James Meredith
Talking to Mr. James Meredith is a right-brain experience. The conversation isn't linear, organized, disciplined. It jumps around to topics that the thin, intense grandfather is interested in at the very instant. As the 70-year-old Kosciusko native talks first about the legacy of slavery in Brazil (where he just visited); the need for people to "blend" in society; Ole Miss back in 1962 when he integrated the stubborn old institution; the oddity of growing older; and finally young people's need to work harder, you can easily see why his name ended up in lights. It's hard to imagine someone more unique, more creative, more daring, more willing to offend one or another status quo.
Keith Tonkel
For going on 35 years, Keith Tonkel has been in the pulpit, serving the congregation and neighborhood of Wells United Methodist Church on Bailey Avenue. His office, on the second-story back corner over the parking lot, is filled with memorabilia and books tightly packed into floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and atop every surface except for the big wooden desk and where the blue iMac sits. An old cloth-covered armchair and black vinyl loveseat, both well-sat-in, provide seating for Tonkel and his many visitors.
Cheers to Gailya Porter!
Last week, we learned that Smith Elementary has ranked as a Level 5 school. We featured principal Gailya Porter as "Jacksonian" a month ago in our education issue. Here's an encore of that story in honor of a remarkable school and community.
Camp Best
Seated in his corner office at 3318 North State Street, Camp Best beams his excitement about that eclectic part of the city known as Fondren. He calls the area's artistic renaissance the "Fondren glow," explaining, "It causes this light to shine on a community; it causes a feeling amongst people of community, and it starts to heal things."
Monica Minter
Seated comfortably with perfect posture, Monica Jeany Minter calmly focuses on the photographer, her eyes never leaving his face until she thoroughly understands his instructions. Nothing about the busy Friday afternoon outside Banner Hall distracts her. The Murrah High graduate is a young lady with a new role—Mississippi's Miss Hospitality. Since being selected in July, 21-year-old Minter—a senior at Jackson State University where she is a political science major with a 3.4 GPA, the current Miss Jackson State and active in many campus organizations—has already been on the job.
Vickie and Bill Giles
The old saying goes: Marriages are made in heaven. Actually, some are made at football games and barbecues as well. In November 1979, Meridian native Bill Giles was a graduate football assistant at Mississippi College. He smiles as he tells how he finally got up the courage to ask out the blonde-haired, blue-eyed majorette from Jackson that he had been admiring from afar, even though he didn't figure she'd give him the time of day. Funny, but Vickie says that when she sat behind him in PE class, he "never gave me the time of day," either. Bill quickly points out that he was "kinda shy," and Vickie agrees, smiling at him, her fingers intertwined in his.
Jay Sones
Jay Sones, 28, sits across the small table at Fenian's talking on his cell phone (the kind you can send pictures through) with his baby sister, Meg. He tells her that I'm interviewing him and responds when she asks why, "I guess people just can't get enough of me," and gives his characteristic chuckle. He's wearing a three-quarter sleeved gray-and-scarlet baseball shirt with jeans. Dark spiky hair covers his head and frames his greco-roman facial features.
Cordie Aziz
Seated behind a bare executive desk at Cindy Ayers-Elliott's campaign headquarters, Cordie Aziz seems right at home. She radiates hope for her future and confidence in her ability to do anything she decides to do.
Pat Fordice
Whereas, Pat Fordice is a good Southern lady. In the documentary "Belles and Whistles" screened at the 2002 Crossroads Film Festival, former first lady Fordice says
M.U.G.A.B.E.E.
Carlton Turner leads me upstairs to the V.I.P. room of The Forum where he is the public relations director. His older (by 13 months) brother Maurice waits for the interview with his weathered and dented Bach Stradivarius in his lap. "I take it everywhere I go," Maurice says. Seated in three matching blood-red naugahide wing chairs, these beautiful men lead me on the long and winding road of their lives.
Janice Jordan
My mom and I are sitting on her balcony outside her apartment in Belhaven Heights. She's lounging in a plastic deck chair, wearing a white Mexican wedding dress and sipping a can of Miller Light out of a huggie. She's jangled and sparkly talking about her upcoming trip to (in a fake backwoods accent) "New Yoork City!?!," a place she's always dreamed of going. Her mother was a fashion buyer for the Emporium in the '50s and '60s and would make long excursions to the Big Apple on shopping expeditions for work. Mom has pined to make the trip ever since.
Knol Aust
Although Knol Aust, 27, has never met Lenny Kravitz, Queen Latifah, or Sting, he works side-by-side with them each day as each helps motivate young American voters. Aust, a Web designer who grew up in Raymond, is leading the way to raise awareness of the importance of voting by starting a Rock the Vote chapter in Jackson. "Young people are not always given a voice in politics," he said. "Sitting around without action will not promote or provoke change. It will take a unified movement and a strong system of support. Rock the Vote is completely non-partisan and believes that voting is one of the simplest actions a young American can do to make change."
Ouida Couch
A menacing polar bear stalks two 5-year-old girls, doggedly chasing them through the backyard. The polar bear's name is King, Ouida Couch's 85-pound white German Shepherd, and this is their favorite game. Ouida is indomitable, delighting in the frolicsome chase. I'm the cowardly candy-ass shrieking atop the picnic table. Ouida and I are cracking ourselves up as we reminisce. We sit in her Belhaven home of 10 years with her wooly-headed American Eskimo, Mogi (with whom she plays a grown-up version of "polar bear") and Mogi's black cat, Mustang.
Navonda Moore
Sitting in McAllister's Deli, with her hair pulled back and up, ponytail style, her elbows on the table and chin resting comfortably on her hands, Navonda Moore looks like an average teenager. She is not. After moving to Mississippi from Kankkakee, Ill., at age 8, Moore later played basketball for Hardy Junior High and Murrah High School. "I always wanted to be around basketball," she says, "but I didn't play organized ball until I was in the 7th grade. I realized I had natural ability, and I wanted to use it." She has. At Murrah she was named All State, three-time Dandy Dozen senior forward, state tournament MVP, and as a senior, she will play in the Mississippi-Alabama All-Star Game March 22 in Alabama.
Elizabeth Robinson
Elizabeth Robinson did not take art classes while enrolled at the Mississippi University for Women. Until the school featured a 20-year retrospective of her work, she did not even know where the art department was located. In fact, glass sculpture wasn't located anywhere on her personal radar until, in 1980, she needed a job and went to work for Andy Young at the Pearl River Glass Studio, to help manage the place. "You couldn't work in that environment without developing a vocabulary for glass," says the auburn-haired glass artist and entrepreneur. And so, for the next 10 years, Robinson immersed herself in the world of glass, learning from Young and from Susan Ford, a local glassblower.