Mississippi

Amazon jobs in Madison MS will be more than announced

Published

2 years ago

April 11, 2024

Amazon jobs in Madison MS will be more than announced

Amazon Web Services Economic Development Director Roger Wehner told a collection of students, faculty and staff at Millsaps College on Wednesday that previously announced investment figures for two new hyperscale development center campuses will be just the tip of the iceberg.

Wehner made those comments as part of the Millsaps’ Tech Week programs.

Amazon Web Services made big news in January when it announced it will occupy two Madison County locations for the historic buildout for hyperscale development centers.

Mississippi lawmakers completed a $259 million incentive package for the Amazon Web Services $10 billion project in Canton and Madison County.

Gov. Tate Reeves said the project represents the single largest corporate capital investment in state history. Amazon Web Services will build two sites, one a 927-acre site and the other a 786-acre site for two hyperscale data centers.

However, Wehner said Amazon expects to invest much more when all is said and done.

“We were lucky to find Mississippi,” Wehner told the audience at Millsaps. “Let me make one thing clear, all of the news articles say we are going to invest $10 billion dollars. That’s actually not true. That is our minimum public commitment. We are going to invest far more than $10 billion. Rest assured it will be tens of billions of dollars.”

More ahead: Expert: Data center announcement could spur more technology development in Mississippi

What is a hyperscale data center? What is a hyperscale data center? How much energy does it take? Is Madison ready? We answer

Wehner also said the 1,000 jobs announced with the project in January is also a false number.

“There will be far more than 1,000 jobs,” he said. “That’s just a number we cannot fall below based on our negotiations. There will be a lot more than 1,000 jobs.”

He said that construction in Madison County will go on for the next 5-to-7 years.

“There won’t be this flurry of manufacturing and then construction jobs go away,” Wehner said. “We will build on both sites simultaneously as needed as we go along. That means we are continuously under construction. So, the thousands of construction jobs. There will be thousands of construction jobs and billions of dollars that will be invested in your community is the No. 1 benefit of us going to a community. We literally will drive a big segment of the economy. … This money will ripple through the local economy.”

In January, Reeves said that once open, the centers will hire 1,000 employees making an average annual salary of about $60,000 per year.

Wehner said that average annual salary for people working at AWS Mississippi will begin at around $80,000.

As for the state incentive package, the legislature approved appropriating $44 million, $32 million of which will go to training grants and educational opportunities, and the rest will go to site development assistance.

The three bills also approved loaning Madison County $215.1 million to assist with infrastructure, including road work, water and sewer lines and also $13 million for a new fire station near the plants. That loan will be paid back through fee-in-lieu agreements with Amazon.

The project also received sales-and-use tax emptions for equipment, 10-year corporate income tax exemptions, among others. However, if the company fails to meet certain hiring or investment benchmarks, the state could take back sales and use tax, as well as corporate income tax breaks.

Madison County Schools

While there are tax breaks for AWS in the deal with the State of Mississippi, Wehner was quick to point out that Amazon is not a company relaying on corporate welfare from the government.

“Let me be clear about this, we are the largest tax payer in every jurisdiction we are in. That’s a fact,” Wehner said. “In fact, our modeling currently predicts that for the school systems in Madison County, we will double their revenues in the first year. So, whatever the current budget is for Madison County schools, there will be a two-x factor in a year and a half or two years.”

He said that in Loudoun County and Prince William County in northern Virginia, two of the wealthiest counties in America, AWS provides 51% of their tax revenues for their schools systems.

“They have the highest-paid teachers in America, and we are providing the tax base for that,” Wehner said. “We take very seriously our partnership in the communities that we serve. We want our communities to grow from an educational perspective and from a workforce development perspective.”

Why Mississippi?

Since January’s announcement of AWS commitment to Mississippi and Madison County, Wehner has been bombarded with questions as to why the company would locate there.

“There were other states that couldn’t believe what little Mississippi did,” Wehner said. “What Mississippi did that beat out everybody else … In Mississippi, there was complete alignment between Entergy Mississippi, the legislature, the governor and regulators.”

He said it also helped that Madison County Economic Development Authority has done its homework over the last several years and were prepared when the opportunity arose.

“They all worked together and were able to remove the bureaucratic inefficiencies,” he said. “If they had not done that, Mississippi would not have won. But Mississippi did and Mississippi won. There are states out there that don’t want to do it and don’t have the will to do it and couldn’t get all the pieces put in place to do it. In Mississippi, it was a joint effort.”

He said Mississippi proved to be “nimble.”

“It was about about speed to market and Mississippi did a ton of things that others did not and they struck an incredibly sound deal,” Wehner said. “They did everything that needed to be done, protected the rate payers, made the right decisions. They just took the slowness out of it. That was incredibly important.”

Education outside Madison County

While the project is in Madison County, Wehner said the plan is to provide educational opportunities throughout the Metro area, specifically in Jackson.

“We are going to do the same educational programs outside of Madison County that we do in Madison,” he said. “Our goal is to push out farther. We know that the more people we empower with the knowledge of how to work at AWS, the better everyone is, including us. We know that the drive time in Mississippi is around 60 minutes. So, we want to expand to Jackson and even farther.”

Ross Reily can be reached by email at rreily@gannett.com or 601-573-2952. You can follow him on Twitter @GreenOkra1.

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Mississippi

Why new Mississippi State coach Brian O’Connor wanted dirt batter’s box instead of turf

Published

27 minutes ago

January 28, 2026

Press Room

Why new Mississippi State coach Brian O’Connor wanted dirt batter’s box instead of turf

STARKVILLE — The playing surface at Charles Schwab Field is dirt where Mississippi State baseball hopes to be playing in the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.

So, if that stadium has dirt, why shouldn’t MSU’s Dudy Noble Field?

That was part of the thought process for new Mississippi State coach Brian O’Connor as changes were made to the playing surface.

New for the 2026 season is a dirt batter’s box and dirt basepaths leading to first and third base. Previously, they were turf.

Foul territory and the warning track will remain turf but it has been replaced. The rest of the field is dirt and grass.

“I get why it was turf,” O’Connor told The Clarion Ledger on Jan. 21. “You get rain, it’s better off being turf. But where the national championship is played, your spikes digging into the batter’s box are in dirt.”

O’Connor said it wasn’t solely his decision, but a collective one with administration and the grounds crew. There were already plans to get new turf for foul territory and the warning track before O’Connor was hired in June.

The new dirt and turf were installed after fall practices and ahead of opening day when Mississippi State hosts Hofstra on Feb. 13.

“I do like that,” O’Connor said. “That said, it wasn’t that big of a deal to me. But there were some things going on actually with the playing surface that by going to dirt base paths helped.”

The logos in foul territory have also been changed. The banner M logos adjacent to first and third base are gone. The Mississippi State baseball M over S logo is now behind home plate.

Mississippi State had turf in the batter’s box since 2014.

Sam Sklar is the Mississippi State beat reporter for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at ssklar@usatodayco.com and follow him on X @sklarsam_.

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Mississippi

10 people taken to hospital after gas station canopy collapses in Mississippi

Published

13 hours ago

January 27, 2026

Press Room

10 people taken to hospital after gas station canopy collapses in Mississippi

GREENVILLE, Miss. (WLBT) – Ten people were taken to the hospital after a canopy collapsed at a gas station in Greenville, Mississippi.

According to the Greenville Fire Department, the incident occurred at the Rick’s Express, and was seemingly caused by excessive water and ice.

The structure, the fire department said, fell onto several vehicles, and ten people were taken to the hospital for both minor and major injuries.

Fire crews remained on the scene to secure the area and assess the stability of the structure. Crews also blocked off the area.

The fire department later said that another canopy had collapsed at a separate gas station in the city, this one occurring at the B-Quick.

One person was injured, and several vehicles were damaged.

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Mississippi

Mississippi is moving toward educational freedom

Published

1 day ago

January 27, 2026

Press Room

Mississippi is moving toward educational freedom

Colleen Hroncich
| Special to the Mississippi Clarion Ledger

The Mississippi House has passed HB2, the Mississippi Education Freedom Act, which would create education savings accounts.
These Magnolia Student Accounts would allow families to use state funds for private school, tutoring, and other educational expenses.
The program would initially be capped at 12,500 accounts, with priority given to lower-income households if applications exceed availability.
Opponents, including teachers unions, argue the program will harm public schools, while supporters say it provides necessary choice.

Will Mississippi be the first state to expand educational freedom in 2026? It’s too early to know, but it’s notable that the state House recently passed HB2, the Mississippi Education Freedom Act, a step in that direction. The centerpiece of the massive bill is an education savings account program called Magnolia Student Accounts, or MSA for short.

By creating these Magnolia Student Accounts, Mississippi would join a growing number of states that recognize parents know their kids better than bureaucrats do, and education funding should follow students to the learning environments where they’ll thrive.

This isn’t a radical concept. We don’t mandate where families shop for groceries or what doctor they visit. Education is too important to be the one service where choice doesn’t matter.

The mechanics of MSAs are straightforward. Instead of locking all education dollars into assigned district schools, the state would deposit funds into accounts that families control. Those funds could pay for private school tuition, tutoring, educational technology, curriculum materials, specialized courses and more.

If HB2 is passed, every student would be eligible to apply for an MSA, but the number of available accounts would be limited. In the first year, there would be a maximum of 12,500 accounts for private school tuition, with half of those reserved for students transferring out of public schools. The cap would automatically increase by 2,500 each year for the first four years. After that, it would automatically increase by 2,500 whenever all accounts are claimed the previous year. If applications exceed available funds, students from lower-income households would receive priority and a lottery would be conducted if needed.

For students using the accounts at participating schools, funding would be based on the state’s base student funding for the applicable school year, currently around $6,800. Students at non-participating schools would receive $2,000 with a family maximum of $4,000. Up to 5,000 homeschoolers could receive $1,000 per family. The program also allows families to carry over unused funds for future educational expenses, which discourages wasteful spending.

As currently drafted, the program respects participating schools’ autonomy. Schools aren’t forced to participate, and those that do aren’t subjected to state curriculum mandates. They can still set their own admissions standards, hire teachers who share their mission and maintain the distinctive programs that make them effective. Religious schools can maintain their faith-based instruction. These protections are critical in encouraging diverse educational options rather than cookie-cutter schools that all look alike.

While adopting MSAs would be a significant step toward more educational freedom for Mississippi families, there are areas for improvement in the proposal. The participation caps mean only around 3% of Mississippi students would be able to participate in the beginning, and the cap increases at a very slow pace. Providing lower funding amounts based on what type of education children receive limits families’ flexibility and complicates program administration, as well.

As is often the case, the teachers union, superintendents’ association and other opponents of school choice are campaigning against the Education Freedom Act, claiming that MSAs will harm public schools. Yet public school funding would only be affected if parents choose other options — which, critically, would not happen if the school is meeting their needs. Keeping kids trapped in schools that aren’t working for them helps no one.

Mississippi’s public schools may be a great fit for many students, but they can’t work for every child. Some students need more personalized environments, different instructional approaches or specialized support that their assigned school can’t provide. When we pretend one-size-fits-all in education, the students who suffer are typically those with the fewest alternatives.

The education landscape is changing. Enrollment in Mississippi district schools has fallen. Many families want options that better fit their children’s needs. Magnolia Student Accounts acknowledge this reality and enable education funding to reflect family choices.

No education system is perfect, and choice programs require careful drafting and implementation. But the old way of doing things — a system where kids are limited by their addresses, struggling students can’t escape schools that aren’t meeting their needs, and innovative approaches can’t get funding — is no longer good enough.

Education works best when families have options and schools have the freedom to meet students where they are. Mississippi is moving decisively in that direction.

— Colleen Hroncich is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom.

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