Hillary, with friends, Sydney and Alexis, just before going on stage tonight

I’m starting to wax the least bit nostalgic these days, so prepare for a really mushy post coming up real soon. The Ocean Springs School District has three elementary schools that escort students from kindergarten through the fourth grade before shipping them off to a school dedicated solely to the fifth grade, so with the exception of a few weeks in Arkansas following Hurricane Katrina last school year, Hillary has only been to one school in her life. And in one week her time there will be over.

Tonight was the 4th grade play, “Mississippi: My Home,” basically the grand finale of these students’ lives at their elementary school, and I just began to think about the significant changes that have taken place there over the past five years. Okay, I’ll quit now before I get mushy. Maybe later…

It was a neat production tonight, offering tons and tons of things that make Mississippi unique, all of which were presented by talented fourth graders.

For those of you in the hinterland of America (read: Arkansas, etc.), you may not know all the unique traits of Mississippi, and I’ll spare you the long list offered tonight. But for a taste, did you realize these famous people are all Mississippians?
* Oprah Winfrey
* Elvis Presley
* Walter Payton
* William Faulkner
* Leann Rimes
* John Grisham
* Jimmy Buffett
* B.B. King
* Brett Favre
* Faith Hill
* Morgan Freeman
* James Earl Jones
* Jerry Rice
* Tennessee Williams (oddly enough)
* Conway Twitty
* John Dobbs

Quite a list, huh?

I guess tonight’s play was a little attempt at indoctrination, but I appreciate it nonetheless. These 4th graders should be proud of their home, and I’m proud to be an adopted Mississippian, too.