This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune.

• Hovis, an icon and heartthrob, was a mainstay on The Lawrence Welk Show. He later became the state director for U.S. Senator Trent Lott.

Before I was born, The Lawrence Welk Show was!

The Lawrence Welk Show began as a local program on KTLA, the flagship station of the Paramount Television Network, in Los Angeles on May 11, 1951. The big band leader had his musical variety show on this station for four years. Then, the program went national on ABC for the next 16 years, from 1955 to 1971. The program was syndicated from 1971 to 1982.

Everything stopped in my home when The Lawrence Welk Show aired on Saturday nights. My father’s favorite person on the program was not Lawrence Welk, but Jo Ann Castle. She was known as a honky-tonk pianist. When she performed, Dad would tell me to observe her hands. I didn’t know why, except maybe he wanted me to play the piano like her one day. Didn’t happen. Mom also had her favorites, The Lennon Sisters, Norma Zimmer, Jim Roberts, and the dance team of Cissy King and Bobby Burgess. However, when Guy Hovis became a part of the show’s line-up, he became her “very favorite,” maybe even her heartthrob.

I realize if you are younger than 50, you may not be familiar with The Lawrence Welk Show. It is known for its range of music, from polkas to classics; it has reached an audience of 40 million. It was a “wunnerful show” and brought fame for Guy Lee Hovis, Jr. that he could have never imagined.

How did he become a part of this well-loved program?

Beginnings in Tupelo

The city of Tupelo is known as the birthplace of Elvis Presley. But it is also the birthplace of Guy Hovis — two icons. Elvis was born on January 8, 1935, and Guy was born on September 24, 1941.

Guy’s father, Guy Lee Hovis, Sr., became an original member of the Mississippi Highway Patrol (created in 1938). His mother, Frances Filgo Hovis, had the reputation of being the “best cook in the world” and worked for thirty years as a secretary. The family were members of Harrisburg Baptist Church.

Guy Lee Hovis, Jr. developed a strong interest and love for music at home and through Harrisburg Baptist Church. Beginning at age five and throughout his formative years, he sang at church, in a gospel quartet, at weddings, at civic clubs, and other events. He is also a guitarist.

As a student at the University of Mississippi, he continued his musical interests while pursuing a degree in accounting, graduating in 1963. It was while at Ole Miss that he formed the musical group known as the Chancellors. The members were Allen Pepper, Trent Lott, and Gaylen Roberts. In 2010, the Ole Miss quartet reunited at the wedding of Guy’s daughter, Julie.

While at Ole Miss, Guy was in R.O.T.C. Six months after graduation, he enlisted in the military, and spent the next two years serving as an officer with the U.S. Army at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He became an instructor in the Artillery Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill and went to paratrooper school at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Towards the end of his military service, he entered a talent show and won. Hovis went on a six-week tour with the Fourth Army. On the tour, not only did he perform, but he served as the officer in charge. The show business bug had bitten.

Instead of pursuing show business further, he returned to college to obtain his master’s degree and prepare for the CPA exam. But, after the first semester, he decided to leave college and pursue performing.

“Ah-One, Ah-Two” for an Aspiring Performer

In 1974, Guy Hovis hosted The Lawrence Welk Show – Tribute to Famous Entertainers from 1974.

On the show, he referenced how he and Elvis Presley grew up in the same hometown. Guy told the story of how he got a close-up look at Elvis because his father was assigned to his security detail.

Guy recollects, “Now, let me tell you, he needed security. I’ve never seen anything like the way the girls reacted to Elvis. It was amazing: screaming, crying, trying to touch him. All the guys were really jealous. I hate to admit this, but I’m sure that experience had a little something to do with my eventual pursuit of show business.”

A friend, actor Tom Lester (“Eb” from Green Acres), advised Guy to go to Santa Monica and try to perform at a nightclub called The Horn, owned by Enrico (Ric) Ricardo. If you were an aspiring performer, The Horn was the place to showcase your talent. Jim Nabors, Jack Jones, and Steven Martin were some of the people who started there.

Eventually, he met David (King) Blaylock, and they became singing partners. Then, the producer of the CBS program, the Art Linkletter House Party Show, heard Guy sing and put him on the show. He appeared on about a dozen shows during 1967. When that ended, he and David formed “Guy & David.” They spent two years appearing on television shows and nightclubs across the country, and they recorded an album with ABC Records.

Also, while at The Horn, he met Ralna English and married in 1969. She became a regular on The Lawrence Welk Show. Then, on a Christmas program in 1970, Guy and Ralna sang a duet. The response from viewers was so positive that Mr. Welk invited Guy to join the Welk musical family. Guy and Ralna remained a duo on the show until their marriage ended in 1984 in a divorce.

In the following years, Guy and Ralna continued to perform at events throughout the United States, including The Welk Resort Theatre in Branson, Missouri, until 2020. In 1973, their show at the Mississippi State Fair at the Jackson Fairgrounds brought the largest crowd the fair had ever had. Senator Trent Lott, in the audience, was invited by Ralna to join her on stage to do some high kicks with her while she sang, “New York, New York.”

Patriot and Entertainer

In 1990, Guy moved back to Mississippi. It wasn’t long before he took on a full-time job as the director of the six state offices for Senator Trent Lott—a different world and experience from being a performer.

At the Monmouth Plantation in Natchez, on February 16, 2002, Guy Lee Hovis, Jr. married Sarah (Sis) Lundy Moorehead. In an interview from “Welknotes,” Guy shared, “Sis is taking a crash course in ‘Lawrence Welk’ because she didn’t watch the television show until she started dating me.”

The couple resides in Jackson.

Guy sang “Let the Eagle Soar” at the Presidential Inauguration Ceremony in Washington, D.C., for the second term of President George Bush in 2005. I highly recommend you click on the link and listen. Another more precise-sounding source is an onstage performance from MusicMaker 1979. He recorded the song on the One Nation Under God CD.

Later that year, Hovis performed with Mississippi Rising – The Concert in Support of the Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts (October 2005). Additionally, he has volunteered with veterans’ organizations, the March of Dimes, and the American Cancer Society. Jackson voted him “Volunteer of the Year.”

As an entertainer, Guy has recorded fifteen albums, Christmas Songs I Love: Hymns and Gospel Favorites, and Inspirational, to name a couple. He was inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame in 2021.

Hovis has been a celebrity on game shows, performed for national charity telethons, and appeared in commercials. Other shows include The Dinah Shore Show, The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and The Mike Douglas Show. Locally, audiences may have seen Hovis at the Mississippi State Fair – during the Senior American America Day, churches and retirement homes, and private and corporate events.

Wunnerful, Wunnerful!

Take some time to listen to “A Conversation with Guy Hovis,” an interview with Jim Ritchie, posted on YouTube on July 18, 2022. The interview ends with Guy playing the guitar and singing “Mississippi This is Your Song.”

The official website for Guy Hovis is www.guyhovismusic.com.

As I write this, I can’t help but wonder how often Guy Hovis sang his signature song, “Adios, Au Revoir, Aufwiedersehn?”

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Read original article by clicking here.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune.

• Hovis, an icon and heartthrob, was a mainstay on The Lawrence Welk Show. He later became the state director for U.S. Senator Trent Lott.

Before I was born, The Lawrence Welk Show was!

The Lawrence Welk Show began as a local program on KTLA, the flagship station of the Paramount Television Network, in Los Angeles on May 11, 1951. The big band leader had his musical variety show on this station for four years. Then, the program went national on ABC for the next 16 years, from 1955 to 1971. The program was syndicated from 1971 to 1982.

Everything stopped in my home when The Lawrence Welk Show aired on Saturday nights. My father’s favorite person on the program was not Lawrence Welk, but Jo Ann Castle. She was known as a honky-tonk pianist. When she performed, Dad would tell me to observe her hands. I didn’t know why, except maybe he wanted me to play the piano like her one day. Didn’t happen. Mom also had her favorites, The Lennon Sisters, Norma Zimmer, Jim Roberts, and the dance team of Cissy King and Bobby Burgess. However, when Guy Hovis became a part of the show’s line-up, he became her “very favorite,” maybe even her heartthrob.

I realize if you are younger than 50, you may not be familiar with The Lawrence Welk Show. It is known for its range of music, from polkas to classics; it has reached an audience of 40 million. It was a “wunnerful show” and brought fame for Guy Lee Hovis, Jr. that he could have never imagined.

How did he become a part of this well-loved program?

Beginnings in Tupelo

The city of Tupelo is known as the birthplace of Elvis Presley. But it is also the birthplace of Guy Hovis — two icons. Elvis was born on January 8, 1935, and Guy was born on September 24, 1941.

Guy’s father, Guy Lee Hovis, Sr., became an original member of the Mississippi Highway Patrol (created in 1938). His mother, Frances Filgo Hovis, had the reputation of being the “best cook in the world” and worked for thirty years as a secretary. The family were members of Harrisburg Baptist Church.

Guy Lee Hovis, Jr. developed a strong interest and love for music at home and through Harrisburg Baptist Church. Beginning at age five and throughout his formative years, he sang at church, in a gospel quartet, at weddings, at civic clubs, and other events. He is also a guitarist.

As a student at the University of Mississippi, he continued his musical interests while pursuing a degree in accounting, graduating in 1963. It was while at Ole Miss that he formed the musical group known as the Chancellors. The members were Allen Pepper, Trent Lott, and Gaylen Roberts. In 2010, the Ole Miss quartet reunited at the wedding of Guy’s daughter, Julie.

While at Ole Miss, Guy was in R.O.T.C. Six months after graduation, he enlisted in the military, and spent the next two years serving as an officer with the U.S. Army at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He became an instructor in the Artillery Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill and went to paratrooper school at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Towards the end of his military service, he entered a talent show and won. Hovis went on a six-week tour with the Fourth Army. On the tour, not only did he perform, but he served as the officer in charge. The show business bug had bitten.

Instead of pursuing show business further, he returned to college to obtain his master’s degree and prepare for the CPA exam. But, after the first semester, he decided to leave college and pursue performing.

“Ah-One, Ah-Two” for an Aspiring Performer

In 1974, Guy Hovis hosted The Lawrence Welk Show – Tribute to Famous Entertainers from 1974.

On the show, he referenced how he and Elvis Presley grew up in the same hometown. Guy told the story of how he got a close-up look at Elvis because his father was assigned to his security detail.

Guy recollects, “Now, let me tell you, he needed security. I’ve never seen anything like the way the girls reacted to Elvis. It was amazing: screaming, crying, trying to touch him. All the guys were really jealous. I hate to admit this, but I’m sure that experience had a little something to do with my eventual pursuit of show business.”

A friend, actor Tom Lester (“Eb” from Green Acres), advised Guy to go to Santa Monica and try to perform at a nightclub called The Horn, owned by Enrico (Ric) Ricardo. If you were an aspiring performer, The Horn was the place to showcase your talent. Jim Nabors, Jack Jones, and Steven Martin were some of the people who started there.

Eventually, he met David (King) Blaylock, and they became singing partners. Then, the producer of the CBS program, the Art Linkletter House Party Show, heard Guy sing and put him on the show. He appeared on about a dozen shows during 1967. When that ended, he and David formed “Guy & David.” They spent two years appearing on television shows and nightclubs across the country, and they recorded an album with ABC Records.

Also, while at The Horn, he met Ralna English and married in 1969. She became a regular on The Lawrence Welk Show. Then, on a Christmas program in 1970, Guy and Ralna sang a duet. The response from viewers was so positive that Mr. Welk invited Guy to join the Welk musical family. Guy and Ralna remained a duo on the show until their marriage ended in 1984 in a divorce.

In the following years, Guy and Ralna continued to perform at events throughout the United States, including The Welk Resort Theatre in Branson, Missouri, until 2020. In 1973, their show at the Mississippi State Fair at the Jackson Fairgrounds brought the largest crowd the fair had ever had. Senator Trent Lott, in the audience, was invited by Ralna to join her on stage to do some high kicks with her while she sang, “New York, New York.”

Patriot and Entertainer

In 1990, Guy moved back to Mississippi. It wasn’t long before he took on a full-time job as the director of the six state offices for Senator Trent Lott—a different world and experience from being a performer.

At the Monmouth Plantation in Natchez, on February 16, 2002, Guy Lee Hovis, Jr. married Sarah (Sis) Lundy Moorehead. In an interview from “Welknotes,” Guy shared, “Sis is taking a crash course in ‘Lawrence Welk’ because she didn’t watch the television show until she started dating me.”

The couple resides in Jackson.

Guy sang “Let the Eagle Soar” at the Presidential Inauguration Ceremony in Washington, D.C., for the second term of President George Bush in 2005. I highly recommend you click on the link and listen. Another more precise-sounding source is an onstage performance from MusicMaker 1979. He recorded the song on the One Nation Under God CD.

Later that year, Hovis performed with Mississippi Rising – The Concert in Support of the Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts (October 2005). Additionally, he has volunteered with veterans’ organizations, the March of Dimes, and the American Cancer Society. Jackson voted him “Volunteer of the Year.”

As an entertainer, Guy has recorded fifteen albums, Christmas Songs I Love: Hymns and Gospel Favorites, and Inspirational, to name a couple. He was inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame in 2021.

Hovis has been a celebrity on game shows, performed for national charity telethons, and appeared in commercials. Other shows include The Dinah Shore Show, The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and The Mike Douglas Show. Locally, audiences may have seen Hovis at the Mississippi State Fair – during the Senior American America Day, churches and retirement homes, and private and corporate events.

Wunnerful, Wunnerful!

Take some time to listen to “A Conversation with Guy Hovis,” an interview with Jim Ritchie, posted on YouTube on July 18, 2022. The interview ends with Guy playing the guitar and singing “Mississippi This is Your Song.”

The official website for Guy Hovis is www.guyhovismusic.com.

As I write this, I can’t help but wonder how often Guy Hovis sang his signature song, “Adios, Au Revoir, Aufwiedersehn?”

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Read original article by clicking here.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune.

• We wait eagerly for adoption as sons. – Romans 8:23

Even in this world saints are God’s children, but the only way that people will discover this is by certain moral characteristics. The adoption is not displayed; the children are not yet openly declared. Among the Romans a man might adopt a child and keep it private for a long time; but there was a second adoption in public; when the child was brought before the constituted authorities, its old clothes were removed, and the father who took it to be his child gave it clothing suitable to its new status in life. “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared.” We are not yet clothed in the apparel of heaven’s royal family; we are wearing in this flesh and blood just what we wore as the children of Adam. But we know that “when he appears” who is “the firstborn among many brothers,” we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.

Can’t you imagine that a child taken from the lowest ranks of society and adopted by a Roman senator would say to himself, “I long for the day when I shall be publicly adopted. Then I shall discard these poor clothes and be dressed in clothes that depict my senatorial rank”? Glad for what he has already received, he still groans until he gets the fullness of what has been promised to him. So it is with us today. We are waiting until we put on our proper clothes and are declared as the children of God for all to see. We are young nobles and have not yet worn our crowns. We are young brides, and the marriage day has not arrived, but our fiancé’s love for us leads us to long and sigh for the bridal morning. Our very happiness makes us long for more; our joy, like a swollen stream, longs to spring up like a fountain, leaping to the skies, heaving and groaning within our spirit for lack of space and room by which to reveal itself to men.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Read original article by clicking here.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune.

• We wait eagerly for adoption as sons. – Romans 8:23

Even in this world saints are God’s children, but the only way that people will discover this is by certain moral characteristics. The adoption is not displayed; the children are not yet openly declared. Among the Romans a man might adopt a child and keep it private for a long time; but there was a second adoption in public; when the child was brought before the constituted authorities, its old clothes were removed, and the father who took it to be his child gave it clothing suitable to its new status in life. “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared.” We are not yet clothed in the apparel of heaven’s royal family; we are wearing in this flesh and blood just what we wore as the children of Adam. But we know that “when he appears” who is “the firstborn among many brothers,” we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.

Can’t you imagine that a child taken from the lowest ranks of society and adopted by a Roman senator would say to himself, “I long for the day when I shall be publicly adopted. Then I shall discard these poor clothes and be dressed in clothes that depict my senatorial rank”? Glad for what he has already received, he still groans until he gets the fullness of what has been promised to him. So it is with us today. We are waiting until we put on our proper clothes and are declared as the children of God for all to see. We are young nobles and have not yet worn our crowns. We are young brides, and the marriage day has not arrived, but our fiancé’s love for us leads us to long and sigh for the bridal morning. Our very happiness makes us long for more; our joy, like a swollen stream, longs to spring up like a fountain, leaping to the skies, heaving and groaning within our spirit for lack of space and room by which to reveal itself to men.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Read original article by clicking here.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune.

• Top drum corps from around the country will compete at The University of Southern Mississippi’s M.M. Roberts Stadium on July 24th.

The Drum Corps International (DCI) Tour returns to Hattiesburg on Wednesday, July 24 for the 2024 edition of DCI Southern Mississippi.

Top corps from around the country will compete at The University of Southern Mississippi’s M.M. Roberts Stadium during this always-exciting event starting at 7:30 p.m.

Featured corps include the Madison Scouts from Madison, Wisconsin; the Spirit of Atlanta, from Atlanta, Georgia: Pacific Crest, from City of Industry, California; the Boston Crusaders from Boston, Massachusetts; the Crossmen, from San Antonio, Texas.; the Phantom Regiment from Rockford, Illinois; The Academy, from Tempe, Arizona; and the Blue Devils from Concord, California.

Tickets are available at dci.org. Tickets for the event start at $35 online. Tickets will also be sold at the stadium box office on the day of the show at a higher price.  Special group rates available by calling Brian Fisher at (727) 460-6431.

According to an event release, the show, hosted by The Pride of Mississippi Marching Band at Southern Miss, features more than 1,000 student musicians and performers from across the country in this entertaining and competitive event. Prospective, current students and alums from the Southern Miss School of Music continually spend their summers participating in DCI. Hundreds of thousands of young musicians and dancers audition for the corps across the country and only a small percentage make the cut.

The kickoff of DCI’s second half century brings the life-enriching benefits and enjoyment of marching music performing arts to people worldwide. They create a stage for participating organizations to engage in education, competition, entertainment, and the promotion of individual growth.

This article first appeared on the Magnolia Tribune and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Read original article by clicking here.

A massive global tech outage this morning does not appear to be significantly affecting Mississippi’s critical infrastructure, with state and private entities reporting limited local consequences from one of the largest cybersecurity outages in modern history.

The tech outage has affected innumerable businesses and public systems across the world, grounded thousands of flights across the U.S. alone and even temporarily disabled 911 services in some states. Across the country, hospitals have been forced to cancel surgeries and medical visits as entire departments have ground to a halt.

But thus far, Mississippi’s civil and emergency infrastructure appears unharmed by the mass outages, with state agencies reporting no disruption to regular services following the outage. The extent to which the outages may have affected private businesses across the state is unclear, however.

At the heart of the global tech outage is Falcon Sensor, a suite of programs developed by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike’s programs are widely used across civil and private infrastructure globally. In 2021, analysts estimated that nearly half of all Fortune 500 companies were CrowdStrike customers.

A “misconfigured/corrupted update” pushed to CrowdStrike customers across the world appears to have caused a staggeringly high number of computers and systems to enter a failure loop, with computers displaying the “blue screen of death” and affected systems simply not working even after being rebooted.

In many cases, affected users must personally edit the faulty update, removing the corrupted files, a hypothetically simple but manual process that, for sufficiently complex systems, could take serious effort to replace and repair.

The Mississippi Free Press reached out to multiple government agencies, businesses, infrastructure and health systems across the state. Fortunately for Mississippi, little serious disruption to critical services are occurring.

And those problems that do exist are mostly due to remote services experiencing failures. Mississippi Baptist Medical System in Jackson reported ongoing issues with some IT services, still persisting into the afternoon. Due to the complexity of the network of software underlying modern health systems, it is difficult to predict when the lingering issues may all be resolved.

Chief administrative

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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi legislators, not the courts, must decide whether to change the state’s practice of stripping voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies, including nonviolent crimes such as forgery and timber theft, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The state’s original list of disenfranchising crimes springs from the Jim Crow era, and attorneys who sued to challenge the list say authors of the Mississippi Constitution removed voting rights for crimes they thought Black people were more likely to commit.

James K. Vardaman, one of the drafters of Mississippi’s 1890 Constitution, explained the goal afterward: “There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter … Mississippi’s constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the n–ger from politics. Not the ‘ignorant and vicious’, as some of the apologists would have you believe, but the n–ger.” 

Read the 5th Circuit’s ruling. ” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/gov.uscourts.ca5_.190884.307.1-1.jpg?fit=219%2C300&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/gov.uscourts.ca5_.190884.307.1-1.jpg?fit=747%2C1024&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” src=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/gov.uscourts.ca5_.190884.307.1-1.jpg?resize=747%2C1024&ssl=1″ alt class=”wp-image-44969″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/gov.uscourts.ca5_.190884.307.1-1.jpg?resize=747%2C1024&ssl=1 747w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/gov.uscourts.ca5_.190884.307.1-1.jpg?resize=219%2C300&ssl=1 219w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/gov.uscourts.ca5_.190884.307.1-1.jpg?resize=768%2C1053&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/gov.uscourts.ca5_.190884.307.1-1.jpg?resize=400%2C549&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/gov.uscourts.ca5_.190884.307.1-1.jpg?w=875&ssl=1 875w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/gov.uscourts.ca5_.190884.307.1-1-747×1024.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 747px) 100vw, 747px” data-recalc-dims=”1″>Read the 5th Circuit’s ruling.

A majority of judges on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote on Thursday that the Supreme Court in 1974 reaffirmed constitutional law allowing states to disenfranchise felons.

“Do the hard work of persuading your fellow citizens that the law should change,” the majority wrote.

Nineteen judges of the appeals court heard arguments in January, months after vacating a ruling issued last August by a three-judge panel of the same court. The panel had said Mississippi’s ban on voting after certain crimes violates the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

In the ruling Thursday, dissenting judges wrote that the majority stretched the previous Supreme Court ruling “beyond all recognition.” The dissenting judges wrote that Mississippi’s practice of disenfranchising people who have completed their sentences is cruel and unusual.

Tens of thousands of Mississippi residents are disenfranchised under a part of the state constitution that says those convicted of 10 specific felonies, including bribery, theft, arson and bigamy, lose the right to vote.

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Senator Roger Wicker is calling on the head of the U.S. Secret Service to resign following the assassination attempt on former U.S. president and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday.

The Republican lawmaker who calls Mississippi home criticized Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle for her demeanor following the shooting that Trump narrowly survived, per ballistics experts.

“The American people are still trying to make sense of the shocking assassination attempt on President Trump. A security failure of that magnitude demands honest answers and swift accountability,” Wicker said in a press release. “Unfortunately, the Director of the Secret Service has not been properly forthcoming about the events leading up to the crisis in Pennsylvania.”

According to Wicker, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Cheatle as well as other federal security leaders have been evading lawmakers’ inquiries about the events that ultimately led up to 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks opening fire on the former commander-in-chief before being killed by a counter-sniper.

The senator said that when he and colleagues were briefed on the events leading up to the assassination attempt, security leaders only fielded a few questions and shut down the briefing rather quickly.

“The rest of our questions must be answered. Straightforward explanations of what went wrong would help fill in gaps in our understanding of the tragedy. Proper accountability would also help,” Wicker added. “For the Secret Service to begin repairing trust with the public, its director must resign. Despite the obvious breakdown in protection, she has refused to step down.”

It has since come to light that law enforcement had eyes on the shooter, who climbed atop a building roughly 130 yards away from the stage Trump was speaking from at the Butler, Pa. rally, roughly an hour before shots were fired. Posts circulated on social media of rallygoers pointing Crooks out to law enforcement at the scene. Reports have even surfaced that a policeman climbed atop the building, just to take cover after Crooks allegedly pointed his weapon at the officer.

Amid all the latest updates from what was nearly

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A year after an Indianola, Miss., police officer shot her 11-year-old son, Aderrien Murry, in the chest, NaKala Murry filed a state lawsuit against the Indianola Police Department, Officer Greg Capers, Police Chief Ronald Sampson, dispatcher Jada Rush and “John Doe Officers 1-5.”

Around 4 a.m. on May 20, 2023, the lawsuit says the father of one of Nakala Murry’s children unexpectedly visited the Murry residence, so she told Aderrien Murry to call the police for help because she was concerned about the safety of her and her children.

Read the lawsuit ” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Indianola-State-Lawsuit-1.jpg?fit=232%2C300&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Indianola-State-Lawsuit-1.jpg?fit=780%2C1010&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” src=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Indianola-State-Lawsuit-1.jpg?resize=780%2C1010&ssl=1″ alt=”Indianola Lawsuit” class=”wp-image-44897″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Indianola-State-Lawsuit-1.jpg?resize=791%2C1024&ssl=1 791w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Indianola-State-Lawsuit-1.jpg?resize=232%2C300&ssl=1 232w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Indianola-State-Lawsuit-1.jpg?resize=768%2C994&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Indianola-State-Lawsuit-1.jpg?resize=400%2C518&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Indianola-State-Lawsuit-1.jpg?w=927&ssl=1 927w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Indianola-State-Lawsuit-1-791×1024.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px” data-recalc-dims=”1″>Read the lawsuit

Capers arrived at the house shortly after with his gun drawn and told everyone to come outside, the lawsuit continues. It says Aderrien Murry was walking down the hallway that led to the living room when Capers shot the third grader in the chest.

“Defendant Capers failed to assess the situation before displaying and/or discharging his firearm,” the lawsuit says.

A grand jury decided not to indict Capers on criminal charges for the shooting in December 2023.

“From Officer Capers’ standpoint, we’re glad the grand jury met and followed the law as applied to the evidence that was before them. I believe they reached the right result,” Capers’ attorney Michael Carr told the Mississippi Free Press on Dec. 14, 2023.

Murray Suffered Collapsed Lung, Lacerated Liver

After the May 2023 shooting, Aderrien Murry had to stay at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Miss., for about four days to treat his collapsed lung, lacerated liver and fractured ribs, the lawsuit says.

Nakala Murry’s attorney Carlos Moore filed the lawsuit for her and Aderrien Murry in the Sunflower County Circuit Court on May 20. The Murrys are asking for $5 million in damages if the court resolves the case in their favor.

Aderrien Murry shows a bandage on his chest after the May 2023 shooting. Photo courtesy Carlos Moore ” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Aderrien-Murry-bandage_courtesy-Carlos-Moore.jpg?fit=229%2C300&ssl=1″

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