COLUMN: To uncover the world, start with Mississippi

As novelist William Faulkner put it, you must first understand a place like Mississippi to truly understand the world. For me, that truth runs deep: I spent 35 years in the Magnolia State before finding echoes of home here in Macon.

I was born and raised in Mississippi. For most of my life, I lived in rural Lincoln County in the southwest corner of the state. Our community, East Lincoln, was about 15 minutes away from the “big city” of Brookhaven (BROOK-hay-vuhn) and its population of around 11,500. We were about 10 minutes away from Monticello (mon-tih-SELL-oh) and its population of about 1,400.

East Lincoln was a great place to grow up. My family’s land covers a few hundred acres and includes a fishing pond and Perch Creek. The creek’s rolling waters once powered a grist mill, and the remnants of its wooden infrastructure are still visible today.

After graduating from Brookhaven High School in 2008, I attended community college in the nearby town of Wesson (population of about 1,800), which is known for its early use of electricity. The town’s Mississippi Manufacturing Co., which produced a fine cotton fabric known as “Mississippi silk,” put light bulbs to use only one year after Thomas Edison perfected their design. That was in the early 1880s.

After graduating from Copiah-Lincoln Community College in 2010, I moved to Mississippi’s “Hub City” of Hattiesburg. While Brookhaven was always the “big city” in my eyes (after all, it had a Walmart), Hattiesburg was the “big big city” (it had two Walmarts). The city, with its population of about 49,000, was full of possibility and a great place to live. I was there for 15 years.

Hattiesburg received its “Hub City” moniker because of its location on a number of important rail lines. Later, major highways were built and intersected in and near the city. The state capital of Jackson is within easy driving distance, and Hattiesburgers (the official nickname for residents, chosen in 2016 as part of a tourism gimmick) often make the short drive to the cities on the state’s Gulf Coast, to New Orleans and to Mobile, Alabama.

I was recruited to Hattiesburg as the editor-in-chief of the William Carey University student newspaper. William Carey, which is affiliated with the Mississippi Baptist Convention, had about 2,800 students then. Its osteopathic medical school was in its startup stages, and the university had just rebuilt and relocated its Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast campus. I went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees there and ended up working for years in the university’s marketing and public relations office and as an adjunct professor.

William Carey had 4,100 students — known as Crusaders — when I left full-time employment there in 2016. I saw a report a few months ago saying the university now had more than 5,600 students. This is despite an EF3 tornado destroying six of the Hattiesburg campus buildings, including the historic administration building, and damaging over 40 others in January 2017.

Explosive growth is kind of the name of the game in Hattiesburg, which is also home to the Golden Eagles at the University of Southern Mississippi, major health care and manufacturing hubs, a zoo and its affiliated water park, and Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center, a major mobilization station for the U.S. Army.

I spent the last few years working at Southern Miss, where I taught journalism classes and helped stand up the Roy Howard Community Journalism Center. The journalism center is funded by the Scripps Howard Foundation and, like The Macon Melody, is one of the many enterprises forging sustainable paths forward for local news. I still have newspaper ink in my veins and all over my fingers, but I sure am excited about our opportunities for digital innovation.

I moved to Macon in late August to serve as executive editor of this newsroom, and I quickly felt at home. Macon is bigger than Hattiesburg in terms of physical footprint and population, but it feels the same. Southern hospitality abounds in both places, and growth opportunities are everywhere. Of course, both areas have challenges, but people are rising up to meet them and embrace a bright future. I guess that’s the southerner’s way. I love it.

It took me about a day to start finding people with connections to my home state. I would have found those connections sooner but was busy unpacking. In my first meeting as Melody editor, I was chatting with Larry Brumley, chief of staff at Mercer University. He once lived in Hattiesburg and was public relations director at William Carey, the same role I held some years later. The world is never as big as you think it is.

I’ll always say Mississippi sits at the center of the universe. My upbringing there was humble but truly wonderful. I understand the Magnolia State and thus Macon and the world.

Joshua Wilson is this newsroom’s executive editor. He wants to hear about your Magnolia State connections. Send him a note at joshua@maconmelody.com.