A rose to the Mississippi State women’s basketball team, which at this point has exhausted our supply of expletives. In Friday’s national semifinals, the Bulldogs needed a 3-point basket from Roshunda Johnson to send the game into overtime. Superlative play from Victoria Vivians (25 points) and Teaira McCowan (21 points and an NCAA Tournament-record 25 rebounds) led to the Dawgs beating Louisville, 73-63, in what must be considered the grittiest of the Bulldogs’ 37 wins this season. Now, it’s on to today’s national championship game. No matter the outcome, MSU’s appearance in back-to-back national championship games is a remarkable accomplishment. So let’s hear it for the Bulldogs as they prepare to take the next step to glory.
A rose to Craig Shannon, interim superintendent for the Columbus Municipal School District, for hosting the district’s first “recruiting fair” last week at Brandon Central Services. The demand for teachers has never been higher in our state, so it’s important for districts to find new ways to identify and recruit teachers. Monday’s event drew about 80 potential teacher candidates, giving the district a good pool of candidates to consider when filling the inevitable vacancies that occur between the end of one school year and the beginning on another. At the beginning of the school year, CMSD was five teachers short, despite hiring 73 new teachers for the school year. In 2015, the district started the school year 15 teachers short, with about eight of those positions still vacant as the 2016 school year rolled around. Being proactive in the teacher recruiting process is certain to reap dividends as the district looks ahead to the 2018-19 school year.
A rose to Starkville High School choral instructor Regina Weeks, who is definitely going out on top. Weeks was recently named the Mississippi Music Educator of the Year at the Mississippi American Choral Directors Association/Mississippi Music Educators Association all-state conference at the University of Mississippi. Weeks is in her 24th and last year as an instructor, and we can think of no better way to acknowledge her contributions than this award. This year’s award isn’t Weeks’ first. She’s also won the Ernestine Ferrell Award for excellence in Choral Music in 2015 and was the Starkville School District Teacher of the Year for the 2009-10 school year. This year SHS also had 24 students selected for the All State Honor Choir, which broke the school’s prior record of 22. Congratulation to those students and to their soon-to-be retired instructor.
A rose to Mississippi State football coach Joe Moorhead and all those who turned out for Thursday’s “Boys and Girls Club Sports Talk,” fundraiser. The annual event, which was held at the Bryan Building on the MSU campus, featured Moorhead as the speaker. It drew a crowd of 160 and produced $35,000 for the Boys and Girls Club of the Golden Triangle. Moorhead praised the Boys and Girls Club for its role in the community. He described his childhood in Pennsylvania, when kids had little to do other than play rudimentary games with each other until their mothers summoned them home for dinner. As he has parented his three children, he has found that today’s youth has many more options than his generation did, “but not all of them are good.” Boys and Girls Club, he said, creates bonds within a community. “It’s a unifier, it’s not a divider, and that’s important,” Moorhead said. “There are too many things that divide us.”
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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