RECOLLECTIONS: 2014 (10 years ago) special election, club news
By Guest Columnist Daryl Lewis
• Nancy Jo King has announced her candidacy to fill the remaining term of Leland Alderman for Ward 5 previously held by her late husband, Rusty King. Born in Leland, she graduated from Leland High School in 1968 and worked for the Department of Human Services before teaching in Leland schools for the last thirty-two years. She recently retired but continues to work with select students at Leland Elementary on a part-time basis. The special election is set for December 16 at the Leland Rotary Hut on California Avenue.
• The Leland Chamber of Commerce and the City of Leland have announced that the final Creative Park plans will be unveiled to the public on November 20 at the Buster Morlino Community Center on North Broad Street. The project design team from Mississippi State University and renowned landscape architect Robert Poore of Native Habitats, Inc., will be in Leland to reveal the new plans. The planning for this park was made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts awarded to Leland in 2013. The project began in early 2014 with a series of meetings to gather input from the public. “This park is an amazing opportunity for Leland to create a new community space that can have a major impact on the quality of life here,” said Leland Chamber Executive Director Melia Christensen.
• Leland Rotary President Richard Taylor is shown with Sgt. First Class Charles Henderson, who presented the program to the club last Friday.
• Members of the Leland-Deer Creek Garden Club worked Monday to replace annuals in the downtown planters. Among those participating were Jane Dempsey, Anita Minton, Marion Dean, Dianne Burchfield, Roxanne Hayman, Donna Manning and Judy Johnson.
• Leland Girl Scout Troop 33243 collected more than one hundred food items Saturday morning during a canned food drive in front of the Family Dollar store. The items were donated to the Leland Food Pantry. Shown are Wyneisha Washington, MarShayla Wiggins, MiKyla Patterson, MiNyla Patterson, Aamya Denton, ShaNiya Washington, Miranda Welton and Ja’Ziayah Nash.
• From Charlotte Buchanan’s “That’s What I Love about the Delta”—How wonderful it is to see that Leland’s murals are being refurbished. I often see people from out of town standing at the murals and taking photographs. They are definitely an attraction for Leland. I had a young friend ask me recently how someone my age could know so many musicians and so much about them. I laughed and said it was because of my age that I do. I grew up on Delta farms, and they all had commissaries or farm stores. Saturdays were huge days back then. People came to get their home supplies and spent hours hanging out on the porches and steps of the stores, playing their musical instruments and singing their songs. I was right in the midst of it as long as my dad would let me stay. He loved to smoke his pipe and sit around the stove talking, so I got to hear a lot of music. Many of those in the murals I have heard play and sing at these storefronts.
• Died: William (Bill) Hong Yee, 87, of Leland on November 3 at his home. He was born on July 11, 1927, to the late Ong Shee and Quong Yee of Sun Ling Village, Toy Sun County, China. He immigrated to America at the age of twelve. Shortly afterwards, he moved to Leland to work in his family’s grocery business. After service in the Navy during World War II, he became co-owner of the Leland Food Market with his father and his brothers, Kin and Danny. In 1952, he married Mary Joe of New Orleans. He and his brothers, Harry and Kin, opened Stop ’N Shop in 1956. A few years later, he and Mary became sole owners and operated the business for thirty years. He retired in Leland in 1989 and, in 1994, married Blanche Bing Rester of Clarksdale.
NOTE: The complete “RECOLLECTIONS” are available every Thursday on Facebook at “Leland – Our Town and Beyond Museum” and “Memories of Leland.”
