Mississippi
How this Illinois-based nonprofit is working to keep the Mississippi River mighty
College students spending spring break by a body of water is nothing new. However, through an “alternative spring break” program, Illinois-based nonprofit Living Lands & Waters made such a trip an opportunity for students to learn about and clean up that body of water instead of simply sunbathe beside it.
Throughout March, 140 volunteers from 14 universities joined the crew of Living Lands & Waters at McKellar Lake in Memphis to remove 131,419 pounds of trash.
For Roslin Johns, an environmental science major at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, she returned to take part in the program for a second year after remembering a fun-filled and fulfilling time spent on the water.
“They just make it such a fun experience,” Johns said. “At the end, I leave feeling good not just about myself, but what I did for the environment and I had fun doing it.”
Living Lands & Waters is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1998 by Chad Pregracke. While living and working on the river around his home in East Moline, Illinois, Pregracke was disturbed by the immense amount of debris he saw dumped into the rivers.
Expanding greatly from the once one-man mission, Living Lands & Waters now has a full-time staff with a fleet that includes four barges, two towboats, five workboats, two skid steers, an excavator, six work trucks and a crane.
The history of the organization is visually present in every room of the barge where they work and live. In the classroom space, one wall is filled from top to bottom with toys found within the rivers during cleanups. On the ceiling, hundreds of lighters removed from their watery grave have been turned into a multicolored art piece and signs lost to the waves decorate the walls.
Since its founding, Living Lands & Waters has removed more than 13 million pounds of trash from America’s rivers with the help of over 135,000 volunteers.
The crew of Living Lands & Waters, who spend 6 to 9 months of the year living on one of the barges as they travel across 28 rivers in 25 states to host river cleanups, workshop classes and further conservation efforts, are no strangers to McKellar Lake.
Since 2010, the crew and volunteers have removed more than 1.8 million pounds of trash from the lake.
“There’s always a need,” Callie Schaser, programs manager and communications specialist with Living Lands and Waters, said about McKellar. “It’s a great place to bring a ton of students and get a lot done and then we fill up the barge in three weeks.”
Due to the fast speeds of the Mississippi River, the crew can’t operate on the river itself for cleanup efforts. However, cleaning up McKellar Lake removes trash that inevitably will make its way into the Mississippi and possibly all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
“McKellar Lake acts as this little net for us to catch everything and trap everything,” Schaser said.
In removing trash from the lake, trash that made its way there from the streets of Memphis and Nonconnah Creek, Schaser said the students are reacting to an issue. While this is important, she and Living Lands & Waters hope that they return to their community knowing they can impact their community before trash ever makes it to a river.
“This is reactive, but you guys can be proactive around your campus, around your hometown,” Schaser said. “Anything you see, if it’s near a storm drain and it’s on the ground that’s going in there and that’s going in the water.”
‘Mighty Mississippi is 2,300 miles of opportunity’
In bringing students to the river, Living Lands & Waters doesn’t want to only focus on conservation efforts. Through their Mississippi River Institute, they also hold workshops for students to learn all the occupational possibilities living near the Mississippi can offer.
Separate from the barges they use in their trash-collecting efforts, Living Lands & Waters has built a second classroom barge, constructed from and decorated with recycled material, of course. This classroom barge is used to teach students how they can pursue one of the many careers the river can offer.
The program, which is traveling down the Mississippi River, offers workforce development programs and STEM-related jobs near riverfront cities, such as Memphis.
“We’re hoping to showcase the mighty Mississippi is 2,300 miles of opportunity,” said Rachel Loomis, the Mississippi River Institute manager.
Soft launching in 2023, the institute had its first full year in 2024. In the spring and winter of 2025, the institute has been docked near the Mud Island Marina in Memphis to host workshops. After May 9, the institute will head to St. Paul, Minnesota, for its winter location.
In a workshop on March 26, AP biology and health sciences students from White Station High School heard from employees of Wepfer Marine Inc., a tugboat company that operates out of Memphis and along the Mississippi, and from a commercial fisherman. The students were then able to tour one of the tugboats and ask questions of the captain and crew as they learned about what it’s like to live aboard the ship for weeks at a time.
“Today is about a day of exploration,” Loomis said to the students during the workshop. “If you’re not able to know about these jobs, you’re not able to pursue them.”
For the crew of Living Lands & Waters, there is an inseparable link between their tenets of protecting the river and working with and on it.
“We have to respect the river before we learn how to make money on it,” Loomis said as one of the main lessons she hopes students take away from the workshop.
Chris Day is a photojournalist at The Commercial Appeal. Contact him a cjday@gannett.com.
GEORGE COUNTY, Miss. (WLOX) — A George County High School senior is dead after an SUV hit him while bicycling on Highway 26 Friday night.
Mississippi Highway Patrol (MHP) officials said at 8:15 p.m. the MHP responded to a fatal crash on Highway 26 in George County.
Those officials said a Ford SUV traveling west on Highway 26 collided with 18-year-old Tyree Bradley of McLain, Mississippi, who was bicycling.
Bradley was fatally injured and died at the scene, MHP officials said.
The crash remains under investigation by the MHP.
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Copyright 2026 WLOX. All rights reserved.
Some losses feel like they drag on longer than the box score suggests, and Mississippi State’s 3-1 opener at Texas A&M fits that category.
It wasn’t a blowout. It wasn’t a game where the Bulldogs looked outmatched.
It was just one of those nights where the early mistakes stuck around and the offense never quite found the swing that could shake them loose.
The frustrating part is how quickly the hole formed. Two solo homers and a wild pitch in the first two innings put Mississippi State behind 3-0, and that was basically the ballgame.
Against a top tier SEC team on the road, spotting three runs that early is a tough ask. The Bulldogs didn’t fold, but they also didn’t cash in when the door cracked open.
“I liked our fight. I think we’re really just working through some things offensively, and trying to stay together,” Mississippi State coach Samantha Ricketts said. “This team still believes, and we’re going to battle and fight every chance we get, and I think I saw a lot of that. I’m encouraged for what that means for us moving forward, but, you know, they’re a good hitting team, and we’ve got to be able to shut them down early. I don’t think Peja [Goold] had her best stuff, but she continued to battle out there and find ways to get outs.”
They had chances. Two runners stranded in the fifth. Two more in the sixth. Another in the seventh. Des Rivera finally got the Bulldogs on the board with an RBI single, but the big hit that usually shows up for this lineup never arrived.
It wasn’t a lack of traffic. It was a lack of finish.
If there was a bright spot, it came from the bullpen. Delainey Everett gave Mississippi State exactly what it needed after the rocky start.
“That was just a huge relief appearance by Delaney to keep us in it,” Ricketts said. “It’s really good to have her back and healthy these last few weeks because these are the moments where we really need her and rely on her. We know that she’s going to be a big part of the remainder of the season going forward as well.”
Three hitless innings, one baserunner, and a reminder that she’s quietly putting together a strong stretch.
There were individual positives too. Nadia Barbary keeps climbing the doubles list. Kiarra Sells keeps finding ways on base.
But the bigger picture is simple. Mississippi State is now 6-10 in the SEC, and the margin for error is shrinking. Nights like this one are the difference between climbing back into the race and staying stuck in the middle.
They get another shot this morning with the schedule bumped up for weather. The formula isn’t complicated.
Clean up the early innings, keep getting quality relief, and find one or two timely swings. The Bulldogs didn’t get them Friday. They’ll need them today.
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Mississippi
Mississippi farmers struggle through years without profit as war with Iran deepens crisis
YAZOO COUNTY, Miss. — Mississippi Delta farmers are facing another expensive planting season as fertilizer and fuel costs continue to climb.
Farmers in Yazoo and Sharkey counties, Clay Adcock and Jeffrey Mitchell, said it has been years since their crops turned a real profit.
“I guess it would be since 2022,” Adcock said.
“Last 2.5 to three years since we had a very profitable year,” Mitchell said.
Rising input costs squeeze farmers
Adcock said he was paying $300 per ton of fertilizer before the war with Iran broke out. He is now paying double for the same amount. Mitchell saw similar spikes.
“Fertilizer was up 25% before the Iranian conflict already,” Mitchell said. “Then since that started Diesel fuel is up 40% in the last six months.”
Survey and research from the American Farm Bureau show they are not the only ones feeling the pinch.
“We’ve got trouble with the farming community,” Adcock said. “And you can see that with the bankruptcies that are there and no young farmers that can afford the capital to get started.”
Mitchell said today’s farmers face a shrinking industry of suppliers. 75% of all fertilizer in the U.S. comes from four companies: Yara USA, CF Industries, Nutrien and Koch Industries.
“With the world market on fertilizer, pretty much everyone has the same price,” Mitchell said. “It’s not like you can go to store B, get a better price.”
forces
Oil and natural gas cut off in the Strait of Hormuz forces energy companies worldwide to compete for less supply. The spike in costs passes on to fertilizer producers, who pass higher prices on to distributors, leaving family farms at the end of the line with the most expensive bills.
“They deliver it to us and we’re at their mercy,” Adcock said.
Adcock said he would like to see more regulation to even the playing field among fertilizer companies and prevent potential price gouging.
“There should be guiderails in place to keep fertilizer producers within a range and if they get out of that range it throws up red flags as they do in the SEC with stocks,” Adcock said. “Have some consistency in our business.”
Mitchell said the costs will circle back to consumers at the store. The spike in diesel also increases the cost of transporting finished crops after harvest to stores.
“Everything will be higher once it gets to Kroger or Wal-Mart or wherever,” Mitchell said. “They’ll just pass it onto consumers.”
It is too early to tell what the final prices will look like once harvest season is over. Each farmer said one way consumers can help is to buy as much produce as possible directly from farmers at markets and buy American items.
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