With his mother Patricia in the audience, Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann came home Wednesday.

The Vicksburg native and St. Aloysius alum was the guest speaker at the July Vicksburg Warren County Chamber of Commerce luncheon, held at the Vicksburg Convention Center.

In the midst of a re-election campaign that will be resolved in the November general election, Hosemann spent his time Wednesday recounting stories of home that helped shape his philosophies and career.

“Early on, I had a job at Helen’s Florist. My job was to deliver the sprays and arrangements to the churches for weddings and to other events,” he said. “And on this one occasion, I popped the clutch a little too much and sent the arrangements falling in the back of the truck. I quickly went and got Mrs. Helen.

“She told me that they had to be redone. She said ‘You need to know that when we have to redo these, that takes away from any profit. There’s not a lot of profit in these as it is,’” Hosemann said. “So very early, that taught me something about hard work, how tough it is in business.”

As he continued detailing his early jobs, which included Brown Cigar and the A&P, Hosemann kept coming back to how the lessons learned from those small business owners in those early jobs gave him the understanding for what would become a very pro-business mindset as secretary of state.

Hosemann touted the agency’s award-winning website, making his office one of the most advanced agencies of its kind in the country.

“We no longer take paper,” Hosemann said of his office. “What used to take two weeks, now takes someone just two minutes.”

Hosemann also hinted at the upcoming unveiling of a new website from his office, one focused on building and promoting business development in Mississippi. The site, he said, would give those wanting to start or locate a business in Mississippi every bit of information and any statistic they could need to get their business started.

And while his comments Wednesday were a list of accomplishments and awards his department has achieved and earned in the past seven years, Hosemann made sure to end telling a recent encounter with a Washington-based journalist, looking to write a piece some would see as critical of Mississippi.

“Let me as you a question,” Hosemann said, recounting his conversation. “Do you drive a car? Because there’s a good chance it was built in Mississippi. Do you wear clothes? Because the cotton they are made with very likely came from Mississippi. Do you like to eat? Because there’s a one in 10 chance the chicken you enjoyed was raised in Mississippi. Do you like music, rock and roll?”

The August chamber luncheon will be held Wednesday, Aug. 18 at the Vicksburg Convention Center. The guest speaker for that meeting will be Vicksburg Warren School District Superintendent Chad Shealy. For information on purchasing tickets, contact the chamber of commerce’s office at 601-636-1012.