NSK WESSMAN

Patriotically attired Tom Johnson of Bedford Care Center in Newton won the men’s Best Dressed competition.

Red, white, and blue with stars and stripes aplenty peppered the Mississippi Trade Mart just weeks before the 2007 general election.

Decorations, costumes, and prizes reflected everything patriotic, everything political, at the Mississippi Health Care Foundation (MHCF) Residents’ Convention.

Some 400 people who live in nursing homes and their caregivers from Holly Springs to Leakesville and all points in between took part in “Political Rally,” the third annual convention. MHCF offers the event in collaboration with Mississippi Health Care Association (MHCA), with Don Causey, State Farm agent of Ridgeland, as primary 2007 sponsor. Additional sponsors were Walter B. Crook Nursing Facility and North Sunflower Medical Center.

The whole day was designed to be a fun-filled showcase of life and vitality among the residents and their caregivers, explained C. W. “Tripp” Francis, MHCA president and MHCF board member.

“Every year gets better — and more residents and staff actually compete to get to come,” he said.

Residents’ convention planners limit registration to the first 200 nursing home residents and accompanying staff and/or volunteers. Each facility — representing an association membership of 176 different homes — can bring no more than five residents.

Conventioneers this year heard speeches from gubernatorial candidates Haley Barbour and John Arthur Eaves and from Phil Bryant, candidate for lieutenant governor, and Jim Hood, attorney general candidate.

But the un-challenged show-stopper and most popular person beyond participants this year was Miss Mississippi, Kimberly Nicole Morgan. Throughout the several hours the 24-year-old beauty queen and scholarship winner from Oxford visited, residents scrambled to get autographs and photographs with the young woman who could become the next Miss America.

Miss Mississippi had a special reason to participate. Her grandmother, Naddie Morgan, 89, resides at Golden Living Nursing Home in Batesville. Even though illness prevented her grandmother’s attendance, Morgan dedicated her comments to the woman who “has inspired me and given me wisdom to go through life, even during the toughest and hardest situations.”

“I am so blessed to be here with you today,” she said, “and I want to sing for you — this is my grandmother’s favorite song, and I sing it for her and for you.”

After a standing-ovation rendition of “I Don’t Know Who Holds Tomorrow, But I Know Who Holds My Hand,” Morgan shared her favorite Biblical quote, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves” (Philippians 2:3), and challenged “all of you to love and treat others as you would like to be treated. Have empathy for one another, let your light shine, and consider others. Allow the Higher Power to use each of us to educate, to enlighten, to love, and remind us not to take life and others for granted.”

Other entertainers throughout the day, which included several door prize drawings, were April Powell, administrator of Windham House of Hattiesburg; Carol Greer, volunteer for Mississippi Care Center of Morton; and a barbershop quartet comprised of Jim Myrick, administrator of Meridian Community Living Center, and friends Garry Claypool, Larry Calloway, and Bob Patterson.

Residents themselves took the spotlight, too, as they paraded in costumes, showed off handiwork with arts and crafts, performed special talents, and danced the afternoon away — all for prizes! Among those who earned prizes were the following:

• Best Dressed: Jennie Curtis, Poplar Springs Nursing Center, and Tom Johnson, Bedford Care Center in Newton.

• Best Talent: Alberta Logan and Melvina Cooley, both of Bedford Care Center of Newton, and Allan Blanton of Rolling Hills Developmental Center in Starkville; Kenneth Brownlee of Clarksdale Nursing Center; Christine Williams of Willow Creek Retirement Center in Jackson; and Guy Wallace and Myrlene Riley of Senatobia Convalescent Center.

• Best Art: Frances Clowers of Trinity Mission in Clinton; George Kelly of Lakeland Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Jackson; and Joseph Beavens of Pleasant Hills Community Living Center in Jackson.

• Best Crafts: Ethel Masters and Ruby Bragg of Mississippi Care Center in Morton; Terry Teasley of Forest Hill Nursing Center in Jackson; and Julia King of Senatobia Convalescent Center.

• Best Needlework: Merle Foster of Mississippi Care Center in Morton; Delilah Douglas of Senatobia Convalescent Center; and Mattie Patterson of Grace Health and Rehabilitation Center in Grenada.

November 2007