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DBJ and WABG-TV6 gubernatorial debate at DSU sends shock waves
Debate made national news on Fox

Yazoo City company bounces back with new financing option

by Robert Mcfarland, Jr.
Special to DBJ

On October 14 at the Bologna Performing Arts Center on the campus of Delta State University, sparks flew between gubernatorial candidates, Ronnie Musgrove and Haley Barbour. In the third of four televised debates, the Cleveland debate proved to be the most exciting.

“As the saying goes...‘it was a night to remember’...” laughs DBJ publisher and lead panelist, Scott Coopwood. WABG-TV6 and the Delta Business Journal sponsored the debate.

“It was definitely exciting,” says Christine Nelson WABG-TV6 news anchor and co-panelist of the debate. “I felt that we asked good questions. In fact, not only was I there as a panelist, I was also there as a voter and the questions that we asked helped me to decide who I wanted to vote for.”

The debate was broadcast live over northwest Mississippi by WABG and in Meridian by WTOK. It was later aired on the Coast.

One of the highlights of the evening was an unscheduled interruption by Green Party gubernatorial candidate, Sherman Lee Dillon.

Just as Coopwood was asking the first question of the evening, Dillon walked up on stage at the BPAC in front of 1,100 saying to the audience, “My name is Sherman Lee Dillon and I’m running towards...” Coopwood, asked Dillon to leave the stage several times, but to no avail.

“The stage lights were so bright that I couldn’t see him coming up towards from the darkness of the audience,” says Coopwood. “I could hear his voice getting closer, but I couldn’t see him until he walked about two feet behind me as he climbed up on stage. The first thing that occurred to me was that I hoped he didn’t have a gun. I had no clue as to who he was until he passed me and started addressing the audience from stage left. I just knew that at any moment he was going to be tackled by a security guard; however that didn’t happen.”

Realizing that no one was in a hurry to escort Dillon off of the stage, Coopwood left his seat and found the help of a security guard. Dillon was then removed.
After Dillon’s removal, a heckler from the balcony began yelling to the crowd.
“Sir, would you please sit down and be quiet,” Coopwood said to the heckler, to which the audience showed their approval with applause. The next evening on the Fox network, Fox news anchor Brit Hume ran a clip of this moment in the debate on his national news program.

There were several more interruptions during the evening. Both Musgrove and Barbour seemed to be only amused by the interruptions.

As the evening progressed, both candidates attacked the other’s record and at the end of the debate during the closing remarks, Barbour challenged Musgrove to look at him as he was making a statement about one of Musgrove’s tv advertisements concerning Barbour. Musgrove did not respond to Barbour’s challenge. For over a week, newspapers in the state ran articles concerning Barbour’s comment to Musgrove.

“It was a good debate and I am thankful to the candidates that they allowed the DBJ and WABG to be the hosts in this part of the state,” says Coopwood.

Four years ago, WABG and the DBJ hosted the only debate in the region between Mike Parker and Ronnie Musgrove. DBJ