Posts by julie

Though classes for the 2024-2025 academic year are just underway, preparation for the Advanced Placement courses students are taking through the Global Teaching Project’s Advanced STEM Access Program began in earnest in June at Mississippi State University.

Photos from the Summer Program show the enthusiasm for learning our students demonstrated, and the excitement they showed in being in the company of other promising students from rural Mississippi.  The photos also show the level of engagement of our instructors and tutors (who this year came from Georgia Tech, Harvard, Illinois, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Northeastern, Notre Dame, Virginia, and Yale.)

GTP’s Summer Program, now in its eighth year, provides immersive instruction to promising high school students who reside on campus and prepare for the rigor of the AP Biology, AP Computer Science Principles, AP Physics 1, and AP Statistics classes they will take through GTP in the upcoming school year.  The Summer Program is provided free of charge to students, and uses no state or local funds.

We look forward to building upon the work begun in Starkville, and to a productive year of learning ahead.

GTP’s Advanced STEM Access Program provides promising students from rural Mississippi communities access to advanced STEM courses they need to achieve their full potential, but which their schools otherwise may not be able to offer. 

The Quitman County Economic & Tourism Department will be presenting the latest news and development on projects coming in the future to Quitman County. This is a public forum to hear updates and provide feedback on projects related to infrastructure, housing, broadband, and tourism.

Click Here to view/download PDF

As part of our their Advanced STEM Winter Program, the Global Teaching Project hosted Civil Rights veteran Ms. Velma Benson Wilson.  She spoke with their students about her experience walking with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when she was herself a high school student in Quitman County, as well as about her current efforts as a Quitman County administrator to commemorate the Marks Mule Train, which Dr. King launched there.

Global Teaching Project’s Winter Program seeks to affirm the nexus between Civil Rights and educational opportunity—in learning from leaders like Ms. Wilson, their hope is that students will be encouraged to build upon the work of earlier generations.

View Presentation  >>>

(MARKS, MS) It is miraculous! The local stakeholders and residents of Quitman County are awaiting the highly-anticipated reopening and ribbon cutting ceremony of the county’s rural access hospital, scheduled for November 12, 2021 at 10:30 a.m.

See Photo Gallery of the Grand Opening HERE.

When the Quitman County rural critical access hospital closed in 2016, it was a devastating blow to the community. Clamoring for hope, Marks/Quitman County, Miss. recently got a full-service grocery store back and has set its sights on local tourism, especially with the 2018 grand opening of the Amtrak station in Marks. Caught by a vision for renewal, a local hospital operator approached the County leaders with a message, “Let’s re-open the hospital and bring back jobs so that we can save lives.” Quentin Whitwell grew up in Oxford some forty miles away and with two business partners saved the bankrupt neighboring hospital in Batesville, Panola Medical Center, in March 2019 when that facility was set to close at midnight. He saw Quitman County as an outpost that needed robust healthcare services. Having served in the State capital city of Jackson as a City Councilman, rural healthcare came naturally — help people in service.

Marks, is the county seat of Quitman County, a small rural town with less than 2,000 residents, has a deep-roots in agriculture and civil rights history. Marks/Quitman County served as the starting point of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s Poor People’s Campaign in 1968, an effort to gain economic justice for those who suffered from poverty. Due to this national civil rights history, Quitman County is  designated as part of the Mississippi Freedom Trail. In 2011, Marks was selected from over 200 sites viewed as one of the thirty locations in Mississippi to receive a historical marker by the Mississippi Freedom Trail Task Force.

Many of its current residents live below the poverty line. Because of out-migration, the land and its people have suffered in recent years. Healthcare is scarce, and the local hospital closed in October of 2016. COVID-19 has wrecked the area boasting 1,042 cases and 27 deaths this year as the aptly named “Delta variant” swept through its population.

The Panola Med team partnered with the Board of Supervisors to establish Quitman Community Hospital. To the board, it is a statement to take back their community and restore it to its glory. For Quentin, it’s a message that nothing is impossible when people work together, and local bank President Peyton Self did not hesitate to answer the call. Armed with a one-million-dollar loan secured by the County and provided by the Citizens Bank of Marks, Quitman Community Hospital will open its doors again fully functioning as a medical-surgical hospital with an around-the-clock Emergency Department.

Racing ahead, the Panola Med team has hired nurses and providers, techs, and staff. Over 500 applicants have sent in resumes from locals to as far as Boston. The old hospital has been restored with supplies, equipment, and beds. By meeting the State and Federal guidelines of a critical access hospital, the City of Marks and Quitman County are poised for a brighter future.

The phone number for the new Quitman Community Hospital is 662-388-0700.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 8,  2021

Quentin Whitwell, CEO Panola Med
662-388-0700
www.panolamed.com

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https://apnews.com/article/mississippi-health-8bce0975bf60e5cd942e6d492b22b5de

https://www.fox13memphis.com/news/local/north-mississippi-hospital-reopens-after-shutting-down-5-years-ago/2WD25EUZ75G25CQQKSAM4RC7OM/

https://www.actionnews5.com/2021/11/13/bridging-great-health-divide-hospital-reopens-medically-underserved-town-marks-mississippi/

https://www.wreg.com/news/mid-south/quitman-countys-only-hospital-reopens/

https://mississippitoday.org/2021/11/12/quitman-county-hospital-reopens/