County supervisors accept flag donation, approve striping project

THOMAS HOWARD |, The Meridian Star, Miss.
·3 min read

Oct. 16—The Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors on Monday accepted a new American flag donated by the Stronger Together Foundation and Woodman Life and moved forward on road improvement projects.

The Stronger Together Foundation was founded in 2021 by local veterans Mike Couch and Eric Smith in response to statistics showing 22 veterans commit suicide every day. Couch said Stronger Together works to help the affected families of those veterans and offer them support.

"What we do is we unite families that's been affected by suicide and supply them with community support and resources to move on with their lives," he said.

Couch said the foundation's ultimate goal is to reduce that 22 per day number. Recently, the Stronger Together Foundation has been donating flags to local businesses as a way to raise awareness about the foundation's cause, bring some publicity to local small businesses and instill patriotism back into the community.

"Every time we get an opportunity to speak out, we do," he said.

Couch said the flag, which was presented to both the Board of Supervisors and the veterans of Lauderdale County, is intended to be flown in front of the new government center on 22nd Avenue once the county's move into the new space is complete.

Road Striping

In other business, supervisors moved forward with a project to stripe several roads throughout the county that have recently been resurfaced. Road Manager Rush Mayatt said the $180,947.20 quote from McCraney Striping would cover 10 roads the county had fog sealed.

Roads included on the list for striping included Collinsville Road, Wildcat Road, Church Road, Hitt Road, Okatibee Dam Road, Woods Road, Brown Hooke Road, Fellowship Road, Campground Road and Fred Clayton Road.

The work will be done under the county's current term bid for striping with McCraney Striping.

Mayatt said he had also received word APAC is beginning to mobilize its equipment to set to work on an asphalt overlay package the county previously awarded. As with the striping package, the overlay work cover multiple roads.

Supervisors previously awarded a roughly 17-mile paving package to APAC in June at a cost of about $3.7 million.

Supervisor Kyle Rutledge said he couldn't remember a board term, which runs for four years, that the county had completed as much road striping as it has this term. The county, he said, has pushed hard to get striping work completed.

Supervisor Wayman Newell agreed with Rutledge adding the striping, with the addition of reflectors installed along several county roads, have received good feedback from residents. The county is fortunate to have Mayatt as road manager, he said.

"I think you deserve a lot of the credit, Rush," he said.

Also on Monday, the Board of Supervisors:

—Authorized the sheriff's department to apply for a project safe neighborhood grant, which will be used to install cameras at county school campuses.

—Approved having the board president discuss a potential change order with the county's moving service, Mighty Movers, to relocate seating inside the courthouse courtrooms, disassemble racks at Archives and History and reassemble the racks in the seating-free courtrooms, which will be used for storage.

—Designated the new Lauderdale County Government Complex as the Lauderdale County Courthouse and re-designating the Lauderdale County Courthouse on Constitution Avenue as the Lauderdale County Department of Archives and History. The change is effective as of Monday, Oct. 16.

Contact Thomas Howard at thoward@themeridianstar.com