A rose to every man and woman who has served as an American soldier. Veterans Day is this week, and honoring those who have fought for our freedoms should strike each citizen as both an honor and a duty. Care for our veterans should also remain a priority, especially since statistics show one veteran takes his or her own life every 80 minutes. On the active duty side, statistics show an average one suicide per day, with one a week coming via drug overdose.
A rose of encouragement to John Cohen, who this week became Mississippi State University’s 17th director of athletics. A graduate of MSU, Cohen took over as head baseball coach in 2009. He led the Bulldogs to a Southeastern Conference Tournament championship in 2012 before leading his team on a magical run to the NCAA championship series in Omaha, Nebraska, the next year. This past season, MSU’s baseball team won its first SEC regular season championship since Cohen’s playing days in 1989. We wish him the best as he takes on the challenge of leading all of MSU’s athletic programs as their chief administrator.
A rose to the partnership between Cadence Bank and Palmer Home for Palmer Parking. The program allows teenagers who live at the Columbus-based foster care facility to park vehicles in the Cadence Bank parking lot on Russell Street in Starkville on Mississippi State home football game days. Established in 2014, the program has not only raised about $30,000 for Palmer Home at a rate of $20 per parked vehicle, it has raised awareness for the nonprofit organization and equipped its teen residents with invaluable lessons in responsibility.
A rose to Columbus Main Street’s annual Christmas Open House event, which drew holiday shoppers to downtown businesses this week despite sometimes summer-like temperatures. It was a nice reminder not only that Christmas is only seven weeks away but also that there are plenty of local shopping options for filling stockings and putting the right gifts under the tree.
A rose to the Mississippi State football team, which shook off a rough start to a rebuilding season to shock the seventh-ranked Texas A&M Aggies at Davis Wade Stadium on Saturday. The 35-28 win not only revived the Bulldogs’ hopes of sneaking into a postseason bowl game, it also served notice to its three remaining opponents — Alabama, Arkansas and Ole Miss — that MSU may not be such a pushover after all.
A thorn to Ward 4 Columbus Councilman Marty Turner for his cavalier attitude toward the use of city property. Turner cost taxpayers nearly $3,000 for his city phone service between July 1, 2015 and June 13, 2016, when Mayor Robert Smith shut off the councilman’s service due to inappropriate social media posts. An open records request revealed Turner used almost 478 gigabytes of data during that year period, once using more than 69 GB in a month. To put that into perspective, the next closest councilman used 98 GB in that same year period, and the average cell phone consumer uses between 1 and 2 GB per month. Turner told The Dispatch he had used his city phone as a hotspot for neighborhood children to access the Internet, adding “If that’s wrong, I’ll be wrong every day of the week.”
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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