In 2018, the Mississippi State athletic programs continued to rise on the national stage and a long court battle over who would be Starkville’s mayor was finally settled.

OCH hired a new CEO and affiliated with a larger hospital to expand services. Issues like the much-debated Pecan Acres housing development and the possible construction of a tournament-ready sports complex on Highway 25 also grabbed headlines.

Toward year’s end, a scandal at St. Joseph Catholic Church garnered statewide attention.

Here’s a look at the year’s top stories from Starkville and Oktibbeha County:

St. Joseph investigation

A federal investigation rocked St. Joseph Catholic Church after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security raided the offices of the Jackson Diocese early November.

The investigation focuses on Father Lenin Vargas, now the former pastor of St. Joseph, who has been accused of defrauding parishioners out of tens of thousands of dollars for donations after he claimed to have been diagnosed with cancer. According to case files, Vargas was actually diagnosed with HIV. He’s also accused of using the funds, donated for his alleged cancer and also to build an orphanage and chapel in Mexico, on personal expenses, including membership to an online dating site for people with HIV.

No formal charges have yet been filed against Vargas.

Vargas was removed from duty at the church, and it has since been announced — to pushback from some parishioners — that Assistant Pastor Father Rusty Vincent, who cooperated with authorities as a confidential informant in the investigation, is being reassigned to a church in Vicksburg in early 2019.

Strong year for MSU sports

Mississippi State University’s athletics saw change, triumph and near-misses in 2018.

The football program ushered in a new head coach, the women’s basketball team made its second-straight trip to the national title game and a presumed down-and-out baseball team made an unlikely run to the semifinal round of the College World Series.

The women’s basketball team completed an undefeated regular season in 2017-18, winning the Southeastern Conference regular season title before storming back to the NCAA Tournament Final Four. After a thrilling win over Louisville to earn a berth in the title game, Notre Dame dashed the Bulldogs’ championship hopes with a buzzer-beater to take a 61-58 victory.

The MSU baseball team’s season started rough, with second-year head coach Andy Cannizaro forced to resign after a first-weekend series loss to the University of Southern Mississippi. The Bulldogs, led by interim head coach Gary Henderson, struggled at times during the season but returned to the College World Series for the first time since 2014’s run to the national championship series. The Bulldogs ultimately fell to eventual national champion Oregon State in the semifinals.

After the season, MSU named Chris Lemonis the program’s new coach.

MSU football kicked off the post-Dan Mullen era with coach Joe Moorhead’s first season in Starkville. MSU hired Moorhead from Penn State University last December after Mullen left to take the head-coaching job at the University of Florida.

MSU finished the season, which included a loss to Mullen’s Florida team in a much-anticipated Sept. 29 matchup in Starkville, 8-4 and ranked No. 18. The Bulldogs will face the University of Iowa on Tuesday in the Outback Bowl.

Moore/Spruill challenge ends

Johnny Moore’s contest against the results of 2017’s mayoral runoff election ended in July when a judge upheld that Mayor Lynn Spruill, who had been serving in the office since the election was first called, was indeed the winner.

Moore challenged his six-vote election loss to Spruill in the May 2017 Democratic Party primary runoff, arguing that eight affidavits that should have been counted were not.

Judge Barry Ford, who presided over the nearly year-long challenge, reduced one ballot that had been improperly attributed to Spruill, narrowing her victory to five votes. However, Ford said no other ballots were to be accepted for the election and that there was no evidence of any wrongdoing in the election.

Moore, 58, did not file an appeal to the decision and passed away in late August.

Recreation focus

Starkville focused heavily on its parks and recreation department throughout the year. The city’s aldermen named Gerry Logan the new parks and recreation director in the summer after former director Herman Peters was ousted in 2017, along with several other parks employees, and later indicted for embezzlement.

In June, the city commissioned a master plan for Cornerstone Park, which it hopes to use as a tournament-ready recreation facility on Highway 25 south of the intersection with Highway 12. The city received a report about the proposed park, which is estimated to cost $18.5 million to $22 million.

To fund the park, aldermen passed a resolution that would increase the city’s food and beverage/hotel taxes by one percent. The resolution will go before the Mississippi Legislature in its 2019 session, which begins in January. Should it pass the Legislature, the matter will come back to Starkville for a referendum, which will need at least 60-percent voter approval.

In the meantime, city leaders have also discussed private sponsorship opportunities and a partnership with Oktibbeha County as further avenues for park funding.

Changes at OCH

Longtime OCH Regional Medical Center CEO Richard Hilton, who has worked with OCH for 35 years, retired from his position in the summer, and the hospital named Jim Jackson his successor.

Jackson came to OCH from Greenwood, where he had been CEO for the Greenwood-Leflore Hospital since 2009.

OCH, after a Nov. 2017 election saw county voters opt to keep the hospital locally owned, looked to affiliation with a larger hospital system in a bid to improve its services.

The hospital ultimately partnered with the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, after also drawing interest from North Mississippi Health Services, of Tupelo, and Baptist Memorial Health Systems, of Memphis.

Affiliation allows OCH to remain locally owned while taking advantage of the larger hospital’s services and capabilities.

Pecan Acres

A plan to potentially relocate Pecan Acres, a 70,000 square-foot low-income housing development on Highway 12, to a new location on Highway 182 drew intense community attention in the spring and summer.

Chris Dobbs, a Tuscaloosa, Alabama-based developer, is looking to build a replica of the housing development on the north side of Highway 182, west of Reed Road. That would then be swapped with Pecan Acres’ current location, which is being eyed for commercial development.

The Starkville Housing Authority, including chairman Loren “Bo” Bell, has insisted the plan has generally been met with approval from Pecan Acres’ residents, but it has met mixed reaction from Starkville community residents. Chief concerns have included access to grocery stores and adequate transportation, along with pedestrian safety concerns along Highway 182.

Bell said progress on the matter stalled after Johnny Moore, who represented Dobbs, passed away in August. However, he said the project was slowly regaining traction as discussions continued between the landowner and Dobbs through the end of the year.

Woman accused of killing newborn

A former Starkville Police Department radio operator was arrested for second-degree murder in February after reportedly killing her newborn child.

Latice Fisher, according to court files, left a live baby in a toilet at her home after delivering it on April 28, 2017. Court files further stated Fisher researched miscarriage and searched online for ways to purchase pills used in medical abortions, medical management of miscarriage and induction of labor.

Fisher’s husband found her on the toilet and called 911.

An Oktibbeha County grand jury indicted Fisher in January. Starkville aldermen fired Fisher in early February after she was charged with murder.

Locals win two chancery judge seats

Two Starkville residents won election to 14th Chancery Court District judgeships.

Paula Drungole-Ellis and Rodney Faver will hold two of the court’s three judge seats when the new year begins.

The 14th Chancery District includes Clay, Chickasaw, Lowndes, Noxubee, Oktibbeha and Webster counties.

The district’s three sitting judges — Dorothy Colom, Kenneth Burns and Jim Davidson — all opted to retire at the term’s end, and 10 candidates from across the district vied for their seats. Drungole-Ellis and Faver won the Place 3 and Place 1 seats, respectively, while Joe Studdard, of Columbus, won the Place 2 seat.

Faver’s victory opened a vacancy in the Starkville Municipal Court, where he’d served as the judge since 2009. Aldermen named local attorney Brian Kelley as Faver’s replacement.

Unticketed DUI for CPD officer

In March, Starkville Police Department drew headlines for letting an off-duty Columbus police officer stopped for drunk driving off without a ticket.

Part-time officer Louis Alexander was stopped just after midnight March 9 on Highway 12 after an SPD officer observed him swerving between lanes. Although body camera footage shows Alexander, who identified himself as a police officer, admitting to drinking and driving, another Columbus officer was called to pick up Alexander, who was neither booked nor ticketed.

Columbus councilmen suspended Alexander briefly for his conduct, and SPD Chief Frank Nichols, in a press conference, admitted Alexander was let off due to “professional courtesy” among police officers. Nichols also vowed his department would not extend that courtesy on a DUI stop again.

MSU gains Phi Beta Kappa

Mississippi State University announced it will host a chapter of the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa Society.

The announcement capped a 40-year effort to bring PBK, which is one of the nation’s most prestigious academic honor societies, to the university. MSU said it hopes to induct its first class in the spring of 2019.

To be inducted, students must be bachelor’s degree candidates with a certain number of credit hours in arts and science courses, speak at least one non-native language, have taken at least one college-level mathematics, science or logic course and be a person of “good moral character.”

MSU’s efforts to house a Phi Beta Kappa chapter began in 1976 when Morris “Bill” Collins, the founder of the university’s Stennis Institute of Government, submitted an application. MSU has also applied in 1982, 1985, 1988, 2000 and 2003.

Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.

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