Latest / Between the Headlines: Columbus / State Auditor Investigates Columbus, Joe Higgins’ New Venture and Local Ghost Stories

Transcript

State Auditor Investigates Columbus, Joe Higgins’ New Venture and Local Ghost Stories · Between the Headlines: Columbus

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: From the opinion page of the commercial dispatch, this is Between the Headlines.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is Peter Imes, publisher of The Dispatch.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: One of our hosts of Between the Headlines is the managing editor of our newsroom.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Typically, we try to keep news and opinion separate, but reporters have a unique insight into the workings of local government, and their analysis can be helpful for readers and listeners.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Dispatch remains committed to journalistic integrity, and our reporting will always reflect that.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: And now between the headlines.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: This week on Between the Headlines, we have a big show.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: The Boogeyman is coming to Columbus, and he's coming on October the 31st.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_03: We have an official request from the Office of the State Auditor.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: We've got the details on it, we've got the actual letter, and it's quite something.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_03: Also, Joe Max Higgins, he has a new gig, and we'll talk about that.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: But first.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: Retirement looks different for everyone, so your plan should be built around you.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: For over 40 years, Financial Concepts has helped people create retirement strategies that fit their lives.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: Our team in Columbus takes the time to understand your goals and build a plan that works for you.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: Wherever you are in your journey, we're ready to help.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_03: We plan retirement.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_03: Financial Concepts is a registered investment advisor.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: Benton's Maintenance Mechanical makes easy work out of plumbing, electrical heating, and air conditioner problems.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: You can book an appointment by phone or online, and rest assured they will show up at the appointed time.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: Call Bentons at 662-657-2583 or visit them online at Bentonsinc.com, that is BentonsInc.com.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_03: This episode of Between the Headlines is brought to you by Bank First, the locally owned bank that makes decisions right here at home by people who understand the needs of our community.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: That means local decisions, local support, and folks who care if your kid made the team.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_03: At Bankfirst, we're not just bankers, we're neighbors and friends.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_03: Whether you're buying a home or starting a business, or just need someone to explain what APR actually means, we're here right down the street.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: Stop by your Bank First branch or visit BankfirstFS.com to learn more.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_03: BankFirst is a member of FBIC and Equal Housing Lender Bank in MLS 454063.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: One very quick correction from a couple of weeks ago, the show we did where we were talking about the uh campaign finance reports for the um Senate race uh between Colomb and Cindy Hyde Smith.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: We said that uh Cindy Hyde Smith had reported$1.5 million in fundraising over that three-month period between July 1 and September 30th.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually closer to 1.1 million.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: So we apologize for uh r screwing that up.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, I told you you need to be using Grok now.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: All right, you are listening to Between the Headlines with the sole proprietor of Safe Monkey Transport LLC and managing editor of the dispatch, Mr.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_03: Zach Player.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: My name is David Chisholm, and it's good to be with you today.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: On the way here, Zach, I saw the notorious phone pole fully installed.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, did you?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh erected, if you will.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: The 5G cell phone tower in Burns Bottom, it's actually in a different location than I thought it was.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's just kind of in the back, overlooking one of the soccer fields.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's not um it's not an obstruction.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: I, you know, I'm gonna back that down and say I'm okay with it.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, you know, if a sudden lightning storm comes, the storm is gonna strike lightning on that tower before it strikes the kid.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: So all in all, it's a good thing.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's just the way ATT did that.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, look, I've always said from the beginning that the uh you gotta have good phone service.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to have good coverage.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that was where the the people giving the coverage said they needed the pole in order for it to work.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's not going to it's got like 20 bars on the It's not gonna make the property value of the Burns bottom lights go down or anything like that.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: I just hate that it took a lawsuit to get us there.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: Uh hey, did you get your stimulus check from ATT?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: Like this is not a joke.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: There was like a day or a day and a half where there was no coverage in part of Lowndes County, and people were posting pictures of their$2.19 check.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I should have got one because I'm on ATT, but I I don't remember receiving that in the mail.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe your service had no interruption.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: But um, yeah, they sent the checks out, and I'm like, wow, look at these checks.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, this totally redeems ATT from their decades of corporate skullduggery, right?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: So big companies are what they are.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um but yeah, that phone pole, I'm okay with it.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's got uh a sufficient bush around it and it doesn't protrude as long up in the air as I would have thought.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: So all is well in Burns Bottom.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_03: We'll call that the uh park place hotspot, shall we?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: All right, moving on to more important things today.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um this is not really breaking news so much as it is.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: We've had the first opportunity to look at this um this pretty hefty letter that comes from the Office of the State Auditor, and it is addressed to the Office of the Mayor here in Columbus, and it's it's bombshell material, I would say.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: What say you, sir?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um so this is something that it's there's been scuttlebutt in town about this for a while.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: It came in uh earlier this month.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: We uh got the letter through a public records request, we got it yesterday in our office, and it's the state auditor is requesting uh pretty good bit of information uh from the city as part of what they're calling an ongoing investigation.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: The information uh Jim Brigham has until Friday to get it to the auditor's office.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: We'll be checking on whether that's going on.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's a lot of stuff.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: It is it it's kind of a sweeping across several departments, but it's it and it it's as the kids would say, it's giving a fishing expedition in one one respect.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: But in another, there are there are some specifics here.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: We don't know who issued the complaint or that started the investigation.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: And we'll never know, probably.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Specifically, they're looking at they're not they didn't send a uh letter asking for all of their vendor information and all of the vendor activity uh for everybody.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: They specified a handful of vendors that they wanted information about.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is Cinta's Unifir, those are uh uniform people, Busy B cleaning service, WoW Entertainment, Anchored Images, Next Stage Media, and then our our buddy uh Regline Taylor Mason.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: Now that doesn't mean that just because they're asking for stuff from these particular vendors doesn't in itself implicate any of these vendors.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: Crystal clear, it is not an indictment.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: But it's interesting, Zach.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: I'm wondering why so many of these listed vendors are entertainment or media related.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_03: Well that stuck out too much.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it does.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: It does.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, they're asking for proof of services.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: And the contracts and the vendor activity to make sure everything was paid right, everything was according to policy, everything and and to make sure that nobody had maybe benefited improperly from any of these uh contracts or or business dealings.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you've also got beyond the vendors, you've got itemized receipts from Amazon, Quill, Quill, Staples.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Amazon.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_03: Better not put no kitty litter on that list.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: Then you've got you know some things from Columbus Police Department that they're wanting.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: You've got the uh, and we'll get to more information here on number seven.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's eight different bullet points that they've uh made requests on.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh asking the human resources department for information about their sick leave bank and who donated time and who got the time.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: The borrowed hours thing, which is kind of an exchange system.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, I'm feeling sick, but I'm out of sick time.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: Can I have a day of your time?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: And and Perth Columbus policy, they were okay with that.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_03: Is that a fair way of putting it?
• 8:57
  unknown: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they have a policy uh for that.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then RFPs to this uh Turner excavating and uh from uh this Turner Excavating and erosion LLC for a job with the parts and rack.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: And and Zach, that is something to do with Propest Park, I assume.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Ross Powell, I I mean that's what the address indicates.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: My opinion, and of course I have my educated guesses, I wouldn't I wouldn't.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's all we can do right now.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's just a letter.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: My guess is whoever filed this complaint feels like they knew what they were gonna find.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it was enough because uh the auditor doesn't show up and start asking for stuff just because there was a complaint.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: There's just because there's smoke, just because there's somebody griping, it doesn't, it it it doesn't mean they're going to uh and and a lot of times even if there's something that is known that was done wrong, I'll give you an example.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: So years and years ago, a couple of people got appointed to the housing authority.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Later on, after serving on the housing authority for some time, uh they became city employees.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Last year, or maybe earlier this year, Jeff Turnage realizes when he's looking at the he's looking at the bylaws for the housing authority, and he realizes that city employees can't be on the housing authority, and there are two there are two city employees on the housing authority.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: So he says, I forgot about this, calls them, they immediately resign, they reappoint those positions.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Turnage admits this in a public meeting, runs through the entire thing, says, I called the auditor, let them know what had happened, let them know that it violated our uh the the bylaws, and uh asked them what else we needed to do, and they said y'all aren't going to have any trouble from this.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: So this isn't a situation where the auditor's office is looking to go helmet to helmet with anybody that they can.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: There's obviously some flexibility there in what they're going to jump on and what they're not.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: To your point, I mean they get hundreds of complaints every year from from this and that and the other.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: Some credible, some not so much credible.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: So they must see this as credible enough to look into.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and and if you look at the scope of it, if you look at the fact that it it goes across not one but two administrations.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um if if you look at just the timing of it.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: I sort of.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it sort of goes across two administrations.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's two fiscal years, it's uh fiscal year twenty-four and fiscal year twenty-five, which uh fiscal year twenty-five ended September 30th of this year.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: That was three months into uh Jones's term.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: The majority of this is in is in Keith's administration.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it I don't when I look at this, I don't see the witch hunt for a single act.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_03: I see uh looking for some type of culture or some type of and that maybe that's not the right word, maybe some type of lack of oversight or lack of protocol, or we're just not doing it right.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: We've always done it this way.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um we we just kind of put a rubber stamp on these approvals at the monthly meeting of the city council and the dockets pass, but it's not kosher.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: Something is not kosher and maybe.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean they may they may do this investigation and find nothing, David, but I think that to your point, which I agree with, I don't think that they're looking for the second coming of Milton Rawl in this.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think that what what you're describing and what this seems to be pointing to is a possible death by a thousand cut situation.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have this big, you know, hundred thousands of dollars of embezzlement or anything like that.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: What you've got is just you know, the potential for item after item after item that shows a culture of what the heck are you guys doing?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: And is there possibly somebody is there possibly somebody uh nickel and dime benefiting from stuff not being done, you know, appropriately?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: And that sort of points to their annual audit almost tells that story.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: What Watkins Warden Stafford does for them every year.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: Their findings are very much in that same vein where it's like, yeah, that you were supposed to send that in and you didn't.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: You were supposed to reconcile this and you didn't.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Supposed to get another bit on this, but you didn't.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so th this sort of points to that same sort of, like you said, culture of oversight that that might come back and bite 'em.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, or it may or it may end up being a little bit of nothing.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I will tell you this.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like somebody who is on the inside or has recently been on the inside has got to be either behind this or assisting with getting the complaint together.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like someone who's the level of both disgruntled and in the no.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean, that's that's what it that's what it looks like.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: Or maybe not disgruntled so much as, hey, we've got to do things better.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_03: Joe Public is not going to come up with this list of stuff.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: There's no daggum way.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's so specific and it's so broad.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and it could hit multiple people.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like on the it could hit nobody, and I want to make that abundantly clear.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: It could hit nobody.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: Or it could hit multiple people along the way.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody from, you know, the the mayor that's supposed to be the CEO of the city.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: Then you've got, you know, your your administration in City Hall.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then you've got the uh and I want you to listen to me carefully when I say this.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: You've got the city council who is, by law, legally liable for any if they vote on the claims docket, if they vote to approve a claims docket that has illegal purchases on it, they can be held legally liable for that.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: If they don't vote for that claims docket with purchases on it that are found to be illegal, they don't have any legal liability.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: They are safe from legal liability from those illegal purchases.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that is something that's I think is going to be very important to remember.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: That's nerve-wracking if you're a council member who rubber stamped things and did not, you know, uh give due diligence.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not accusing anyone of doing that, but the possibility is certainly there.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that um this certainly points to that.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: I believe, based on what I see here, that there is an informant out there.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, possibly more than one, like coming from a couple, two or three different directions, and you get enough of those in the same town, and then the uh OSA is like, well, maybe we should look into this.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um Or you could have somebody or some or some amount of people who are just mad that the city does business with these particular vendors.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's another possibility that has to be considered.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: An axe to grind.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um but something.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, was it careless management?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_03: Was it failure, like we say, to bid stuff out?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: Uh was it potentially outright thievery?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: I do not know.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_03: But I expect there is something in this that is concrete and damning.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: Concrete enough for them to be spending time on it.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think the state auditor goes on fishing expeditions.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I'll tell you why.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: Let's say they take on the risk and say, well, let's go pick on Columbus just for the heck of it.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_03: We don't really have much to go off of, but we might, you know, score some political points, you know, maybe per clock somebody.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: If they're doing that and it's a false positive, that makes the office of the auditor look really bad.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it does.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: It does.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: And when they when they go after something, they want to make a splash.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: And to your point, if the auditor's office did act that way as a rule, they would have gone after Jeff with that housing authority thing, and instead they were more reasonable about that.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: But there is something that's also important to remember about this, and it's something that when any time that Shad's office issues a press release, they're very quick to remind us or anybody who asks uh about this particular point.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: If you are embezzling from a private company, there's a certain amount of money you've got to get to for that to switch over from a misdemeanor to a felony.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: It can be a dollar of public money and it's a felony.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: So if they find out that the you know, the part-time garbage man in this city of a thousand people absconded with five dollars and thirty-four cents, if the auditor wants to pursue that, that's a felony.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: Good grief.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: So if you go to the the chancery clerk's office, leave the pen in its spot, don't put it in your pocket.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because the uh the the implication here is if they do find something and they do find that somebody improperly benefited, if it's twenty-five bucks that they put in their pocket, if it's public money, it's a felony.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the thing to be learned here is let's say that this washes over and it's underwhelming, which often happens.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_03: And could very well be the case here.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: It is still, nevertheless, a wake-up call that we've got to be very, very serious with the use and the uh stewardship of our public funds.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: And we can't be willy-nilly, we can't just skip certain rules and procedures.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: We've got to follow protocol, even if it's a headache, even if it sometimes uh kicks out that long-standing vendor that we've used for so long and we like.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um we have got to follow the protocol here, and I think this right here, if nothing else, will force the hand of the city of Columbus to pay attention and stay vigilant in that regard.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: I agree completely.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_03: Well, let me ask you this, Zach, before we close this out.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_03: Uh what do you know about the mood of the City Hall since this letter has been received?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the word on the street is that Mayor Jones felt a sense of betrayal.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: He was tense.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, he told his department heads that I'm not going to jail for anyone.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: Now that's a quote from the packet.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: What do we know about how this is being received and what do we think the appropriate response has been and is going to be?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: My take from what I have seen is they're definitely taking it seriously.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they have no choice.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I I believe the overarching feeling is that we have a policy to match each procedure and that we can get this sent in by the end of the month.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: That's generally the sense that I've been getting.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: However, what's the likelihood that they're gonna grab me on the street and tell me who writes things down?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:50
  unknown: It's bad.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's well, it's it is what it is.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'll tell you this.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: You know, here I am.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: What did we say last week?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: We're local experts, so take this for what it's worth.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: I think this is an opportunity for Mayor Jones to come public and transparent and say, look, yes, uh, you've all seen the letter or heard about the letter.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_03: We've received the letter, we're taking it seriously.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_03: And uh as a response to this letter, I think this is an opportunity for our city uh to just do things better.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, if there are areas for improvement, maybe this will help us define them.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we are going to comply fully.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: Don't be afraid of it.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_03: Just be like, okay, here it is.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna deal with it, and we've got things under control and give us a sense of assurance as opposed to, oh boy, okay.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: In fairness, in fairness to your point, there's only a certain amount that they can really talk about because this is an investigation.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's active investigation.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: Now, after the fact, they'll be able to speak more freely.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: It just seems to me if if you hide in a shell, even if it's for legal purposes and don't say anything whatsoever, it's it just makes people more uncomfortable than would otherwise be necessary.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh those who voted against the forensic audit, I really and truly wonder what they are thinking about this letter here today.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so that's that.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: We will next talk about the new gig for Mr.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: Joan Max Higgins.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: He's got him uh a new business, and we're gonna talk about it but first.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_03: If you need serious equipment that gets the job done, Landman Rentals has you covered.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_03: Skid steers, many excavators, brush cutters, mulching heads, you name it.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: They're local, reliable, and built for the working man.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: Give him a call at 662-889-0541.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_03: Stuck on the road?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_03: Champions Towing in Columbus has your back.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: Fast, reliable towing, and roadside help whenever you need it.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_03: Whether it's a breakdown or a lockout, call 662-251-9004 and get moving again.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: The Good for Business Podcast features interviews, tips, and tricks from owners, operators, and innovators.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Here are the inspiring stories of growth and life lessons from guests in Mississippi and around the world.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Hosted by entrepreneur, fundraiser, and real estate broker Colin Krieger, the podcast is based right here in the Golden Triangle community.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, Zach, I read the paper about Mr.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_03: Higgins finally coming back to the public light, and he looks like he's got himself a new job.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he's I mean, he's he's following the entrepreneurial blueprint.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, why work for somebody else when you can work for yourself?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so he's uh started his own consulting company, he uh uh consulting on the type of work that he does, you know, make sites, industrial development, that sort of thing.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: He uh interestingly enough, he can't work in the Golden Triangle until at least 2027.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: Don't know if uh he can bury the hatchet with the link between now and then if the quote from the executive committee is into any indicator.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't like his chances there working directly with them, but maybe with some of the communities for a while.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting, he's uh it's 2eq last, and it's um it's almost hearkening to that Talladega Nights uh uh you you watch Talladega Nights, I go, Ricky Bobby.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: If you're not first, you're last.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, sonny.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: So second place equals last is what that comes from.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: Sweet Lord, baby Jesus.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so, of course, that two EQ last is also his license plate as it as it happens.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: But look hard to pronounce.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how do we say this business name?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_03: Two EQ last?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe good enough.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: I thought it was like a a rappers group name or something when I first saw it.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: But Joe Max Higgins fronting a rappers group would be that'd be a hell of a video.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: He could throw down.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um I'm not touching any more of that.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: He he's got a a very niche thing here.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um there's not a lot of people that can do what he does.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: And there's not a lot of people that just have their heads in that world um as deeply as his is.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think he's gonna help somebody out for sure.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, right.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that that is what is brought forward in the uh what's been like the social media response, whether it was our story that we did on it or or different other social media posts about it, they've been encouraging.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's been good luck.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: Lynn Spruel, uh, Mara Startville, you know, in her comments that you've always been a rainmaker and uh uh you're gonna do great.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: No matter what happened with that, I do wish him well with with the link and what he said and and how bad it was.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: I do wish him well because he's obviously got talent for doing what he does.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: He's gotten results for doing what he does.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: I hope in his private business that he has now learned something from what happened at the link.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, my gut tells me that he has, and and I, you know, I have no way to substantiate that.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: But um, you know, life changes us over time.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: And we we have a tendency to mellow out.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_03: I think he's gonna do fine.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: I do.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I think an experience with falling from a spot like where he was, and and the learning that probably needs to be had by both parties here from him, you know, don't eat your own legend to the point to where that's you know, you you just believe it to the to the point to where you feel invincible.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: And on the link side, the you know, don't let the horse get out of the pen and then be surprised that it runs off.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I precisely I do think that they've handled this with grace and poise.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_03: I think the fact that, you know, uh it was a unanimous decision when it happened.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I believe that was intentional, and I believe that that was for the sake of letting the public know for these three counties that that, hey, this is absolutely what needs to happen in the best interest of the Golden Triangle for now.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: I hope Higgins comeback is epic, successful, and I hope it's well behaved.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_03: I think it'll happen.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_03: I think it'll happen.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm wondering, actually, uh I haven't heard anything from the link.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh is there a search ongoing, or do you think they're gonna try to handle it in-house for another season?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, they're there um there's a search firm hired to help them.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um we await updates on that search, but there there is a search firm that they have tapped to help them identify their next rainmaker.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I'd I'd like to get um someone in here, maybe Bain Nichols or somebody, and and talk about the the future, talk about, okay, what's the goal?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: Do we just want to fill up Cinco and then cool it for a little while?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: Or are we going to look at another one?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: Because some people out there, they're like, okay, we're we're we're good enough for now.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_03: I'm you know, I'm I'm tired of solar panels, I'm tired of this and that.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: There's a few people out there that think that um, you know, we're not trying to build a big metropolis here.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: We need to main some semblance of rurality.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: Do you hear any of that?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: I don't.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: Not not where industrial development is concerned.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: Even Trip Hurston is like job to the floor.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm gonna go out on a limb maybe a little bit here and say that Joe Max's company that he started, and the fact that he's staying around here, I can't work with clients in this area until 2027.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: But I guess that's a contractual thing.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: But even that puts a lot of pressure on this hire for the link.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because I want under let me build a scenario for you.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so the link goes out, they make a home run hire, life is good, all of the all of the client cities and counties are happy with what's going on.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: No big deal.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: But let's just say that they make that they hire somebody that by 2027 the mood is this person's not doing what Joe Max did or can do.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh do you see a scenario where maybe Startville or Lowndes County or Clay County, well whoever starts flecking off and contracting directly with Joe Max in direct competition with the link?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because it seems like that's something that could happen.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: You know, as a Mississippi State fan, I Have learned that absolutely anything is possible and when somebody that's doing a really good job goes into the tank, you just don't know what to expect next.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: So well, I believe that this announcement puts a lot in this company and that and that date of when he can re-enter the Golden Triangle Sphere, it puts a lot of pressure on the link to make a home run higher that is sustainable.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody that can at the when on January 1st, 2027, the clients look at the link and then the clients look at Joe Max and say, No, we're good.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: Because if they can't, who is stopping them at that point from flecking off and contracting with Joe Max directly?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_03: It'll be interesting, and we'll talk more about it right here in Catfish Alley Studio.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_03: I think that the people of the link are very capable folks.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, absolutely.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I look forward to some good things coming out of that organization.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_03: Today in the studio, we are pleased to have a gentleman who I've never met face to face, but I've certainly read a lot of his stuff, Mr.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_03: Rufus Ward, our local historian, who I just learned was actually a retired lawyer.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: Is that correct, sir?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'll call it recovering lawyer.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_03: Recovering lawyer.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, maybe also a fisherman of sorts.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: He's got a hook in his hat today, and he's got some stories to share with us.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: What where do we start with this, Zach?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, it's Halloween week, and uh you're Rufus, you're the keeper of all the ghost stories.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: Read a couple of ghost stories about some uh steamboats from back in the day uh in your in your last weekly column that ran the dispatch.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: Wanted to just kind of talk to you today about some of the maybe some well-known ghost stories from around Columbus, maybe some lesser known ones.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: You uh let's start here.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: You talked about one that dates back 800 years.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's uh it deals with Tibby Lake, which is about five miles south of West Point.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_06: And there's a Native American tradition, it's among the Choctaws and Chickasaws, that this family was going through the woods there and on a journey, uh, husband, wife, two children, and stopped and made a camp underneath a huge oak tree.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_06: The next morning, the the mother, the father went out hunting, collecting berries and food, and there was a sudden, really heavy shaking of the earth, and it started knocking things down, and they ran back to the camp, and they found that the tree under which they had pitched a camp had fallen, and a huge fissure had opened up in the ground, and their two children had been turned into horned serpents, horned snakes, and were intertwined, and they were swimming off into this lake that had formed.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_06: Why?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_06: And because of that, no one was ever able to hunt or fish in that lake.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_06: It actually goes a step further.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_06: At the time of Indian removal, there was a Chickasaw woman living there who is her name was Annie McGee, and she was considered to be a witch.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_06: You have an unmarried female, no family, no children, living by herself on a sacred lake where nobody's supposed to be.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_06: And they said the comment is that there were good witches and bad witches, and she would have been a good witch, more like a shaman or a herbal doctor.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_06: So they left her alone.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_06: And so when removal came, she was signed up to go west on the Trail of Tears, but disappeared.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_06: And nobody knows what happened to her where she went.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_06: All record of her disappeared.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_06: She didn't fall in the fissure, did she?
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_06: Probably not.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_06: But you never know.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_06: The uh the the couca here though is the Native American community here was descended from the Mounville people south of Tuscaloosa early on.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_06: And at Mounville they have found pieces of pottery and engraved on it are horned serpents swimming out into a lake.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_06: Ooh.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_06: Which fits right in with the story of Tibby Lake.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_06: Wow.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_06: And they didn't have TikTok back then either.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_06: Dude.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_06: So and that was about 800 years ago that those days, too.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: 800 years ago.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_03: So you're really way before.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: As far as you know.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: As far as I know.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well now, okay, so if I'm taking my kids trick-or-treating uh in Columbus, what ghost should we be looking for?
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_06: It's coming around here for houses to have ghost stories.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_06: I've been amazed at the number of people who would mention things that go bump in the night.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_03: And uh the biggest one I was hearing of when I was a child was Three Legged Lady Road, the shack off in the woods over there.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I've heard the story, but I don't know the basis of it or much about that one yet.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: Any any personal ghost encounters that you want to share?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_06: I didn't used to, but uh I had a uh ghost in my house, the old homestead.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_06: And uh the the typical thing we'd hear bootsteps on the front porch and a knock on the front door, and if we didn't open the door, it would start rattling.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_06: And my dog got to where she would perk her ears up, run to the front door, and then we'd go and open it and then nobody was there.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_06: And she would turn her hand like head like she was watching something come in the house.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_06: Turn the house over one time to the historic preservation office of the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma, who were doing some research here.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_06: And um I let them use that house to operate out of and went back the next morning to have breakfast with them, and they said, You didn't tell us you had a ghost.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_06: And told me the same story about footsteps and something at the door.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_06: Then we finished the restoration of the main floor of the house, had a house blessing, and I'm afraid I overdid it.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_06: Uh it was a big party, and I had three physical priests who were friends, and they blessed the house.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_06: The ghost has not been back.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh I guess in a town like this where there are so many old houses, and you talk about like those stories that come from each of those houses, I mean, you you would be a go-to person for them to come and say, Oh, you're not going to believe this, right?
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I they they come and tell you those stories, right?
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_06: And I I don't mention other people's houses unless they say do it, but yeah, I've had a number of people do that.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_06: Uh I went to one house and they actually had ghost hunters coming with all the equipment.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_06: The equipment?
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_06: All the time.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_06: The EMP things, yeah.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_03: You've never seen that?
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_03: The static electricity and uh Yeah, all that stuff.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_06: And uh I knew who had l lived in the house 150 years ago, 160 years ago.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_06: And they asked me if I would sit in the basement and call out the names of different people.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_06: And I thought, this this is pretty hokey.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_06: So I went through and I went, and they didn't know anything about the names I was calling.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_03: Rufus.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_03: Call forth Samuel.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I went through seven fictitious names and nothing happened.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_06: Then I called out the name of the lady who had been a servant in that house a hundred years ago.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_06: Everything lit up, all their equipment lit up, and they said, Wow, this person must be here.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_06: And I went, What?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_06: And I thought, no way they could have known that.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's something.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's something.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you you brought you a little list here of of of different other ghost stories.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: I want to give you a chance to kind of run through those and and and and give us some of the lowdown on the on the spooky history.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_06: My favorite ghost story is the Eliza Bow.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_06: And that's what I was down in Alabama on the public TV in Alabama was doing a documentary on it.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_06: It was a palatial steamboat.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_06: Uh it came, it was in the mobile to Columbus and sometimes Aberdeen trade in the 1850s.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_06: If you can picture a boat on the Tombi River here, it was about 37 feet wide and 200 feet long.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_06: That's a big boat.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_06: And would come here.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_06: And there's debate as to whether it left Columbus, Aberdeen, or Pickensville on February 28th, 1858, going to Mobile.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_06: Uh had found a uh way bill for the boat that was from Columbus dated the week before the boat went south, which says it was from leaving from Columbus.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_06: And it was when it came to Columbus, it was one of those February days when it's been real warm and rainy and the Tom Baby was beginning to flood high water, which was good for steamboat transportation.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_06: And it arrived in Columbus and then headed south.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_06: As it headed south around Gainesville, Alabama, this uh hailstorm came up.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_06: High wind, hail, just horrible weather.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_06: About almost down to Demopolis.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_06: The hail changed to sleet and the temperature dropped, they said 40 degrees in two hours.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_06: By the time the boat was just south of Demopolis, the front of the boat was covered in icicles of ice anywhere water splashed, it immediately froze.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_06: The river was flooded and it was freezing, icicles from trees.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_06: And around 1 a.m.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_06: it passed another boat, the uh Warrior, which was headed north on the Tom Bigby, and it was doing what was called sparking.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_06: Sindus were coming out of the smokestacks.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_06: And they they burned a lot of times they burn pine to get the maximum heat for the boilers.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_06: Which is dirty.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, which is dirty and tends to make sundews and is very flammable.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_06: Well, they didn't notice it till about 30 minutes later, but they realized that the back of the boat, there were 1,400 cotton bells on the boat, was on fire.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_06: What was going on?
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_06: The boat was headed south.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_06: They called it a gale force wind from the north, and that fanned the flames into the cabin of the boat.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_06: And before people could react, it had caught there was a lifeboat and a yawl, two basically two lifeboats on them.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_06: They were at the rear of the boat, and they were on fire, and people couldn't get to them, and they were going down the freezing flooded river, and suddenly people realized they were in a bad predicament, and the tiller rope burned, and the pilot lost control of the boat, and it started kind of spinning going down the river, and people had to make a choice.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_06: Do they want to burn up on the boat or jump in the freezing water and freeze?
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_06: And the boat ended up hitting a huge oak tree in a flooded swamp, knocked it over, and most of the people were able to get off and get into trees.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_06: That's where uh rescue basically the rescue came from local plantations and people in giant boats paddling on the river, and it took them about two to three hours to get to the boat.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_06: And when they got there, uh some of the people who survived, they had to pry their hands off of tree limbs because they were frozen to the tree limbs.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_06: That's like the Titanic, dude.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_06: Well, actually, yeah.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_06: The uh captain ordered women and children first, and the crew actually responded and and helped people.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_06: There was one uh black deckhand who had built a raft and was about to launch it and get on it, and saw a lady with a young child sitting down just frightened, not knowing what to do, and he got both of them, put them on his raft, pushed them off, and they survived and he died.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_06: In the end, there were about 40 to 45 crew members, and uh count said 55 to 60 passengers on board.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_06: The official death toll was 29.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_06: Uh some newspapers said New York Times said 33, but it looks like it was 29.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_06: But the story went worldwide.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_06: Uh I have found it in 1858 newspapers.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_06: There was extensive covery, coverage of it from Scotland to New Zealand.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_06: And it ran for two days in the New York Times, and it was talking about the horror of the situation with people having to make that decision of am I going to freeze to death or burn to death?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_03: Kind of like, are I gonna jump out of this window in in the Twin Towers?
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_06: Awful stuff.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_06: Wikipedia, I noticed, had uh in a blur bonnet, said that it was with the along with the flying Dutchman, was one of the most famous ghost ships in the world.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_06: What comes out of that is the story is in the wintertime, especially in February, sometimes a fog bank will roll down the Tom Bigby River and it will be glowing in the muddle, and you might hear music, and it still lies a battle still trying to get to Mobile.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_05: Oh well.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_06: I talked I talked with a fisherman from down there.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_06: I said, You ever seen anything like that?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_06: He said, Well, late February one year, I was out on the Tom Big B, and suddenly this fog bank is rolling down the river, and it looks like there's something glowing and building in the middle of it.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_06: I said, What happened next?
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_06: He said, I don't know.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_06: I got out of there as quick as I could, and I never look back.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that gum skippy.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_03: Get on out of there.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_03: No question about it.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_03: So when we hear talk about these ghosts and this and that, I've always heard that a ghost is here because it has unfinished business.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_03: So if you turn into a ghost, what would be your unfinished business?
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I got him on that one.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_03: He's got a thing.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_06: I'm thinking probably to try and figure out exactly where Hernando de Soto camped in this area in December of 1540.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_06: I've been working some with the Chickasaw Nation.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_06: Well, there's a lot of things they've been looking for that and they're finding what appear to be 1,500 Spanish artifacts around Starfle.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_06: So it's probably going to be over there somewhere.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_06: But I've been fooling with that goodness since the 1980s.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_03: What about the face in Carrollton?
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_03: I'm curious about that one.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_03: Is that is that still there?
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_03: Or do they keep changing to the glass?
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_06: I hadn't been there in a couple of years, but last time uh I took a bunch of kids there, it was still there, except one difference now, they've set one of these binoculars on a stand up right across the street from it.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_06: So you can look at it and see it.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_06: But yeah, it's there.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_06: And uh yeah, that story of somebody who had been wrongly accused of of murder.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_06: He was looking out at where they were building the scaffolding to hang him and said, I didn't do it, y'all won't ever forget me.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_06: Something to that effect.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_06: And a storm came up and lightning hit, and the image in the window actually looks kind of like the negative of a photograph and looks like a man's face.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_06: So it is there, and you can see it.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_06: And like I said, they have it marked and pointed so if you go to Carrollton, you can actually see what's considered a real ghost story image.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_06: Carrollton, Alabama.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's not far.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_06: It's not far at all.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_06: 30 minutes from here.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_06: They've got a good plate lunch over there, too, I'll tell you.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_03: I bet.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_06: There are actually two other interesting steamboat accidents here.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_06: There was the Fannie W, and it was a steamboat that was owned by two black businessmen, uh, the Hodge brothers.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_06: And it spoiler exploded, it caught fire between Columbus and Wavely, and the whole drifted down river and lodged in the riverbank behind where Bob's place used to be.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_06: One of the engineers was killed and was buried on the banks of the Tumbe between the mouth of Morris Creek and where Rubens is.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_06: At that site, uh, Uncle Bunky, if y'all remember Uncle Bunky, he told me the story that when he was a child, that a flood came and washed away part of the riverbank there and exposed part of the remains of a burned riverboat, which would have been the Fanny W, these people's riverboat.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_06: And another flood came and covered it back up again.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_06: So that's it's somewhere underneath that riverbank.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_06: But Bunky's mother and his aunt always told him the story about they would see um strange dark nights, a man dressed in old-fashioned clothes like somebody'd be wearing in the 1780s.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_06: This happened in seven seventeen seventy-eight.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_06: And he never turned so they could never see his face or his hands or his body, they could just see his outline.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_06: And he would walk behind where Bob's was and go down to the river, and right when he would get to the river, he would disappear.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_06: And that would have been just about where this boat was.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_03: So uh it disappeared.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like, was he skinny dipping?
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_03: Did he jump in the river?
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_03: Just gone.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_03: He wasn't there anymore.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_06: Just gone.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_06: Well, the other side of the river, when I was growing up, there was a swing from a tree.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_06: And swimming in the river, you would go down there and grab that rope and you could swing out into the river and dive into the river.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_06: Good times, back before we had so many rules.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_06: That yeah, before there were rules.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_06: There's one other really interesting story, and uh what really makes it interesting is no copy of the dispatch.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_06: In 1912, there's an individual by the name of Norman Staples, and he had the most palatial steamboat on the time Bigby River.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_06: And in late 1912, he got into financial trouble and creditors seized his boat.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_06: In January of 1913, he killed himself.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_06: He could not take losing his boat.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_06: And the boat was the James T.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_06: Staples, it was named after his father.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_06: Well, the day of his funeral, the boat was ordered by the new owners to proceed on its regular run up to the Tom Bigby, and the captain said, No, that would be disrespectful, and I'm not gonna do it, and quit.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_06: Well, a lot of the crew members reported they'd seen ghost, and probably the ghost of Norman Staples on the boat, and they quit.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_06: And they had to get a whole new crew and a new captain, and people said it was just strange things going on around that boat.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_06: And so it proceeded upriver.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_06: And near Baldw Springs, which is where the cemetery was close to a bluff on the Tom Bigby, Staples had just been buried.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_06: And as the boat passed that point, it blew up.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_06: The boilers exploded, and it ended up killing 26, 27 people.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_03: And they they must have not built boilers correctly back in those days.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm gonna tell you.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: Ruby writes about steamboats uh uh routinely in in his column.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: And every time that I'm reading, oh, it's gonna be about a steamboat, I'm just waiting for the point in the story where the steamboat catches on fire.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_06: The reason for the boilers blowing up was they would use river water to boil to make steam.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_06: It's got so much.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_06: And they had to keep all the mud cleared out of the boiler.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_06: And if they weren't careful and let mud build up, it would start blocking openings and the boiler would explode.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_06: So if you had good boats that kept their boilers clean, you didn't have that, you had to have boats that might run 20, 25 years on the river.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_06: But the thing about the staples is I thought, okay, this is January 1913.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_06: If a boat on the Tom Big B exploded, the dispatch back then is bound to have had an article.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_06: Well, sure enough, I found that copy of the dispatch.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_06: And the article started out saying what had happened, and then saying that there were many strange circumstances surrounding the explosion and what happened with the boat.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_06: And I thought, wait a minute, here's a story written the day after the boat supposedly blew up, and there's a ghost story with it.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_06: And the Columbus newspaper is covering it and talking about the strange things that were going on.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_06: And I thought, that adds a whole new dimension to it.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_03: It does.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's the original episode of Between the Headlines right there.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_03: Dude.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_03: I tell you what, you've you've got me motivated.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_03: I think I want to spend my Halloween evening on the Tom Big Me, see what happens.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_02: Just not in a steamboat.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_06: No, sir.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_06: And one of the more famous ghosts around the area is at Waverley.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_06: And Dinah Snow, I remember her telling me one time that at first they didn't have a ghost there.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_06: Then she made up a ghost story because every old house like that needed a ghost.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_06: And she said, suddenly things started happening.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_06: And uh it wasn't just a ghost story anymore, it was odd events happening.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_06: And I was talking to Uncle Bunky about that.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_06: And he said, well, he'd been taking he'd taken his daughter out there when she was young, and they were going up to the cupola, and they were re-plastering the walls on the steps.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_06: And so you had plaster dust, white dust everywhere.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_06: And he said, as they were going up the steps, they had just gone up above the second floor landing, and suddenly a child's footprint started appearing in the dust in front of them.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_06: And he said they turned around and left.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_06: Well what Ms.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_06: Snow found had found out later was there actually had been a child that died in an accident on the steps there.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_06: So, yeah, it's the more you know.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: My goodness.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Rufus, we appreciate you coming by and talking with us today.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_03: You have been listening to between the headlines.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_03: Our special guest today has been longtime friend of Columbus and avid historian, Mr.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_03: Rufus Ward.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_03: All right, that was a pleasure to meet him finally in person.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like uh he looked like an old mariner.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, did we get pictures of him?
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_03: All right, good.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_03: Be sure to check that out and uh follow and share the page.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_03: But um for now, three things to know, sir.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_02: All right, number one, Columbus Light and Water customers.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh your water and sewer bills are going up about nine percent starting next month.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: If you're an average water sewer user in the city or in the CLW area, that means you can expect your bill to increase by about four dollars a month.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_02: This is on top of power rate increases that went into effect October 1st.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_02: Number two, Oxford-based Thacker Mountain Radio Hour will bring its show to the Tennessee Williams Home and Welcome Center lawn starting at 3 p.m.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_02: Sunday.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: The award-winning radio show features literary readings and a wide range of musical performances.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's hosted by Jim D's and house band the Yallabushwackers.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_02: Sunday's guest will also include the W Jazz Combo, local band Hartle Road, and acclaimed author Michael Ferris Smith, among others.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: Number three, the commercial dispatch has two job openings.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_02: We're hiring a part-time advertising sales representative for both Startville and West Point with starting pay at$14.50 an hour, plus commissions and bonuses, and we're also hiring a part-time mailroom worker.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_02: Details on both positions are available at cdispatch.com/slash work.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: And David, if you're uh if the pool business gets slow, yeah, come sell some ads.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_03: I tell you, pool man is always in high demand, no question about it.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_03: But I tell you what else is in high demand.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_03: Credible information.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you guys for reading the paper and thanks for listening to this show.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_03: I think that will do it.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_03: Keeping it real here in Catfish Alley Studio in historic downtown Columbus.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_03: Keep the conversation alive.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_03: Tips at cdispatch.com.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_03: You can also follow me on Facebook or X at the Chisholm DoubleZero.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_03: We love public comments.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_03: So signing off until next week.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_03: Your host has been Zach Player and I am David Chisholm.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_03: Y'all keep it friendly.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_03: We will keep it real.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: Opinions expressed on this show are those of the speakers and not necessarily those of the commercial dispatch.