Christmas comes to Rolling Fork, ready or not
It is hard to imagine many places that could be facing a bleaker Christmas and holiday season than Rolling Fork.
Except Natalie Perkins and Amy George will have nothing of it.
With those two at the helm, rest assured Christmas cheer will flow in Deer Creek and throughout the streets of the Mississippi Delta town that was routed March 24 by an EF-4 tornado, leaving 14 dead and nearly obliterating the place.
As editor/publisher and staff writer, respectively, of the enterprise whose name implies leadership, Perkins’ and George’s task is to lead the way toward recovery and raise spirits in the 1,700-population governmental seat of Sharkey County.
The Deer Creek Pilot, a weekly newspaper founded in 1877, has never wavered from its serious duties since the twister’s arrival carrying winds of 200 miles per hour.
The ghost of the newspaper’s late editor, Ray Mosby, would never permit Perkins, George, or any other citizen of Rolling Fork, to give up and accept the disaster’s circumstances. Giving up is not in the South Delta’s composition.
Mosby, a longtime reporter for his hometown paper, the Clarksdale Press-Register, bought the Pilot in the early 1990s and died in 2021. He was known for his dogged pursuit of the news and the truth while editor.
Perkins, who doubles as Sharkey County’s emergency management director, and George have precisely followed Mosby’s legacy with a straightforward news report and forceful opinion pieces concerning the disaster.
Their offerings include a healthy dose of optimism and love for their readers who face the hard road ahead.
The city annually hosts a fall festival, the Great Delta Bear Affair, that celebrates then-President Teddy Roosevelt’s 1902 bear hunting escapade on Smede Plantation in Sharkey County. The creation of the “Teddy Bear” toy was inspired from that hunt.
There was talk of dropping the 2023 festival due to the ongoing tornado recovery. Didn’t happen.
“This year, I will be extra proud of Rolling Fork,” George wrote in her Oct. 26 newspaper column. “If any town had an excuse to call off its annual festival, it’s this one. Up until a few weeks ago we weren’t even sure we were going to have electricity for the stage and sound system.
“But this town is home to some of the most amazing and resilient people I’ve ever met. We have survived a devastating tornado and with the help of God we are slowly picking up the pieces and putting our community back together again. This is truly something to celebrate.”
The theme of the event was appropriately “Bearly there but building back!”
Somewhere, Ray Mosby — and forthright Pilot editors Hal and Carolyn Decell before him — must be smiling.
The damage Rolling Fork suffered is too extensive to detail here. They’ve had the routine controversies that follow natural disasters, like questions about outsiders hired to handle certain recovery tasks, but there’s been a rash of good news, too.
A recent Pilot issue told of Virginia disaster group God’s Pit Crew building replacement homes for two local families hit by the storm.
Houses and businesses damaged by the tornado are being rebuilt, including Chuck’s Dairy Bar, a local institution if one exists. Sharkey-Issaquena Academy won the State 8-Man football championship.
Perkins wrote, “They (SIA team) have seen tragedy. They know heartbreak. They know what it takes to overcome and rise above.” South Delta High School’s team also made the public school state playoffs.
Perkins and George are finding the news, the good and the bad, and reporting it back to the community — or, as the Pilot’s front-page motto asserts, “Guiding the South Delta for 146 years.”
— Mac Gordon, a retired newspaperman, is a native of McComb. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Christmas comes to Rolling Fork MS after tornadoes damaged town
