Mississippi is ranked 29th in use of alternative energy, according to a study by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Kauffman Foundation of Entrepreneurship. Soon, two manufacturers of alternative energy will be located in Lowndes County.
The announcement of Calisolar’s solar silicon manufacturing plant and continued work on the Kior biofuels plant are among the top stories of the year for Columbus and the surrounding area. The area also saw a flurry of retail activity. Columbus Municipal School District opened a plush new middle school. And the East Mississippi Community College Lions won a national football title.
Along with those triumphs, 2011 also brought tragedy, including three shooting deaths in six days.
Mississippi University for Women took a major step forward when the state College Board named Jim Borsig president of the university. And there was a controversial changing of the guard at the Columbus Police Department.
Economic development; job-loss announcement
Calisolar is part of a $75.25 million incentive package and estimated 951 jobs slated for the Lowndes County Industrial Park. Calisolar plans to refine quartz imported from Sylacauga, Ala. into silicon metal used in such products as cellphones and iPads. A second facility on the site will further refine the silicon metal for use in solar panels. Two-thirds of the bricks will be shipped to countries like China, which uses silicon to manufacture solar devices.
Construction on the Kior plant began earlier this year and is expected to be complete in the second half of 2012. Kior, a next-generation renewable fuels company, expects to produce 11 million gallons of fuel blend stocks per year. The investment will total $200 million and bring more than 60 direct jobs. Kior will manufacture fuel pellets from wood chips on about 30 acres at the Columbus-Lowndes County Port.
In November, Severstal celebrated the grand opening of its Phase II expansion in Columbus. The $550 million expansion project will increase annual steel production to 3.4 million tons, doubling the plant’s steel-making capacity
Omnova Solutions announced in mid-December it is phasing out its Columbus manufacturing jobs and selling the wall-covering operations to J Josephson Inc. in South Hackensack, N.J. The plant employs 225 people, most of whom work on the manufacturing side. The manufacturing jobs will move to New Jersey. About 170 Omnova workers went on strike in May 2010 when they couldn’t reach an agreement on a contract with the company. Replacement workers were hired and moved to cut the company’s ties with the union. With the impending loss of manufacturing jobs, union workers are fighting for jobs that may not exist a year from now.
Restaurants and retail
Columbus became the destination for more national chains.
Bojangles and Chick-Fil-A will join the Friendly City’s abundant chicken offerings. Logan’s Steakhouse put out its hitching post.
TJ Maxx added another department store to the Highway 45 North area at the Magnolia Place shopping center; PetSmart moved in next door.
Hibbett Sports added a location in East Columbus; the store already had a location in Leigh Mall. Tractor Supply Co. will open in 2012 in new buildings in Columbus and Starkville.
After all that eating and shopping, people can rest at the new Fairfield Inn and Suites off 18th Avenue North. A new Courtyard at Marriott is expected to be its neighbor on the development with construction to start this year.
After a busy year in retail development, the city of Columbus closes the year with grim news about a chain store. Employees at Sears in Leigh Mall learned two days after Christmas their employer was closing their location. Sears Holdings Corp. announced plans to close 100 to 120 of its Sears and Kmart stores due to poor profit performance. Stores in Columbus, Jackson and McComb are on the list.
A new school
The year opened with the long-awaited completion of Columbus Middle School, the crown jewel of the Columbus Municipal School District and the first new city school since the construction of Stokes-Beard Elementary in 2005.
The $19.1 million facility at 175 Highway 373 — the Air Base Hill area — was funded by a $22 million bond issue passed by voters in 2008. Approximately 952 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders moved from Hunt Intermediate School and Lee Middle School on Jan. 19.
With its sprawling 155,000 square feet, the building was lauded for its state-of-the-art facilities and upscale decor, which included carpeted classrooms, ambient lighting and a cafeteria designed to resemble a food court.
The school also advanced the magnet school concept. It integrated technology such as interactive Promethean whiteboards with the fine arts in a mirrored, wood-planked dance studio and an art room complete with a kiln for ceramics.
A school district in transition
The Columbus Municipal School District saw an abrupt change in leadership with Superintendent Del Phillips’ resignation in April. His last day with the district was June 11.
On June 13, he began his newest endeavor — serving as director of schools for the Sumner County School District in Gallatin, Tenn.
Phillips, 39, had led the Columbus city schools since 2007, spearheading a number of initiatives including gaining stakeholder buy-in for the $22 million bond, which financed the construction of Columbus Middle School, and implementing the International Baccalaureate and magnet school programs.
Assistant Superintendent Dr. Martha Liddell was named interim superintendent in May. The next superintendent could be named by February.
EMCC football team tops in nation
The undefeated East Mississippi Community College football team finished the season at 12-0, winning the state and the national junior college championship. The Lions defeated the Matadors of Arizona Western College with a score of 55-47 in the El Toro Bowl on Dec. 3 at Yuma, Ariz., and wrested the No. 1 national ranking from Arizona Western.
The team left on a charter flight out of Golden Triangle Regional Airport, and the band followed on chartered buses with financial support from cities and counties served by the Scooba school.
EMCC freshman quarterback Bo Wallace was named national junior college Offensive Player of the Year.
In September, the Lions opened their new 5,000-seat stadium, New Sullivan-Windham Field.
Murders in the Friendly City
Three murders in six days had investigators, city of Columbus officials and residents scrambling for answers.
The first body was found the morning of Sept. 17 when a fisherman saw 34-year-old Alfonso Lathan Jr. of Columbus near the Luxapalila Creek Recreation Area off Highway 69. The second was in the early morning of Sept. 18 near the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library when Tedd Thomas Wood, 35, of Columbus, was shot to death in the 300 block of Eighth Street North. On Sept. 22, William “Willie” Vaughn of Columbus died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Vaughn, 41, of Columbus, was shot near the intersection of 27th Street and Sixth Avenue North at around 10:45 p.m.
When residents pleaded for answers, the Columbus City Council initiated a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in any of the three cases. Though the city was willing to offer $15,000 to help end the stories surrounding these cases, all three cases remain unsolved.
The case against a man charged with a double homicide at a downtown Columbus bar, the Elbow Room, ended with guilty verdicts.
On Feb. 16, Daniel Paul Copple, 44, of Lucerne Valley, Calif., went into the bar to have a drink or two. Before the night ended, two men were dead.
Thirty-three-year-old Mark Caudill of Birmingham, Ala., and 42-year-old James Bennett Mann II of Columbus were found inside the bar. Caudill was dead on scene and Mann died later.
Copple was found guilty by a Lowndes County jury for the murders of Mann and Caudill and the aggravated assault of Michael Ward of Columbus. Ward was the bartender at the Elbow Room that morning. Copple was sentenced to life in prison for each murder charge and 15 years for the aggravated assault.
Goodbye, St. John; hello, McQueen
The Columbus community was divided this summer about whether former Police Chief Joseph St. John should stay or go.
City Council voted 5-1 on July 19 to fire St. John after he missed a June 17 Civil Service Commission hearing. He reportedly failed an alcohol test after he called in sick that morning.
Filling the position was a long and much-criticized search process with a citizen selection committee that included members of the media. Several finalists also withdrew their candidacy.
After receiving 82 applicants, city officials created a 21-person committee whose job was to narrow the number to the five most qualified.
Interim Police Chief Selvain McQueen made the final cut and interviewed along with two out-of-state finalists. McQueen was appointed the permanent police chief by a 4-2 vote split along racial lines.
McQueen, a 24-year veteran of the Columbus Police Department, was not the only internal applicant but was the only internal finalist.
New Hope sex scandals
When New Hope High School teacher Katherine Robbins was accused of sexual battery of a New Hope student, it sent shock waves throughout Lowndes County, as did charges of statutory rape against two other New Hope women in two separate incidents.
The allegations about Robbins began in March. The 40-year-old math teacher was indicted by a grand jury in May and later pleaded not guilty. She was married with two children and is accused of having sexual relations with a 17-year-old student over an extended period of time.
She was placed on administrative leave and was not renewed as a teacher at the school.
Kimberly Smith, 24, was charged with the statutory rape of a 14-year-old boy later that month. Smith turned herself in to the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office in May to face the charge. Smith was described as a family friend of the boy.
Christy McGough, 33, was charged with two counts of statutory rape against two 15-year-old New Hope High School students. According to reports, the two boys were released to her without permission.
A tumultuous tourism board
The year brought a new building, new board members and a new way of doing business for the Columbus Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau. The board faced heavy scrutiny for, among other things, threatening to cut funding to the Columbus-Lowndes Development Link, and officials vacated the board seats.
In April, the state Legislature approved increasing the board of directors from six members to nine. Later that month, CVB staff moved into its new office space behind the Tennessee Williams Home and Welcome Center on Main Street.
In June, the reorganized board elected George Swales as president and Mark Castleberry as vice president, which left former Board President Whirllie Byrd returning to a regular seat on the board.
In August, the board voted 7-1 to hire Nancy Carpenter as executive director. She had served as interim director since February after the departure of James Tsismanakis.
Members approved revised grant guidelines designed to support projects that bring people to the area rather than community festivals. The board approved the revisions at the start of this month and rescinded them at the middle of the month, seemingly caving under political pressure.
Westboro Baptist Church protest aborted
Columbus residents — some armed with guns — lined the streets in June to protect a soldier’s funeral from disruption by protesters.
U.S. Army Sgt. Christopher Bell, a native of Red Bay, Ala., was killed with three other soldiers in a roadside explosion in Afghanistan on June 4. He was buried June 16 at Living Faith Tabernacle Cemetery amid a blur of red-, white- and blue-clad supporters and a spate of rumors that members of Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church planned to picket the funeral.
The church is known for its anti-military, anti-gay stance. In advance of Bell’s funeral, the church blanketed area media outlets with faxes stating: “God hates America and is killing our troops in his wrath” and calling military funerals “pagan orgies.” The fax concluded with the message: “Thank God for IEDs.”
Hundreds of people gathered along the five-mile route between Memorial Funeral Home on Second Avenue North and the cemetery on Shelton Street. Almost every man, woman and child held an American flag. At least three men were seen holding rifles on Gardner Boulevard near United Deli.
The Patriot Guard, a nationwide group of motorcycle riders formed in 2005 in opposition to groups such Westboro Baptist, rumbled into town the night before Bell’s funeral to help ward off trouble.
But if the protesters ever set foot on Mississippi soil, no one saw them, and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief when the fallen soldier was laid to rest without incident.
Changing of the guard at MUW
The reunification of the school’s alumni and naming of Dr. Jim Borsig as president in late November brought a welcome measure of stability to Mississippi University for Women after more than a year of uncertainty.
The position had been filled by Interim President Allegra Brigham since May 2010, following the retirement of President Claudia Limbert.
Borsig, 55, previously served as the associate commissioner for external relations and public policy for the state College Board and has more than three decades of experience in higher education, government and the private sector.
Borsig starts his duties Jan. 1. His four-year contract will net him $222,938 annually.
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