JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) -Funeral plans officially begin Saturday for former President Jimmy Carter.

His motorcade will travel to The Carter Center in Atlanta, where people will start paying their respects. As you hear reflections on his legacy, you may not realize he made a quick trip to Mississippi in 1977.

It’s a visit Mike Espy will never forget.

“I was a second-year law student in a law school in California, and I was home for summer break,” said Espy. “I found out that Jimmy Carter was coming to my hometown, Yazoo City. So, of course, I wanted to be there.”

It would be a limited crowd, but Espy was determined.

“Very hard to get,” he said of the tickets. “So, I bent over backward for trying to get an invitation, and I convinced my mother to intercede for me. And now she got the invitation. I got it from her. And then I went.”

A crowd gathered outside but with that ticket secured, Espy was inside.

“It was held at the brand new Yazoo City Public School, a brand new building,” he said. “It was July in Mississippi. It was extremely hot. I thought that the air conditioning had not yet been installed or it wasn’t on cause it was sweltering in that room.”

A fact not lost on the President as he removed his suit jacket.

“He was just very approachable,” noted Espy. “He just seemed like a common person despite being President of the United States.”

Espy says they surveyed the crowd before Carter arrived to see who wanted to ask a question. He raised his hand but wasn’t asked what that question would be. I asked if he remembered.

“I asked him a question about this new weapon system,” recalled Espy. “And, of course, I was a smart aleck law student. So, I tried to pose a question as a contradiction between a lethal weapon of war and a man of peace, you know, like Jimmy Carter.”

He says Carter answered politely but put him in his place with more information. As Espy has had his own political career both in Congress and President Bill Clinton’s cabinet, he’s never forgotten that experience.

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A man on Mississippi’s death row whose conviction was overturned last year will remain on death row after a federal appellate court said the lower court made the ruling in error.

Terry Pitchford was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 2006 for the death of a man in a Grenada County grocery store during an armed robbery in 2004.

The victim, Reuben Britt, reportedly was shot with two different types of guns. One of the guns turned out to be Britt’s, according to court records.

Pitchford allegedly took part in an earlier attempted robbery of the grocery store. When investigators with the Grenada County Sheriff’s Office searched the vehicle that witnesses said they saw at the grocery store, they found the victim’s gun.

The vehicle was parked outside Pitchford’s house.

Earlier story: Man on death row, tried by same prosecutor in Curtis Flowers’ case, will get a new trial

In 2023, Terry Pitchford’s conviction and death sentence were set aside and a new trial ordered by a federal district court judge.

Despite the ruling, the 39-year-old remained listed on the Mississippi Department of Corrections’ death row while Mississippi Attorney Lynn Fitch appealed the ruling to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Mississippi’s death row: A closer look as AG Fitch seeks execution dates for prisoners

On Friday, the conviction and sentence were reinstated by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals after it determined the judge in Pitchford’s case considered whether the elimination of four potential jurors who were Black was racially motivated.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mills of the Mississippi Northern District said the state Supreme Court erred when it ruled in Pitchford’s 2010 appeal that the trial court did not excuse four out of five potential Black jurors because of their skin color.

The trial judge said the prosecution was able to prove the non-white members of the jury pool were all dismissed for valid reasons that had nothing to do with race. He allowed the trial to begin with 11 white and one Black juror with two white alternates.

The racial makeup of Grenada County was about 40% Black at the time of Pitchford’s trial.

Pitchford admitted to his role in the crime, but said he did not shoot Britt. According to court documents, Pitchford and his friend Eric Bullin went to the Crossroads Grocery store intending to rob it.

The intended robbery turned deadly when Bullin shot Britt three times with a .22 caliber pistol, while Pitchford said he fired shots into the floor. Bullin is serving 60 years for five crimes, including 20 years for manslaughter, according to Mississippi Department of Corrections records.

Lici Beveridge is a reporter for the Hattiesburg American and Clarion Ledger. Contact her at lbeveridge@gannett.com. Follow her on X  @licibev or Facebook at facebook.com/licibeveridge.

‘It’s just a reminder of how powerful these storms are and how far they can carry things and drop them off. It gives a whole new meaning to Air Mail, doesn’t it?’

A Mississippi church was flattened on Dec. 28 as an outbreak of tornadoes passed through parts of the state and some of the contents of the church were found scattered in Rankin County up to about 80 miles away.

“There was a confirmed EF1 (tornado) that touched down within a mile of me,” said Ricky Flynt of Brandon. “We had some pretty intense winds for a minute or two.

“It didn’t get to us until about 10 minutes after seven o’clock. I think it came through Meadville about five.”

Flynt had been monitoring the weather as the deadly storms passed through Mississippi killing two people and injuring another 10. However, he didn’t know there was a connection between the weather that struck his area and the storm that struck the Meadville area and flattened a church until the next morning.

More: NWS confirms 22 tornadoes hit Mississippi Saturday, causing 2 deaths, injuries and damage

Tornado drops check from 1984 in Brandon, MS resident’s driveway

“I came out the next morning after it was light just to confirm any damage and to look around,” Flynt said. “Right there in my driveway was this folded-up, cancelled check.”

The check was from the now-flattened O’Zion Baptist Church located near Meadville and was written to the Franklin County Baptist Association in 1984. It had travelled just over 80 miles and wasn’t the only cancelled check found in the area.

“Since, I’ve heard about five or six checks landing in the Brandon area,” Flynt said. “It’s pretty crazy. Whatever was in that church got up into the atmosphere and was deposited in the Brandon area.”

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MS man finds tornado-blown check while scouting for deer

John Beggerly of Florence found another check on Wednesday just east of Byram while scouting for a place to hunt on his family farm. It was written in 1982.

“That was one of the craziest experiences I’ve ever experienced,” Beggerly said. “I was on the edge of the woods in a pasture on our farm. I saw a piece of paper and it was sticking up.”

He said he picked it up and realized what it was because he’d seen a social media post about the check Flynt had found.

“It’s amazing how far stuff can travel,” Beggarly said. “I think it was 60 1/2 miles from the church to where I found it — pretty wild.”

Tornadoes can carry objects hundreds of miles

Pretty wild it is. According to Latrice Maxie, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jackson, debris can go remain aloft high in the sky for very long distances.

“They’re probably getting pulled up hundreds of feet, for sure,” Maxie said. “The circulations are much higher, but the tornadoes themselves can loft debris a couple of hundred feet in the air.”

In long-track tornadoes, Maxie said she’s heard of letters being found hundreds of miles from where they originated.

“It’s not uncommon for (tornadoes) that stay on the ground for a while,” Maxie said.

That was the case in spring of 2023 when a tornado struck the home of Susan Perry in Rolling Fork and scattered photos and other items of hers over a 200-mile track.

“It’s unbelievable that people are finding this,” Perry told The Clarion Ledger at the time. “It just amazes me that these things can travel so far.”

Pastor of MS church destroyed by tornado wants to use checks to tell story of event

Lance Moak is the pastor of O’Zion Baptist Church and said the checks were stored in the church on shelf above filing cabinets. He said everything on the shelf is gone, but checks keep showing up.

“I had one gentleman call me from Florence at 10:50 on Monday night,” Moak said. “He’d found a check from 1990 made out to one of our former pastors.

“It’s just a reminder of how powerful these storms are and how far they can carry things and drop them off. It gives a whole new meaning to Air Mail, doesn’t it? “

Like Flynt and Beggerly, the caller said he’d return the check. Those checks and others will serve as somewhat of a memorial.

“He’s actually going to mail that check back so we can put it up in the new church to tell about the history of this happening,” Moak said.

A GoFundMe account has been set up for those wishing to provide financial aid to rebuild O’Zion Baptist Church.

Do you have a story idea? Contact Brian Broom at 601-961-7225 or bbroom@gannett.com.