A rose to the Keep Columbus Beautiful (KCB) organization, which is launching a new campaign to encourage residents throughout the city to play a role in clean-up efforts. The Adopt-a-Block campaign was launched Saturday in conjunction with KCB’s regular community clean-up event. Organizers are encouraging businesses, church groups, sports teams, neighborhood groups as well as individual citizens or families, to sign up for the Adopt-a-Block program. Participants agree to do a clean-up on the block they have chosen at least four times each year. KCB is hoping that volunteers will choose high-litter areas. We believe that this approach will be a fun way for little friendly competitions while regularly cleaning up the city. We encourage groups, individuals and families to sign up to Adopt-a-Block by calling Lakeysucha Bailey at (662) 205-6419.
A thorn to Mississippi State for the way it is rolling out a change in its tuition pricing. Starting this fall, any full-time student taking more than 16 semester hours will have to pay more for each additional hour. Previously, students who took between 12 and 21 semester hours paid the same tuition, the “full-time” rate based on 12 hours. Under the new structure, students will be charged additional “overload tuition” at the regular hourly rate – currently about $418 – for exceeding the 16-hour cap. While understanding that circumstances sometimes require fee adjustments, implementing this change eight days after the deadline for incoming freshmen to accept admission to MSU is unfair. It means there are potentially students who committed to MSU with certain tuition expectations only to find that tuition is going up. That’s bad policy, no matter how you look at it.
A rose to organizers of summer camps for kids. With the end of the school year right around the corner, camps are a fun way to stay engaged in the educational process at a time when boredom can set in. There are dozens of summer camp options. Whatever a child’s interest, there seems to be a camp devoted to it. A passing glance at some of the summer offerings in the Golden Triangle this year reveals camps for theater, dance, swimming, culinary, robotics, science, athletics and engineering. There’s even a camp for Taylor Swift fans – the Swiftie Arts Camp. Summers provide kids a break from the routine of the school year, but children who attend summer camps have opportunities to pursue their interests as they learn in a non-classroom environment. We believe there is great value in that and thank all those involved in providing our kids such a wealth of summer camp opportunities.
A rose to the city as it considers what to name the planned fossil park at Propst Park. The fossil park will be located along Luxapalila Creek, which borders the city park to the east. This area of the Lux has long been a popular place for fossil hunters with specimens being collected that date back 80 million years. There is some momentum to name the park after the late Jack Kaye, a geology professor whose enthusiasm for fossil hunting served as an inspiration to George Phillips, now the paleontology curator at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science. Phillips, who like Kaye also grew up in Columbus, wouldn’t be a bad choice, either. Nor would Columbus historian Rufus Ward, a long-time advocate for the fossil park. For many residents, almost all they know about Columbus history comes from reading Ward’s weekly history column published in The Dispatch for the past 15 years. There are likely others who would be good choices as well. While we don’t think naming the park for Kaye is a bad option at all, we urge the city to slow down as it considers the options available, which might also include selling the naming rights to help generate funding for the park. Finally, there is some sentiment that the city needs to adopt a policy that governs the naming of public property in the city before choosing the name for the fossil park. An overall naming policy for the city is an excellent idea, and now is the perfect time to create one.
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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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
