MARION, Miss. (WTOK) -Mayor Larry Gill has been appointed to the Mississippi Municipal League’s Board of Directors for the 2024-2025 term.

This is all due to his dedication to public service and leadership within Marion’s community.

This is a testament to his commitment to advancing Marion’s interests and working collaboratively with leaders from across Mississippi.

As a member of the board, he will also have the opportunity to advocate for Marion’s interests, share these practices with other municipal leaders, and help shape the future of local governance in Mississippi.

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PHILADELPHIA, Mississippi — At least two statewide officials are now publicly considering running for higher office in Mississippi.

After giving stump speeches at the Neshoba County Fair Wednesday, Mississippi State Auditor Shad White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, two of the state’s high-ranking Republicans, told reporters they have no intentions of leaving the political arena after completing their current terms.

White, who took his time at the podium to discuss an upcoming report now said to detail more than $300 million of waste in state government, denounce Diversity Equity and Inclusion education and throw shade toward state lawmakers for not passing related legislation, said he is considering running for the state’s highest office.

“I am seriously considering running for governor,” White said briefly.

Hosemann did not so concretely state his intentions but said he does in fact have plans for a political office after his current term is over, and that he plans to stay in Mississippi.

“I have been honored to be here, and we’re not tired,” Hosemann said. “The state is going in the right direction. I’ve got a vision for where my grandchildren ought to be. Me and my wife Lynn, we have two special-needs kids, and she wants to work on special needs matters. So, we’re not ready to retire yet, and given the opportunity by the good Lord and the people of Mississippi, we’re going to keep working.”

Other than Hosemann and White, Democratic Senate candidate Ty Pinkins, Public Service Commissioner De’Keither Stamps and Mississippi Transportation Commissioner Willie Simmons spoke about the roles of both state and national politics in Mississippi and beyond.

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Here is what those speakers said.

Mississippi State Auditor Shad White

White told event goers he is soon to release a $2 million report that will detail at least $300 million in state government waste.

Of that sizeable figure, White said he has found thousands of dollars wasted on government cellphones that have never been turned on and found that some people in Mississippi had been receiving healthcare from the state’s Medicaid program.

“We identified about $144 million worth of payments to people who looked like they were making too much to be on Medicaid,” White said.

White later told reporters that waste within the Mississippi Division of Medicaid makes up a sizeable portion of the report.

That report was compiled through a $2 million contract with Boston Consulting Group, and White’s office is working to finalize that report. The Clarion Ledger submitted a public records request to obtain a copy of that report, but the office denied it, citing it could not release “work papers” related to a state audit, per state law.

“The statute says that work papers shall be confidential,” White said to a group of reporters Wednesday. “We’ve always treated all audit work papers as confidential.”

White also took up a long-held position of his in denouncing DEI education in Mississippi colleges, calling out a program that taught what he called “equity yoga” to children.

“We are in a fight for young America,” White said.

White went as far as to blame the Mississippi Legislature for not passing legislation to remove DEI programs at state universities, specifically calling out Hosemann and other senators for not pushing the bills forward.

Mississippi Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann

Up on the podium, Hosemann touted the Legislature’s efforts to increase K-12 education funding, which happened through a rewrite of the state’s K-12 education funding formula, economic developments and efforts to lower the cost of prescription drugs in Mississippi.

Hosemann said one of his top priorities is still to improve the state’s lackluster job participation rate. One of the ways he thinks that can get done is through expanding Medicaid. He also hopes to work on cutting the state’s 7% grocery sales tax, which is among the highest in the nation.

The Legislature for the first time ever considered expanding Medicaid this past session, but the effort failed because of differing approaches to the number of people that would be covered, whether there should be a work requirement and what that would look like.

“We can (still) do that,” Hosemann said.

When asked what Hosemann thought of White’s comments, he said he did not hear them.

“I thought he would be on a book tour,” Hosemann joked.

Senate candidate Ty Pinkins

Pinkins told attendees that if they elect him to the United States Senate, he promises to work for all Mississippians and focus on issues that impact its people.

Other than attacking Republican incumbent Sen. Roger Wicker for not working to address what Pinkins says is his responsibility, he said he hopes to increase healthcare access in Mississippi and support women’s rights to have an abortion.

Public Service Commissioner De’Keither Stamps and Transportation Commissioner Willie Simmons

Stamps, a first-year Public Service Commissioner, called on 81-year-old President Joe Biden to step down and for Vice President Kamala Harris to assume his role.

In his own words, he said that move would further unite the country.

Simmons on the other hand, who has publicly endorsed Harris as the Democratic nominee for president, called on state lawmakers to establish more recurring funds for the Mississippi Department of Transportation.

“I don’t see Republican or Democratic highways,” Simmons said.

If the state were to establish a larger and more consistent budget for MDOT, Simmons said the effort could reduce the long-term cost of road and bridge maintenance.

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Grant McLaughlin covers state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@gannett.com or 972-571-2335.

Hattiesburg was once the largest Freedom Summer site in MS with over 3,000 volunteers.

Hattiesburg is getting ready to celebrate Freedom Summer (again). Once a cradle of the civil rights movement with figures like Clyde Kennard and sisters Joyce and Dorie Ladner, Hattiesburg will celebrate the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer this year, commemorating the summer of 1964 when college students came to Mississippi for mass registration of Black voters. 

The Hattiesburg Public Library will be hosting a film screening of two Mississippi civil rights-era documentaries on Aug. 8 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. thanks to Scott Varnado, a Hattiesburg local and PhD student in film studies at UCLA. The library will also open a special photography exhibition, “Freedom Summer at 60: Mississippi as a Catalyst for Change,” curated in association with Special Collections at the University of Southern Mississippi and the Harvey Richards Media Archive on the same day as the film screening. 

Varnado said the films are a “chronicle of the early part of organizing Freedom Summer, and just really essential viewing for anyone that has an interest in Freedom Summer, Mississippi history and civil rights history.”

The two films, “We’ll Never Turn Back” from 1963 and “Dream Deferred” from 1964, are around 30 minutes each and tell the story of voter registration in Mississippi. The filmmaker, Harvey Richards, a social activist and union organizer from rural Oregan, traveled to the Mississippi Delta in 1963 to seek out voting rights activist Amzie Moore. Together, the two men filmed the documentaries in secret and at great risk, working against local segregationists who would have tried to stop or even kill them. 

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Varnado said Richards was remarkable for his work depicting “the lower rungs of society in an attempt to show images and communities and social issues that were absent from mainstream media.”

Richards’ son and curator of the Harvey Richards Media Archive will give a brief video introduction before the screening.

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The photo exhibit will display a collection of black and white photographs of voter registration efforts in and around Hattiesburg by New York photographer Herbert Randall, who, like Richards, traveled to Mississippi to document Freedom Summer in 1964. Randall’s photographs will be presented alongside color photographs from Richards of Black southerners across Mississippi taken in the same time period. 

“Hattiesburg was an important center for that civil rights activity,” Casey Varnado, Hattiesburg attorney and father of Scott Varnado, said. “We had more Freedom Summer volunteer workers in Hattiesburg than any other location in the state.”

The largest Freedom Summer site in Mississippi, Hattiesburg was once home to more than 90 out-of-state volunteers and more than 3,000 local volunteers.

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Adam Singletary, director of The Hattiesburg Public Library, said the photography exhibit and film screening complement one another by offering a full portrait of Freedom Summer with both specific Hattiesburg content and coverage of the state at large. 

“The films are also unique in that they are not widely known,” Singletary said, adding, “The fact that we can get the license to show them is exciting for the city and for our patrons because they may not otherwise have a chance to watch them.”