Kermit – Page 24 – The Mississippi Link

Ex-Jacksonville WR Jimmy Smith serving prison term

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Former Jacksonville Jaguars receiver Jimmy Smith has begun serving a six-year prison term in Mississippi for drug possession and weapons charges, online state corrections records show.

The Mississippi Department of Corrections’ website says the 44-year-old Smith entered the prison system in late March and was recently moved to a facility in Yazoo City. He was sentenced by a Madison County court to two years for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and four years for possession of cocaine, records show.

WJXX-TV in Jacksonville, Fla., first reported Smith’s sentence. His tentative release date is listed as Nov. 8, 2018. […]

Former Tenn. cop indicted for crash that killed mom and daughter

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A former Memphis, Tenn., police officer who was involved in a fatal crash that killed two Mississippi residents – a mother and daughter – has been indicted.

The former officer, 24-year-old Alex Beard, is charged with vehicular manslaughter in the Aug. 26 crash that killed 54-year-old Delores Epps and her daughter, 13-year-old Mackala Epps.

Beard was responding to a call in his marked police car on Aug. 26 when he struck the passenger side of a 1996 Mercury Mystique that was trying to turn left. He did not have his lights or sirens activated when the crash occurred. […]

Harrison grand jury to consider fatal beating case

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A south Mississippi judge has declined to reduce the $1 million bond for each of the three people charged in the fatal assault of a Harrison County man.

A grand jury will consider the cases against Stevie Creon Ambrose, 27; his brother Abdur “Rahim” Ambrose, 28; and Orlander P. Dedeaux II, 19.

The three are charged with murder. But, Harrison County prosecutor Herman Cox said grand jurors might upgrade that to capital murder with an underlying charge of kidnapping.

Authorities said Robert Norbert Trosclair, 31, died April 10, several days after being kicked, punched, hog-tied, stabbed, strangled and hit on the head with a garden-hose reel and a tire and rim. The attack occurred in Pass Christian. […]

Miss Alcorn awarded scholarship from the Mississippi Professional Educators

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Airnecia Mills, a graduating senior who majored in elementary education, and Miss Alcorn 2012-13, was recently selected to receive a $500 scholarship from the Mississippi Professional Educators (MPE). Upon graduation from Alcorn, she said she is planning to teach first grade students at Weddington Elementary School, Greenville Public School District, and pursue her master’s degree in elementary education.

“I was honored to receive the scholarship, especially because I was the only undergraduate African-American student awarded this year,” Mills said. “I am planning to use the scholarship towards graduate school.” […]

Fannie Lou Hamer Cancer Foundation to get new site

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A cancer center named for noted civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, has secured a site for its new headquarters and they have launched a campaign to raise the $5.5 million needed for the new state-of-the-art facility.

“We’re looking at about $3.5 million to actually build the building, and the other money would be used to equip and furnish the building,” said Freddie White-Johnson, founder and president of the Fannie Lou Hamer Cancer Foundation.
She hopes to raise quite a bit of money in 2013.

“It’s a national fundraising campaign,” said White-Johnson. “We’re trying to reach out to anybody and everybody across the country and outside the country for support.” […]

Myrlie Evers-Williams encourages UM Graduates to ‘Soar and Be Free’

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Evers-Williams, who worked for more than 30 years to seek justice for the 1963 murder of her well-known civil rights activist husband, Medgar Evers, is a former chairwoman of the NAACP and is widely credited with restoring the organization’s reputation and saving it from bankruptcy. Most recently, she delivered the invocation at the second inauguration of President Barack Obama, becoming the first woman to deliver a prayer at a presidential inauguration.

“The lifelong work of Dr. Evers-Williams to keep her husband’s memory alive and to progress his dream has been pivotal in the pathway from adoption of laws calling for fairness to the adoption of fairness into our societal expectations and interpersonal relationships,” said Chancellor Dan Jones, who presented the third University of Mississippi Humanitarian Award to the speaker, honoring her and her slain husband’s memory. […]

Alyne Payton, Walter Payton’s mom, dies after long illness

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Alyne S. Payton, the mother of the late NFL Hall of Fame running back and Chicago Bears star Walter Payton, died Monday at Baptist Medical Center in Jackson. She was 87.

Family members say she died after a long illness.

Officials with Westhaven Memorial Funeral Home said services were scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday, May 10 at Black’s Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Jackson. Burial was Saturday in Resthaven Cemetery in Columbia. […]

Clarksdale Caravan Music Fest this weekend

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Following the Blues Music Awards, the 7th annual Clarksdale Caravan Music Fest will be held on Saturday, May 11 and Sunday May 12 in downtown Clarksdale.

Musicians will be performing in front of Cathead, 252 Delta Ave., from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and outside the Rock & Blues Museum, 113 E. 2nd Street, from 1 to 6 p.m.

Blues fans and tourists venture down the legendary “Blues Highway 61” to Clarksdale, the site of the historic “Blues Crossroads”, to experience the individual signature blues style of the participating musicians and bands. […]

Estimated $25M in damage to buildings, vehicles

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The Mississippi Law Enforcement Officers Training Academy in Pearl isn’t the most aesthetically appealing place to train officers these days, its director, Pat Cronin, concedes.

The March 18 hailstorms that struck metro Jackson destroyed 87 law enforcement and civilian vehicles parked at the academy when the storms hit, punched holes in roofing membrane above the gymnasium and smashed through more than 100 windows and skylights throughout the complex.

“We look bad,” Cronin muses. “We’ve got plastic holding tires down (on some roofing). We’ve been compromised in some areas, but we’re operational.” […]

Liddell makes no apologies for time away

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If you have tried to reach Columbus Schools Superintendent Martha Liddell at her office this school year, there’s a one-in-three chance you were told she was not in the office. In fact, there’s a one-in-three chance that Liddell wasn’t even in town.

So far during the 2012-13 school year Liddell has taken 21 trips that kept her out of the district for at least 60 of the 180 school days this year. Her contemporaries in Starkville, Lewis Holloway, and Lowndes County, Lynn Wright, have made 17 trips between them and have been away from their districts a combined 23 days.

And in a school year in which the superintendent put all “non-essential spending” on hold in January, Liddell’s extensive travels have cost the district $8,058, twice as much as Holloway has spent ($4,037 on 11 trips) and roughly four times as much as Wright has spent ($2,177 on six trips). […]