Articles by Slim Smith
Slimantics: Murder among the weeds
Nothing ever seems to get thrown away on Downs Road.
Sofas, tables, tires, broken toys, long strips of waterlogged insulation, boxes and overstuffed black garbage bags — all left to the weeds to obscure and nature to absorb.
This seems to apply even to some of the homes along this little street that connects Mike Parra Road and Land Road in north Lowndes County.
Slimantics: Cordial chaos: The story I am not allowed to tell
On Aug. 5, we published a story on the renovations currently being made at the Kroger store on Highway 45.
I didn’t write that story, nor was it the story I had hoped to write.
Classes for homeless focus on the basics
On the day before school started in Columbus, Glenda Buckhalter stood before a table stacked with book bags containing school supplies Wednesday and offered an apology.
“I’m sorry that I couldn’t get everything,” she told the group of a dozen women, all moms, and in one case, a grandmother.
Slimantics: Sunday visitors stir memories of the good ole dog days
Sunday afternoon found us outside trying to coax our waterlogged flowers back to life while trying to figure out a way to get rid of the slugs and snails that seem to have taken a recent liking to our front porch.
Slimantics: The man who wouldn’t go home
It’s been 29 days since the Mississippi senatorial runoff election in which six-term incumbent Thad Cochran narrowly defeated tea party challenger Chris McDaniel.
Slimantics: Losing an old friend
On of my Facebook friends died Wednesday. Maybe you’ve heard of him. His name was John Dawson Winter III. He was 70 and died while on a business trip in Zurich, Switzerland.
Slimantics: An unapologetic cross-over voter
I’m one of the guys Chris McDaniel is upset about.
Let’s back up first. Until 2007 when I lost my voting privileges, I was a registered Republican.
Slim Smith: The accidental Klansman
Like so many things, it all depends on how you look at it.
Quite literally, in this case.
On the corner of Second Avenue North and Fifth Street in downtown Columbus, a monument dedicated to the memory of Lowndes County soldiers who fought for the Confederacy rests on the lawn of the Lowndes County Courthouse.
Slimantics: Allgood wrong on new sentencing guidelines
Lowndes County District Attorney Forrest Allgood does not make single moms. He just does his part in making sure they stay single moms.
Slimantics: Carole McReynolds Davis: Irreplaceable
One thing about Southerners is that we are, at heart, conformists.
Slimantics: At school board, it’s business as unusual
Like many folks in Columbus, I read with strange fascination the account of Monday’s Columbus Municipal School Board meeting, which shows there is no accounting for taste, I suppose.
Monday profile: From coon hunting to catfish
In the world of modern business, you often hear about the importance of networking and you see the evidence of it everywhere — from corporate tents at big events to country club memberships to sky boxes at football stadiums.
Columbus businessman James Basson has his own version of networking, albeit unorthodox.
Slimantics: We don’t even get to buy our own politicians anymore
Today marks the end of one of the most regrettable political campaigns in recent Mississippi history.
Storm recovery continues in Lowndes
A month after a series of tornadoes cut a swath through Lowndes County, officials are encouraged by the progress made toward recovery.
Miss. treasurer brings attention to education programs
Lynn Fitch is not the head of Mississippi’s Department of Education.
She just sounds like it these days.
Columbus Social Security office closed for repairs after storm
Count the Columbus office of the Social Security Administration among those affected by the April 28 tornado that tore through Lowndes County.
Slimantics: 8 O’May stirs meditations on the nature of emancipation
Until recently, the only significant thing for me about May 8 was that it is my brother’s birthday.
Long-time Columbus residents will forgive my ignorance on this topic, I am sure.
Slim Smith: When breaking ground means breaking a vow
Hell froze over Saturday morning: I planted a garden, thus fulfilling an ancient prophecy.
Slimantics: Voter fraud is more a question of ‘who’ than ‘how’
During the month of April, Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann began criss-crossing the state — at taxpayer expense, naturally — to promote the state-mandated Voter ID law that will require Mississippians to produce a state-issued ID before casting a ballot.
Slimantics: A community comes together
A couple of miles down Lee-Stokes Road, where Pleasant Hill Baptist Church sits on a hill above a cluster of modest brick homes where Lacy Road runs into Pleasant Hill Road, church pastor Bill Hurt wearily tended his flock, scattered but unharmed after a pair of Monday tornadoes plowed through East Columbus.