Chris Wilson news blog

The initial response to the merged newspaper, the Monroe County Journal, is very favorable. What used to be The Amory Advertiser and The Aberdeen Examiner is now the MCJ (I call it mojo). It’s what the company’s officials have promised … new, bigger and better. This new paper has all of the county’s news and is much bigger than its predecessor papers. Some new staff is coming on to join the current staffs in the coming weeks and it will be even more improved in terms of meeting advertisers’ needs and in covering more of the news that’s happening around Monroe County. Let us know what you want to see in this still transitioning newspaper. We’ll try to tailor it to your requests (within reason). We still have offices in Amory and Aberdeen and plan to keep both of them in years to come so both of the county’s major cities will be served.  We are in the process of getting a new web site up and running for the MCJ, independent of the Tupelo Daily Journal’s site which we are currently linked to. The most amazing thing about this merger is that prices for subcriptions and ads will not be going up. In fact, subscriptions are at an all time low until June … $15 a year.

Country music legend Marty Stuart will be performing a free 90-minute concert in Amory’s Frisco Park on Thursday, April 17, at 8 p.m. Bring your lawn chairs and get ready for a festival treat. Stuart’s currently on a nationwide tour and will be performing with his band The Fabulous Superlatives.  His opening act will be a band from north Mississippi, Braden Gray & Loose Gravel.

On Thursday night, April 17, Amory’s Citizen of the Year will be named at opening ceremonies of the Amory Railroad Festival. This award is presented by Amory Junior Auxiliary each year.

Amory School Board members voted to put Amory High students on a 10-point grading scale beginning next year, with 60-69 as a D, 70-79 a C, 80-89 a B and 90-100 an A. Supt. Jim Sappington said it would “level the playing field” for Amory’s students. He said Alabama is already using this scale and 20 percent of Mississippi’s schools are using it. This will help kids have higher GPAs and help reduce dropout rates. Officials also hope it will mean more scholarship money for Amory students.

The board also voted to allow 1/2 credit for classes that students complete a semester of but don’t finish a full year of.

The district will also be trying a pilot program of same-sex classes for fifth and sixth grades next year. Having all girls or all boys in classes has gained advocates around the country who believe it increases achievement. Input from parents and teachers will be gathered to determine which children should be put in these pilot classes.

The high school will also be changing its Advanced Placement program next year. There will be three tiers of class offerings … regular, accelerated and AP. Students taking AP classes will be taking them with the intent of taking the exam at the end to get college credit. There will be strict criteria for students wishing to take AP classes. Accelerated classes will be offered to prepare students for college work in those classes.

The 30th annual Amory Railroad Festival is fast coming round the bend. The traditional community-wide worship service will kick things off on Wednesday, April 16, at 7 p.m at First Untied Methodist Church. Then on Thursday, opening ceremonies will be held beginning at 5 p.m. at the Frisco Park stage. At this time Keri McMillin of Tupelo will entertain, along with Hamilton comedian Greg Malone. The Junior Auxiliary will name this year’s Outstanding Citizen. And the band Braden Gray and Loose Gravel will perform at 6:30 p.m. , an opening act for headliner country music legend Marty Stuart who will perform from 8-9:30 p.m.  Food booths will be open for business Thursday and a health fair sponsored by GMRMC will also be held Thursday in a booth in the street on First Ave. beside Frisco Park. A car show and 5K run will be held Saturday. Visit www.amoryrailroadfestival.com for the entire weekend’s lineup of activities. Co-chairmen of this year’s festival are Heather Holman and Debra Strawbridge.

Jim Ballard defeated incumbent mayor Cecil Belle in the Tuesday, April 1, Aberdeen municipal elections. Ballard got  1,125 votes to Belle’s 897. Ballard will face independent mayoral candidate Steve Lance in the city’s May 6  general election. The police chief race is still to be decided in a runoff election on April 22 when the top two vote-getters, Henry Randle and Quinell Shumpert, face off. Incumbent police chief Walter Sykes was defeated. There will also be a runoff to decide Aberdeen’s Ward 2 alderman seat, with Cloyd Garth and Wilchie Clay on the ballot. Incumbent Ward 1 Alderman Alonzo Sykes was re-elected. In Ward 3 David Ewing was the frontrunner. Randy Nichols defeated incumbent Brunson Odom in the Ward 4 alderman race. John Allen was elected alderman in Ward 5 where incumbent Jim Buffington withdrew from the ballot.

Monroe Countians did not get their preferred candidates in the First District Congressional primary runoff elections on Tuesday, April 1.  In the Democratic runoff, Monroe County precincts turned in 1,644 votes for Steve Holland of Plantersville to 1,443 votes for his opponent Travis Childers of Booneville. Childers got the nod from the party however, taking 57 percent of the District’s vote to Holland’s 43 percent. Childers will be on the Democratic ticket in the general election in November. In the Republican runoff, Monroe County backed Glen McCullough of Tupelo, giving him 937 votes to Southaven’s Greg Davis’ 436. However, district-wide, Davis was the winner with 51 percent of the total votes cast to McCullough’s 49 percent. Childers will face Davis  in the general election along with Green Party candidate John Wages of Tupelo and Independent Wally Pang of Batesville. This race is for the next full term in the U.S. House, a position previously held by Roger Wicker (R) who is currently serving as interim U.S. First District Senator.

The April 2 edition of The Amory Advertiser will be the newspaper’s last named that. Journal Publishing in Tupelo which owns the Amory and Aberdeen papers will merge the two publications into one newspaper beginning with the April 9 edition. The new paper is called the Monroe County Journal … go figure. It will have the entire county’s news and ads without any increase in price on ads or subscriptions. In fact, there will be a major discounted price initally so be sure to subscribe while the price is right to have MOJO (my shortened name for the Monroe County Journal) delivered to your house each Wednesday by mail. I believe the new paper will be a better, more comprehensive product overall. I was not paid to say that, either.

Advantage Furniture in Nettleton will close its doors soon. The company, owned by the Fraenkel Co. out of Baton Rouge, LA, told its approximate 40 employees last week that it was closing its doors within 30 days. Company president Brian Akchin said they are consolidating their two Mississippi operations into one in their Olive Branch, MS  plant. The company which makes upholstered furniture has been operating in the former Lucky Star building on Hwy. 145 which Advantage has leased since 2006, but claim that it was hard to find employees for the plant in Nettleton. The town’s mayor R.V. Adams said he is already talking to the building’s owner about possible use for the building. He said they are hoping to get some higher paying jobs to fill the void. Advantage has a lease on the building until the end of June but manufacturing is said to end about April 10.

RTI International held a groundbreaking ceremony March 26 for a new plant that will produce titanium sponge for companies such as Lockheed Martin and Airbus. Tronox (formerly Kerr-McGee) will be supplying titanium tetrachloride to RTI for making the titanium sponge product. Tronox leased the land for the facility in Hamilton to RTI. The new RTI factory is expected to create 200 jobs in Monroe County and is a $300 million construction project. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour was on hand Wednesday for the groundbreaking ceremony. Barbour said RTI is a great fit for the direction Mississippi’s manufacturing is heading — towards chemicals, metals and aerospace industries.