John Hardy
The University Club is a hive of hospitality and networking. Jackson native John Hardy, 50, manages the 32-year-old establishment, which fills the entire 22nd floor of the posh AmSouth Building. The club is one-part ritzy restaurant and one-part entertainment extravaganza—an exclusive hot spot for Jackson's most interesting and influential.
Jason Marlow
Jason Marlow, the 2007 Best Filmmaker, isn't a guy who is going to wait for success to come knocking. At 27, he's seen more of the world than most of us ever dream. He recently returned from a trip to China, where he met several Oscar-winning filmmakers working on a new project. "It turned out to be awesome," he said. The people were just people, not what he thought of as "Hollywood" types, he told me, and were welcoming and supportive.
Scotta Brady
Her disposition is calming; her voice, smooth; and she gives careful consideration to even the simplest questions. Scotta Brady, self-proclaimed yogi and owner of Butterfly Yoga in Fondren, says she feels at home in her yoga studio. Not only does she live in Fondren; her parents do as well. When she first opened the studio, however, in August 2002, it was downtown in the former Gallery 119 space. But she always intended to move the studio to Fondren.
Mary Troupe
"I told that photographer earlier to ignore my junky office. It's a mess. He said, 'It's a sign of someone who's busy.' I'll take that!" Mary Troupe, a native of Booneville, Miss., who has lived in Jackson for more than 40 years, now explains.
The Big Fix Is In
Finding displaced and abandoned dogs after Katrina wasn't difficult. Offers of food can usually persuade dogs to trust rescuers. Cats presented a different challenge. Frightened cats hide from strangers and noise, sometimes in places so inaccessible that no amount of searching can be successful. Feral cats compound the problem, because they tend to be aggressive even after capture.
Patrick Harkins
"I love the other (guitar) stores here," Harkins says. "It's just they're doing something slightly different."
Suffer The Children
Ginger Smith is founder and administrator of The Renaissance Academy, a division of the Henley-Young Juvenile Justice Center, which works to educate troubled students in Hinds County. Since 2004, Smith has directed her passion to kids at the academy, though she has been in the business of teaching hard cases for 36 years. Her initiative and drive got her on USA Today's All-USA Teacher Team in 2001. The Monticello native was working as a coordinator of the education component at Henley-Young when she devised The Renaissance Academy. Components of the program entail daylong alternative teaching classes, work-force development, an after-school program and family-support classes, which take the teaching to parents desperate to turn their kids around.
Sabri Agachan
One immediately feels welcome when entering Sabri Agachan's home. Take your shoes off and put on the slippers offered; accept tea in delicate glasses and an offer of food. The house is spotless, almost Spartan; hospitality and cleanliness are blessings to the Muslim home, Agachan will tell you.
Erik Mackinnon And Stephanie Miller
Meeting Erik MacKinnon, 36, and Stephanie Miller, 32, is like crossing paths with the Tasmanian devil and Tinkerbell. A consistent smile and a staccato laughter usually float around Stephanie, especially when she is with her industrious four-year love interest, MacKinnon. The two have dedicated their lives to healing through massage, and though their approaches differ, they are both passionate about the good that massage therapy can do.
Fighting For The Homeless
Michael Stoops says he hasn't spoken at a conference in Mississippi since Ray Mabus was governor, but this Friday, he'll be back behind the lectern, giving the keynote address at this year's Mississippi Annual State Conference on Homelessness at the Eagle Ridge Conference Center in Raymond. Stoops is acting executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.
Kenneth Grigsby
Young Democrats of Mississippi President Kenneth Grigsby, 32, is an attorney at Phelps Dunbar who's been living in the Jackson area for five and a half years. The Tupelo native and Ole Miss graduate joins his wife, Kathleen, 29, and 3-year-old daughter, Taylor, as some of the little blue Democratic specks living in Madison—though Grigsby says there may be more "specks" in Madison than most people think.
Satnam Sethi
When I meet Satnam Sethi, 69, he is sitting at a long holiday dinner table, crowded with children and grandchildren. He steps away for a moment to reflect on the long journey that led him to Jackson.
Warren Hogue
Artist Warren Hogue, 25, is just beginning to find his voice as a painter. His works are already powerful, though, with bold, saturated colors and heavy brush strokes reminiscent of Van Gogh.
Young Dems Hit Jackson
Beginning Friday, Nov. 17, Jackson hosts the three-day Young Democrats National Fall Conference. Kate Jacobson, 22, is the Mississippi chapter's vice president. Jacobson, born in Washington, D.C., came to Mississippi at age 5 when her parents moved to Tupelo. "None of my family is Southern, but I'm Southern now," Jacobson said proudly. She moved to Jackson in 2002 to attend Millsaps College, where she received her bachelor's in political science last May. I caught up with Jacobson at her office last Friday.
Martha Bergmark
Martha Bergmark, 57, left a troubled Mississippi in the 1960s thinking she would never come back. Now, she relaxes in her downtown office surrounded by a computer, printer and stacks of paper. Her office phone rings several times, her cell phone vibrates once. Bergmark is in demand, and her organization, the Mississippi Center for Justice, is busier than ever, expanding on their promise to provide "access to justice" for low-income Mississippians. MCJ was incorporated in 2002 by a group of lawyers and community leaders who were troubled that Mississippi was without systemic homegrown legal advocacy run by a nonprofit public interest law firm.