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Starkville Mayor Lynn Spruill joined The Extra Mile podcast to talk about her career and path to becoming mayor, MDOT projects in the city, the explosion of growth in Starkville and more.
Tune in to The Extra Mile presented by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. Co-hosts Paul Katool and Will Craft take listeners inside the world of transportation infrastructure in Mississippi.
(Drew) MDOT presents The Extra Mile podcast.
(Paul) Welcome in to another edition of The Extra Mile podcast presented by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. I’m MDOT Digital Media Manager Paul Katool. As always, I’m joined by my co-host Will Craft. He handles government and constituent affairs here at the agency.
And you know, we’re going Egg Bowl theme. Last week we were in Oxford to talk to Mayor Robyn Tannehill. And this week we’re in the beautiful city of Starkville to talk to Mayor Lynn Spruill. Mayor, we really appreciate you hosting us here in your great city.
(Mayor Spruill) Well, I appreciate being asked to be here. Robyn is one of my favorite people and so it’s nice to know that y’all visited with her first. And I’ll try to be kind to her. I hope she was kind to me.
(Paul) Oh absolutely.
(Will) Absolutely.
(Paul) Absolutely. So, you’ve got one of the coolest resumes I think out of anybody we’ve interviewed. Lots of different experiences. So, can you kind of talk about that then talk about why you decided to run for mayor of Starkville?
(Mayor Spruill) Sure. Well, I’m kind of a jack of all trades master of none I think if the truth be told. But you know, I grew up here. So, I’m a Starkville native. I went to Mississippi State as well. I graduated from here with a BS. And then decided I wanted to go to law school or else go in the Navy. And so, you know some things you can do at the time and some things you can delay. And going in the Navy was something I couldn’t delay because it wouldn’t happen for me again. So, I chose that path. It’s always nice to have a backup plan.
But I chose that path, and I went in the Navy for six years and flew airplanes for them. And enjoyed that. It was an experimental program which made it very interesting. They didn’t have any accommodations for women at the time in the aviation program. And so, that tells you how long ago it was. It was really, really long ago. Admiral Zumwalt interestingly enough was the admiral at the time. And he was trying to do new things and be flexible with the ideas and concepts of the military. And so, he sought a program to allow women to fly. And so, I went through that program and was very fortunate got based in great places and flew fun airplanes and just had a wonderful time.
And actually, it was really important because it formed for me, it formed an opportunity for me to learn about public service. And so, after that when I left the Navy, I had a sort of a loss of that sense of serving a common good or a greater good. And so, that was kind of how I got involved in government and politics. It was just trying to be a part of a community in a way that was positive and contributed in sort of a productive kind of way. So, I did that, for six years I was in the Navy. I left the Navy out of Norfolk, Virginia. I served in the Philippines and Hawaii and then went to Norfolk and served out the remainder of my tour there.
And then I got hired, I wanted to be hired by the airline. And so, again I have to go back you know a 100 years. And way back then you had to be 30, 31, 32 or they wouldn’t hire you in an airline. Now that doesn’t happen anymore because you have the age discrimination act. But at the time that was not in effect. So, you either got hired by an airline at an early age of 30 or you didn’t get hired by them at all. And so, in order to do that, I had to get out of the Navy and then work on getting hired by the airline.
But unfortunately, they quit hiring about the time I got out. And so, I flew for Atlantic Richfield Oil Company for five years and that was kind of fun because I went to places like Deadhorse, Alaska and you know flew into the ranch of the guy who owned, the CEO who owned the place out in New Mexico. And that was really interesting because it was one way in and the same way back out again. Which is through the mountains and over the woods you know and through the trails. So, it was fun fun flying you know very excited kind of flying.
And then I was very grateful when Delta started back up again, and I got hired by Delta because I’m a southern girl. You know and Delta’s right here. They started in the Delta and that’s how they got their name. And so, I was really excited to be a part of that community. And I flew there for 19 years almost 20 years.
Of course, during that time, we had 9/11. And so, that changed dramatically how the airlines operated and how we operated at pilots. And so, the airlines ended up taking bankruptcy. And so, Delta had was reaching that point and so they offered an early retirement. And at that time also you had to retire by the age of 60. And so, I was approaching that and the calculation at the time was a financial calculation.
And so, I decided that retirement was the option for that. So, I retired from Delta late 2004 almost 2005 and moved back to Starkville which is again is where I was from and where I had business interest here. But the aviation field was my love. And it’s still to this day I see contrails and I know pretty much navigate they’re flying over and where they’re headed.
(Will) That’s awesome.
(Mayor Spruill) One of those one of those losses that you have you know, you’re so grateful to have had a chance to do it but you also miss it because that was just a wonderful way to earn a living so…
(Will) Sure. That’s really cool.
(Mayor Spruill) It was fun.
(Will) And just to highlight one but I mean you alluded to this, but you were the first woman in the history of the Navy to qualify as a carrier pilot?
(Mayor Spruill) That’s right. I was.
(Will) That’s awesome.
(Mayor Spruill) And then Top Gun coming out now makes it fun.
(Will) Right?
(Mayor Spruill) to relive that. Yeah.
(Will) It’s perfect. It’s perfect. And then you even talked about getting into the government. You know, this is actually your second time being a mayor, right?
(Mayor Spruill) It is. It is.
(Will) That’s incredible.
(Mayor Spruill) My first time was in Addison, Texas.
(Will) That’s right.
(Mayor Spruill) So, I had ended up being in Dallas based with Delta there in Dallas. And you have a in the Navy, I’m a big proponent of the military, y’ all so from my perspective you know, if I was king for a day or king or queen everybody would serve two years in the service in some kind of way. I mean, I truly believe that either military service or some sort of governmental service. Because I really think it's a formative thing. It gives you that sense of participation in a larger community.
But anyway, I was missing that when I you know found myself in Dallas and not knowing anyone. Also coming from a small town and being an only child, you know no siblings and that sort of thing. So, I got involved with some folks who were campaigning for an election. And so, as happens to a lot of folks when you get involved in a campaign then you develop relationships. And the folks that won, my people uh needed people to serve on a planning and zoning commission. And so, that’s kind of how it got started. I served for a couple of years on a planning planning and zoning commission. And if you want the really interesting down and dirty of it um the back story, I was supposed to be reappointed to the planning and zoning commission uh on the night that they appointed me to fill out the term of a councilman who killed himself.
(Will) Oh wow!
(Mayor Spruill) …because he had terminal cancer. He was an MD. He had terminal cancer, and he knew kind of the prognosis. And he chose to do what he chose to do. And they had to fill that seat. And so, they I was selected to fill that seat.
(Will) So, then you moved into the city council.
(Mayor Spruill) So, I moved into the city council role instead of PNZ and served out the remainder of his term. And then I ran in my own right and served out that term. And then if you really want to get ironic and have some strange stories that go with it, I was the mayor pro tem.
(Will) Oh wow!
(Mayor Spruill) And I had just signed up to run for re-election again as a city council member. And I was sitting in the city manager’s office and the city manager got a call from the police chief who said he’d just gotten a call from the mayor who also took his own life.
(Will) Oh my goodness.
(Mayor Spruill) It was during a really tough time. The SNL scandals and all kinds of things were going on. It was a tough time. And so, I served out the remainder of his term as mayor. I was appointed mayor unlike Mississippi you would have to hold a special election. In Texas you can choose either to hold a special election depending on the time remaining or you can appoint someone to fill out that term. And so, I filled out that term and then ran again for that seat. So, it was a confluence of really strange and odd and heartbreaking events. But you know it sort of precipitated me into those roles and I hadn’t anticipated it.
(Will) That’s very interesting though that chain of events that you know ultimately took was totally out of your hands. You know a lot of those things.
(Mayor Spruill) Yes. Life does strange things. You either choose to you know and I’d hate to say take advantage of it but it’s kind of like you you know windows open doors close.
(Will) Sure.
(Mayor Spruill) And you choose to go through them.
(Will) That’s awesome. Wow.
(Paul) Fascinating career path.
(Mayor Spruill) It is. And it was certainly not a trajectory that I had imagined because I was just flying airplanes.
(Paul) Sure. So MDOT podcast we want to touch on some projects MDOT projects that are either going on in the city or kind of on the docket in the future. So, yeah. Do you have any information for us on that?
(Mayor Spruill) MDOT has been a wonderful partner with us. We are really uh so grateful um dating way back you know um Mike Taggert was the Northern District Commissioner prior to Commissioner Caldwell. And so, we have enjoyed working with both of them and have had multiple projects that have made a huge difference in the city of Starkville.
One in particular was the Highway 12 project that we were working with them on. It was actually my predecessor Mayor Wiseman started that project, but I came in sort of in the middle of it and got labeled with it if you will. It is still controversial to some of those folks who have lived here for a very long time because they hate the medians. You know, everybody wants to go cutting across. And that was one of those things that you just it’s a safety issue.
The reduction in fatalities and injuries and accidents was about 30 percent. And then you just can’t fight the numbers on that sort of thing. So, it is so much better. It’s actually more beautiful too because one of the things we chose to do is rather than having concrete medians while we were in preparation for that they were very kind to let us run irrigation under there and then plant. And so, we planted trees that would work for medians in a high traffic area. And it really improves the look of Highway 12. And it improves the look of Starkville.
And I think beautification is incredibly important in who you are and how you present yourself to people who are coming into town. And people come in as tourists. People come in as alumni. People come in to live. And your first impression is always the one you want to be the best if you can. So MDOT’s been wonderful for that Highway 12 is that.
Then we have the North Star Industrial Park where MDOT partnered with us for the uh for the um lead into the entry for that. We’ve got highway 182 which y’all partner with us on ages ago. You’re currently helping us work through the build grant for Highway 182 which is to really improve it in ways that could increase pedestrian access bicycling again a beautification elements. And it’s a huge economic development project.
You worked with us on Russell Street. You’re working with us on a TAP grant that is associated with Spring Street. We’re partnering with MSU and the county on other projects that we’ve had before the Lynn Lane project and um there was a I can’t remember the linkages project. And now we’ve got one that’s going down one eighty-two with the county, I mean sorry with the MSU that we’re partnering on in order to increase the pedestrian and bike path areas for the college town. And if you you know pedestrian and biking is really a big deal particularly for a college town. You know alternative methods of transportation and MDOT’s been wonderful to work with us on that.
And so, we’re really excited that that continues to be a program that we can partner with y’ all on because it just makes a huge difference in our community. Quality of life is what draws people to a community to live and to stay and to feel like it’s home. And that includes particularly a college town where the kids want to use those alternative transportation methods. And so, you know, you’ve got not just the alumni and not just the staff, but you’ve got the kids. And if we don’t attract them and make it a place where they want to be then you know, the college town is not what it could be. So, we think it’s incredibly important and MDOT has participated in ways that we cannot say enough thank you’s for.
(Paul) That’s awesome.
(Will) We certainly appreciate that.
(Mayor Spruill) It’s just true.
(Will) And you did. You just alluded to this my next question here kind of in your conversation right there. I mean you’re talking about BUILD grants, talking about working with the city, the county, working with the university. There’s so many facets right that come into the partnerships and especially when you’re talking about economic development, right?
(Mayor Spruill) Oh yeah.
(Will) I mean just the level of work across I mean the MDOT projects. Probably none of these things happen without those partnerships, right?
(Mayor Spruill) Absolutely. We couldn’t afford to do those projects, those TAP grants, those bill grants without that participation. Because when you partner with it and the grant is an 80-20 match and you know a city while the university I think has got a lot more money than we do the city is certainly strained for for our funding. And we want to be very cautious with our taxpayer dollars.
So, an 80-20 match means that we can take that twenty and split it with the university. So, it ends up being a 10 percent match for us. Or if we just split it with the county and the university then you’ve got the three-way division of that twenty percent which makes a huge difference in whether or not you can afford something. And then it also makes a dramatic difference in how people feel about the areas that we’ve been able to do this in.
(Will) Sure. When you have that vote of support from those other counterparts absolutely.
(Mayor Spruill) Yeah.
(Will) Yeah.
(Paul) For sure. So, I in full disclosure went to Ole Miss and Oxford Oxford boy, but I’ve never had more
(Mayor Spruill) I need to sit more this way.
(Paul) No. No. I’ve always had a great time in Starkville, lots of friends here and I’ve always enjoyed it. And uh you know; over the years I’ve noticed a lot of explosion of growth. Our uh media producer Drew says that it changes every time he comes here. So, can you kind of talk about what it’s taken to you know move things along in Starkville and accomplish some of your goals here?
(Mayor Spruill) Um well it perseverance always helps. Money also helps. But it also you have to be, you have to really acknowledge what has made the difference. We’ve started looking at development and how we treat the Cotton District for example in mixed-use development where you bring in the businesses as well as the residents and you densify areas that are that are urban areas that create that opportunity to use for example the smart transportation bus that MSU has um and then our bike paths and our walking walking paths and that sort of thing.
But the economic development really for us we boomed, literally we boomed or began that process when we had the winning season, the winning football season in 2013-14 when Dak was you know, we were number one for for what two weeks in a row which I don’t know that State has ever been certainly not for the football program. I mean I grew up when we were expecting to lose but just enjoying the moment, you know? I mean it’s just true, you know? And so, now we expect to win. And we know what it feels like, and we want to do more of it. And so, you’ve got this huge influx of alumni coming in, coming back, buying second homes.
And another interesting facet that I have learned is that contrary to when I was growing up parents are now following children to college. You know, I would have killed my parents if they had followed me to college back then. But now it seems to be something that’s part of an expectation and part of what happens. So, the parents will come in, they’ll buy a second home, sometimes the student will live in it um and sometimes not. Sometimes they’ll have an apartment, and the parents will also have a condominium here. So, we’ve seen a huge growth in that way. It’s been really exciting, and it’s allowed us to develop in ways that create that additional restaurant and activities for events and that kind of thing. So, we’re really excited about it.
(Paul) Amazing.
(Will) A lot goes into it. A little bit of a topic that I know you’re very familiar with. But it’s always interesting the different kind of places we’re at. You guys have a dramatic game day traffic going on, right?
(Mayor Spruill) Yes, we do.
(Will) Just cars moving everywhere.
(Mayor Spruill) Yeah.
(Will) How much do you know off the top or head and sorry for putting you on the spot but that population changes on game day? I mean I would
(Mayor Spruill) Obviously, it’s an estimate. But it’s like it goes from you know the 25, 25,000 students plus 20,000 of the students to you know another 20, 30,000 coming to town.
(Will) It’s crazy.
(Mayor Spruill) Absolutely. And I’m a big Twitter fan. So, you know, I’m on Twitter and I’m getting all the tweets that are you know blaming me for the traffic, blaming me for the signalization. And so, I’m going well actually the timing belongs to MDOT. You know, the lights and that sort of thing belong to us, but the timing belongs to MDOT. And game day traffic belongs to all of us because
(Will) Oh sure.
(Mayor Spruill) You know our guys, our police officers bless their hearts, you know, they’re standing at those intersections and guiding that traffic and you know all those traffic plans and all of that that goes with it is it’s a tough it’s a tough big. But they’ve been really wonderful about it. And I think we’ve improved. And you improve you know the more you do something the better you get at it. But we’ve changed, you know, the routes have changed, and we try to get that information out. So, you know, you’re trying to make it the best you can. But patience is always a good thing. You know?
(Will) That’s right.
(Mayor Spruill) If you’re there with 60,000 people you really don’t expect to leave and be home in 10 minutes.
(Will) No. You know, a lot of times we’re very fortunate here in Mississippi. I mean when I when I grew up in Mendenhall uh Simpson County there. I pretty much anywhere I needed to get within the county I could there in five or 10 minutes. But now we didn’t have three- or four-times traffic explosion once a week, you know? And I think a lot of times that gets lost on what that really looks like and how difficult it is to navigate. You know, like you just said patience is the key.
(Mayor Spruill) Well it is. And I look at you know, when I see people coming into town and our streets are full I’m a happy camper.
(Will) There you go.
(Mayor Spruill) Because that means we’re talking sales tax, we’re talking activities, our restaurants are happy, our businesses are happy. It’s an environment that just is exciting and I love it. So, the more the merrier as far as I’m concerned.
(Will) That’s right. That’s exactly right.
(Paul) Can you touch on public transit a little bit. Is it SMART the public transit system?
(Mayor Spruill) Yes, it is. A Starkville area a Starkville MSU area rapid transit which I thought so cool because then you got a university, and it says smart. So, I mean I just thought that was a wonderful play on words. When I was flying I used to see BART and MARTA. And so, when we started putting together what we were going to do this, I was on the you know kind of on the committee how we were going to do this. And smart just came up as being a great idea. So, I still think it’s cool. But but you know MDOT participates obviously in that as well just in terms of being able to coordinate that.
But SMART’s a wonderful um uh addition to our community. It’s very helpful uh it’s coordinated and managed through a super guy Jeremiah Dumas who actually used to be an alderman on the board of on the board for the city back in 2,000 I think nine to 13. No. That’s not right uh five to nine I guess was his term. Well anyway, nine to thirteen. And they all start to blend together. Of course, I was the chief administrative officer at that time and not the mayor. So, you know they kind of blend together. But we had Mayor Dan Camp and then we had Parker Weisman for two terms, and I think Jeremiah was in Parker’s first term.
(Will) Okay.
(Mayor Spruill) But anyway, Jeremiah is the head of the transportation for MSU. And he’s remarkable and he’s really good to work with us and we’ve worked with him on setting up bus stops and and where those routes go. And we just contributed to their budget which is uh you know; we’ve upped our ante to that. We went started at $50,000. We now gave them $75,000 in this budget year. But it really is a huge benefit to our community because they serve a lot of low to moderate income areas.
(Will) Sure.
(Mayor Spruill) And it’s a free ride. There’s no payment it’s associated with. So, it’s just really a marvelous thing for our entire community. So, I’m really pleased that he continues to do such a good job for us.
(Will) That’s awesome. The public transit continues to kind of be at the forefront of the conversation moving. You know, it seems these days it seems like it’s come back up almost.
(Mayor Spruill) Well, you used to hear the whole business about empty buses, but the reality is it does serve a community and it also adds to our economic development opportunities because anytime you’ve got a business coming into town they’re going to want to know how their employees are going to get around.
(Will) True.
(Mayor Spruill) And so, that’s a big benefit.
(Will) I never even thought about that. Yeah.
(Mayor Spruill) Absolutely.
(Will) Well, uh kind of keep it on the same line of thought. Big events going on all the time in Starkville. This will actually be released on October 24th. So, we’re about 10 days, nine days out from when this this recording will go live. But big events coming up? Big events going on right now between now and kind of
(Mayor Spruill) Oh, we always have a big event. We’re trying our best to you know to fill every weekend as far as I’m concerned. Um well, we’ve got Pumpkin Paloosa. So, you’ve got you’ve got all the Halloween stuff going on.
(Will) Oh yeah.
(Mayor Spruill) So, we’ve got PumpkinPalooza. We shut down Main Street. And you know, you’ve got all the Halloween’s and the candy and the spooks and the the goblins and the ghosts.
(Will) That’s right.
(Mayor Spruill) All that sort of stuff that goes with it. Kids come out in droves. So, we just got you know that’s the that kind of thing. Then you’ve got a Christmas parade that comes up the you know the whatever’s the first Monday after Thanksgiving. You got Thanksgiving. I mean it’s just always something going on. And that’s what we want to do. We want to have people in town. Then you’ve got of course all the home games. So, I don’t even have to talk about those.
(Will) Right. Got a big one this weekend I think.
(Mayor Spruill) Well not here. It’s they’re in Kentucky. Yeah. They’re in Kentucky. Yeah. We had three in a row this past time and we won them. Thank you very much.
(Will) That’s right.
(Mayor Spruill) Uh not to you know not to brag about it or anything.
(Will) You should.
(Mayor Spruill) But it’s really cool so far. Like I have anything to do with it. I just sit back, and smile and you know go “Yes, this is great.” You know a winning season is a big deal for economic development. It’s a big deal for people wanting to come into town. And that still remains the case so I’m very hopeful that uh all things will come our way as it relates to wins. And we can hold our head high and do it again next year.
So, but we’re struggling. Uh, I say struggling. We want to make sure that we keep people in town. So, you know, one of the things we did was um we have a sports tournament facility that’s supposed to open next year maybe March. And that hopefully will keep us busy on the weekends
(Will) Okay.
(Mayor Spruill) where we don’t have ball games and the students are out of town, you know. In the summers we’ll have baseball and softball tournaments and that sort of thing. So, we’re hoping for big draws. I know you know that’s one of the things that Mayor Tannehill up in Oxford they’ve had it. It was called FNC Park. I’m not sure what they call it now, but they’ve got the big tournament facility up there. And so, we went up there and we learned from there what they had done because you know, we have a huge asset. Mississippi State has a heck we got a College World Series baseball team as does you know Ole Miss.
And and we need to be able to capitalize on that asset. You know, we want the kids to come here, play ball when they’re kids and and look at being a Bulldog, you know? So, that’s part of that thought process. So, we want those folks to be here and come back every year and come back in the summer and bring you know brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and all of that. So, we’re trying to plan for the future.
(Will) Always stuff going on in Starkville.
(Mayor Spruill) Doing our best.
(Will) We heard it here first.
(Paul) Well, I’m gonna tee up. Let’s let’s do the question and get out of here, man.
(Will) Uh so again, I mentioned this to you earlier. This is kind of one that’s become a little bit of a fan favorite so to speak. So, to speak, my, mine and Paul’s mother texts us all the time to tell us how much they enjoy it. So, they’re our number one and two fans or maybe both number one.
Uh, places to eat. Good southern folks we like to go eat. I know that you’re being the mayor and I completely understand you may not want to give out a favorite per se but uh maybe even somewhere out of Starkville or something you don’t get to stop by often. We’re just looking for a food shout out, some good places.
(Mayor Spruill) Well, I’m not gonna give you a shout out outside of Starkville. I can just tell you that right now. But we have such a large number of selections and and actually we got lots of new ones. We got old ones, old favorites. You got Little Dewey that you always hear about on the SEC network. And that’s kind of the barbeque go-to. We’ve got Eat With Us Group which is Sweet Peppers and and uh Bulldog Burger and Restaurant Tyler um you know? Or I’m sorry. Restaurant Tyler is the Eat local and that’s Humble Taco and Restaurant Tyler. We just got them everywhere.
It is and it kind of depends on what you want. Walk-On’s just opened. So, we’re real excited about having them coming in. Um, you know, there’s just lots of opportunities to eat in Starkville. We got lots of Mexican, got lots of chicken places, you know all over the place.
(Will) Love both of those.
(Mayor Spruill) We do. You know, it’s just you you want it, we got it somewhere around town.
(Will) Bulldog Burger has quickly become one of my favorite places.
(Mayor Spruill) I had Bulldog Burger earlier this week because I love a patio. One of my goals is to have patios just about everywhere we go because I love Alfresco dining so
(Will) That little outdoor kind of seating?
(Mayor Spruill) Yeah. It’s really nice. And in fact, that’s why we’re redoing Main Street is to set it up so we’ve got more sidewalk space so we can restaurants can come, you know bring the dining outside. So, we’ve got a big Main Street project that we’re doing that hopefully will be something that you can see in the next two years as we start. You know, Athens did it. And you know, we kind of took a page out of their book as how you make it a place where people want to be. Outdoor dining is part of it so, that’s what we’re doing.
(Will) That’s very cool. I love that idea. I appreciate that. We got like eight places to go check out today though.
(Paul) Oh yeah. We’re gonna go on a food tour right after this.
(Mayor Spruill) Oh good. Yeah. You can just kind of do like a passing through. You know, pick one and have a have an appetizer here and a meal there.
(Will) So, we’re just gonna get a meal each at each one and then we can all take a bite of them. We’ll split it up on the way back.
(Mayor Spruill) Oh we got, you know, and we’ve got new pizza places. We’ve got, we’ve got a gelato place that’s really great. I mean we really do. We’ve got some good stuff.
(Will) This might break over into a two-day adventure.
(Mayor Spruill) Well, there you go. Hey. Do you like bananas, banana pudding?
(Will) Oh absolutely.
(Mayor Spruill) There is a banana pudding gelato at this place down here by Humble Taco on University Drive. It’s uh Dolce d-o-l-c-e. They have grilled cheeses and and uh banana pudding gelato and it’s pretty awesome.
(Will) I can’t wait.
(Paul) Alright. We’ll put them on the list then for sure. Well, I always enjoy visiting city hall’s and this is a really cool one. Uh, Mayor Spruill, we really appreciate you letting us drop by and have a have a fun conversation with you.
(Mayor Spruill) Oh, it was my pleasure. Thank you very much for doing this. I really appreciate y’all and everything that MDOT does. I mean I really want y’all to come away with this knowing how much the city of Starkville appreciates MDOT and all that y’all have been able to help us do.
(Will) We appreciate that very much.
(Paul) No doubt. No doubt. So, let’s uh sign off from Stark Vegas. Uh, thank you. I love that nickname.
(Mayor Spruill) I do too.
(Paul) It’s great.
(Mayor Spruill) Fabulous Stark Vegas.
(Paul) Fabulous Stark Vegas. So, yeah. We just want to thank all our listeners for uh tuning in to The Extra Mile podcast. Remember you can watch and listen to episodes by visiting GoMDOT.com/TheExtraMile. We want to thank our producer Katey Hornsby, our editor Drew Hall. Remember you can follow us on social media @MississippiDOT, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We’ve got it all. That’s about it. Thank you for joining us and remember to drive smart out there on Mississippi highways.