InkBlots

The Brookhaven Daily Leader has once again teamed with a local bank to open the Holiday Food Pantry…Deb Phinney, who once hung her hat in Mississippi, is now advertising director of The Lowell Sun in Massachusetts. In her announcement, she proclaims this to be an “exciting time” for newspapers…Mathew Sanders, opinion page editor for LSU’s Daily Reveille, was arrested and charged with simple assault after an incident the day of Tigers game against Ole Miss.

Some seedling on a vegan message board is overly impressed to find recipes for vines, twigs and other non-sentient dishes in a “Southern” newspaper, aka The Sun-Herald.

As with most “posters” who waste invest their time in such pursuits, the punctuation is nominal and consciousness a bit convoluted. But we think the general gist is a compliment for The Sun-Herald, which the vegans find to be rather “normal.”

Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal editor Lloyd Gray pontificates family, tradition and the annual trip to rural Madison County to enjoy both…

“What began, frankly, as a desire to please my mother and a special aunt – the hostess – by our presence has turned into a ritual, a tradition, which if not always eagerly anticipated is one of those things that you’re glad you did after you’ve done it. Why? It’s all about connections, I suppose. About knowing who you are and where you come from.”

Sen. Charlie Ross (R-Brandon) is planning a run for Mississippi lieutenant governor next year and is profiled in a recent Commercial Dispatch article.

According to the article, “Ross is a shareholder in Wise, Carter, Child & Caraway, P.A., the Jackson-based law firm representing Entergy in a suit brought by a Jackson newspaper, The Clarion-Ledger.”

We hope all our members, colleagues and friends have a safe, happy and healthy holiday! Best wishes from the staff at MPA/MPS.

The blog team (all one of us) will be gorging on turkey, trimmings and lots and lots of pie until Monday. We’ll see you back here next week.

Pat Kelly has been named managing editor of The Greenwood Commonwealth. He previously has worked for a number of newspapers in the South, including The Union Appeal in Mississippi and, most recently, the Bradenton Herald in Florida.

The Baltimore Sun reviews “The Race Beat,” an account of efforts to cover the Civil Rights struggle, casts the former New York Times editor and Mississippi native Turner Catledge as a central figure. Also warranting mention in the book – albeit in a less-flattering manner – is a Clarion-Ledger columnist and others who opposed such efforts.

A Canton couple roadtripped to this weekend’s Harvard-Yale Game—on a whim. About two weeks ago, Tom and Diane Butchart attended a local political dinner and mentioned their plans to attend the game in Boston. Soon, they became local stars through an article in their hometown newspaper, The Madison County Journal.

Ross Reily, executive editor of the Delta Democrat Times on participating last week in an MVSU lecture series on race, politics, gender and culture: “While it would seem logical to include the editor of a regional newspaper in an event like this, I was honored to be a part of a panel that included some of the heavyweights of our business…I sincerely hope it doesn’t come off as boasting, because I was truly humbled in the presence of some of the people I have admired all of my professional life.”

LLoyd Gray, editor of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal on the revitalization of downtown Tupelo: “An old maxim suggests that problems are just opportunities in disguise. As with any cliche, it evolved of a basic truth…Tupelo had several downtown-oriented problems in the early 1990s. The eastern entrance to the heart of the city was unattractive and vastly underutilized, an unsightly approach that countered the image of Tupelo as a progressive, welcoming, action-oriented community.”

Wyatt Emmerich, publisher of the Northside Sun on the Governor’s commitment of energy to a campaign for a healthier Mississippi: “The Mississippi economy must be good if the governor can spend a big chunk of his energy exhorting his fellow Mississippians to go on a diet…Most people know they need to lose weight, but they are preoccupied with day-to-day emergencies. We live in a busy time and balancing family, work and play can divert us from the big picture.”

Bill Minor, dean of Mississippi political writers on the quiet death of a controversial figure: “With the death of Sam Bowers at Parchman Penitentiary, another dark chapter in the racial history of Mississippi has been closed. He was 82.”

For 26 years, a man known only as Secret Santa has roamed the streets every December quietly giving people money. He started with $5 and $10 bills. As his fortune grew, so did the gifts. In recent years, Secret Santa has been handing out $100 bills, sometimes two or three at a time, to people in thrift stores, diners and parking lots. So far, he‘s anonymously given out about $1.3 million. It‘s been a long-held holiday mystery: Who is Secret Santa?

He is Larry Stewart, a 58-year-old businessman and native of Bruce, Miss. who made his millions in cable television and long-distance telephone service.