives

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back on track.

The foster care system is cyclical, as those who exit the system and start their own families often struggle to keep their children out of the system.

Rounsaville says many parents do not have the tools or support they need to properly care for their children. She detailed one case she worked on in which the parents, who were both in the foster system themselves growing up, simply needed guidance for building a safe home.

“The parents grew up in and out of different homes. They were young and just needed some guidance, and I was able to provide that for them,” Rounsaville said. “They were eager to have that information and to have somebody to talk to and reassure them that these things could be done.”

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Studies show that 44% of children placed in foster care are arrested at least once, compared to just 14% of the general population. Nearly 90% of children with five or more foster placements will enter the justice system at some point in their lives.

She said the parents worked tirelessly to complete their court-mandated training in order to ensure their child returned to their care.

“They wanted to do it, and they did everything so fast.

They completed all their classes, all their hours, all their counseling. I mean they were on

it, they wanted it. They wanted their daughter back,” she said.

Other cases are not as simple, however. When the court determines that a child’s biologi-

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HE ART cal parents are unable to safely care for them and moves towards adoption proceedings, cases can drag out for years. These cases are the most severe, and often stem from prolonged abuse.

Those types of cases can be emotionally draining for volunteers, but Rounsaville says that her focus is on improving the child’s future rather than changing their past.

“In the beginning it’s heartbreaking because you see all the terrible circumstances the kids have been through, but you know that, once you meet them, we’re working towards making things better for the kids. So you focus on that instead of their past,” she says. “I just keep reminding myself that everything that we’re doing is for the betterment of the child.”

CASAs are critical to the foster care process, and develop a unique bond with the children they advocate for, especially in more severe cases where a child often has no other

adult role model in their life.

Rounsaville, who was named Lafayette County CASA Volunteer of the Year in 2021, says she maintains a relationship with the first child she mentored even after helping to reunite her with her family.

“We have a very trusting, buddy-type relationship. It’s a fun relationship,” she says. “The mom and dad both know that, anything they need, they can reach out. It’s a lasting relationship. … We’re buds.”

She says those relationships are what drive her to keep dedicating her time and advocating for those without a voice.

“I see how important it is for these kids. With the pandemic we saw a huge spike in abuse cases because they weren’t shielded from the everyday hustle and bustle. It’s extremely important work, and to see the differences in the kids’ lives, it’ll keep you doing it over and over again.”

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Brain

Some of Oxford’s brightest make their mark on community with ideas, innovation PROFILE 2022

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DR. JEAN GUYTON GISPEN

B R AI NS

IN THE FAMILY A Q&A with Dr. Jean Guyton

By Bonnie Brown | The Oxford Eagle

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O

ne of the 10 Guyton siblings born to Dr. Arthur and Ruth Guyton, Dr. Jean Guyton Gipsen followed in the footsteps of her famous father.

Dr. Guyton, a Mississippi-born physician, is recognized internationally for his research and study of the physiology of cardiac output. He authored Textbook of Medical Physiology, perhaps the most widely used medical textbook in the nation.

And while Dr. Gipsen may have been predisposed to a career in medicine, her courage to pursue and define her own path combined with her exceptional intellect and sharp humor have led to a singularly impressive career and life.

Q:

You come from a very distinguished family.

Tell us a little about your childhood, growing up with nine siblings.

GISPEN: We lived on the outskirts of north Jackson, so we weren’t really in a neighborhood.

We played among ourselves primarily. There was always something to do and always someone to do it with.

Q:

What were your favorite things to do as a kid?

GISPEN: Swim. Play tennis.

Read books. Boat. Walk in the woods with a dog, climb trees, pick blackberries. My best buddy was my brother Doug, who is a year and a half younger than I am. We played a game where we

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threw a ball back and forth over the swing set, trying to never let it touch the ground.

Q:

Was there a transformative moment in your

life?

GISPEN: I went to Radcliffe College when I was 16. At the time, my second oldest brother and his family were living in Natick, Massachusetts; two brothers were at Harvard Medical School; and my sister was also at Radcliffe. Even with all that family support, I cried myself to sleep many nights during the fall semester freshman year.

I could do the work, but it was too cold. And it got too dark too early in the afternoon. And all my classmates were older and

B R AI NS sexually active, which disturbed me. I sought refuge on the swim team. A pool in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is very similar to a pool in Jackson, Mississippi. I would go to the Sears in Porter Square to feel at home because that Sears had the same layout as the Sears in Jackson.

On a lighter note, marrying my husband was transformative. I had studied math and science primarily, and my focus was on this country. Then, all of a sudden, I’m in love with a man who had studied Greek and Latin and English and French and German and all the social sciences, a man whose family was still in the Netherlands. A whole world opened up. When I study now, I still study medicine, but also languages.

My family will say that my cooking was transformed after I met three Italian friends: one from Venice, one from Rome, and one from Florence. All three are

wonderful cooks, and not one of them makes a big deal out of it.

They have taught me a lot.

Q:

Your nine siblings all became doctors. When did you know that you wanted to become a physician? Did you feel any pressure to become a doctor too?

GISPEN: I didn’t know what I wanted to be. I took premed classes in college as a backup plan. I thought that perhaps I’d like computers, but friends who liked computers were obsessed by them, and spent all their time working with them. I never liked them that way. Then I thought I might like to teach math, and I did teach basic math one semester during college. I wasn’t very good at it, and I didn’t enjoy it. Medicine was really the only career I was ever exposed to. I’m lucky I like it.

Q:

How/why did you find your way back to Mississippi to practice medicine?

GISPEN: College was in Boston, and medical school was in Durham, North Carolina. I did an internal medicine residency in Nashville, then a fellowship in rheumatology in Birmingham.

With each step I had come halfway back to Mississippi. Mississippi is where I’m happy. It has to do with the long summer nights, the quality of the light at dusk, and the people. After Birmingham I interviewed for a job in Meridian, but it was a little bit too close to my family in Jackson. I was in my late twenties, and I was already being treated as the old maid aunt in the family, and I felt that wasn’t right. So, I took a job in Nashville.

The week before I started that job, I met an Ole Miss history professor. We married after a commuter courtship. If a doctor and a tenure-track historian marry, it is

the doctor who moves.

Q:

Your medical practice has been important to Oxford and Ole Miss, first as a rheumatologist prior to becoming the Staff Physician at the Employee Health Center on campus. What other kinds of service have been important and meaningful to you?

Gispen: I helped Mr. Uhl coach the little kids on the SWAT swim team for a couple of years when his daughter Rebecca was the coach. There is a cohort of kids in Oxford who have been yelled at by me, or played water polo against me, or been chased by me down a lane in the pool. What a wonderful way that was to begin a workday on campus: swimming outdoors with little kids for an hour on a summer morning.

In my medical practices, it has been important to me to help people who are from other countries

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or other cultures. We lived in Jena in former East Germany for five months when the girls were small, and I will never forget the people who were kind to us.

Q:

How did your parents influence you to become a steward of service to your community?

GISPEN: My dad felt strongly about Mississippi, and I think he would have come back here to work even had he not gotten polio. My mom was constantly PTA president or a Cub Scout leader. They both treated everyone with respect, acknowledging that each person they met had a quality to admire, something that that person could teach others. I hope that I also treat others that way.

Q:

How did you and your husband Kees meet?

Tell us about your daughters.

GISPEN: I was driving through Oxford with my friend Esther on a vacation before beginning private practice in Nashville. We decided to visit my friend Marie Antoon, who was giving a party that night.

There was Kees. I fell for him during a game of Trivial Pursuit.

Our older girl is Fiona, who currently works as a hospitalist in Nashville. She’ll move to New York City in the summer as a fellow in infectious diseases. The younger daughter, Adrienne, works in IT in Berlin.

Both girls are terrific human beings.

Q:

As a skilled health care professional, I’m sure you have encountered many challenges in treating your patients. Where does COVID fit in this?

GISPEN: COVID makes everything more difficult.

Dr. Hubert Spears and I are trying to run a normal medical practice, helping with high blood pressure, diabetes, bladder infections, physical exams, lacer-

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ations, but we have a parallel practice on top of the normal practice, fielding calls about COVID exposures or quarantines or isolation rules. Dr. Spears does the bulk of the testing, but I do some too, and we both struggle to convince people to get vaccinated.

It is disheartening to live in a state where so many people are unvaccinated. You cannot grow up with a father who had polio without believing in the value of vaccines. I also think that people have an obligation to the health of the community to do everything they can during a pandemic to protect the health of those around them. This means vaccination, wearing a good-quality mask, and social distancing.

Q:

How do you deal with stress?

GISPEN: I exercise.

My husband can always make me laugh. I cut the grass. I knit and I do jigsaw puzzles. We watch series on Amazon Prime or Netflix, and I read or reread books. All my coffee and tea now are decaffeinated. I play Wordle and the New York Times Spelling Bee. If, as I’m cooking dinner or chatting with Kees, I realize that I’m in a happy moment, I try to make time slow down right then and I revel in the moment. I’m always looking for these moments.

Q:

What is your greatest fear about COVID? GISPEN: Somehow COVID has gone from being a grave problem of public health to being politicized. COVID is making normal medical care harder, and some people are inappropriately delaying care because of fear of COVID or cannot access care because hospitals are overwhelmed by COVID. I am afraid that too many skilled professionals are leaving health care because of the stress caused by COVID. And to be honest, the biggest stress is caused by seeing people become

ill because they chose not to be vaccinated. If, as a provider, you are asked for your advice about COVID, and then that advice is brushed aside or ignored, it is hard to take. And as an ignored advice-giving provider, you start to think you don’t need this, because seeing the ill people who didn’t need to be ill eats at your very being.

I worry that how to respond to COVID has driven a huge political wedge into our country.

Q:

What worries you most about our health care system?

GISPEN: I think it is expensive and unequal. I’d like to see some form of nationalized health care.

Q:

What is most encouraging about our health care system?

GISPEN: There are marvelous new therapies for some

types of cancer and for rheumatologic diseases. Scientists continue to learn and to develop new treatments. There are some very good physicians and other practitioners who work faithfully for their patients.

Q:

Health care workers have a high degree of burnout right now. What advice would you give to them to help them through this crisis?

Gispen: This is a difficult question because I am struggling myself. Keep enough time for yourself to stay sane. Enjoy the small moments. Remember the things you like about working in medicine. Work toward helping people remember that as citizens of a community, we have an obligation to public health. Support vaccinations not only in this country, but throughout the world.

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KEITH KESSINGER

Home is where the

heart is Keith Kessinger strives to make Oxford feel like home for his customers

By Rhes Lowe | The Oxford Eagle

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K

essinger: It’s been a household name in Oxford since 1960 when Don Kessinger, the legendary Ole Miss baseball player, came to town to play shortstop.

After a Hall of Fame career in the major leagues playing for the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago White Sox, Don and his wife Carolyn returned home to Oxford in 1994 and started Kessinger Real Estate. In the coming years, Don’s sons would follow him into the business.

Today, Don’s son and former Ole Miss baseball player and coach, Keith Kessinger, is the Managing Broker of Kessinger Real Estate. Since joining the family business in 2008, Keith has helped hundreds of people buy or sell their homes in Oxford.

For Keith, it’s important that his company has a positive in-

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B R AI NS fluence on everyone they work with and the Oxford community that he calls home.

Maintaining integrity, building relationships and caring for the community are Kessinger’s guiding values. Keith and his team of real estate agents try to live these values out by giving back through time and donations, doing their part to bring new business and more jobs into Oxford and – most importantly – helping people make Oxford their home.

“Building relationships is key to understanding a family’s wants and needs, and through that we hopefully develop a friendship,” Keith said. “Many of the people that I’ve worked with have become friends through selling them a house.”

Kessinger Real Estate has about 300 transactions a year.

From condos and houses to

business locations and land, these transactions have a significant impact on the culture and economy of Oxford.

“One of the greatest joys of being a realtor is finding a family the right home,” Keith said.

“Seeing a family find the perfect home and falling in love with it, nothing beats that.”

Keith understands that, for many newcomers to Oxford, he and his team are some of the first people they meet in town.

They play a major role in creating a sense of welcome from the start.

“My favorite times are finding first-time buyers a home or getting new residents connected in our community,” Keith said. “Whether it’s finding a handyman, choosing schools or inviting them to church, my job is to help Oxford become home for the families we work with.”

When he’s not helping fami-

lies make Oxford their home, Keith spends time announcing for Ole Miss Baseball alongside David Kellum.

“I played sports my entire life and after joining the family business, I wanted to stay involved with sports,” says Keith.

“Coach Bianco gave me an opportunity to call games with my good friend David Kellum, and now I’ve been announcing for 10 years.”

Keith still announces and loves watching Ole Miss and college baseball, but this season is special for another reason. His son Chase plays at the University of Memphis and Keith plans on attending as many of his games as possible.

“Chase has two years of eligibility left but we don’t know if he will use them both,” says Keith. “I want to support him and see him play as much as I can.”

Keith’s daughter, Anna Kathryn, works as a realtor for her dad. After attending college at the University of Mississippi, she decided to stay in Oxford, which so many of her family and friends have called home for so many years.

“We have a close family and Oxford has always been our home,” Anna Kathryn said.

“My dad works really hard. I’m glad I can learn from him and help our family business.”

In the last few years of working with Keith, Anna Kathryn has learned from her father’s leadership by example.

“My dad taught the importance of becoming friends with your clients,” Anna Kathryn said. “No matter if he’s known someone for five minutes or five years, he makes everyone feel important and will help them in any way to make Oxford feel like home.”

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DOCTORS JULIE AND RICKY HICKS

A calling in

pathology life and

By May Martin | The Oxford Eagle

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T

he pathologist duo Drs. Julie and Rickey Hicks are bringing their own unique take on treating patients through a religious lens at Baptist Memorial Hospital North Mississippi.

The Hicks both work in the medical lab at Baptist striving to uncover the secrets a patient’s body holds.

According to Julie, a pathologist works to guide doctors to the correct diagnosis, or to be a doctor’s doctor, and lead them to the correct conclusion.

“You look at things under the microscope — we spend most of our day looking through the microscope and diagnosing breast tumors, colon cancers [and] lung cancers,” she said. “If someone calls something malignant, that’s a pathologist.

You get the tissue, you take sections and you look at it under a microscope and diagnose it as cancer or not.”

Julie attended Christian Brothers University, a private college in Memphis, Tennessee, starting out in the med-tech program. After seeing a pathologist work in the university’s medical lab, Julie instantly knew she wanted to become a pathologist.

“I went to a library in Memphis and got a book called ‘So You Want to Be a Doctor,’” she recalls.

Julie went on to attend the University of Tennessee College Health Science Center College Of Medicine where she met her husband Rickey in their second year. The two soon-to-be doctors hit it off so well, they married nine months after their first date and are 41 years strong.

Although Julie knew that pathology was her future, being a pathologist wasn’t Rickey’s top priority.

“I went to undergraduate school at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and I thought that I wanted to do family medicine,” he said.

Rickey was never exposed to the pathology field during his semesters at the university, it was only during an internship after medical school that he encountered it.

“I did a pathology elective and I really, really enjoyed it,” said Rickey. “At that time, we had one child and we knew that we were going to have some more — we planned on it. Pathology really lends itself to a better family lifestyle.”

And lend itself it did. As Rickey completed his internship, and Julie her residency at Baptist Memorial Hospital Memphis, they raised their two daughters Emily and Megan and only son Shepard over the next four years. Ten years later in 1998, the Hicks adopted their youngest daughter Rachel from China.

The couple acknowledges that they were never the typical family because of their field of work.

“We took all of our kids to the lab with us,” said Julie. Talk about work became common in the house or around the dinner table and they became known for their love of pathology even to their children’s friends.

“Their friends would talk about ‘The Dinner Table at the Hicks House,’” she said with a laugh.

“It’s not normal for most families, but it was for us,” said Rickey.

Their passion for medicine was inherited by their three daughters: Emily, a dermatologist; Rachel, a registered nurse; and their middle daughter Megan who also became a patholo-

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gist just like them and joined the lab at Baptist. While their son did not inherit the doctor gene like the rest, he established his own communications company and works at a local church in Jackson.

Although Julie and Rickey have made pathology their career, they have always been heavily involved with the church and eager to minister to the community.

“We started going to Bellevue Baptist Church, became devoted Christians and decided that we wanted to serve God through our work, through pathology,” said Julie. According to Julie, pathology lends itself to being a ministry and the Hicks want to serve their patients through a Christ-like example.

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“

“As Christinans we want to share the ministry of Christ and to serve the patients, serve others and serve the doctors and share the love of Jesus with people.”

Dr. Julie Hicks

“ … As Christians we want to share the ministry of Christ and to serve the patients, serve others and serve the doctors and share the love of Jesus with people,” she said.

Pathologists see the worst news before the patient or their physician even sees it and many years on the job have given Drs. Hicks insight on how to bring a

”

Christian element to the medical field. The pathologist prays to God for guidance and help in doing the best for their patients.

Julie even recites a verse from Acts 20:24, a scripture that motivates her to complete tasks set for before and testify the news of Jesus. Along with scripture, she prays each day before she looks in the microscope to help

her see what’s there, to know what she is seeing and to know what she doesn’t know.

“Meaning if I don’t know what it is, I’ll show it to somebody else or send it off,” she said.

“We give diagnoses and it’s not good news sometimes but we want to make sure we give them the best that we can give them in terms of evaluating their specimen,” Rickey said.

Wherever the Hicks go, they can turn that space into a mission field in order to spread their love of Jesus to others. It also includes loving others unconditionally just like God. “Whether it’s your family, your marriage, your community or your work, you should feel like you can share the gospel and that’s what we try to do in everything we do,” said Julie.

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DR. TANYA FITTS

B R AI NS

A commitment to caring

Pediatrician Dr. Tanya Fitts has built a life and a practice that is dedicated to doing good for her patients and the community.

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D

r. Tanya Fitts has been taking care of families in Lafayette County for more than 18 years. The pediatrician and owner of Lafayette Pediatric Clinic has helped first-time moms navigate life with a newborn, answered late-night phone calls from worried parents, soothed children suffering from high fevers and sore throats, and provided support for teens struggling with their mental health.

“I love what I do,” Dr. Fitts said. “I love kids — and when they’re sick, I love helping them get better.”

This love has been with Dr. Fitts since she started her pediatrics rotation at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in the late ‘90s, where she found her people — and her path as a physician.

“My mentors just enjoyed

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coming to work, which was a very different experience from, say, the department of internal medicine,” she said.

“These people enjoyed what they did every day. Pediatrics is very rewarding as a specialty. No other type of doctor gets to come into work and play with their patients all day long.”

Now, all these years later, Dr. Fitts has built a practice that has treated thousands of children, many of whom she started caring for at birth through high school graduation.

Her impact, however, goes well-beyond the now generations of patients she has helped to keep well. She has also built a practice that seeks to serve the often underserved and to close gaps in the system that can keep families from getting the care they need.

For example, Dr. Fitts and her team have worked to make their clinic a Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) site. This certification from the National Health Services Corps means that Lafayette Pediatric Clinic can provide services to patients at a sliding scale discount based on the size of their family and their income.

“We believe that everyone, especially children, should receive medical care — whether they are uninsured or underinsured,” she said. “When kids don’t have access to preventative care services, you typically see increased hospitalizations and more emergency room visits.”

Dr. Fitts also serves as an advocate for literacy in the community. Not only is she a member of the Lafayette County Literacy Council, but

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662.234.6152 2197 Jackson Avenue West Oxford, MS 50

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her clinic also participates in the national nonprofit Reach Out & Read. Through the program, she uses books as a tool to assess children’s developmental milestones at checkups through age 5. During appointments, she also gives families a free book to take and enjoy together at home.

Some of her favorites are The Pout-Pout Fish, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Goodnight Moon.

This commitment to literacy is a role that Dr. Fitts says is essential when you consider that 16% of the state’s adult population lacks proficient reading and writing skills, according to the National Center for Education for Statistics’ most recent data. She also believes helping individuals improve their literacy will help them improve their overall health because it will give them access to and understanding of a wider range of information.

“If you can’t read or write, you’re not going to be able to

access the handout or research your medical situation,” she says.

Finally, Dr. Fitts is also involved with advocating for patients and physicians at a statewide level through her role in the Mississippi Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, where she currently serves as president-elect.

Supporting these programs and advocating for these causes goes well beyond the need for any sort of financial gain, according to Dr. Fitts.

“As long as I am able to feed my family through my business, I am blessed,” she said. “Blessed in this profession to help people, not to make money.”

It’s a calling and approach to life that Dr. Fitts often sums up with a quote from John Wesley: “Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can, in every place you can, at all the times you can, with all the zeal you can, as long as ever you can.”

BOBBY HUDSON

B R AI NS

Leadership is about what is in your

heart

By Jake Davis | The Oxford Eagle

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B

obby Hudson III is always looking for his next challenge.

The Gulfport native is never content to relax, even after working tirelessly over the past two years to create, as he puts it, “substantive change in the community.”

“I’ve always thought that this is what I’m supposed to be doing, it’s not a big deal.

There’s always more work to be done,” Hudson says.

Hudson, a senior at the University of Mississippi, started working closely with his local community in 2020 during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. He says the global shutdown gave him an opportunity to slow down and reassess what was important to him.

“COVID was a time for all of us to sit down and reflect, and really think about what our purpose is and what’s really important, how we can contribute to our community. The type of things that we weren’t often thinking about because

we’re so caught up in the going, so used to the fast-paced life,” he said.

Hudson says the shutdown during the COVID-19 pandemic gave him the time and space to enact that substantive change in his hometown.

“After COVID struck I was given the opportunity and the space to be able to really think about some innovative services and some resources that we could create to address issues, whether it’s in my community back home or here in the Oxford/Lafayette community,” he said.

The first event he hosted in Gulfport was a protest against systemic racism on June 27, 2020. The protest occurred two months after George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officers, an event that sparked protests in over 2,000 cities across the country.

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BRA I NS to increasing voter awareness and political literacy in the Gulfport community.

“The North Gulfport Advocacy Coalition was my way of being politically engaged, and getting my community politically and civically engaged, and bringing social justice awareness into my community,” he said.

Hudson says the greatest barriers to political activism are awareness and accessibility.

He argues the esoteric nature of policy and the lack of communication between elected officials and their constituents alienates large segments of the population, primarily those in minority communities who are often underrepresented in government.

“For the average, normal person it goes over their head, and because of that it’s not of importance to them,” Hudson says. “So how can I innova-

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“

“Leadership goes beyond titles, it goes beyond a boardroom, it goes beyond a closed room. It’s really about what’s in your heart. My leadership is best seen when I’m serving a cause that I’m passionate about.”

Bobby Hudson

tively take the information that I know and can analyze, and make it available to the general public? That’s basically what I charge myself with doing.”

Hudson also says many Americans do not understand how policy affects each individual aspect of their lives. Those who are not politically literate do not realize that policy affects each and every person individually, governing the way they go about their everyday lives.

“My family doesn’t even un-

”

derstand half the stuff I talk about,” Hudson says. “How do I draw that connection for them?

To let them know that all political issues are personal. This does affect you … that’s where the lack of communication is in our society, because our elected officials are there to represent us, but that’s not articulated because the communication is not there.”

He said that lack of communication excludes everyday Americans from the political

process, leaving them disinterested and unlikely to participate. That is why one of the goals of the NGAC is to unravel complex political policies and break them down into “three to five bullet points that are accessible to the public.”

“That’s really important to me because I believe the more civically and politically engaged everyone throughout our society becomes, I think that’s when we will really see the power of the people, really see how we can make changes and change the legislature,” Hudson says. “[It will] make our elected officials be held accountable, and really have them doing things up there in our name.”

Hudson says a higher level of political engagement is key to establishing a democracy that works in the interest of every American, not just those with the loudest voices.

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“I think it’ll be a little more holistic. That’s how our nation is supposed to be run,” he says.

“Everybody should be able to understand what’s going on to some extent.”

The NGAC is not a purely political organization however, Hudson added that the coalition was also founded to help “instill a sense of unity within the African American community” in Gulfport.

“A lot of times, we as African Americans don’t know the full bulk of our history, and don’t fully understand our culture on a personal level,” he said.

In order to better educate the community, Hudson founded the Gulfport Citywide Juneteenth Celebration Committee, an organization dedicated to celebrating black culture and achievement.

“It’s really dedicated to up56

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lifting African American freedom and achievement amongst other things, but also educating our community on our history and our culture as well,” Hudson said.

The committee started in June 2020 with a proclamation declaring a citywide celebration of black history, but has since evolved into a three-day celebration with festivals, parades, scholarship contests and more.

Hudson’s work is not limited to just his hometown though, he is also an active member of the University of Mississippi and the Oxford-Lafayette community.

The senior public policy major is known by many titles on campus; Student Ambassador to the Trent Lott Leadership Institute, Associate Director of Cross Cultural Engagement

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with ASB, Chief of Staff to Black Student Union President Jon’na Bailey, but he says those titles do not define who he is as a leader.

“Leadership goes beyond titles, it goes beyond a boardroom, it goes beyond a closed room,” Hudson says. “It’s really about what’s in your heart.

My leadership is best seen when I’m serving a cause that I’m passionate about.”

Hudson says his experience at the university helped him hone in on his leadership style and organize his skills, making him a more effective advocate for his community.

“It definitely made me hone in on my skills a little bit more, made me perfect my skills a little bit more, so that I can be the best me that I can be to be able to bring those changes to the full extent which we need

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them,” he says.

Hudson is not interested in being recognized for his work, saying that it is his duty to use the skills he gained at the university to give back to his community.

“It’s always good for minority students to see someone like them that will have similar experiences. That literally makes or breaks a lot of black students’ experiences here at the University of Mississippi, so I’ve always taken advantage of making sure that I was in a space, so I could provide something of substance to somebody in my community. I knew what I had to offer so therefore I tried to offer it in any capacity I could.”

He says his sense of duty is guided by W.E.B. DuBois’s concept of “The Talented Tenth,” the idea that one in ten black

men cultivate the ability to become leaders in their community by acquiring a college education and becoming involved in enacting social change.

“We have a duty to return back to our communities and provide opportunities that would have never been there before after we go off and get our college education and professionally develop ourselves,” Hudson says. “We have a duty to return back to our community, the community that shaped us, and created us and sent us off. We have that duty to come back and provide something of substance to better our community,” That sense of duty is what drives Hudson to always look for the next challenge, driving him from one project to the next as the accolades pile up.

He is not one to revel in his suc-

cesses however, even after being named to TIME Magazine’s list of “30 in 2030,” a group of six college students dubbed as the leaders of the next generation.

Hudson says he was surprised by the recognition, noting that he never felt like he was doing anything out of the ordinary.

“I’ve always thought that this is what I’m supposed to be doing, it’s not a big deal,” he says.

“There’s always more work to be done.”

While others may take a step back and celebrate such an incredible achievement, Hudson simply puts his head down and moves right on to the next project.

He summed up his thoughts on the recognition in seven words; “Thank you, let’s get back to work.”

Courage Two brave women share stories of overcoming obstacles and helping others through similar challenges

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COU RA GE

TANISHA BANKSTON

voice power

Rediscovering her

and embracing

her

By Maya Martin | The Oxford Eagle

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CO U R AG E

T

anisha Bankston may be a fairly recent transplant to Oxford, but she has shown that she is more than ready to rise up and make waves.

While she works as a licensed insurance agent during the day, Bankston is making her voice heard for different platforms against sexual and child abuse, domestic violence and incest as a survivor herself.

The advocate survived multiple sexual assaults and a abusive relationship throughout her childhood into her adulthood that left her spiritually and emotionally mute.

For 27 years, she endured the abuse before regaining her voice in 2020 and has been speaking out ever since.

Bankston was raised in Grenada, as the oldest of four children, under the care of a single, teen mother. In her book, Bankston said she loved being with her mother when she was young but her childhood

was not always happy.

From a young age, Bankston and siblings would endure neglect from their mother who was dependent on alcohol and would witness their mother being physically abused by her partners.

Although Bankston was only 6 years old, she had to take care of her younger siblings who ranged from ages 5 to 3 years old.

“There were times we didn’t have any food to eat,” Bankston said. In her autobiography, she described the many days she and her siblings would be left home alone with no food and would cry from hunger.

Despite the violence and neglect she endured, Bankston called herself a happy child who loved to play with her cousins and friends. However, that would change after she was sexually assaulted at 5 years old.

One night, Bankston’s grandmother and aunt went to visit her great-grandmother who lived

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across the railroad tracks from their house, but Bankston was too sleepy to leave with them so she stayed behind to rest.

Everyone but a friend of the family went off, leaving Bankston alone with him. To this day, she still remembers the scar he had above his eye.

Bankston explained in a plain-spoken manner how the family friend suddenly forced himself onto her as she was trying to sleep that night. As she was struggling against the assault, a carousel lamp in the room caught her eye.

“I remember seeing it lit but it couldn’t have because it would have burnt the house down,” she said. “I remember the carousel lamp and it falling over because I was trying to get him off of me …

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Upon her escape a young Bankston ran across the railroad tracks to reach her great-grandmother’s house and eventually encountered her mom who she immediately told about the assault.

“I told her, ‘He touched me. He just touched me,’” Bankston recounts. “I didn’t know what the word rape meant. I didn’t know anything about rape.”

Her mother called for the ambulance who performed an examination on her. As she stood for the examination, Bankston clearly recalled something changing in her at that moment.

“There was a shift in my brain,” she said. “It’s like I became somebody else because, at first, I was happy. I was still just a kid, a happy kid. I just shut down when it happened because it traumatized me so bad and messed me up.”

After the first responders examined her, Bankston was taken to a

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COU RA GE hospital for examination and further care. According to Bankston, her mother was not allowed in her own daughter’s hospital room, something she still doesn’t understand till this day.

The assault not only left Bankston with mental scars, but physical scars as well. Bankston was close to paralyzed and had to relearn how to walk at a rehabilitation facility.

“More and more comes back,” she said. “Day by day I recall things and I remember having metal braces on my legs and having to learn how to walk.”

At this time, she was unable to attend school while recovering and eventually failed out of school after missing three months of school.

None of what transpired affected Bankston’s attacker in any way.

He was never prosecuted for his assault against her despite being vocal about it to the people close to her. Although he was the only person there at the time, her family

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“

“I had to be the voice for the voiceless and help other people. I just pray that my book is an inspiration to other to come forward and break silence.”

Tanisha Bankston

chose to believe him when he said denied assaulting her.

Soon after, Bankston and her siblings were taken from her mother permanently by the Mississippi Department of Human Services and were given to close relatives which caused even further trauma on a young Bankston.

Although Bankston was given a new start with her aunt’s family, the abuse and assaults started again when she was 10. Bankston would be taken advantage of and abused by her male cousins, part-

”

ners of her relatives and a local neighborhood boy. The continued abuse and lack of belief in her stories chipped away at Bankston’s ability to speak out.

“I was able to talk but I lost my voice — my inner voice,” she said.

“I lost myself, so it was so easy to be bullied and so easy for people to mistreat me. I didn’t know how to stand up for myself. I didn’t know how to speak out anymore.”

Bankston would also face bullying in school which caused her to further isolate and retreat into

CO U R AG E herself. That inability to speak or reach out pushed Bankston to voice her thoughts through journaling — a habit she keeps in the present and one that would help her write her own story.

Later, Bankston became pregnant at the age of 13 with her first child, after being assaulted by her cousin’s husband. Being uneducated in sexual health and reproduction, she was completely thrown by the situation forced upon her that left her with no true support from her parents and other relatives.

“I had my baby at the age of 14 and my doctor said I almost died because my body wasn’t ready,” said Bankston.

Despite the harrowing situations, Bankston still had to continue living, especially since she was a new mother. Even after the family discovered the cousin’s partner assaulted Bankston, no actions were taken against him and the cousin even made light of the situation with a joke. No one ever questioned

why a teenage girl was pregnant by an adult man.

“It really hurt me because I thought I was going to be saved and protected then and he would be locked up but he continued to come to my aunt’s house, watch me and prey on me,” she said. “Nothing was ever done.”

Bankston said she was lost and could not find it in herself to say no because. At 14, Bankston would find herself in an abusive relationship with a 23-year-old man who would eventually become her second child’s father. For nine years Bankston endured domestic violence, physical and verbal.

Throughout this time, Bankston still worked to provide for her children and keep the family afloat and worked to better her education and get a degree. By the time Bankston was 23, she finally left her son’s father and began to move on. Though she did encounter more heartbreak and trouble, she had broken free of a prison.

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As she reflects back on all the trauma she endured, Bankston turns emotional.

“To this day, I will always write and just ask God ‘Why me? Why did this happen to me?’” Bankston said. “I would cry in my aunt’s bathroom and say to myself, ‘Tanisha you’re going to come out of this.’ And I did. I just thank God for getting me through it.”

Bankston knew one day she would get the chance to tell her own story, to have the courage to finally speak out against her abusers and the people who ignored her suffering.

“Somebody is going to hear me and somebody is going to believe me,” she said.

That day came on July 3, 2020, when Bankston guested on a radio talk show for the National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse. She initially divulged her story on group forums for survivors, but a representative with NAASCA caught wind of it and invited her onto the radio show.

“I was so nervous and scared to speak because before then I had never told anyone,” said Bankston.

“I would always write it down and it would never go anywhere.”

But once she spoke, Bankston felt a weight lift from her and, although she was met with a great amount of backlash from her family, the relief she felt for finally speaking her truth was worth it.

“I rediscovered my voice,” she said. “It took 27 years to speak out and going through everything that I’ve gone through, I just couldn’t 66

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hush any more.”

After guesting on NAASCA, Bankston was invited to more podcasts and platforms like “So LUX Life Podcast” and “Your Voices of Hope” to talk about her experiences and how she has survived. The more she spoke, the more she became confident in telling her story and advocating against the very traumas she went through.

In May 2021, Bankston released her autobiographical story My Pain is My Power detailing her entire life story and how she eventually overcame all the obstacles set before her.

The journey to rediscovering her voice has helped her discover her dream to become a motivational speaker and develop a platform to help assault and domestic violence survivors.

“I had to be the voice for the voiceless and help other people,” said Bankston. “I just pray that my book is an inspiration to others to come forward and break silence.”

The next goal for Bankston is to obtain her bachelor’s degree in social work and to continue advocating for her platforms. Bankston is a member of the Idea Accelerator program, started through a partnership between Heartland Forward and Builders + Backers.

Bankston is creating a program to promote healing from the trauma of sexual assault and domestic violence by connecting survivors.

“I will continue to advocate, speak and get involved with volunteering and whatever else I have to do to help others,” Bankston said.

MARKETIA PITTS

CO U R AG E

Strong son for her

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CO U R AG E

M

otherhood is a daunting experience, especially for first-time parents. The knowledge that the child’s life depends on them is enough to cause doubts and to make anyone back down. However, pressure and fear can multiply when that child falls sick. How does a parent cope then?

One local mother experienced challenges that did not break her, but encouraged her to be brave for her child and for herself.

Marketia Pitts sat at the booth with her, at the time, 1-year-old son on her lap who moved around energetically and played with the utensils on the table in front of him. If not for the tracheostomy tube around his neck, you would not notice anything different about Hendrix Pitts.

“He was born at 29 weeks,” she said. “I had him when I was 29 weeks and four days pregnant. He was born because I was just diagnosed with preeclampsia that day and so they admitted me to the hos-

pital.”

What was terrifying about this incident is that Pitts was experiencing a relatively normal pregnancy before her diagnosis.

“My blood pressure was never high until those last two [appointments] that I went to,” said Pitts.

After experiencing additional symptoms, she had to take leave from work due to those health concerns. Pitts took her leave but found that her blood pressure rose even higher after another check up.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, preeclampsia occurs in about one in 25 pregnancies in the United States.

Some women with preeclampsia can even experience seizures.

However, medical sources report that some women may have no symptoms of preeclampsia, which is why it was fortunate for Pitts to get diagnosed that day. Pitts’ doctor expressed his concern that she would most likely have a seizure if she was not admitted to the hospi-

tal as soon as possible.

Upon diagnosing her condition, doctors said they would have to deliver her baby soon. Marketia was supposed to receive two doses of medicine that would help her baby develop his lungs, but only received one because her blood pressure elevated too fast.

By that evening, she was in labor and soon Hendrix Pitts came into the world at two pounds and 11 ounces.

“He sat in the newborn intensive care unit between 32 and 34 days before they let him come home,” said Pitts. After his time in the NICU, Pitts was free to finally take her son home under the impression that from then on, everything would be fine.

However, she soon realized that her worries were not completely over. Pitts became worried when she noticed her son having trouble breathing on his own and even consulted his pediatrician.

A week after consulting the pedi-

atrician, Hendrix suddenly stopped breathing.

Hendrix was rushed to Baptist Memorial Hospital North Mississippi before he was transferred to the North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo where he stayed for almost a month.

“When we got home [from Tupelo], we weren’t at home for two hours before we had to go back because his oxygen kept on dropping under 70%,” she said. The mother and son made another visit back to Tupelo before they transferred to Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.

From March 2020 to September 2020, Hendrix and Pitts became residents of Le Bonheur which is where Hendrix received treatment for what doctors later discovered was chronic lung disease, bronchopulmonary dysplasia and a small heart murmur. Out of the seven months he resided at Le Bonheur, Hendrix was sedated and on a ventilator for at most three weeks which came at the hesitation of

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COU RA GE doctors who did not want him on the machine for two long.

The doctors recommended a tracheostomy to his mother, but Pitts was unsure.

“I asked for a few days to think about it,” she said. “Maybe a few days later, I ended up telling them that I would do it.”

As a first-time mother, Pitts admits the entire experience was new and unfamiliar to her. Nothing prior to that day could really guide her on what to say or do next.

“Everything was happening so fast,” she said. “I didn’t know how to react to really any of it.”

In May 2020, Hendrix was given a tracheostomy and while he was healing and monitored under Le Bonheur’s observation, Pitts and her mom were trained on how to care for him when he moved back home. Hendrix’s mother was fearful of bringing him home, but those feelings were soon washed away.

“It was hard at first but once you do it, everyday gets easier,” she

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said. “I was at the hospital a lot and when I stayed at the hospital I would watch [medical staff] do it everyday and it became natural to me.”

By November 2021, Hendrix had been home for over a year and Pitts was already in talks with his doctors about decannulation, a process to remove his tracheostomy tube, much to her joy. Pitts said her

son made it through many difficulties and made it out the other end stronger.

“He came a long way,” she said.

“From being hooked up to machines, the ventilator— I couldn’t go anywhere without the oxygen tank. All of that is what I had to take so now we’re down to just his suction bag which is to clean out his airways.”

It’s understandable for mothers, especially single mothers, to be overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for another life. Pitts definitely felt the pressure, and then some, caring for Hendrix, but she found the courage to be a good mother for him.

“There were so many times I wanted to break down but I couldn’t because I had to be strong for him and take care of him and I don’t want anybody else to take care of him but me.”

For the future, Pitts has begun working again after taking time off to care for her son and Hendrix is successfully undergoing therapy.

Pitts said, with audible happiness, that he is experiencing no development delays and calls out, ‘Mama and Dada.’”

“He’s really smart and he listens,” she said. In the end, her courage saw them through a difficult beginning and now Hendrix has a bright future ahead with his mother by his side.

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