Bert Montgomery: Riding the storm out: Katrina, with Popcorn

Four years ago I was at home with my wife and sons, sleeping in my bed, and going on with the routines of my life up in Kentucky. Four years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, then levees broke and water inundated the city of my birth. My best friends from high school down in St. Charles Parish had been forced to scatter; I learned later that some were in Florida, many had gone to Texas, and others into the mid-west.

Birney Imes: Tan Yard Park

Sometimes all it takes is a picture. The most eagerly anticipated question of the just completed Columbus charrette was the recommendation on where to put the soccer complex the city and county want to build.

Steve Mullen: Along our bumpy, shovel-ready roads

We were driving through West Point toward Columbus last weekend when I had the bright idea to make a detour past Old Waverley, which we’d never explored before.

Jay Lacklen: Moscow 1991

It was as surreal a scene as I would ever experience. In the final days of the Soviet Union in the winter of 1991, my American air crew and I stood on the tarmac at Shermecheko airport outside Moscow intermingled with a cadre of a hundred Soviet soldiers, dressed in their full length Peter the Great coats, as they manually downloaded our C-5 cargo aircraft.

Bert Montgomery: Gospel Care — an open letter to churches

A couple of weeks ago my Commercial Dispatch column “Holy Health Care!” was picked up and carried in a few other newspapers. Something about it spoke to people.

Bert Montgomery: The truth about Favre and pickin’ flowers

I'd like to address two rumors I've heard this week: first, that quarterback Brett Favre is retired; and second, that the upcoming 3rd Annual Pardon Johnny Cash Flower-Pickin' Festival in Starkville is dead.

Birney Imes: We were all cool and beautiful

This past weekend mine and Beth’s high school class — S.D. Lee High’s “Mighty Class of ‘69” — held its 40th reunion. We observed the usual roster of events: a Friday night gathering at Grahams’ Camphouse and Local History Museum (Jimmy and Jo Ann Graham are due much gratitude for sharing with the community this remarkable setting they’ve created.), a memorial service for classmates who have died and a Saturday night dance featuring Big Ben Atkins at the Country Club.

Steve Mullen: Keeping the teeth in line

The 7-year-old walked too close to the swing set at school, and got clocked by a swinging kid — right in the teeth. I didn’t see the immediate aftermath, but it must have looked like a scene from “Carrie.” Somehow she managed to bleed on her socks.

Bert Montgomery: ‘The ‘Neau’ will always be ‘The W’ to me

My cousin, Jenene, is joining the faculty of the University of Illinois at Springfield. She tells people she graduated from “The W,” which is and shall always be, true. But when people try to look up “The W” from now on, they’ll have a hard time finding it.

Steve Mullen: Squeaky wheels — or worst of the cart?

One thing can be said about the health care debate: Watching it makes me ill. While I’ve tried to read up, I’m no expert. Another disclaimer: I’m a middle-of-the-road guy as far as politics are concerned — I tend to like things that politicians in each party say from time to time.

Bert Montgomery: Holy heath care!

I write from a perspective of faith. Sometimes I write in broad, general terms, but today I am writing to all in the Golden Triangle region who identify themselves as Christians. To the pastors and teachers, bishops and priests, deacons and elders, and to all who enter church doors week after week, let us affirm a common belief: Each and every person is created in the image of God.

Birney Imes: Embracing name change

Tomorrow on the campus of Mississippi University for Women an unveiling of sorts will take place. At a convocation service Monday morning MUW President Claudia Limbert is going to announce the school's new name. Well, sort of, more like the hoped-for new name. The name Limbert will offer -- decided after innumerable campus meetings, focus groups, marketing studies and much spirited debate in these and other opinion pages -- is being touted as the choice of the campus community. But, as Limbert has said, this is a state issue, not a campus issue.

Steve Mullen: A big First Day

We’re neck deep in the First Day of School. The kids are outfitted, supplies have been bought and delivered, and I’m helping them out of the car to join the throngs of new classmates. All that remains is the completing of ten months of this until we get a few weeks’ rest, then do it all over again.

Bert Montgomery: Willie, State and an Ole Miss conspiracy

One of the best concerts I've ever been to was on April 22, 1992, at the amphitheater on Mississippi State's campus. It was the Allman Brothers Band with Blues Traveler, and it was incredible. I even have “bootleg” cassettes of that show (if anybody has upgraded this show to digital, I'd be glad to provide a couple of blank CDs . . .).

Birney Imes: Finishing touch

Friday afternoon Raymond Griggs sits on an empty five-gallon lacquer thinner can under twin 100-year-old red oaks. The trees shade a corner of the Quonset hut where he has refinished and repaired antique furniture for more than a quarter of a century.

Jay Lacklen: Where the Air Force lives

I’ve always wondered where the real Air Force lives.

Jay Lacklen: Mississippi green

I never truly knew the color green until I moved to Mississippi.

Steve Mullen: On catfish

My uncle has a lake on his land near Canton, stocked with bass and bluegill; he loves to fish, and my kids, in turn, are learning to love it too.

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