Hello, my name is David Olds and I am your co-host for Mississippi Happenings.
Joining me
week is my friend and cohort, Mr.
Jim Newman.
Jim, how are you buddy?
Well, we're finally digging out from the ice, but Oxford's still buried under it, oh we're doing better.
Good, and you were in, so how are things in Tupelo?
I the roads are all cleared and I think everybody's got power.
The rural parts of Lee County, I think still have some outages, but not anything near like what oh Lafayette County's got.
Yeah, up in DeSoto County, we've had our struggles, but overall, I think that we've been lucky as well.
I know I have.
So, and most of the people that know of, but you're absolutely right.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the people in Oxford.
There's talkin' to some friends down there.
It's gonna be weeks before a few of the people in the rural areas get their power back.
So, our thoughts and prayers are with them.
Joining me this week is our Senator from DeSoto County, Senator Theresa.
Gillespie Isom, Senator, it's a pleasure to have you with us.
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Yes ma'am.
Theresa, excuse me, Senator Gillespie, ISOM, was elected recently at the special election.
She won her primary by 68 % and she won the general election.
against her Republican opponent at 63%.
Senator, have, you've done a tremendous job in getting elected and I'm confident you're also doing, will do a tremendous job as Senator for DeSoto County.
Senator Gillespie is a,
a nurse, number one.
She's a nurse administrator and she is a, and Senator, make sure I get this right, you are a certified.
certified legal nurse consultant.
Legal Nurse Consultant.
Good, thank you.
wanted to get that right.
So thank you for your service.
Thank you for what you're doing for DeSoto County and what you're doing for all Mississippians.
Tell us a little bit about your first weeks in office.
I mean, it must be exciting.
It also must be challenging.
So how has your first weeks been?
My first weeks have been awesome.
I've had such a great opportunity to meet so many people and all of our, well I say a lot of constituents have been coming down to the Capitol.
We had the mayors from all of DeSoto down and I had an opportunity to meet with them and their aldermen.
So it's been just awesome.
We've been reviewing bills and meeting in committees.
And I had a great opportunity to meet the legendary Grammy winner, Bobby Rush.
Oh wow, that's, I would have loved to have there for that because he's such a, he's...
did a press conference with us.
Oh good.
Yes, and I can tell you a little bit about that press conference as well.
Yes, that one was in regards to people trying to steal with AI the entertainers' voices and their images.
And so a bill has been written.
And so it's waiting to be approved.
But that is something that
He wanted to come and talk about, so we did a press conference with him and a couple of other entertainers there in Jackson.
Fantastic.
It's so important that we protect our, as individuals and citizens, that we protect our identity.
I can imagine what it does for entertainers, and especially...
ah
is being written for everyone because like they mentioned and just like you said for everyone because some of the high school students, some of the young kids, their images
are being used by pedophiles and different things.
So it's so important to get this new bill out there so that that can be stopped and there will be a lot of punitive.
type of, you know, replications from using that.
Gotcha, gotcha, all righty.
Jim, you wanna talk about, you wanna start the conversation about schools and school choice, Jim?
Sure.
um One of my favorite subjects.
years ago when we integration.
in our educational system.
All of a sudden in the Delta and maybe in other parts of the state as well, but particularly in the Delta, uh academies propped up, cropped up very quickly, which were
nothing more than uh schools for the white population.
Mm-hmm.
And it seems to me that what we are doing today is repetition of that same attitude that we had back when integration occurred.
And at the same time, I have not read, which is my fault, but I do understand that the state constitution says that taxpayer money cannot be spent on private individuals or
private companies or private educational facilities, oh which
makes me think that spending any taxpayer money on voucher systems or supporting ah private schools or school choice ah where the taxpayer money flows with the child is not
legal.
And I don't understand, quite honestly, I don't understand how nobody in the legislature, oh Democrat or Republican, seems to believe in the state constitution and needs that it
needs to be enforced.
Can you help me understand that?
Well, I will say that we have a legislative caucus and with the caucus we have met and we have talked about school choice and in doing so we do not want public funding going over
to the private schools.
When the bill came on the floor in the Senate it was a no.
When the bill went on the representative side, they have a different bill that's dealing with school funding.
They included in their bill the funding going to the private schools, but the Democrats said they did not vote for that.
So it was not something that the Democrats voted for.
It is something that the Republicans are strongly wanting I brought up on the bill when it came in the Senate dealing with school choice because my platform that I ran on, that was
one of my concerns, making sure that public schools were fully funded.
And so when the bill came, I talked about
there was a item number in the bill and it said that the transferor would be notified by the transferee at a reasonable amount of time when they would be allowed to transfer.
And I'm like, so what is a reasonable amount of time?
The response was whatever the district
that's wanting to look at what that student wants to go to decides.
So I said, so that could be six weeks, six months, whatever the district decides.
So they passed that bill with the Republican votes on the Senate side.
We have like a 32.
you know, ah Republicans that are on the Senate side.
So the Democrats still do not have a majority vote.
So no matter what we do, unless it's one of the bills that requires a three-fifths vote, then we still cannot make that change unless some other Republicans come over and say, we
agree with you.
Doesn't that three-fifths bill ah apply to all tax money being spent?
That's what I'm saying.
Did they have a three-fifths majority vote on that bill?
It passed.
on the Senate side and the one on the House side passed and that's the one that had the money.
We did not have money in our bill.
We were only talking about the process on the Senate side.
So on the Republican side, I mean, I'm sorry, on the House representative side, they did put in the vouchers.
It has not come to the Senate yet, that bill that has the money in it.
So once it comes then we would vote at that point.
That would require a three-fifths vote.
So the House Bill HB2, so that's a House Bill and so that's the one that passed.
And make sure I'm right on this.
So that's the one that was passed.
That's the one we know that Empower Mississippi was pushing as well as the oh Speaker of the House.
So on the Senate Bill,
What is that?
what is that?
20, and I had the name here, 2020, or House Bill 2002.
that, that's the correct, I think that's the correct bill, House Bill, Senate Bill, I'm sorry.
Thank you.
Senate Bill SB 2002.
Okay, and so.
about funding.
Got it.
But now has that bill been passed or is it still up in the air?
The Senate bill passed on our side that had no funding.
The House bill is in the Senate committee now for review.
And it has not come out of committee to come to us.
Gotcha.
We had the opportunity to talk to, or we know.
Nancy Loome with Mississippi Parents Campaign.
We've also had a chance to talk to representatives of MAE, Mississippi Association of Educators.
And we reached out to Empower Mississippi, but have not gotten a response from them as far as what they.
their thoughts on it, but we know that they're for it.
But there's so many question marks and it's frightening what, in my opinion, it's frightening what Mississippi and what oh our nation is trying to do with public education.
just with the country and period.
Yes.
It's the old saying of follow the money.
In Mississippi, all you gotta do is follow the money and see who's promoting it and its private interest groups and most all of them are from out of state and there's money to be
made.
There's not any money to be made in public education.
They have rules and regulations that they have to follow.
private schools that would get our tax money don't.
And that's the long and short of it.
You're correct.
So we're hoping that once it comes over to the Senate side, that that bill will fail or be amended so that it will not include that money in there.
Gotcha.
Good.
we appreciate hearing about that.
Let's talk a little bit about um Teacher Pay.
What happened at the session about that?
What's going on with now Teacher Pay?
We approved teacher pay and it's for the teachers and for the teacher assistants and they're wanting to you know make sure that they get an increase.
Also in the House Bill 2 I was told which I have not had an opportunity to read that bill.
They told me it's half as large as a Webster dictionary.
But inside that bill, they have put teacher pay in it as well, along with the public school funding.
So that bill has a lot.
But we are just elated over on the Senate side to increase the salaries of the teachers and the teacher assistants.
That bill did not have any problems going through.
Gotcha.
I understand that the teacher's assistants got a $1,700 pay increase on the teacher's assistant, but I don't remember what it was for the teachers themselves.
But the assistants got a 17.
Was it five or seven?
I think it was.
right off that map.
yeah, Jimmy may be right.
It may be five, but I was thinking maybe they asked for seven and got five.
I'm not sure, but yeah, any pay that they get is richly deserved.
That's for sure.
Senator, I want to ask you what may be a personal question.
particularly in rural Mississippi, where the tax base is not sufficient for a county to supplement the teacher pay salaries.
The base pay for a person who spent four years in college gets a bachelor's degree and goes into teaching, the starting salary is $41,000.
Drug dealers make more than that standing on street corners.
I truly understand.
I was a director of a nursing school.
And you know a nurse can make any amount of money that they want because they can work 16 hours and you know get your salary plus time and a half.
I had one administrator that
wanted to bring teachers in at $38,000 and then when they leave he'd ask me, I said what's wrong?
Why these teachers want to leave?
And I told him you're not paying them anything, you know.
They can go and make that and don't have to take the work home and do any kind of lesson plans or anything.
They go to work, they leave, and they come home.
But for a teacher, you are on that clock even after you leave your job.
Because you have to do plans for your next day and make sure that your students have adequate, you know, material to meet the curriculum and to meet the schools and the state,
you know, testing standards.
So people that aren't educators, because I have a master's degree in education, so people don't understand what it is to be a teacher.
My son is a principal and his wife is a principal.
And when they were talking about this bill, I said, well, the teachers have to have someone to direct them still, but they don't want to give any administrators any type of
raise.
They only wanted it to go to the teachers and to the teacher assistant.
But the administrator also has to deal with all of that and to make sure that everything happens.
Because many times, if you don't have someone that's a leader or you have a failed leader, we want the success.
The success is not there.
So it's just real important that, you know, I asked to be on the education committee, but I was not assigned to that committee because I was told that freshmen are not placed on
that.
But we need to have people that have those specialties on these committees.
So when we make these bills that someone can say,
This is an experience.
This is what I know from fact and not just from hearing it from someone else.
uh
You
Gotcha, appreciate that.
Well, well, well.
Jim, you got a comment?
I hear you little dog.
Yeah.
yes.
Not in my office, so I can't.
I'm stuck in the house.
ah I think anybody that spends four years, but what why we have never well, I guess on one or two occasions we might have come close to fully funding education.
But why is it that?
legislators do not understand that an educated workforce is going to benefit the entire state of Mississippi.
And an educated workforce depends on a well-educated and well-paid education system, that is the teachers.
Despite what the federal board of education ah thinks that
Teachers are not professionals.
A single mom that's a teacher with one or two children is eligible for food stamps at $41,000- $42,000 a year.
I don't particularly like and want my teachers on food stamps.
I don't want them to have to worry about where their next meal is coming from.
And it seems that I just don't have that kind of thinking going on.
legislature.
least not in the Republican side.
I am, go ahead.
Like I say, we just have to get people on the committees that have the same level of understanding as the people that are working in the various professions.
They do the same thing in the nursing, you know, areas or in the health committees because you have to have that understanding.
They're wanting to bring out bills that say
Nursing needs to have CEUs in different areas.
But you're not a nurse.
You don't even know that the nurses already get that level of education.
They're working on the floor whenever someone comes in with a new product.
We are in service.
We are trained.
I had to explain that to one of the committee members, but I'm not on the committee.
But if I was on the committee, I would have a voice to sit there at that table and be able to vote.
So it's just different.
I have a respect for the nursing, well, healthcare in general, but also for nursing.
My wife, and I won't say was, because once you're a nurse, you're always a nurse.
She has retired and she was a nurse for 40 some odd years.
so it's...
You know, it's a unique profession and it really takes someone with a servant heart to be able to do that.
Right, and for the educators, that is a gift that you are given to be able to share with someone else and to teach.
Everyone cannot teach.
I have run into people that were professionals that came into my nursing program that wanted to be a teacher.
Every student failed the test.
because they could not teach or share the material.
But I could go back in and teach that material and they'd make A's or B's.
So you have to have that gift in order to share.
And that's what people have to understand.
And that's why even when we're looking at the classroom teachers, if you don't prepare,
then they can't go in and teach and get the levels that's required.
I've been an accreditor for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
So I've sat in on those classes.
I've sat in and gone through and looked at the modules.
I've created curriculums.
So that's why it takes also not just a teacher, not just a teacher assistant, but it takes the administrator as well.
Good, thank you for that.
You brought up an interesting question in my mind with your educational background.
How is it you're not on that committee?
Well, when I requested or submitted in my request that I would like to have been on that committee, the lieutenant governor says he normally does not put freshmen on that
committee.
So I was not, you know, placed on it.
That's the weakest excuse I've ever heard.
Thank
Especially with your years of experience in healthcare and in nursing profession.
Yes, I was a director of a school for 24 years, so I have written curriculums.
I was a creditor for 16 years, so I know.
But it's okay.
I won't be a freshman long.
I'll move up, so hopefully I'll get a chance to sit in that seat.
Let me ask you something, because I really was impressed with the election results.
And as you know, we've got elections coming up this year for the Senate and the first CD House.
How did you win by such a nice margin?
What was the key to your success?
Well, David can tell you I'm a people person.
I am in the community all the time.
I have never been someone that just popped up because the election came.
I have been serving on committees in the area.
President, first vice president, committee member, just a helper.
So people knew that.
I wasn't getting paid, but I was still out there doing what I could do to help make a difference.
So they felt good about me as a person, I believe.
And she spent a lot of hours walking uh door to door and asking for the votes.
I did, I took it as serious as a job.
I would get up at eight in the morning, put my t-shirt on, my tennis shoes, and I would hit the neighborhood.
Yes.
I think that says a lot about your character and says a lot about, and also I think says a lot about your success.
Jim?
is on your mind for the rest of the year?
there still a budget?
Yeah, one of the things that we did on Friday, I had an opportunity.
I'm on the Municipalities Committee.
And in that committee, we brought up about zoning.
And here in DeSoto County, we have a lot of zoning or rezoning going on.
And so one of the things that they wanted was to expand
the time frame as far as putting it on Facebook and having it out on the websites and things like that.
And I brought up
the point that the signs that are put out, they're only out there for seven days.
Some people don't get the newspaper.
Some people aren't on social media.
But if they're writing through their community, then they would be able to see the sign.
So I asked that the bill be amended to 30 days to keep that sign out.
And that did pass in the committee.
but it still has to go to the floor and be passed there.
So that was something that I felt like was needed because here where I live, they are constantly trying to put, you know, different or smaller homes.
They did build a subdivision and put 35 rental homes there, but I stay like within a block from that area.
But what they decided, because I'm not in 500 feet of it, I didn't get the notice.
So, you know, the rezoning, they need to make sure that people are able to know so that they can come to the meetings and be able to voice their approval or their concerns that
they have in regards to that.
That's interesting that you brought that zoning issue up because I used to be chairman of the planning committee for Tupelo and that notification of anybody within 500 feet, you
can send it out, but not all of the people that get the notice even live in the same city.
They're absentee owners.
It's a building that they own and they lease.
And if the notification goes to whoever's occupying that address in the city, the person that owns the building living in Cincinnati, Ohio, doesn't know anything about it.
oh
distance, but I don't get the notice.
So it's just not a good thing.
It needs to be looked at and expanded.
Gotcha.
Let me ask you this.
Let's talk, you know, we've had some interesting winter weather here for the past week.
And there's, you know, and on social media, you kind of take, you know, you take what you got and you kind of take it with a grain of salt.
But it seems that...
and I'm not, you know, number one, the people that work, the linemen, the people that take care of the power lines do a tremendous job.
We appreciate everything that they're doing and also with, and I gotta say, Branch, I think the city of Olive Branch did a great job taking care of our streets.
First time I've seen a snowplow in Olive Branch, Mississippi, but that was good.
Yeah.
What's your thoughts concerning MDOT and what's going on as far as with the transportation end of it during this winter weather?
Well, I did talk to the commissioner for uh the areas three and four.
And he was telling me, because I talked, shared with him, that I left here in DeSoto County Monday at one o'clock.
It took me until eight o'clock.
to get to Jackson, Mississippi.
And it only normally takes me three hours.
The streets were so bad, I only could drive seven miles an hour.
And so in doing so, I asked him, what did he think, you know, they could have done differently?
And he told me that they did put the sand out and they had salted the areas.
But what happened, he said it, soon as they had put that out, we did not get the snow, we got ice.
And so the ice just froze on top of what they had put down.
And so he said that the plows that they have are snow plows and they're not ice plows, so they could not dig up all of the ice.
And that was what the problem was.
And I asked then, said, well, what happened with 55?
Why was it shut down for so long?
He said, we had to do that.
That was the only way that they could clear that ice out.
He said they had to bring people from CD, well from the county districts, three, four, five and six all the way up to pass Grenada to clear out 55 so that the traffic could get
moving again.
Then I asked, well, what do you think we need more equipment or do we need more money from the legislations to
have that.
And his reply was, we don't usually get this type of weather.
So he told me it cost over a million dollars to get one of those ice breaking type machines.
And he just didn't feel like it was a need to do that because it's not something that's common.
Gotcha, gotcha a little.
It was unusual weather, so we can understand that.
Right.
Okay.
oh Well, hopefully the weather will be getting better and I'll just be over.
Jim?
Other than education, Senator, what are some of your other priorities that you would like to see?
health care and I did write a bill in regards to maternal mortality because one of the problems is that in the rural areas, you know, they don't have a lot of hospitals, they
don't have the transportation and different things.
And since I have been
in this seat since January the 6th when I was sworn in, I have heard of three mothers already that have died trying to get to the hospital or trying to deliver their baby.
So that to me is so devastating.
I was 23 when my mom passed, but for a child, you know,
to grow up without their parent.
it's something that transportation, they need to have some means to get to those mothers, something that they can do to help them if they're in those areas and not let them die
trying to get there because they don't have the proper care or the transportation.
uh
So like I say, I did write a bill asking for funding to try to get transportation for the mothers to get to hospitals that an ambulance service or something would be available to
them.
Is there any concern for the possibility that a number of hospitals may close?
Well, there's one of the new senators that came in with me.
He's the CEO of one of the hospitals.
They changed their hospital from a regular hospital to an emergency care hospital.
The funding, you know, it needs to be there.
And we just got to start helping in some form of a way.
Even in Memphis, the labor and delivery at the South Hospital in Whitehaven, they closed that one.
with the Labor Department, Labor and Delivery.
So I don't know what we can do to help these mothers because it's just a travesty.
afraid to ask you but is the CEO that you mentioned is he on the health care committee?
No, I mean...
And I'm assuming that he was given the same answer as you were given because he was a first term.
But you know, it's a concern and he's still, you know, he is a CEO still of, he says three rural hospitals.
And so with all of this snow and ice, he's had to run out of the meetings and things, you know, to take the calls and make decisions and things like that.
So I understand.
read recently...
open back up some of those rural hospitals.
Amen.
We know that Mississippi has, or is at the bottom, we're at the bottom of a lot of things, but we know that Mississippi has the highest, or one of the highest infant mortality rate.
That's absurd.
like you said, it's mostly in the rural areas.
And it's it's horrifying.
In 2026, we have that.
read, and I don't want to put you on the spot, but I read somewhere about a bill about uh midwives.
And I'm not really familiar with that, but I didn't know if you were.
heard anything on that one, but one of the other new senators, she's also wrote a bill about the infant mortality because I'm on the, I'm in an organization, the Lynx, which is
an international organization.
and she is also a part of that organization.
And infant mortality is one of our concerns with so many babies dying.
So she did write a bill to try to see what could be done as far as post-care and all of that once the children are the babies are born.
Okay.
that we've talked a lot, you know, in our first season ah is, you know, expanding ah Medicaid ah in Mississippi.
ah And we know that as long as Governor Reeves is in office, it will not happen.
Although every year we...
ah
As one House of Representatives member told me last year, we don't take that money.
And so we allow that money to be sent to other states that want it, which we need it most and more than they did.
It's a shame.
with a lot of ills that we have.
Food and everything else, it would help with.
Absolutely.
Yes.
And Senator, it seems from what I hear and have read in various articles that
the pregnant women that have these issues in losing babies or oh after care.
they see a doctor when they get pregnant.
And then the next time they see a doctor is when it's time for delivery.
and that's not good for the baby or for the mother.
Exactly.
So I don't know how you deal with that other than making ah the case for, it seems to me it's gotta be a financial situation that they don't go.
what my thoughts are when you were addressing that.
Because for many other mothers, it's not just their only child, they may have other children.
And with them trying to go to the doctor, you've got to pay for that visit.
You've got to find childcare to keep your other children while you go to the doctor for those visits.
And they also need funding for their medications or their vitamins that the doctors may prescribe for them.
So it's a lot.
And I have had, you know, when I was working in the hospital, several doctors that gave up their obstetric practice.
Because of like you say, the mother comes at that time, the next time they may see him is at the delivery time.
But as soon as that doctor places his hand on that baby, that's 21 years of liability.
So if anything happens to that baby, they have 21 years that they may be sued or whatever for that.
So some of them have given up their practice.
Many hospitals aren't doing that practice anymore.
So like David, like you say, maybe the midwives will come back in, but that's a strong liability there too.
Yeah.
I had no idea that a doctor delivers a baby had 21 years of uh possible liability on that.
That's interesting.
If something happened while they were in that delivery room or once that baby, you know, came out and baby wasn't right, then the mom sometimes goes back and sue and said they had
poor care or the doctor didn't do, you know, something correctly.
We here lately in the past few years, we also have a tendency to blame the victim.
We want to blame the mother.
Well, the mother should have gotten her prenatal care.
The mother should have followed up on her appointments.
The mother should have gotten vitamins.
have the funds.
Yeah, and we do have a tendency to blame the victims and that is oh
they need to give them that Medicaid help.
Don't be selfish just because you have, but the other person don't.
And it's not sometimes, you know, even their fault that they don't have the money.
They may not be mentally able to go to work or do some of the requirements.
And just like they're placing over an arc and saw those different requirements in order for people to get the Medicaid benefits.
So I'm quite sure it's gonna be in Mississippi, it's gonna follow as well.
Do you, have you heard anything or do you think oh expanding Medicaid will come up this session?
I haven't heard anything yet.
Okay, that's kind of sad.
oh Jim?
uh
It's almost like that boat sailed until we get a new governor.
True.
Yes, but there's just a lot of things that, you know, people are concerned about and they're even looking at fines for littering, trying to increase those fines because even
where I live here in Olive Branch, I've seen, you know, bathroom items on the side of the road.
Yeah.
they just need to, people need to respect where we live and take care of our property.
Amen.
Okay, we're winding down.
Is there anything else Senator Gillespie, Isom, that you would like to share with us?
Just that I am so pleased to be in the seat as a Senator for District 2 and that I look forward to working for the people and doing all of the things that I personally can do to
make DeSoto County and Tunica County better.
Fantastic.
Jim, any last things?
Any last words?
Of wisdom?
I don't know if I've got any words of wisdom.
ah I do have a few words that these broadcasts are not inexpensive.
So if you like what you heard, you like some of the broadcasts that we've done in the past, people that we've interviewed trying to bring you information from the source and
not just our opinion.
ah I would hope that you might consider making a donation to Mississippi Happenings so that we can continue this ah information.
As uh Senator Isom said,
There are very few newspapers around so people don't get information to read.
They get a lot of information on social media, which is...
Correct.
It's mostly people's opinion.
But what we're talking about is not our opinion.
We're talking to the senators.
We're talking to the legislators.
actually make things happen and bring about change hopefully for the betterment of Mississippi.
So if you think we're doing a good job or you'd like to hear more please consider a donation and David will be more than happy to tell you how to
yes, thank you Jim, thank you.
Because you do a much better job of it than I do.
I'm not good at asking for money.
Yes, to donate, ah we do have a cash app, is the Dollar Sign MS Happenings.
That's a cash app.
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Our email address is mshappeningsofone.com.
That's mshappenings1@gmail.com.
And Senator Theresa Isom Gillespie, it's been great talking to you.
We look forward to talking to you again and getting an update.
And thank you for your work and thank you for.
Taking care of Mississippi.
Thank you for taking care of DeSoto County.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate you having me.
Have a good week everybody and stay safe and stay uh warm.
Yes.
you too.