Hometown Rankin - February & May 2015

Q This year marks a pretty monumental year for the
Dixie National Rodeo. Please tell us a little bit about what
you’ve got planned to celebrate that milestone.
Q With three years now under your belt as commissioner,
what are some things that have stuck out to you during
your time here?
A Of course right now the major memory-maker is the Ag
Museum fire. We had a substantial fire on November 13th
and are still in the process of dealing with all the details and
tremendous task of cleaning up and preparing to rebuild the
structures we lost. Although it was quite significant, it could
have been much worse.
At our agency, we are concentrating on our regulatory
duties and the advantages of technology to help us be more
efficient and of better service to the state. Because we deal
with disasters such as hurricanes and tornadoes, when
grocery stores and gas stations are affected, we now have
GPS locater systems for all of those facilities we inspect
so we can get them reopened as soon as possible. Many
times there are no road signs left standing and this will be a
very helpful, too. We now have an app for the MS Farmers
Market, the Dixie National Rodeo, and the MS State Fair.
I have also been extremely busy working to improve
the coliseum. We have plans to approach the legislature
for funding of a new Trade Mart and total renovations for
the coliseum. We currently have a new stage thanks to a
very generous donation from Southern Ag Credit. Using
money we received for ADA, we have new restrooms
being completed inside the coliseum as well as renovated
concession stands. We are also installing a very muchneeded
second elevator for our fans requiring special access.
We had a record attendance of over 700,000 people attend
the state fair in October and they got to enjoy our brand new
restrooms on the midway.
A It’s a very special year for The Dixie National Rodeo
and we’ve got a lot of really cool things planned this year
to celebrate that. We will have a gala at the Mississippi
Trade Mart on February 10th that’ll be really nostalgic as
we will have rodeo queens and Miss Rodeo America’s from
years' past attending, in addition to information regarding
the first family who first started the rodeo. We will also
have old pictures of the rodeo displayed with various
commemorative items such as belt buckles. We just finished
the program for the gala and we’re excited to have The
Bellamy Brothers perform as well. There’s been a lot of work
that’s been put into it making this year’s gala special and all
I can say is that I’m very excited about it.
As we summed up our interview, Cindy ended with a quote
that’s all too fitting of the Dixie National Rodeo when she
said, “It’s been a ride. It really has.”
Thank you for your time, Commissioner, and we can’t
wait to celebrate with you. ■
26 • February / March 2015