State Law Weak on City Elections - Jackson Free Press

Citizens for Decency. The Republic Group. ENI.

In the waning days of the April 22 special-election runoff for Jackson mayor, third parties, surrogates and political-action committees took control of the political discourse and broadcast airwaves to become the strongest forces in the election, more than the two candidates in some ways.

Whether the chaos and confusion these groups might have caused affected the outcome of the election in which Councilman Tony Yarber defeated Chokwe A. Lumumba, the son of Jackson's late mayor and an attorney, by 2,424 votes is debatable. But what is clear is that the involvement of these third-party organizations highlights the need for strengthening Mississippi's local election laws.

"There's no practical enforcement of the law," said one individual long active in politics, but who declined to be named.

Several individuals who have experience in local elections agreed that there is little to stop an organization intent on keeping the identities of political donors, or itself, a secret. In the weekend preceding the Jackson election, a PAC called Citizens for Decency launched an all-out blitz with negative ads against Yarber.

Yarber responded by seeking an injunction against using what his attorneys said was copyrighted ministry material, which he had posted on YouTube, but took down earlier in the campaign.

Earlier in the election cycle, another PAC known as ENI, which lists a post office box in Canton as its address, reported raising $25,000 for the Jackson mayor's race. The majority of the PAC's expenditures went to two political-consulting firms that list no address. State records show that J & J Consultant, which received $7,500, is owned by Minnie and Stephen Johnson of Tunica. The other recipient, B & H Consultants, is not registered as a business with the state.

A patchwork of state law and agency rules make it even more difficult to decipher who should be reporting political activity to the public. Article 23 of the state election code does not differentiate between municipal and state elections and says political committees must register and outlines penalties for failure to file campaign-finance reports. Late reports can draw a $50-per-day fine.

The statute also says: "Any candidate or any other person who shall wilfully (sic) and deliberately and substantially violate the provisions and prohibitions of this article shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine in a sum not to exceed ($3,000) or imprisoned for not longer than (six) months or by both fine and imprisonment."

However, the law is not clear on which agency enforces the law. The state constitution designates the secretary of state as the chief elections officer in the state with "the power and duty to gather sufficient information concerning voting in elections in this state" and who is required to "submit an annual report to the Legislature, the governor, the attorney general and the public."

The Jackson special election saw violations of multiple requirements—from the near-illegible handwriting on Lumumba's reports, to insufficient information on the ENI filing, to the complete lack of a report from Citizens for Decency. Republic Group, which says it placed all television advertising for Tony Yarber, is not listed in his reports, although the group, part of Hayes Dent Public Strategies, confirmed receiving 15 percent of all TV ads placed, about $3,450 of the $23,000 Yarber reported he spent. Together, bookkeeping discrepancies underscore the weakness of Mississippi's laws on municipal elections.

In addition, candidates for public and incumbent are supposed to file statements of economic interest with the Mississippi Ethics Commission.

Of the three members of the Jackson City Council who ran for mayor, neither Ward 7 Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon nor Yarber had filed SEIs regularly. Yarber has one SEI on file for 2013 and submitted another statement, for 2009, on April 18, four days before the election, that the Ethics Commission is currently reviewing; Barrett-Simon insists she has filed the documents.

Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann told the Jackson Free Press in an interview last summer that his office does not have jurisdiction over municipal elections and primarily looks at the integrity of the state's 1,800 voting precincts, such as whether there is disability access but that the office isn't equipped to oversee municipal elections.

"We have an (elections) staff of about 10, and we do monitor all of the statewide races. I don't know that we could drill down to municipals," Hosemann told JFP.

Hosemann painted the scope of the problem from his office's perspective: Mississippi has 350 municipalities or so. In a normal election year, the number of candidates can number in the thousands.

"It is, I'll tell you, frustrating when they don't provide the financial disclosure. I think that's key to individuals making a decision—to follow who your campaign contributors are. But I don't know that we as the secretary of state's office have the capacity to really reach down and in a 30- or 60-day election and run down a thousand different candidates," Hosemann said.

As of press time, the Citizens for Decency has filed neither the required statement of organization with the Mississippi Secretary of State's office, nor has it submitted records of financial disclosure.

The secretary of state's 2014 Candidate Handbook, political committee must file a statement of organization within 10 days of receiving or spending in excess of $200, meaning that Citizens for Decency has until Tuesday, April 29, at the latest to file with the state.

See filed reports at jfp.ms/documents.

Décor and Class - Jackson Free Press

Sometimes, white walls can be a person's biggest inspiration. For Hunter Davenport, the blank walls in his apartment—along with the lack of monetary funds to decorate them to his content—stirred up a passion he had never before pursued.

"While I was in the apartment, we had nothing on our walls," he says. "And all I was doing was working, so I had all this down time at night. Finally, I was like, 'Well, I'm going to start painting and put some stuff up on the walls.' It was just absolutely too expensive to go buy decorations for everything."

Davenport, a Jackson native, lived in Nashville, Tenn., and Evansville, Ind., before returning to the Jackson area with his family the summer before his first year of high school. The first in his family to attend college, Davenport enrolled at the University of Mississippi, although he returned to Jackson and worked 40 hours a week at Mint the Restaurant while earning an associate's degree in liberal arts in 2013 from Holmes Community College.

The 24-year-old finished his first work in early November 2013. The tetraptych painting, which consists of four adjacent canvas panels that hang at slightly different heights, is a black-on-white monochromatic depiction of flowers and branches. He made the piece to cover a blank wall in the living room of his apartment, which he moved in to with his sister, Chelsea Bonds, in August 2013.

"I didn't want it to look like I was finger painting," he says. He consulted Pinterest for inspiration and found that some people use masking tape to create shapes to paint around. "I thought if I stenciled out the flowers, that would be the best painting that would come out of me because it was 
my first one."

His success with that first painting gave him the motivation to continue creating. That same autumn, Davenport started a Facebook page, called The Boom Box Projects, for his work. "I was really wanting to display my work and not just be sending photos to my friends saying, 'Oh, look what I finished,'" he says. "I also created it because I wanted a lot of other people, and especially some of my friends who were kind of in the same situation, to also be able to display their stuff there, too. It's for everybody, not just the stuff that I do."

Since he began painting last year, Davenport has sold more than 50 pieces of art. The first painting that he sold was a depiction of an owl that he did for a friend who wanted something similar to what she saw in a store. Things accelerated quickly. He sold more pieces in November, and in December, someone commissioned Davenport to create several paintings to give as Christmas gifts.

"My inspiration comes from the diversity of the world around us and people's minds and how we think and how we see color," Davenport says. "My paintings seem to be a spectrum of different things, and it's going to stand out on one end or the other end, depending on who's looking at it."

Davenport's painting surfaces mainly include found items that he preps. When painting on wood, for example, he first coats the surface with a clear sealant to keep the wood from absorbing the paint. As an event designer for Eventful, he spends a bit of time in warehouses, which have dozens of unused and unneeded wood panels lying around. He also paints on items such as wine bottles and drink coasters.

"I'm all about being green, and I think recycling is the best thing," he says. "I'd rather turn the trash into something pretty that someone would want in their house instead of it being something that gets thrown away."

While Davenport has been able to make money with his creations, he still considers painting relaxing and fun hobby. He wouldn't mind getting art training in the future, but he isn't too worried about it right now.

Injuries Confirmed in Multiple Mississippi Tornadoes, Storms Headed East - Jackson Free Press

JACKSON — TUPELO, Miss. (AP) — At least three tornados flattened homes and businesses, flipped trucks over on highways and injured an unknown number of people in Mississippi and Alabama on Monday as a massive, dangerous storm system passed over several states in the South, also threatening to unleash severe thunderstorms, damaging hail and flash floods.

People in the path of the huge system were on edge as the National Weather Service posted tornado watches and warnings around Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. Forecasters said the system is the latest onslaught of severe weather that triggered deadly tornadoes in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Iowa on Sunday, killing at least 18 people.

The storm was so huge it was visible from space, photographed by weather satellites that showed tumultuous clouds arcing across much of the South.

Injuries were reported in Tupelo, a community of about 35,000 in northeastern Mississippi; and in Louisville, the seat of Winston County about 90 miles northeast of Jackson, Miss., where about 6,600 people live, said Mississippi Health Department spokesman Jim Craig. He said the number and seriousness of the injuries were not known because relief efforts were still underway. Television footage showed trucks being flipped over on state roads.

Bruce Ridgeway, vice president of North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo, said that hospital received six people with non-life-threatening injuries. Tupelo Mayor Jason Shelton said damage was extensive in neighborhoods in the city. Authorities sent teams to the region even before the storm system's arrival.

A tornado damaged the Winston Medical Center in Louisville, Miss., said Jack Mazurak, a spokesman for the Jackson-based University of Mississippi Medical Center, which received a trauma patient from the county and was sending personnel to help triage patients on the ground.

Emergency officials said a tornado also touched down in Limestone County, Alabama, Monday, causing widespread damage, but they could not say whether there were injuries or deaths.

A strong storm barreling through southeastern Kentucky damaged homes and businesses and left more than 6,000 customers without power, said Harlan County Emergency Management Director David McGill. No injuries were reported.

Residents and business owners were not the only ones seriously rattled by the tornadoes.

NBC affiliate WTVA-TV chief meteorologist Matt Laubhan in Tupelo, Miss., was reporting live on the severe weather about 3 p.m. when he realized the twister was coming close enough that maybe he and his staff should abandon the television studio.

"This is a tornado ripping through the city of Tupelo as we speak. And this could be deadly," he said in a video widely tweeted and broadcast on YouTube.

Moments later he adds, "A damaging tornado. On the ground. Right now."

The video then showed Laubhan peeking in from the side to see if he was still live on the air before yelling to staff off-camera to get down in the basement.

"Basement, now!" he yelled, before disappearing off camera himself.

Later, the station tweeted, "We are safe here."

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency Monday in advance of the storms, which sent emergency officials rushing to put plans in place.

In Memphis, Tenn., officials declared a state of emergency in a county southwest of Nashville because of flash flooding. Authorities urged people there to seek higher ground after several homes and some business were flooded in Maury County and school leaders worried that some school buses might not be able to get schoolchildren home over swamped roads.

"If it's unsafe, certainly the drivers are not going to chance it," said Maury County emergency official Mark Blackwood.

More than 50 school systems shut down early in Alabama's northern half as a precaution against having children and workers on the road in buses and cars when the storms arrived. Several cities closed municipal offices early.

The threat of dangerous weather jangled nerves a day after the three-year anniversary of a historic outbreak of more than 60 tornadoes that killed more than 250 people across Alabama on April 27, 2011.

George Grabryan, director of emergency management for Florence and Lauderdale County in northwest Alabama, said 16 shelters opened before storms even moved in and people were calling nervously with questions about the weather.

"There's a lot of sensitivity up here," Grabryan said. "I've got a stack of messages here from people, many of them new to the area, wanting to know where the closest shelters are."

Forecasters said the system moving into Alabama could generate tornadoes with strength ratings of EF-3 or higher and damage tracks 30 miles long or worse.

Elsewhere, forecasters warned Georgia residents of a threat of tornadoes in northern and central counties in coming hours.

---

Associated Press writers Jack Elliott Jr. in Jackson, Miss.; Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Ala.; Phil Lucas in Atlanta; and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga., contributed to this report.

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Tornado Hits Winston Medical Center; UMMC Responds - Jackson Free Press

LOUISVILLE, Miss. (AP) — A spokesman for the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson says a tornado has damaged the Winston Medical Center in Louisville. Jack Mazurak says it knocked down two walls, damaged a third and caused a gas leak.

Mazurak says a trauma patient was being sent to the university hospital, which was sending three people Monday to assess and help local hospital officials conduct triage.

Louisville police and state officials report injuries from the storm.

Louisville, the Winston County seat, has about 6,600 residents. It's about 27 miles south-southwest of Starkville, home to Mississippi State University.

Winston Medical Center has a 27-bed hospital, 14-bed geriatric psychiatric unit and 120-bed nursing home.

There was no immediate word on how many patients were there when the twister hit Monday afternoon.

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Random Acts of Love - Jackson Free Press

A little over a year ago, I was lucky enough to visit New York City with my girlfriend, Elizabeth. While she was busy fighting the crowd at Javits Center as the buyer for the Mississippi Museum of Art, I sauntered along the streets of The Big Apple. It was a crisp January day and I, layered and festooned in what I deemed to be appropriate "big city" attire, wandered in and out of shops on Fifth Avenue.

As I made my way back to our hotel, mindful not to stare like a slack-jawed yokel, I pointed myself in the direction of a coffee shop. Manhandling my haul from H&M, I bobbed and weaved along the bustling sidewalk lost in a herd of New Yorkers commuting on foot. Without warning, a young man sprang from a subway entrance, cutting me off and very nearly causing me to trip. I dismissed him as rude and inconsiderate, but watched him sprint up the sidewalk, across the street and into the arms of another young man.

I then noticed his duffle bag, as it landed at their feet, and I realized this guy was returning home or had traveled some distance to be reunited with the other. I stood on the corner of Lexington and 51st Street and watched these young men share a long kiss, locked in a loving embrace. A swiftly moving river of pedestrians moved around them, not one of them taking notice or stopping to glare. In that moment, I'd have given anything to have Justin there with me, to mirror the other couple, another random act of love in the middle of a crowded New York sidewalk.

No, I would never be so bold back at home in Mississippi, but wouldn't it be nice?

I've long maintained that I don't care for public displays of affection. I've said it countless times to two long-term boyfriends, a few suitors and my husband. By turning my nose up at other couples, I've been able to hide my fear of being spotted. To have a stranger see my hand on Justin's knee would confirm my queerness. If we dared to hold hands, it might invite hostile reaction. Should we share an impulsive kiss before heading in different directions, it could very well invoke blind rage.

As a pre-teen, I'd been clocked as a "fag," and I learned how to blend in out of necessity. I painstakingly monitored my walk, tone of voice, inflection and my facial expressions so as not to attract unwanted attention. So, in the 20-something years I've been out of the closet, I've managed to only be publicly intimate with my significant other when I know no one is looking. 

One Easter weekend, Justin and I traveled to New Orleans with Elizabeth and her husband, Blake. It's become a tradition for us, a way to kiss winter goodbye and also welcome the warmer weather. After dinner, we took a cab into The Quarter and wandered, as tourists do. Moving away from Canal, we made our way down Chartres at a leisurely pace toward Jackson Square. Conversation was easy until we turned onto St. Anne, where the sidewalks were choked with revelers. Eventually, we merged onto Bourbon and became four more souls in a parade of aimless drunks, scantily-clad college girls and parents free of children for the weekend.

Eventually, we found ourselves on "that end" of Bourbon Street, where rainbow flags are common and Sunday Tea Dance is the order of business. Instinctively, and without hesitation, Justin and I took each other's hand and leaned into each other, moving along with the crowd in a dance of sorts, keeping time with only each other, another random act of love in the middle of a crowded New Orleans sidewalk.

Later, Elizabeth would say she was almost moved to tears because she couldn't recall ever seeing us hold hands in public. She was suddenly and painfully aware of the reason why: Down on this end of Bourbon, there are more of "us" than "them." Down here, we can hold hands if we please, and we quite often do. "I want y'all to be able to do that everywhere," I think she put it.

I'd like to think that, some day not too far off, Justin and I could stroll up Fondren Place and onto State Street, arms interlocked as we make our way to dinner on the patio at Walker's Drive-In, without concerning ourselves with hateful comments from strangers. Eventually, the sight of two men holding hands will be as acceptable as any other couple, when there is no "down here" or "that end" of any street, merely another random act of love.

Eddie Outlaw co-owns William Wallace Salon and Fondren Barber with his husband, Justin McPherson. Read his other JFP columns at jfp.ms/outlaw.

State Law Weak on City Elections - Jackson Free Press

Citizens for Decency. The Republic Group. ENI.

In the waning days of the April 22 special-election runoff for Jackson mayor, third parties, surrogates and political-action committees took control of the political discourse and broadcast airwaves to become the strongest forces in the election, more than the two candidates in some ways.

Whether the chaos and confusion these groups might have caused affected the outcome of the election in which Councilman Tony Yarber defeated Chokwe A. Lumumba, the son of Jackson's late mayor and an attorney, by 2,424 votes is debatable. But what is clear is that the involvement of these third-party organizations highlights the need for strengthening Mississippi's local election laws.

"There's no practical enforcement of the law," said one individual long active in politics, but who declined to be named.

Several individuals who have experience in local elections agreed that there is little to stop an organization intent on keeping the identities of political donors, or itself, a secret. In the weekend preceding the Jackson election, a PAC called Citizens for Decency launched an all-out blitz with negative ads against Yarber.

Yarber responded by seeking an injunction against using what his attorneys said was copyrighted ministry material, which he had posted on YouTube, but took down earlier in the campaign.

Earlier in the election cycle, another PAC known as ENI, which lists a post office box in Canton as its address, reported raising $25,000 for the Jackson mayor's race. The majority of the PAC's expenditures went to two political-consulting firms that list no address. State records show that J & J Consultant, which received $7,500, is owned by Minnie and Stephen Johnson of Tunica. The other recipient, B & H Consultants, is not registered as a business with the state.

A patchwork of state law and agency rules make it even more difficult to decipher who should be reporting political activity to the public. Article 23 of the state election code does not differentiate between municipal and state elections and says political committees must register and outlines penalties for failure to file campaign-finance reports. Late reports can draw a $50-per-day fine.

The statute also says: "Any candidate or any other person who shall wilfully (sic) and deliberately and substantially violate the provisions and prohibitions of this article shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine in a sum not to exceed ($3,000) or imprisoned for not longer than (six) months or by both fine and imprisonment."

However, the law is not clear on which agency enforces the law. The state constitution designates the secretary of state as the chief elections officer in the state with "the power and duty to gather sufficient information concerning voting in elections in this state" and who is required to "submit an annual report to the Legislature, the governor, the attorney general and the public."

The Jackson special election saw violations of multiple requirements—from the near-illegible handwriting on Lumumba's reports, to insufficient information on the ENI filing, to the complete lack of a report from Citizens for Decency. Republic Group, which says it placed all television advertising for Tony Yarber, is not listed in his reports, although the group, part of Hayes Dent Public Strategies, confirmed receiving 15 percent of all TV ads placed, about $3,450 of the $23,000 Yarber reported he spent. Together, bookkeeping discrepancies underscore the weakness of Mississippi's laws on municipal elections.

In addition, candidates for public and incumbent are supposed to file statements of economic interest with the Mississippi Ethics Commission.

Of the three members of the Jackson City Council who ran for mayor, neither Ward 7 Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon nor Yarber had filed SEIs regularly. Yarber has one SEI on file for 2013 and submitted another statement, for 2009, on April 18, four days before the election, that the Ethics Commission is currently reviewing; Barrett-Simon insists she has filed the documents.

Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann told the Jackson Free Press in an interview last summer that his office does not have jurisdiction over municipal elections and primarily looks at the integrity of the state's 1,800 voting precincts, such as whether there is disability access but that the office isn't equipped to oversee municipal elections.

"We have an (elections) staff of about 10, and we do monitor all of the statewide races. I don't know that we could drill down to municipals," Hosemann told JFP.

Hosemann painted the scope of the problem from his office's perspective: Mississippi has 350 municipalities or so. In a normal election year, the number of candidates can number in the thousands.

"It is, I'll tell you, frustrating when they don't provide the financial disclosure. I think that's key to individuals making a decision—to follow who your campaign contributors are. But I don't know that we as the secretary of state's office have the capacity to really reach down and in a 30- or 60-day election and run down a thousand different candidates," Hosemann said.

As of press time, the Citizens for Decency has filed neither the required statement of organization with the Mississippi Secretary of State's office, nor has it submitted records of financial disclosure.

The secretary of state's 2014 Candidate Handbook, political committee must file a statement of organization within 10 days of receiving or spending in excess of $200, meaning that Citizens for Decency has until Tuesday, April 29, at the latest to file with the state.

See filed reports at jfp.ms/documents.

Décor and Class - Jackson Free Press

Sometimes, white walls can be a person's biggest inspiration. For Hunter Davenport, the blank walls in his apartment—along with the lack of monetary funds to decorate them to his content—stirred up a passion he had never before pursued.

"While I was in the apartment, we had nothing on our walls," he says. "And all I was doing was working, so I had all this down time at night. Finally, I was like, 'Well, I'm going to start painting and put some stuff up on the walls.' It was just absolutely too expensive to go buy decorations for everything."

Davenport, a Jackson native, lived in Nashville, Tenn., and Evansville, Ind., before returning to the Jackson area with his family the summer before his first year of high school. The first in his family to attend college, Davenport enrolled at the University of Mississippi, although he returned to Jackson and worked 40 hours a week at Mint the Restaurant while earning an associate's degree in liberal arts in 2013 from Holmes Community College.

The 24-year-old finished his first work in early November 2013. The tetraptych painting, which consists of four adjacent canvas panels that hang at slightly different heights, is a black-on-white monochromatic depiction of flowers and branches. He made the piece to cover a blank wall in the living room of his apartment, which he moved in to with his sister, Chelsea Bonds, in August 2013.

"I didn't want it to look like I was finger painting," he says. He consulted Pinterest for inspiration and found that some people use masking tape to create shapes to paint around. "I thought if I stenciled out the flowers, that would be the best painting that would come out of me because it was 
my first one."

His success with that first painting gave him the motivation to continue creating. That same autumn, Davenport started a Facebook page, called The Boom Box Projects, for his work. "I was really wanting to display my work and not just be sending photos to my friends saying, 'Oh, look what I finished,'" he says. "I also created it because I wanted a lot of other people, and especially some of my friends who were kind of in the same situation, to also be able to display their stuff there, too. It's for everybody, not just the stuff that I do."

Since he began painting last year, Davenport has sold more than 50 pieces of art. The first painting that he sold was a depiction of an owl that he did for a friend who wanted something similar to what she saw in a store. Things accelerated quickly. He sold more pieces in November, and in December, someone commissioned Davenport to create several paintings to give as Christmas gifts.

"My inspiration comes from the diversity of the world around us and people's minds and how we think and how we see color," Davenport says. "My paintings seem to be a spectrum of different things, and it's going to stand out on one end or the other end, depending on who's looking at it."

Davenport's painting surfaces mainly include found items that he preps. When painting on wood, for example, he first coats the surface with a clear sealant to keep the wood from absorbing the paint. As an event designer for Eventful, he spends a bit of time in warehouses, which have dozens of unused and unneeded wood panels lying around. He also paints on items such as wine bottles and drink coasters.

"I'm all about being green, and I think recycling is the best thing," he says. "I'd rather turn the trash into something pretty that someone would want in their house instead of it being something that gets thrown away."

While Davenport has been able to make money with his creations, he still considers painting relaxing and fun hobby. He wouldn't mind getting art training in the future, but he isn't too worried about it right now.

Injuries Confirmed in Multiple Mississippi Tornadoes, Storms Headed East - Jackson Free Press

JACKSON — TUPELO, Miss. (AP) — At least three tornados flattened homes and businesses, flipped trucks over on highways and injured an unknown number of people in Mississippi and Alabama on Monday as a massive, dangerous storm system passed over several states in the South, also threatening to unleash severe thunderstorms, damaging hail and flash floods.

People in the path of the huge system were on edge as the National Weather Service posted tornado watches and warnings around Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. Forecasters said the system is the latest onslaught of severe weather that triggered deadly tornadoes in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Iowa on Sunday, killing at least 18 people.

The storm was so huge it was visible from space, photographed by weather satellites that showed tumultuous clouds arcing across much of the South.

Injuries were reported in Tupelo, a community of about 35,000 in northeastern Mississippi; and in Louisville, the seat of Winston County about 90 miles northeast of Jackson, Miss., where about 6,600 people live, said Mississippi Health Department spokesman Jim Craig. He said the number and seriousness of the injuries were not known because relief efforts were still underway. Television footage showed trucks being flipped over on state roads.

Bruce Ridgeway, vice president of North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo, said that hospital received six people with non-life-threatening injuries. Tupelo Mayor Jason Shelton said damage was extensive in neighborhoods in the city. Authorities sent teams to the region even before the storm system's arrival.

A tornado damaged the Winston Medical Center in Louisville, Miss., said Jack Mazurak, a spokesman for the Jackson-based University of Mississippi Medical Center, which received a trauma patient from the county and was sending personnel to help triage patients on the ground.

Emergency officials said a tornado also touched down in Limestone County, Alabama, Monday, causing widespread damage, but they could not say whether there were injuries or deaths.

A strong storm barreling through southeastern Kentucky damaged homes and businesses and left more than 6,000 customers without power, said Harlan County Emergency Management Director David McGill. No injuries were reported.

Residents and business owners were not the only ones seriously rattled by the tornadoes.

NBC affiliate WTVA-TV chief meteorologist Matt Laubhan in Tupelo, Miss., was reporting live on the severe weather about 3 p.m. when he realized the twister was coming close enough that maybe he and his staff should abandon the television studio.

"This is a tornado ripping through the city of Tupelo as we speak. And this could be deadly," he said in a video widely tweeted and broadcast on YouTube.

Moments later he adds, "A damaging tornado. On the ground. Right now."

The video then showed Laubhan peeking in from the side to see if he was still live on the air before yelling to staff off-camera to get down in the basement.

"Basement, now!" he yelled, before disappearing off camera himself.

Later, the station tweeted, "We are safe here."

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency Monday in advance of the storms, which sent emergency officials rushing to put plans in place.

In Memphis, Tenn., officials declared a state of emergency in a county southwest of Nashville because of flash flooding. Authorities urged people there to seek higher ground after several homes and some business were flooded in Maury County and school leaders worried that some school buses might not be able to get schoolchildren home over swamped roads.

"If it's unsafe, certainly the drivers are not going to chance it," said Maury County emergency official Mark Blackwood.

More than 50 school systems shut down early in Alabama's northern half as a precaution against having children and workers on the road in buses and cars when the storms arrived. Several cities closed municipal offices early.

The threat of dangerous weather jangled nerves a day after the three-year anniversary of a historic outbreak of more than 60 tornadoes that killed more than 250 people across Alabama on April 27, 2011.

George Grabryan, director of emergency management for Florence and Lauderdale County in northwest Alabama, said 16 shelters opened before storms even moved in and people were calling nervously with questions about the weather.

"There's a lot of sensitivity up here," Grabryan said. "I've got a stack of messages here from people, many of them new to the area, wanting to know where the closest shelters are."

Forecasters said the system moving into Alabama could generate tornadoes with strength ratings of EF-3 or higher and damage tracks 30 miles long or worse.

Elsewhere, forecasters warned Georgia residents of a threat of tornadoes in northern and central counties in coming hours.

---

Associated Press writers Jack Elliott Jr. in Jackson, Miss.; Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Ala.; Phil Lucas in Atlanta; and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga., contributed to this report.

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Tornado Hits Winston Medical Center; UMMC Responds - Jackson Free Press

LOUISVILLE, Miss. (AP) — A spokesman for the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson says a tornado has damaged the Winston Medical Center in Louisville. Jack Mazurak says it knocked down two walls, damaged a third and caused a gas leak.

Mazurak says a trauma patient was being sent to the university hospital, which was sending three people Monday to assess and help local hospital officials conduct triage.

Louisville police and state officials report injuries from the storm.

Louisville, the Winston County seat, has about 6,600 residents. It's about 27 miles south-southwest of Starkville, home to Mississippi State University.

Winston Medical Center has a 27-bed hospital, 14-bed geriatric psychiatric unit and 120-bed nursing home.

There was no immediate word on how many patients were there when the twister hit Monday afternoon.

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Random Acts of Love - Jackson Free Press

A little over a year ago, I was lucky enough to visit New York City with my girlfriend, Elizabeth. While she was busy fighting the crowd at Javits Center as the buyer for the Mississippi Museum of Art, I sauntered along the streets of The Big Apple. It was a crisp January day and I, layered and festooned in what I deemed to be appropriate "big city" attire, wandered in and out of shops on Fifth Avenue.

As I made my way back to our hotel, mindful not to stare like a slack-jawed yokel, I pointed myself in the direction of a coffee shop. Manhandling my haul from H&M, I bobbed and weaved along the bustling sidewalk lost in a herd of New Yorkers commuting on foot. Without warning, a young man sprang from a subway entrance, cutting me off and very nearly causing me to trip. I dismissed him as rude and inconsiderate, but watched him sprint up the sidewalk, across the street and into the arms of another young man.

I then noticed his duffle bag, as it landed at their feet, and I realized this guy was returning home or had traveled some distance to be reunited with the other. I stood on the corner of Lexington and 51st Street and watched these young men share a long kiss, locked in a loving embrace. A swiftly moving river of pedestrians moved around them, not one of them taking notice or stopping to glare. In that moment, I'd have given anything to have Justin there with me, to mirror the other couple, another random act of love in the middle of a crowded New York sidewalk.

No, I would never be so bold back at home in Mississippi, but wouldn't it be nice?

I've long maintained that I don't care for public displays of affection. I've said it countless times to two long-term boyfriends, a few suitors and my husband. By turning my nose up at other couples, I've been able to hide my fear of being spotted. To have a stranger see my hand on Justin's knee would confirm my queerness. If we dared to hold hands, it might invite hostile reaction. Should we share an impulsive kiss before heading in different directions, it could very well invoke blind rage.

As a pre-teen, I'd been clocked as a "fag," and I learned how to blend in out of necessity. I painstakingly monitored my walk, tone of voice, inflection and my facial expressions so as not to attract unwanted attention. So, in the 20-something years I've been out of the closet, I've managed to only be publicly intimate with my significant other when I know no one is looking. 

One Easter weekend, Justin and I traveled to New Orleans with Elizabeth and her husband, Blake. It's become a tradition for us, a way to kiss winter goodbye and also welcome the warmer weather. After dinner, we took a cab into The Quarter and wandered, as tourists do. Moving away from Canal, we made our way down Chartres at a leisurely pace toward Jackson Square. Conversation was easy until we turned onto St. Anne, where the sidewalks were choked with revelers. Eventually, we merged onto Bourbon and became four more souls in a parade of aimless drunks, scantily-clad college girls and parents free of children for the weekend.

Eventually, we found ourselves on "that end" of Bourbon Street, where rainbow flags are common and Sunday Tea Dance is the order of business. Instinctively, and without hesitation, Justin and I took each other's hand and leaned into each other, moving along with the crowd in a dance of sorts, keeping time with only each other, another random act of love in the middle of a crowded New Orleans sidewalk.

Later, Elizabeth would say she was almost moved to tears because she couldn't recall ever seeing us hold hands in public. She was suddenly and painfully aware of the reason why: Down on this end of Bourbon, there are more of "us" than "them." Down here, we can hold hands if we please, and we quite often do. "I want y'all to be able to do that everywhere," I think she put it.

I'd like to think that, some day not too far off, Justin and I could stroll up Fondren Place and onto State Street, arms interlocked as we make our way to dinner on the patio at Walker's Drive-In, without concerning ourselves with hateful comments from strangers. Eventually, the sight of two men holding hands will be as acceptable as any other couple, when there is no "down here" or "that end" of any street, merely another random act of love.

Eddie Outlaw co-owns William Wallace Salon and Fondren Barber with his husband, Justin McPherson. Read his other JFP columns at jfp.ms/outlaw.

State Law Weak on City Elections - Jackson Free Press

Citizens for Decency. The Republic Group. ENI.

In the waning days of the April 22 special-election runoff for Jackson mayor, third parties, surrogates and political-action committees took control of the political discourse and broadcast airwaves to become the strongest forces in the election, more than the two candidates in some ways.

Whether the chaos and confusion these groups might have caused affected the outcome of the election in which Councilman Tony Yarber defeated Chokwe A. Lumumba, the son of Jackson's late mayor and an attorney, by 2,424 votes is debatable. But what is clear is that the involvement of these third-party organizations highlights the need for strengthening Mississippi's local election laws.

"There's no practical enforcement of the law," said one individual long active in politics, but who declined to be named.

Several individuals who have experience in local elections agreed that there is little to stop an organization intent on keeping the identities of political donors, or itself, a secret. In the weekend preceding the Jackson election, a PAC called Citizens for Decency launched an all-out blitz with negative ads against Yarber.

Yarber responded by seeking an injunction against using what his attorneys said was copyrighted ministry material, which he had posted on YouTube, but took down earlier in the campaign.

Earlier in the election cycle, another PAC known as ENI, which lists a post office box in Canton as its address, reported raising $25,000 for the Jackson mayor's race. The majority of the PAC's expenditures went to two political-consulting firms that list no address. State records show that J & J Consultant, which received $7,500, is owned by Minnie and Stephen Johnson of Tunica. The other recipient, B & H Consultants, is not registered as a business with the state.

A patchwork of state law and agency rules make it even more difficult to decipher who should be reporting political activity to the public. Article 23 of the state election code does not differentiate between municipal and state elections and says political committees must register and outlines penalties for failure to file campaign-finance reports. Late reports can draw a $50-per-day fine.

The statute also says: "Any candidate or any other person who shall wilfully (sic) and deliberately and substantially violate the provisions and prohibitions of this article shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine in a sum not to exceed ($3,000) or imprisoned for not longer than (six) months or by both fine and imprisonment."

However, the law is not clear on which agency enforces the law. The state constitution designates the secretary of state as the chief elections officer in the state with "the power and duty to gather sufficient information concerning voting in elections in this state" and who is required to "submit an annual report to the Legislature, the governor, the attorney general and the public."

The Jackson special election saw violations of multiple requirements—from the near-illegible handwriting on Lumumba's reports, to insufficient information on the ENI filing, to the complete lack of a report from Citizens for Decency. Republic Group, which says it placed all television advertising for Tony Yarber, is not listed in his reports, although the group, part of Hayes Dent Public Strategies, confirmed receiving 15 percent of all TV ads placed, about $3,450 of the $23,000 Yarber reported he spent. Together, bookkeeping discrepancies underscore the weakness of Mississippi's laws on municipal elections.

In addition, candidates for public and incumbent are supposed to file statements of economic interest with the Mississippi Ethics Commission.

Of the three members of the Jackson City Council who ran for mayor, neither Ward 7 Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon nor Yarber had filed SEIs regularly. Yarber has one SEI on file for 2013 and submitted another statement, for 2009, on April 18, four days before the election, that the Ethics Commission is currently reviewing; Barrett-Simon insists she has filed the documents.

Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann told the Jackson Free Press in an interview last summer that his office does not have jurisdiction over municipal elections and primarily looks at the integrity of the state's 1,800 voting precincts, such as whether there is disability access but that the office isn't equipped to oversee municipal elections.

"We have an (elections) staff of about 10, and we do monitor all of the statewide races. I don't know that we could drill down to municipals," Hosemann told JFP.

Hosemann painted the scope of the problem from his office's perspective: Mississippi has 350 municipalities or so. In a normal election year, the number of candidates can number in the thousands.

"It is, I'll tell you, frustrating when they don't provide the financial disclosure. I think that's key to individuals making a decision—to follow who your campaign contributors are. But I don't know that we as the secretary of state's office have the capacity to really reach down and in a 30- or 60-day election and run down a thousand different candidates," Hosemann said.

As of press time, the Citizens for Decency has filed neither the required statement of organization with the Mississippi Secretary of State's office, nor has it submitted records of financial disclosure.

The secretary of state's 2014 Candidate Handbook, political committee must file a statement of organization within 10 days of receiving or spending in excess of $200, meaning that Citizens for Decency has until Tuesday, April 29, at the latest to file with the state.

See filed reports at jfp.ms/documents.

Décor and Class - Jackson Free Press

Sometimes, white walls can be a person's biggest inspiration. For Hunter Davenport, the blank walls in his apartment—along with the lack of monetary funds to decorate them to his content—stirred up a passion he had never before pursued.

"While I was in the apartment, we had nothing on our walls," he says. "And all I was doing was working, so I had all this down time at night. Finally, I was like, 'Well, I'm going to start painting and put some stuff up on the walls.' It was just absolutely too expensive to go buy decorations for everything."

Davenport, a Jackson native, lived in Nashville, Tenn., and Evansville, Ind., before returning to the Jackson area with his family the summer before his first year of high school. The first in his family to attend college, Davenport enrolled at the University of Mississippi, although he returned to Jackson and worked 40 hours a week at Mint the Restaurant while earning an associate's degree in liberal arts in 2013 from Holmes Community College.

The 24-year-old finished his first work in early November 2013. The tetraptych painting, which consists of four adjacent canvas panels that hang at slightly different heights, is a black-on-white monochromatic depiction of flowers and branches. He made the piece to cover a blank wall in the living room of his apartment, which he moved in to with his sister, Chelsea Bonds, in August 2013.

"I didn't want it to look like I was finger painting," he says. He consulted Pinterest for inspiration and found that some people use masking tape to create shapes to paint around. "I thought if I stenciled out the flowers, that would be the best painting that would come out of me because it was 
my first one."

His success with that first painting gave him the motivation to continue creating. That same autumn, Davenport started a Facebook page, called The Boom Box Projects, for his work. "I was really wanting to display my work and not just be sending photos to my friends saying, 'Oh, look what I finished,'" he says. "I also created it because I wanted a lot of other people, and especially some of my friends who were kind of in the same situation, to also be able to display their stuff there, too. It's for everybody, not just the stuff that I do."

Since he began painting last year, Davenport has sold more than 50 pieces of art. The first painting that he sold was a depiction of an owl that he did for a friend who wanted something similar to what she saw in a store. Things accelerated quickly. He sold more pieces in November, and in December, someone commissioned Davenport to create several paintings to give as Christmas gifts.

"My inspiration comes from the diversity of the world around us and people's minds and how we think and how we see color," Davenport says. "My paintings seem to be a spectrum of different things, and it's going to stand out on one end or the other end, depending on who's looking at it."

Davenport's painting surfaces mainly include found items that he preps. When painting on wood, for example, he first coats the surface with a clear sealant to keep the wood from absorbing the paint. As an event designer for Eventful, he spends a bit of time in warehouses, which have dozens of unused and unneeded wood panels lying around. He also paints on items such as wine bottles and drink coasters.

"I'm all about being green, and I think recycling is the best thing," he says. "I'd rather turn the trash into something pretty that someone would want in their house instead of it being something that gets thrown away."

While Davenport has been able to make money with his creations, he still considers painting relaxing and fun hobby. He wouldn't mind getting art training in the future, but he isn't too worried about it right now.

Injuries Confirmed in Multiple Mississippi Tornadoes, Storms Headed East - Jackson Free Press

JACKSON — TUPELO, Miss. (AP) — At least three tornados flattened homes and businesses, flipped trucks over on highways and injured an unknown number of people in Mississippi and Alabama on Monday as a massive, dangerous storm system passed over several states in the South, also threatening to unleash severe thunderstorms, damaging hail and flash floods.

People in the path of the huge system were on edge as the National Weather Service posted tornado watches and warnings around Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. Forecasters said the system is the latest onslaught of severe weather that triggered deadly tornadoes in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Iowa on Sunday, killing at least 18 people.

The storm was so huge it was visible from space, photographed by weather satellites that showed tumultuous clouds arcing across much of the South.

Injuries were reported in Tupelo, a community of about 35,000 in northeastern Mississippi; and in Louisville, the seat of Winston County about 90 miles northeast of Jackson, Miss., where about 6,600 people live, said Mississippi Health Department spokesman Jim Craig. He said the number and seriousness of the injuries were not known because relief efforts were still underway. Television footage showed trucks being flipped over on state roads.

Bruce Ridgeway, vice president of North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo, said that hospital received six people with non-life-threatening injuries. Tupelo Mayor Jason Shelton said damage was extensive in neighborhoods in the city. Authorities sent teams to the region even before the storm system's arrival.

A tornado damaged the Winston Medical Center in Louisville, Miss., said Jack Mazurak, a spokesman for the Jackson-based University of Mississippi Medical Center, which received a trauma patient from the county and was sending personnel to help triage patients on the ground.

Emergency officials said a tornado also touched down in Limestone County, Alabama, Monday, causing widespread damage, but they could not say whether there were injuries or deaths.

A strong storm barreling through southeastern Kentucky damaged homes and businesses and left more than 6,000 customers without power, said Harlan County Emergency Management Director David McGill. No injuries were reported.

Residents and business owners were not the only ones seriously rattled by the tornadoes.

NBC affiliate WTVA-TV chief meteorologist Matt Laubhan in Tupelo, Miss., was reporting live on the severe weather about 3 p.m. when he realized the twister was coming close enough that maybe he and his staff should abandon the television studio.

"This is a tornado ripping through the city of Tupelo as we speak. And this could be deadly," he said in a video widely tweeted and broadcast on YouTube.

Moments later he adds, "A damaging tornado. On the ground. Right now."

The video then showed Laubhan peeking in from the side to see if he was still live on the air before yelling to staff off-camera to get down in the basement.

"Basement, now!" he yelled, before disappearing off camera himself.

Later, the station tweeted, "We are safe here."

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency Monday in advance of the storms, which sent emergency officials rushing to put plans in place.

In Memphis, Tenn., officials declared a state of emergency in a county southwest of Nashville because of flash flooding. Authorities urged people there to seek higher ground after several homes and some business were flooded in Maury County and school leaders worried that some school buses might not be able to get schoolchildren home over swamped roads.

"If it's unsafe, certainly the drivers are not going to chance it," said Maury County emergency official Mark Blackwood.

More than 50 school systems shut down early in Alabama's northern half as a precaution against having children and workers on the road in buses and cars when the storms arrived. Several cities closed municipal offices early.

The threat of dangerous weather jangled nerves a day after the three-year anniversary of a historic outbreak of more than 60 tornadoes that killed more than 250 people across Alabama on April 27, 2011.

George Grabryan, director of emergency management for Florence and Lauderdale County in northwest Alabama, said 16 shelters opened before storms even moved in and people were calling nervously with questions about the weather.

"There's a lot of sensitivity up here," Grabryan said. "I've got a stack of messages here from people, many of them new to the area, wanting to know where the closest shelters are."

Forecasters said the system moving into Alabama could generate tornadoes with strength ratings of EF-3 or higher and damage tracks 30 miles long or worse.

Elsewhere, forecasters warned Georgia residents of a threat of tornadoes in northern and central counties in coming hours.

---

Associated Press writers Jack Elliott Jr. in Jackson, Miss.; Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Ala.; Phil Lucas in Atlanta; and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga., contributed to this report.

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Tornado Hits Winston Medical Center; UMMC Responds - Jackson Free Press

LOUISVILLE, Miss. (AP) — A spokesman for the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson says a tornado has damaged the Winston Medical Center in Louisville. Jack Mazurak says it knocked down two walls, damaged a third and caused a gas leak.

Mazurak says a trauma patient was being sent to the university hospital, which was sending three people Monday to assess and help local hospital officials conduct triage.

Louisville police and state officials report injuries from the storm.

Louisville, the Winston County seat, has about 6,600 residents. It's about 27 miles south-southwest of Starkville, home to Mississippi State University.

Winston Medical Center has a 27-bed hospital, 14-bed geriatric psychiatric unit and 120-bed nursing home.

There was no immediate word on how many patients were there when the twister hit Monday afternoon.

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Random Acts of Love - Jackson Free Press

A little over a year ago, I was lucky enough to visit New York City with my girlfriend, Elizabeth. While she was busy fighting the crowd at Javits Center as the buyer for the Mississippi Museum of Art, I sauntered along the streets of The Big Apple. It was a crisp January day and I, layered and festooned in what I deemed to be appropriate "big city" attire, wandered in and out of shops on Fifth Avenue.

As I made my way back to our hotel, mindful not to stare like a slack-jawed yokel, I pointed myself in the direction of a coffee shop. Manhandling my haul from H&M, I bobbed and weaved along the bustling sidewalk lost in a herd of New Yorkers commuting on foot. Without warning, a young man sprang from a subway entrance, cutting me off and very nearly causing me to trip. I dismissed him as rude and inconsiderate, but watched him sprint up the sidewalk, across the street and into the arms of another young man.

I then noticed his duffle bag, as it landed at their feet, and I realized this guy was returning home or had traveled some distance to be reunited with the other. I stood on the corner of Lexington and 51st Street and watched these young men share a long kiss, locked in a loving embrace. A swiftly moving river of pedestrians moved around them, not one of them taking notice or stopping to glare. In that moment, I'd have given anything to have Justin there with me, to mirror the other couple, another random act of love in the middle of a crowded New York sidewalk.

No, I would never be so bold back at home in Mississippi, but wouldn't it be nice?

I've long maintained that I don't care for public displays of affection. I've said it countless times to two long-term boyfriends, a few suitors and my husband. By turning my nose up at other couples, I've been able to hide my fear of being spotted. To have a stranger see my hand on Justin's knee would confirm my queerness. If we dared to hold hands, it might invite hostile reaction. Should we share an impulsive kiss before heading in different directions, it could very well invoke blind rage.

As a pre-teen, I'd been clocked as a "fag," and I learned how to blend in out of necessity. I painstakingly monitored my walk, tone of voice, inflection and my facial expressions so as not to attract unwanted attention. So, in the 20-something years I've been out of the closet, I've managed to only be publicly intimate with my significant other when I know no one is looking. 

One Easter weekend, Justin and I traveled to New Orleans with Elizabeth and her husband, Blake. It's become a tradition for us, a way to kiss winter goodbye and also welcome the warmer weather. After dinner, we took a cab into The Quarter and wandered, as tourists do. Moving away from Canal, we made our way down Chartres at a leisurely pace toward Jackson Square. Conversation was easy until we turned onto St. Anne, where the sidewalks were choked with revelers. Eventually, we merged onto Bourbon and became four more souls in a parade of aimless drunks, scantily-clad college girls and parents free of children for the weekend.

Eventually, we found ourselves on "that end" of Bourbon Street, where rainbow flags are common and Sunday Tea Dance is the order of business. Instinctively, and without hesitation, Justin and I took each other's hand and leaned into each other, moving along with the crowd in a dance of sorts, keeping time with only each other, another random act of love in the middle of a crowded New Orleans sidewalk.

Later, Elizabeth would say she was almost moved to tears because she couldn't recall ever seeing us hold hands in public. She was suddenly and painfully aware of the reason why: Down on this end of Bourbon, there are more of "us" than "them." Down here, we can hold hands if we please, and we quite often do. "I want y'all to be able to do that everywhere," I think she put it.

I'd like to think that, some day not too far off, Justin and I could stroll up Fondren Place and onto State Street, arms interlocked as we make our way to dinner on the patio at Walker's Drive-In, without concerning ourselves with hateful comments from strangers. Eventually, the sight of two men holding hands will be as acceptable as any other couple, when there is no "down here" or "that end" of any street, merely another random act of love.

Eddie Outlaw co-owns William Wallace Salon and Fondren Barber with his husband, Justin McPherson. Read his other JFP columns at jfp.ms/outlaw.

State Law Weak on City Elections - Jackson Free Press

Citizens for Decency. The Republic Group. ENI.

In the waning days of the April 22 special-election runoff for Jackson mayor, third parties, surrogates and political-action committees took control of the political discourse and broadcast airwaves to become the strongest forces in the election, more than the two candidates in some ways.

Whether the chaos and confusion these groups might have caused affected the outcome of the election in which Councilman Tony Yarber defeated Chokwe A. Lumumba, the son of Jackson's late mayor and an attorney, by 2,424 votes is debatable. But what is clear is that the involvement of these third-party organizations highlights the need for strengthening Mississippi's local election laws.

"There's no practical enforcement of the law," said one individual long active in politics, but who declined to be named.

Several individuals who have experience in local elections agreed that there is little to stop an organization intent on keeping the identities of political donors, or itself, a secret. In the weekend preceding the Jackson election, a PAC called Citizens for Decency launched an all-out blitz with negative ads against Yarber.

Yarber responded by seeking an injunction against using what his attorneys said was copyrighted ministry material, which he had posted on YouTube, but took down earlier in the campaign.

Earlier in the election cycle, another PAC known as ENI, which lists a post office box in Canton as its address, reported raising $25,000 for the Jackson mayor's race. The majority of the PAC's expenditures went to two political-consulting firms that list no address. State records show that J & J Consultant, which received $7,500, is owned by Minnie and Stephen Johnson of Tunica. The other recipient, B & H Consultants, is not registered as a business with the state.

A patchwork of state law and agency rules make it even more difficult to decipher who should be reporting political activity to the public. Article 23 of the state election code does not differentiate between municipal and state elections and says political committees must register and outlines penalties for failure to file campaign-finance reports. Late reports can draw a $50-per-day fine.

The statute also says: "Any candidate or any other person who shall wilfully (sic) and deliberately and substantially violate the provisions and prohibitions of this article shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine in a sum not to exceed ($3,000) or imprisoned for not longer than (six) months or by both fine and imprisonment."

However, the law is not clear on which agency enforces the law. The state constitution designates the secretary of state as the chief elections officer in the state with "the power and duty to gather sufficient information concerning voting in elections in this state" and who is required to "submit an annual report to the Legislature, the governor, the attorney general and the public."

The Jackson special election saw violations of multiple requirements—from the near-illegible handwriting on Lumumba's reports, to insufficient information on the ENI filing, to the complete lack of a report from Citizens for Decency. Republic Group, which says it placed all television advertising for Tony Yarber, is not listed in his reports, although the group, part of Hayes Dent Public Strategies, confirmed receiving 15 percent of all TV ads placed, about $3,450 of the $23,000 Yarber reported he spent. Together, bookkeeping discrepancies underscore the weakness of Mississippi's laws on municipal elections.

In addition, candidates for public and incumbent are supposed to file statements of economic interest with the Mississippi Ethics Commission.

Of the three members of the Jackson City Council who ran for mayor, neither Ward 7 Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon nor Yarber had filed SEIs regularly. Yarber has one SEI on file for 2013 and submitted another statement, for 2009, on April 18, four days before the election, that the Ethics Commission is currently reviewing; Barrett-Simon insists she has filed the documents.

Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann told the Jackson Free Press in an interview last summer that his office does not have jurisdiction over municipal elections and primarily looks at the integrity of the state's 1,800 voting precincts, such as whether there is disability access but that the office isn't equipped to oversee municipal elections.

"We have an (elections) staff of about 10, and we do monitor all of the statewide races. I don't know that we could drill down to municipals," Hosemann told JFP.

Hosemann painted the scope of the problem from his office's perspective: Mississippi has 350 municipalities or so. In a normal election year, the number of candidates can number in the thousands.

"It is, I'll tell you, frustrating when they don't provide the financial disclosure. I think that's key to individuals making a decision—to follow who your campaign contributors are. But I don't know that we as the secretary of state's office have the capacity to really reach down and in a 30- or 60-day election and run down a thousand different candidates," Hosemann said.

As of press time, the Citizens for Decency has filed neither the required statement of organization with the Mississippi Secretary of State's office, nor has it submitted records of financial disclosure.

The secretary of state's 2014 Candidate Handbook, political committee must file a statement of organization within 10 days of receiving or spending in excess of $200, meaning that Citizens for Decency has until Tuesday, April 29, at the latest to file with the state.

See filed reports at jfp.ms/documents.

Décor and Class - Jackson Free Press

Sometimes, white walls can be a person's biggest inspiration. For Hunter Davenport, the blank walls in his apartment—along with the lack of monetary funds to decorate them to his content—stirred up a passion he had never before pursued.

"While I was in the apartment, we had nothing on our walls," he says. "And all I was doing was working, so I had all this down time at night. Finally, I was like, 'Well, I'm going to start painting and put some stuff up on the walls.' It was just absolutely too expensive to go buy decorations for everything."

Davenport, a Jackson native, lived in Nashville, Tenn., and Evansville, Ind., before returning to the Jackson area with his family the summer before his first year of high school. The first in his family to attend college, Davenport enrolled at the University of Mississippi, although he returned to Jackson and worked 40 hours a week at Mint the Restaurant while earning an associate's degree in liberal arts in 2013 from Holmes Community College.

The 24-year-old finished his first work in early November 2013. The tetraptych painting, which consists of four adjacent canvas panels that hang at slightly different heights, is a black-on-white monochromatic depiction of flowers and branches. He made the piece to cover a blank wall in the living room of his apartment, which he moved in to with his sister, Chelsea Bonds, in August 2013.

"I didn't want it to look like I was finger painting," he says. He consulted Pinterest for inspiration and found that some people use masking tape to create shapes to paint around. "I thought if I stenciled out the flowers, that would be the best painting that would come out of me because it was 
my first one."

His success with that first painting gave him the motivation to continue creating. That same autumn, Davenport started a Facebook page, called The Boom Box Projects, for his work. "I was really wanting to display my work and not just be sending photos to my friends saying, 'Oh, look what I finished,'" he says. "I also created it because I wanted a lot of other people, and especially some of my friends who were kind of in the same situation, to also be able to display their stuff there, too. It's for everybody, not just the stuff that I do."

Since he began painting last year, Davenport has sold more than 50 pieces of art. The first painting that he sold was a depiction of an owl that he did for a friend who wanted something similar to what she saw in a store. Things accelerated quickly. He sold more pieces in November, and in December, someone commissioned Davenport to create several paintings to give as Christmas gifts.

"My inspiration comes from the diversity of the world around us and people's minds and how we think and how we see color," Davenport says. "My paintings seem to be a spectrum of different things, and it's going to stand out on one end or the other end, depending on who's looking at it."

Davenport's painting surfaces mainly include found items that he preps. When painting on wood, for example, he first coats the surface with a clear sealant to keep the wood from absorbing the paint. As an event designer for Eventful, he spends a bit of time in warehouses, which have dozens of unused and unneeded wood panels lying around. He also paints on items such as wine bottles and drink coasters.

"I'm all about being green, and I think recycling is the best thing," he says. "I'd rather turn the trash into something pretty that someone would want in their house instead of it being something that gets thrown away."

While Davenport has been able to make money with his creations, he still considers painting relaxing and fun hobby. He wouldn't mind getting art training in the future, but he isn't too worried about it right now.

Injuries Confirmed in Multiple Mississippi Tornadoes, Storms Headed East - Jackson Free Press

JACKSON — TUPELO, Miss. (AP) — At least three tornados flattened homes and businesses, flipped trucks over on highways and injured an unknown number of people in Mississippi and Alabama on Monday as a massive, dangerous storm system passed over several states in the South, also threatening to unleash severe thunderstorms, damaging hail and flash floods.

People in the path of the huge system were on edge as the National Weather Service posted tornado watches and warnings around Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. Forecasters said the system is the latest onslaught of severe weather that triggered deadly tornadoes in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Iowa on Sunday, killing at least 18 people.

The storm was so huge it was visible from space, photographed by weather satellites that showed tumultuous clouds arcing across much of the South.

Injuries were reported in Tupelo, a community of about 35,000 in northeastern Mississippi; and in Louisville, the seat of Winston County about 90 miles northeast of Jackson, Miss., where about 6,600 people live, said Mississippi Health Department spokesman Jim Craig. He said the number and seriousness of the injuries were not known because relief efforts were still underway. Television footage showed trucks being flipped over on state roads.

Bruce Ridgeway, vice president of North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo, said that hospital received six people with non-life-threatening injuries. Tupelo Mayor Jason Shelton said damage was extensive in neighborhoods in the city. Authorities sent teams to the region even before the storm system's arrival.

A tornado damaged the Winston Medical Center in Louisville, Miss., said Jack Mazurak, a spokesman for the Jackson-based University of Mississippi Medical Center, which received a trauma patient from the county and was sending personnel to help triage patients on the ground.

Emergency officials said a tornado also touched down in Limestone County, Alabama, Monday, causing widespread damage, but they could not say whether there were injuries or deaths.

A strong storm barreling through southeastern Kentucky damaged homes and businesses and left more than 6,000 customers without power, said Harlan County Emergency Management Director David McGill. No injuries were reported.

Residents and business owners were not the only ones seriously rattled by the tornadoes.

NBC affiliate WTVA-TV chief meteorologist Matt Laubhan in Tupelo, Miss., was reporting live on the severe weather about 3 p.m. when he realized the twister was coming close enough that maybe he and his staff should abandon the television studio.

"This is a tornado ripping through the city of Tupelo as we speak. And this could be deadly," he said in a video widely tweeted and broadcast on YouTube.

Moments later he adds, "A damaging tornado. On the ground. Right now."

The video then showed Laubhan peeking in from the side to see if he was still live on the air before yelling to staff off-camera to get down in the basement.

"Basement, now!" he yelled, before disappearing off camera himself.

Later, the station tweeted, "We are safe here."

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency Monday in advance of the storms, which sent emergency officials rushing to put plans in place.

In Memphis, Tenn., officials declared a state of emergency in a county southwest of Nashville because of flash flooding. Authorities urged people there to seek higher ground after several homes and some business were flooded in Maury County and school leaders worried that some school buses might not be able to get schoolchildren home over swamped roads.

"If it's unsafe, certainly the drivers are not going to chance it," said Maury County emergency official Mark Blackwood.

More than 50 school systems shut down early in Alabama's northern half as a precaution against having children and workers on the road in buses and cars when the storms arrived. Several cities closed municipal offices early.

The threat of dangerous weather jangled nerves a day after the three-year anniversary of a historic outbreak of more than 60 tornadoes that killed more than 250 people across Alabama on April 27, 2011.

George Grabryan, director of emergency management for Florence and Lauderdale County in northwest Alabama, said 16 shelters opened before storms even moved in and people were calling nervously with questions about the weather.

"There's a lot of sensitivity up here," Grabryan said. "I've got a stack of messages here from people, many of them new to the area, wanting to know where the closest shelters are."

Forecasters said the system moving into Alabama could generate tornadoes with strength ratings of EF-3 or higher and damage tracks 30 miles long or worse.

Elsewhere, forecasters warned Georgia residents of a threat of tornadoes in northern and central counties in coming hours.

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Associated Press writers Jack Elliott Jr. in Jackson, Miss.; Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Ala.; Phil Lucas in Atlanta; and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga., contributed to this report.

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Tornado Hits Winston Medical Center; UMMC Responds - Jackson Free Press

LOUISVILLE, Miss. (AP) — A spokesman for the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson says a tornado has damaged the Winston Medical Center in Louisville. Jack Mazurak says it knocked down two walls, damaged a third and caused a gas leak.

Mazurak says a trauma patient was being sent to the university hospital, which was sending three people Monday to assess and help local hospital officials conduct triage.

Louisville police and state officials report injuries from the storm.

Louisville, the Winston County seat, has about 6,600 residents. It's about 27 miles south-southwest of Starkville, home to Mississippi State University.

Winston Medical Center has a 27-bed hospital, 14-bed geriatric psychiatric unit and 120-bed nursing home.

There was no immediate word on how many patients were there when the twister hit Monday afternoon.

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Random Acts of Love - Jackson Free Press

A little over a year ago, I was lucky enough to visit New York City with my girlfriend, Elizabeth. While she was busy fighting the crowd at Javits Center as the buyer for the Mississippi Museum of Art, I sauntered along the streets of The Big Apple. It was a crisp January day and I, layered and festooned in what I deemed to be appropriate "big city" attire, wandered in and out of shops on Fifth Avenue.

As I made my way back to our hotel, mindful not to stare like a slack-jawed yokel, I pointed myself in the direction of a coffee shop. Manhandling my haul from H&M, I bobbed and weaved along the bustling sidewalk lost in a herd of New Yorkers commuting on foot. Without warning, a young man sprang from a subway entrance, cutting me off and very nearly causing me to trip. I dismissed him as rude and inconsiderate, but watched him sprint up the sidewalk, across the street and into the arms of another young man.

I then noticed his duffle bag, as it landed at their feet, and I realized this guy was returning home or had traveled some distance to be reunited with the other. I stood on the corner of Lexington and 51st Street and watched these young men share a long kiss, locked in a loving embrace. A swiftly moving river of pedestrians moved around them, not one of them taking notice or stopping to glare. In that moment, I'd have given anything to have Justin there with me, to mirror the other couple, another random act of love in the middle of a crowded New York sidewalk.

No, I would never be so bold back at home in Mississippi, but wouldn't it be nice?

I've long maintained that I don't care for public displays of affection. I've said it countless times to two long-term boyfriends, a few suitors and my husband. By turning my nose up at other couples, I've been able to hide my fear of being spotted. To have a stranger see my hand on Justin's knee would confirm my queerness. If we dared to hold hands, it might invite hostile reaction. Should we share an impulsive kiss before heading in different directions, it could very well invoke blind rage.

As a pre-teen, I'd been clocked as a "fag," and I learned how to blend in out of necessity. I painstakingly monitored my walk, tone of voice, inflection and my facial expressions so as not to attract unwanted attention. So, in the 20-something years I've been out of the closet, I've managed to only be publicly intimate with my significant other when I know no one is looking. 

One Easter weekend, Justin and I traveled to New Orleans with Elizabeth and her husband, Blake. It's become a tradition for us, a way to kiss winter goodbye and also welcome the warmer weather. After dinner, we took a cab into The Quarter and wandered, as tourists do. Moving away from Canal, we made our way down Chartres at a leisurely pace toward Jackson Square. Conversation was easy until we turned onto St. Anne, where the sidewalks were choked with revelers. Eventually, we merged onto Bourbon and became four more souls in a parade of aimless drunks, scantily-clad college girls and parents free of children for the weekend.

Eventually, we found ourselves on "that end" of Bourbon Street, where rainbow flags are common and Sunday Tea Dance is the order of business. Instinctively, and without hesitation, Justin and I took each other's hand and leaned into each other, moving along with the crowd in a dance of sorts, keeping time with only each other, another random act of love in the middle of a crowded New Orleans sidewalk.

Later, Elizabeth would say she was almost moved to tears because she couldn't recall ever seeing us hold hands in public. She was suddenly and painfully aware of the reason why: Down on this end of Bourbon, there are more of "us" than "them." Down here, we can hold hands if we please, and we quite often do. "I want y'all to be able to do that everywhere," I think she put it.

I'd like to think that, some day not too far off, Justin and I could stroll up Fondren Place and onto State Street, arms interlocked as we make our way to dinner on the patio at Walker's Drive-In, without concerning ourselves with hateful comments from strangers. Eventually, the sight of two men holding hands will be as acceptable as any other couple, when there is no "down here" or "that end" of any street, merely another random act of love.

Eddie Outlaw co-owns William Wallace Salon and Fondren Barber with his husband, Justin McPherson. Read his other JFP columns at jfp.ms/outlaw.