Ten applicants are vying for two spots to represent Lowndes County on the East Mississippi Community College Board of Trustees.
All are in leadership positions with local businesses or government, according to the list presented to the county board of supervisors during their regular meeting Thursday.
Supervisors opted to narrow the applicants to four finalists, who supervisors will determine at their next meeting Monday. Those finalists will be asked to present to supervisors on Oct. 15, when two will be selected to serve.
“It’s extremely encouraging to have this many applicants,” supervisors president Trip Hairston told The Dispatch. “It shows the community’s involvement and interest in EMCC and the impact of the volume of students going through that program.”
Applicants include Andrew Appel, plant manager for Paccar; David Chism, local business owner; Richard Eubanks Jr., a heart surgeon; Keith Gaskin, Columbus mayor; William Clint Hanson, local business owner; Kirk Hardy, chief financial officer for Yokohama Tire Company; Tim Heard, networking specialist with the Golden Triangle Planning and Development District; Ken Jaynes, a entrepreneur who is retired from the oil and gas industry; Charles Rigdon, co-owner of Columbus Nissan; and James Wamble III, vice president of operations for Plum Creek Environmental.
“Every one of those applicants are qualified to serve on that board,” Hairston noted.
EMCC has a main campus in Scooba as well as three facilities in Lowndes County: the Golden Triangle campus in Mayhew, the Communiversity workforce training center on Highway 82 west of Columbus and Lion Hills Center on Military Road. The college’s board consists of two members each from Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Clay, Noxubee, Kemper and Lauderdale counties.
Both Lowndes representatives — Golden Triangle Development LINK CEO Joe Max Higgins and Aurora Flight Sciences director of development Greg Stewart — recently announced their resignations as EMCC trustees, neither of them completing their five-year terms. Stewart left the board as of Thursday. Higgins will serve until he is replaced.
One of the new appointees will serve the remainder of Higgins’ term, which runs through March 2023. The other will serve the rest of Stewart’s term through March 2025.
On Thursday, supervisors briefly discussed how they would handle the selection process for so many applicants.
Some supervisors, including District 1’s Harry Sanders and District 4’s Jeff Smith, first suggested each of the 10 applicants present for two minutes to supervisors on Monday, with the selection vote following on Oct. 15.
County Administrator Jay Fisher groused at that idea, noting he had already scheduled appearances for Monday by four firms vying to consult the county on how to spend its American Rescue Plan Act funds.
District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks then suggested supervisors narrow it down to four finalists instead of giving all 10 equal time to present.
“I’ve gone through every application I’ve gotten through email,” Brooks said. “All men are not created equal.”
In other business, supervisors voted to withdraw a little more than $1.2 million from its hospital trust fund in October.
Each year, the county can withdraw up to 3 percent of the corpus from the trust fund it established from the sale of the once county owned hospital to Baptist. That corpus, or principal, as of Aug. 31, was more than $40 million.
The county uses the funds it withdraws for capital improvements. Since 2013, it has withdrawn roughly $7.2 million.
Following executive session, supervisors voted to rescind a Sept. 15 vote to sell a building on Wilcutt Road to Frank Imes for the appraised value of $100,000.
Instead, supervisors will advertise for sealed bids for the sale, after other citizens came forward expressing interest in buying the property. The building, which the board declared surplus property, had been used for emergency services equipment storage.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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