A rose to the carpentry students at the Starkville-Oktibbeha School District’s Millsaps Career and Technology Center, who are using their skills on a project that will help disabled people enjoy the outdoors. This semester, the students are converting an old camper trailer into a mobile hunting stand for Hope Outdoors, a nonprofit that helps people with special needs experience the outdoors. The structure will include a wheelchair accessible ramp, a small back porch with double doors, as well as heating and electricity. Too often, those with disabilities are denied opportunities that healthy people enjoy due to the lack of some basic accommodations. In an area where hunting is a major hobby, the work the students are doing opens up another avenue of recreation for those who are disabled. The project also gives students a chance to take their carpentry skills to the next level. We applaud the students and instructors at Millsaps for finding a project that benefits those who are far too often ignored.
A rose to Mississippi University for Women’s Office of Early Childhood, which is using a $500,000 grant called the Wise Start Early Childhood Project to develop a program aimed at using data to create long-term impacts on child development. The new Office of Early Childhood will serve as a centralized location to operate and maintain this data over time. The new initiative builds on work done through Excel by 5, a program that works with families, child care providers and educators to prepare children for school and identify gaps in support services. The Wise Start program will use data based on the specific needs of local families, child care providers and educators to provide whatever resources and support are needed to ensure children are prepared when they eventually start school. The new program enhances the Excel by 5 program, a major step forward in early childhood education.
A rose to our Golden Triangle hospitals for earning high grades for safety from the Leapfrog Group, a national watchdog organization. Oktibbeha County Hospital Regional Medical Center in Starkville earned an “A” score for safety in the spring period, while Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle in Columbus scored a “B.” Northeast Mississippi Medical Center earned a “C” grade. The Leapfrog Group issues letter grades to hospitals across the country based on more than 30 measures of errors, accidents, injuries and infections as well as the systems hospitals have in place to prevent them. These high grades mean our hospitals are safe not only for patients, but for staff and visitors as well. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade stands as the only hospital ratings program focused solely on preventable medical errors, infections and injuries that kill more than 500 patients a day in the United States. This program is peer‐reviewed, fully transparent and free to the public. Grades are updated twice annually, in the fall and spring. We congratulate our hospitals for their hard work in making their hospital environments safe.
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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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.
