I moved to Warren County about 22 years ago. My children had finished high school, so I had no reason to be involved in the school system, other than paying taxes. If my memory is correct the county and city schools had combined a couple of years before, and then a couple of years later, gambling was voted in. I voted for gambling because, I was told, it would mean extra money for the school systems, and I also understood that combining the schools, would save money and provide a better school system.
With that said, I am an angry grandparent!! I have six grandchildren in the state of Mississippi and have the opportunity to visit different high school campuses around the state. Recently I attended the junior high football game at Warren Central. I was totally disgusted at our Warren Central campus and stadium! What in the world has happened to the money from county taxpayers and the extra from gambling? I can’t believe that there has not been enough money to keep and improve our campus, since the other nice campuses I visited have smaller tax bases!
I was embarrassed! Other campuses have ticket booths to sell tickets; Warren Central was selling tickets from a pickup that was probably provided by the security guard who was selling the tickets! The security guard shacks, made from cheap plywood with two portable potties beside them, are a disgrace for a high school in a county of our tax base and the first thing you see of the campus. The stands though old were not too bad except we had to sit with what appeared to be last week’s ball game peanut shells and trash scattered below our feet!
Sports are not the most important thing to this grandmother, BUT how do we expect our children to have any pride when our stadium and campus looks this way? If this is how our stadium appears, how does the inside of our schools look? And we wonder why we lose families to Clinton!
School board and board of supervisors, how could you allow us to look so bad??? Please don’t start with the “not enough money excuse” – several of the schools I have attended have a tax base that is smaller than our school district. I would not be nearly as upset if our schools were exceeding in the classrooms – but we are failing in that area too!
 Joelyn James
Vicksburg