| Confusion, Convolution And Lots Of Fun |
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Interesting comments from Gov. Haley Barbour, entertaining stories from Jim Abbott of Indianola, and lots of good food and friends were among the many highlights of the 143rd Annual Mississippi Press Association convention last week in Biloxi. After an opening reception Thursday night at the Beau Rivage, my wife Lisa and I dined at Vrazel’s in Gulfport with Sid and Lei-lani Salter. A family-favorite prior to its demise in Hurricane Katrina, Vrazel’s has returned with the same memorable food. We bumped into E.J. Gregory, of Oxford, while there. E.J. was eating supper with a handful of supervisors who were on the Coast for their annual convention. Surprisingly, we never saw any of our Calhoun County supervisors in Biloxi, although we did enjoy visiting with Chancery Clerk Jess Moore pool-side one afternoon. Gov. Haley Barbour made his annual address to the association Friday morning spending much of his time on the ongoing budget debate. The governor began discussing the topic by saying “there is a lot of confusion and convolution in Jackson” – an understatement if I’ve ever heard one. Friday at lunch we made our annual trip to Mary Mahoney’s – one of Mississippi’s finest restaurants and home to the best crab claws I’ve ever eaten. Our friend Jim Abbott, longtime publisher of the Enterprise-Tocsin in Indianola, took center stage Friday night as he was inducted into the MPA?Hall of Fame. Jim and his wife Cynthia have long been two of my favorite people in MPA. I’ve always considered Jim somewhat of a mentor of mine, simply from reading his paper for so many years. Its balance of news, features, great photography, and wide coverage of community events set the example for Mississippi weeklies. I’ll never forget the great relationship I had with the press guys in Greenwood, where we printed The Winona Times and The Conservative, simply because I wasn’t Jim Abbott. Anytime I began to criticize anything related to our print job the pressmen would accuse me of pulling a “Jim” on them, because he was so meticulous about every detail of his paper. He retired from the paper last year after 37 years. I was in Oxford when he was presented with the prestigious “Silver Em” by Ole Miss. He shared a few stories there, which he again brought up last Friday in Biloxi during his induction, about some of the lighter notes from his career in Indianola. I was always envious of Jim because Indianola seemed to be a gold mine of interesting news for his newspaper. Things happened in Indianola that never seem to happen anywhere else and to Jim's credit, he captured it every week on the pages of the Enterprise-Tocsin. Just one example was when a man tried to escape with a trunk-full of stolen condoms. The lead in the story said “All the protection in the world couldn’t save this criminal from the Indianola Police.” Jim had too many great stories to recount in this column, but they will continue forever within the MPA. The convention concluded with a relaxing two-hour Schooner cruise in the Mississippi Sound as the sun set over Biloxi. We took it all in with friends, Layne Bruce (MPA Director), Jim Prince (Neshoba Democrat), Dr. Samir Husni (Journalism Chair at Ole Miss), John and Lucy Keith (The Carthaginian), Steven Watson (Madison County Journal), Debbie and Garry Myers (Neshoba Democrat) and many more. We arrived back at shore far too soon as another memorable convention had come to a close. You may email Joel McNeece at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it |
