InkBlots

Lincoln County Board of Supervisors President and Brookhaven mayoral candidate the Rev. Jerry Wilson is disputing a Daily Leader story Tuesday that claimed he refused to speak about the situation surrounding the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks until after the Brookhaven elections on June 2.

Wilson said Wednesday the story misconstrued his comment.

“Y’all twist my words, so I’ll just be quiet,” Wilson said. “I’m gonna win the election, regardless.”

The ink stains are barely off Jim Abbott’s hands, and the Greenwood native is already going into the Mississippi Press Association Hall of Fame.

“Looking back, I think we did a decent job of giving Sunflower County a good newspaper,” Abbott said. “I know it’s a cliché, but it really was a labor of love. I’ve always enjoyed reporting the news.”

Abbott, 64, former publisher and editor of the Indianola Enterprise-Tocsin, will be inducted June 19 at the Beau Rivage Resort in Biloxi by John Howell, publisher of The Panolian, a twice weekly newspaper in Batesville.

Darrell R. Sandlin, a 27-year veteran in the newspaper industry, has been named publisher of the Florence (AL) TimesDaily. He most recently was director of operations for The Clarion-Ledger…Melissa Meador is working this summer as an intern for The Daily Star in Grenada. She is a graduate student in journalism at the University of Mississippi and a former sports editor for The Reflector at Mississippi State. Her internship at the Star is made possible in part by a grant from the MPA Education Foundation.

Media across the country and, indeed, around the world have spread the word of James Young’s election as the first black mayor of Philadelphia, Miss. A roundup:

• CNN: Black mayor of Mississippi town brings ‘atomic bomb of change’
• The Guardian (London): Mississippi town breaks with its past to elect first black mayor
• Huffington Post: Mississippi shining: Good news for all
• UPI: Civil rights flashpoint elects black mayor
• Neshoba Democrat: Young’s wind draws worldwide attention
• New York Times: First black mayor in city known for Klan killings
  

Journalists often feel like they have ink in their veins, but for Meg Coker, that old expression might just be true. Coker, 29, and the mother of two boys — Noah, 21/2 , and Gaines, 14 months — has been writing, shooting photographs or just hanging around the offices of The Tunica Times since her mother bought the newspaper in 1991.

Will Norton, dean of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications, is returning to Mississippi.

Norton e-mailed faculty and staff Tuesday morning to say he’ll become founding dean of the University of Mississippi Edwin and Becky Meek School of Journalism and New Media.

Norton was journalism chair at Ole Miss before becoming UNL’s journalism dean in 1990.

Well of course there is. But that isn’t going to stop us from wringing our hands bout it. The Hattiesburg American is the latest to succumb to temptation.

The longtime editor and publisher of Indianola’s weekly newspaper is being inducted into the Mississippi Press Association Hall of Fame.

The Louisiana-Mississippi Associated Press Managing Editors announced the winners in the annual competition for news stories, editorials, photos, graphics and headlines published by AP member newspapers in Louisiana and Mississippi during 2008.

Follow MPA and Inkblots on Facebook.