Archive - Food and Leisure
January 17th, 2013
An issue of “Harper’s Weekly” once depicted Ulysses S. Grant as a bulldog. President Abraham Lincoln is quoted as ordering Grant “hold on with a bull-dog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.”
Today, Mississippi State University stands as the home of the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library, and John F. Marszalek, Ph.D spoke to the West Point Rotary Club on Thursday about the ironic journey the archives took from Southern Illinois University to MSU in 2008.
“It was fate,” Marszalek quipped regarding the above quote and political cartoon.
Church Hill Elementary Principal (back) Cindy Donahoo stands with this month’s Rotary Club Readers of the Month First Grade student Syndee Johnson (front left) and Second Grade student Kendyl Watson during the club’s meeting on Thursday. Photo by Bryan Davis
Early Childhood Educations reforms are currently being pushed at the state level, in attempts to raise education standards and help students read at grade level throughout their time in Mississippi public schools.
The lack of sound reading skills has been touted as a top reason for high dropout rates and low probabilities of success for many students leaving schools after 12 years in this state.
January 16th
“Noontime Music at the Library” comes just as advertised on Wednesday at the Bryan Public Library. Above, Justin Estes plays Chopin’s “Nocturne One” on the Grand Piano donated to the library by Music Coterie. The West Point/Clay County Arts Council event drew a full room to hear the hour of relaxing classical numbers. Photo by Bryan Davis
The West Point Civitan Luncheon Club was pleased to welcome Brandi Randle-Ryland, a native of West Point, to speak at Wednesday’s meeting. She graduated from West Point High School and received her Bachelor’s degree from Mississippi State University in Interior Design. She has her own home based business to help with color and fabric inovations.
January 14th
It will be cold and it will likely be wet all day today.
Those factors do nothing to change the fact that Clay County voters have until 7 p.m tonight to make it to the polls and choose whether Angela Turner Lairy or Kenny Fowler will be the District 16 representative in the Mississippi state senate.
Absentee ballot voting ended Saturday, and the remaining qualified votes will be tallied this evening to decide the special election.
Event coordinators hope West Point’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration is going to be a special one this year.
January 21 will be a day of festivities, marking not only King’s life but also the President Barack Obama’s re-election to the presidency.
“This year the celebration will coincide with the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States of America,” said Event Coordinator Anna Hayford-Jones in a press release on Monday. “The theme for this year’s celebration, according to Jones, is “Continuing the Legacy.”
Thanksgiving and Christmas are now behind, and folks are settling back into normal routines.
Those two holidays typically bring a large spike in the number of canned food drives in any community.
Thousands of people are fed during the holiday season each year thanks to the generosity of individuals during those drives.
The Project Homestead Food Pantry in West Point, however, is in constant need of food donations and labor to help deliver and organize food products.
Now serving over 400 families in Clay County, the Food Pantry feeds over 800 people each month.
January 12th
“To me, Howlin’ Wolf was a true Delta bluesman.”
Grammy-nominated, veteran musician and Delta native Lamar Thomas’ phonebook-sized historical commentary on the origins of American music contains biographies and Thomas’ own feelings on just about every person who ever came in contact with the Blues.
The Clarksdale native puts American music into perspective in the vast volume.
In 2013, the Commerce Street building where “McClure Furniture” use to operate will be renovated and converted into a multi-purpose building designed to celebrate the arts in this community.
Along with other forms of art, this will be the new home of the Howlin’ Wolf Museum.
The community has come together to support this project, which could lead to a significant increase in tourism and tourism dollars in West Point.
There are those outside of the community too that are going to be helping to make this endeavor become a reality.
