SERVING SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI SINCE 1927 • WWW.STUDENTPRINTZ.COM • FEBRUARY 27, 2019 | VOLUME 104 | ISSUE 18
NEWS • THEATRE PERFORMS Courtesy Photo
SPORTS •ABADIE COLUMN
Makayla Puckett | Printz
Southern Miss Theatre performs “Blues for an Alabama Sky.”
Cole Donaldson fields a ball at home plate.
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DuBard School receives donation JESSICA FIELDS PRINTZ REPORTER
#MARDIGRAS #PARADE #OSCARS #STEVEIRWIN Four SGA executive candidates run unopposed CALEB MCCLUSKEY ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
he DuBard School for Language Disorders received a donation from the Sertoma Club of Laurel during a presentation Friday, Feb. 22. The $25,000 donation will be used to establish an endowment which will provide services to children and families who may otherwise be unable to receive these benefits. Communications coordinator of the DuBard School Britney Dykes explained how the donation is important to the school. “Full-time enrollment to this school is at no charge to parents,” Dykes said. “Most of the time if people hear of a special school like we are, most people think ‘Oh how much his tuition there?’ Well, we are a public, state-funded school, so there is no charge for the parents. That’s one of the big things about the Sertoma contribution; we rely on private donations to help fund our school.” For more than 50 years, the DuBard School has brought hope to children with communication disorders. However, the demand for DuBard’s services is so high most children are placed on a waiting list. Developmental coordinator of the DuBard School Wes Brooks said DuBard tries to assist as many children as possible. “The first thing that we are going to do after putting them on the waiting list is evaluate them so that we will be able to understand exactly what is going on. After that, if it is determined that DuBard is the best place for them to be, then we’ll try to get them in,” Brooks said. “Also, if it is determined that we are not the best place for that child, we are an excellent referral resource. We are very good at pointing [parents] in the right direction.”
Courtesy Photo from WLBT
Professional developmental coordinator of the DuBard School Alison Webster said the DuBard School is a bridge to help students eventually reenroll in a traditional public-school setting. “The reason why the children are here is because they could not make it with special education in their general education setting,” Webster said. “So they come to us and build a bridge between what they do know and what they don’t know and be more successful when they go back to school.”
Webster said the DuBard School has changed the lives of children in many ways. “We had one young man come to us, and he had no language, no speech whatsoever and so our assistant director at the time was still in the classroom, and she was constantly working with him on how to say certain sounds. At the end of the week, he was able to go out and say ‘Mama.’” To find out more about the DuBard School for Language Disorders, visit usm.edu/dubard.
tudent Government elections were on Feb. 26, but four out of the five executive positions were filled on Feb. 20 because the candidates were unopposed. The incoming executive officers are SGA president Michael Matrick, Attorney General Jourdan Green, Election Commissioner Madison Crimm and Treasurer Destiny Chafin. Junior sociology major Michael Matrick posted a statement on Feb. 20 at midnight. “I am humbled and honored to announce that I will be serving as your 2019-2020 student body president,” Matrick said. “This opportunity has always been a dream of mine, which has now come into reality!” Matrick said choosing Southern Miss was the best decision of his life. Matrick’s job in the 2018-2019 school year was executive director of communications. He said this along with the foundation left by the previous SGA administration is what led him to his campaign plans, which at the moment revolve around image, branding and communication. “I’m so glad that [Stone] helped establish what it was so that I could work off of that,” Matrick said.
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Mississippi bill prohibits abortion after six weeks KARIGAN TEER PRINTZ REPORTER
WILLIAM LOWERY PRINTZ REPORTER
n Wednesday, Feb. 13, the Mississippi House and Senate passed Senate Bill 2116, which will prohibit abortions of fetuses with a detectable heartbeat. Fetal heartbeats can be detected in as little as six weeks of gestation, making the “heartbeat bill” the strictest in the country. Although the bill allows exceptions for medical emergencies, it does not mention exceptions for pregnancies as a result of rape or incest. The bill comes less than one year after the previously passed bill that allowed abortions to be
performed up to 15 weeks after conception. That bill was rejected in the Supreme Court for being unconstitutional. The first section of the bill describes statistics from contemporary medical research, including the statistic that less than five percent of natural pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriage after detection of fetal cardiac activity. “Fetal heartbeat, therefore, has become a key medical predictor that an unborn human individual will reach viability and live birth,” the bill states in Section 1E. Despite drawing support from the state government, the bill has also received its share of criticism, especially from organizations such as Planned Parenthood. Mississippi state director of Planned Parenthood Felicia Brown-Williams criticized the bill for its strict window of time, arguing most women are not aware of their pregnancy within six weeks of conception. “Individual rights and freedoms go to the heart of who
we are as a country, including the right to access safe and legal abortion,” Brown said. “Mississippians should be able to make their own most personal health care decisions without politicians controlling when, how or why.” Kathanne Greene, associate professor of political science for Southern Miss, said the law is purely political and intended to distract the state from focusing on more important issues such as jobs and education. “The legislation is going to result in litigation, which is going to cost the taxpayers of Mississippi over a million dollars. They already wasted that amount trying to defend its previous 15-week ban,” Greene argued. Not every member of the House and Senate supported the bill. Representative Missy McGee from Hattiesburg voted against the bill, arguing the law is too restrictive and limits the options available to women in Mississippi. “I cannot support legislation that makes such hard-line, final decisions for other women,” McGee said. “There are
painful and heart-wrenching circumstances that do arise and should allow a woman to confer with her faith, her doctor and her family to make what will surely be one, if not the most difficult decision of her life.” Due to the conservative-leaning Supreme Court, many Americans have voiced their fear that the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion in the United States, may be overturned. “The movement for legal abortion in the 1960s and 1970s was led by doctors who were tired of cleaning up the messes of botched illegal abortions, as well as by many family members who had lost loved ones to illegal abortion,” Greene said. “Politicians may claim to be saving the lives of fetuses, but they are risking the lives of women, many of whom already have children.” The bill is set to become effective on July 1. According to the Washington Post, efforts to pass similar bills are underway in Florida, Kentucky, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee.