David Watkins
David Watkins is an attorney who's been haunting the city of Jackson for the last half-century. Though the Fondren resident has been all over the world, he says he always had to keep coming back to Jackson. "This is home. I've spent a lot of time in Europe. I love California and New York and Washington. I've lived in Cape Cod and Atlanta, but those heartstrings keep tugging away."
Renee Shakespeare
"Everything I learn, I'll share it with you," Renee Shakespeare says, and that is how her radio show, "The Drinking Gourd," began.
No Payne, No Gain
Playwright and sometime-actor Topher Payne returns to Mississippi from Atlanta next weekend to see the Clinton Brick Street Players perform his play "Beached Wails" at Clinton's Old Junior High School Auditorium June 9-11 and 15-17.
Hands Off My Kodachrome
Photos by Daphne Nabors
I took Daphne Nabors on a field trip to the Fondren Beverage Emporium to see what kind of soda this local photographer would pick out and how that would that might give me insight to her artistic psyche. She picked out a Sprecher Brewery Ginger Ale. Her choice is much like her workârefined, unique, curious and experimental. Nabors' day job is at Jasper Ewing & Sons photo lab, and she impressed upon me how flexible they are to support her desire to pursue photography on the side.
Margaret Cupples
When Natchez native Margaret Cupples graduated from law school at Washington and Lee in 1993, she was offered a year-long position in Jackson with Judge Rhesa Barksdale. After that, she worked at the firm of Lake Tindall, which later merged with Bradley, Arant, Rose and White, where the 37-year-old litigation defense attorney still works. Now, 13 years since her initial arrival in Jackson, Cupples has yet to consider leaving.
Tonyatta Hairston
"The great thing is that I get to help people medically, but then I take them out of that examination room and have the opportunity to glamorize them, to help them find a whole new look," Tonyatta Hairston says. Hairston, 31, is an optometrist who has just opened a new office in Fondren, at 3139 N. State Street.
Ruth Davis
Sitting on a park bench among automobiles, passersby and wasps buzzing about spring in full force, Ruth Davis fearlessly and passionately pours out her thoughts on life, past, present and future.
Pat Chambliss
Pat Chambliss is the perfect spokeswoman for Dress for Success, the international nonprofit organization whose Jackson chapter she helped to found.
Ben Barlow
After spending his first years out of college as a chef on a cattle ranch in Wyoming and a salesman in Colorado, Ben Barlow came back to Mississippi to try his hand at the family business; both his mother and grandmother were teachers for 40 years, and his cousin is also in education.
Bob Kochtitzky
Bob Kochtitzky, director of Mississippi 2020, has the gift of foresight. He can pick out warning signs years before the rest of society catches on, and he figured out ages ago that sustainable living is a necessity if the planet is still going to be usable far into the future. The hard part, Kochtitzky will tell you, is convincing everybody else.
Eddie Brown, Jr.
Chivalry is not dead, and some men still believe that real men can be gentlemen. Meet Eddie Brown Jr.
Ebony Gee
"There's nothing to do in Jackson." This is one of the most common complaints and misconceptions echoed all-around our bold new city, and Ebony Gee, 23, grows more determined to quiet those voices everyday.
Katy Smith
Katy Smith blinks in the afternoon sunlight of a bright spring day and says, "I love downtown Jackson. I think it's really beautiful, and people don't appreciate it."
Oleta Fitzgerald
Oleta Fitzgerald, 58, is a tiny woman with a big office. Perfectly coiffed in a tweed business suit, she arises from her desk when I arrive and gracefully extends her hand to meet mine. Fitzgerald's soft and feminine exterior suggests her warmhearted and nurturing interior. But when it comes to executing her duties as the head of the Southern Regional Office of the Children's Defense Fund, Fitzgerald is a determined, almost unstoppable woman.
Cecilia Reese Bullock
Every time I'm in the presence of Cecilia Reese Bullock, a construction-company owner and real-estate mogul, some guy tries to pick her up. At least one. Usually more.