MDOT presents The Extra Mile podcast.

(Paul) Welcome in to another edition of The Extra Mile podcast presented by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. I’m MDOT Digital Manager Paul Katool and today I’m riding solo one more time, but I promise you Will Craft’s still on the show. He’ll be back with us soon.

Nonetheless very excited today . It’s not every day you get to speak with a former governor. So, we’ve got former Mississippi Governor Ronnie Musgrove in the studio with us today. Governor Musgrove, we really appreciate you making time for us today.

(Governor Musgrove) Paul, thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to be here.

(Paul) Yes, sir. And so, a little bit of information on Governor Musgrove. He served in the governor’s office from 2000 to 2004. And he’s also a two-term state senator. So, I would like to know kind of like a little more background on you. What kind of led you to run for governor of the state of Mississippi?

(Governor Musgrove) Some people would say that that’s what I was called when I was in high school, but I was just always involved in civic matters. I loved government. I loved history and the things that I thought were important. So, that was kind of what my focus was, so I’ve always liked that. And then as it turned out I graduated from college went to law school and then it just kind of naturally led back in Batesville where I practiced law and where I lived. I was very involved in the community, and I realized that a lot of things had happened on the federal level and on the state level affected us locally. And then I realized that more and more things that happened here really did matter here being Jackson.

I remember running in 1987 and being elected. And when I came to the legislature in January of 1998 the starting salary for teachers in Mississippi was $13,500 no health care benefits. Now, that’s not the dark ages. People can look at me and say, “Well, Musgrove, you look really old.” But I’m not that old and that’s not that long ago. That is just one example of what had happened or had been happening in Mississippi.

The other thing I realized is that when there were progressive legislators that year in ‘87 who felt like our highway program needed to go up a big notch, they passed the highway program 1987 which was a huge benefit to the people of the state of Mississippi and overrode Governor Lane’s veto.to do so. And so, I realized that those kinds of things really did matter and that’s why I ran.

(Paul) Excellent. Excellent. So, and speaking of you know the highway department you kind of have a connection there as well. Your father worked for the department, correct?

(Governor Musgrove) He did. We have gotten use to saying the transportation commission and department of transportation and have been doing so for a long time. But back when I was young it was the highway department. That’s what we called it. And my dad worked for the highway department. And to give you an example of him and where we were back then my Dad back then in 1963 worked on the road crews of the highway department.

And Mississippi in north Mississippi had about a 15-inch snow. And they were out clearing the roads. And then about a week later had another snow equally as big. And he never stopped working even though he got sick. And the reason he didn’t stop working is because one they had no health insurance and No. 2 if you didn’t work, you didn’t get paid. There was no system for how you have leave days, sick days, etc. So, my Dad knowing those situations did not stop working until he couldn’t get out of the bed and Mr. Philip Darby who worked with him literally carried him out of the bed that morning because he had pneumonia and he died about eleven thirty that morning with pneumonia at age 42.

He loved the highway department. He loved the people he worked with. But that just goes to show you where we were at that time and what we did for people who worked for the state. Even though they were valuable members of the state of Mississippi and what they did. Whether it was with the highway department or any other agency of the state. Today it would have been a matter of he would have taken off, gone to the doctor, hospital if necessary and probably would have had a full recovery. But that’s where we were at that time. So, that’s why I’ve always said things that happen in Jackson, things that happen in our state government are very important.

(Paul) There’s no doubt about that and thank you for sharing that story. That’s tough. We’ll say you know our men and women on the roads you know like your Dad are the real heroes. You know, they’re the ones putting their lives on the line.

(Governor Musgrove) You know, we talk about first responders a lot of times, but we fail to realize that people who work for the department of transportation especially on the roads are in fact first responders in so many ways. They deal with bad situations, or they prevent bad situations. And that’s a lot of credit that goes to them.

(Paul) There’s absolutely no doubt about that. Moving to the future a little bit. So, as governor obviously you had to work with MDOT a bit. And so, what kind of considerations were made? What kind of thought process went into giving MDOT you know kind of what it needed to operate and keep everyone safe?

(Governor Musgrove) Well, I believe, Paul, I actually learned and enjoyed working with MDOT while I was in the senate and then when I was lieutenant governor. Those are the times that you really look at the programs that are going on and then you try to look at the vision for the state and where we’re headed and what’s needed to do that.

I remember when I was lieutenant governor, we passed kind of the follow-up bill to the highway act of nineteen 1987 which again was something that was needed. When you’re trying to attract companies like Nissan, when you’re trying to keep companies like Sanderson Farms and others the transportation, the roads, the grid that we have in Mississippi is a huge economic development provider. And so, it’s important to understand and know that. And that’s why I worked very closely with the department of transportation especially when I was in the lieutenant governor’s office because we interact a lot in the legislative process.

And of course, as you know having three transportation commissioners, the department of transportation is not under the governor specifically so, we work kind of more like equals our co-equals as head of the various aspects of government. And I always had a great working relationship. I mean I might would have disagreed philosophically or politically with one of the transportation commissioners, but we always tried to look at what was best for the state of Mississippi and how did we get there. And in that vein, I think we accomplished that.

(Paul) Good stuff. Good stuff. And we will touch one kind of more MDOT transportation related questions. So, I understand you actually vetoed the initial kind of contraflow legislation bill and then had them rework things. So, can you tell me more about that? That’s very interesting.

(Governor Musgrove) It what it really was a pact that the southern states had and dealt with, and Louisiana has a transportation commission under the governor. And so, what they did was they worked with the transportation commissioners here to come up with a contraflow pact that was to be approved by me. Well, what the department of transportation here does not have the ability to do is to incorporate the other agencies of government and the responsibilities that they would have. They come under the governor. In Louisiana they all come under the governor.

So, for instance the contraflow package that I vetoed did not take into consideration the highway patrol and what role they would play. It did not take into consideration the exits and entrances off of the interstate in this instance would be Interstate 55 or 59. So, that we had no way of doing it. It did not take into consideration the national guard, the department of human services. All of those agencies that when you have a disaster have a part of that so that then as a part of the pact, they know what to do. They have a role in responsibility. In our state they had none. Louisiana had that covered. And so, when I vetoed the pact the people of Louisiana took the position I didn’t want to help them out in a disaster situation. And I said, “Not at all.”

And in fact, I remember when the news crews interviewed me from Louisiana I took the broad of a lot of heat until I explained and because I called the governor there and I said, “Let us be involved as a whole state because that’s the way we operate in Mississippi.” And of course, the commissioners of transportation were glad to do so and realize that it did take all of those agencies.

We put together the contraflow package. It was approved by their governor, approved by myself. And it was used for the first time in Katrina. And if you go back and look at the way it worked, it literally worked perfectly as it was designed to work. And I just shutter to think what would have happened had we not included all of those agencies in Mississippi so by the time they hit the Mississippi line it really could have been chaotic.

(Paul) That’s wild that it actually had to go into effect you know in such a close time proximity when everything went through because I mean we haven’t really had to deal with that much since then.

(Governor Musgrove) That is correct. Contraflow is something that’s not used often but when it’s used it’s a bad situation and it’s very much needed.

(Paul) Appreciate that and we’ll be right back on The Extra Mile podcast.

(Break)

(Paul) So I want to kind of move on from transportation specifically. So, you know in your four years as governor can you hit some of the most important thing’s kind of your greatest accomplishments? I know you mentioned education kind of focusing on that.

(Governor Musgrove) I have always believed that if you want a better quality of life, if you want a better workforce, if you want healthier people in your state, the more educated they are, the more likely you are to achieve that. And so, I always have taken the position that starting with education and actually Pre-K through college university level, the more and the better we can educate people, the more attractive we become to companies looking at us outside the state.

We unfortunately find ourselves right now as the only state in the nation that does not have Pre-K. Now, if you’re trying to compete against the surrounding states, I’m not talking about California, Texas, New York. I’m just talking about our surrounding states. Everyone of them has Pre-K. South Carolina who used to be one of our biggest competitors in terms of attracting business and industry has probably one of the best Pre-K programs in the entire south. And consequently, you look at their numbers and the numbers show that in their educational results.

I served on the board of NAPE which is the NAGBY which is the National Assessment Governing Board that looks at all the tests of schools throughout the country. And you look at states and see how much they improved. So, to me the passage of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, the new funding formula to me was I felt like the biggest achievement. Unfortunately, since I’ve left office we haven’t funded it the way we should have.

And so, consequently when you don’t fund it then you fall right back into the same trap that the property poor districts where they don’t have as much ad valorem as say Madison, we’ll take Madison county for instance. When you levy a meal in Madison County it’s going to produce four x. When you levy the same meal say in George County Lucedale, it might produce one x. So, the difference in the same amount of tax levy against people in different parts of the state produce a lot different revenue.

And so, to me, this is the way I describe it. In Noxubee County if you had the best teachers in America teaching in Noxubee County at the time and you had the best teachers in America teaching in Tupelo so that without doubt students were getting a great education from those teachers. Noxubee offered 74 classes in high school. Tupelo offered a 140 plus. So, the exposure to classes and options were just so far off the chart and it was because of the inaccuracy of the money that was being provided. So, to me that’s like the top benefit to me in education.

But of course, if you look, we also developed a new economic development plan. We had not had a new one in a long time. And as a result, we attracted Nissan. Which I would arguably say is the biggest economic development of a project we’ve ever had in Mississippi. It produced over 5,300 direct jobs and over 25,000 indirect peripheral jobs in terms of suppliers and others.

It’s just a tremendous benefit to the state of Mississippi. But it was because we had a new economic development package geared toward what was competitive at that time. We just simply wasn’t competitive against South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, but were and then we attracted Nissan. So, those are two really big scenarios.

When I was in the senate and lieutenant governor’s office we for the first time put air conditioning in all the classrooms in the state. And if you’ve spent a little time this past week you realize how big a deal that is so those are the kinds of things that I think were important. First state in the nation to have Internet accessible computers in each classroom too. Those were things that I thought were very important.

(Paul) Oh wow. Yeah. Did not did not know all that’s that’s all very cool, very very good stuff.

(Governor Musgrove) Paul, you generally have to be gray headed to know a lot of that kind of stuff because it did happen a while ago.

(Paul) Fair enough. Fair enough. So, this is just kind of a personal interest of mine. I’ve always been fascinated by people who are the heads of large organizations, companies so like you know the executive director here at MDOT Brad White. He’s over you know 2,000-plu people, and you know you talk about companies, and you were the you were over the state of Mississippi. To me that’s just massive. So, how did you kind of on a day-to-day basis from a leadership perspective and just day-to-day kind of duties and tasks and stuff how did you make Mississippi run? Like how do you even fathom that?

(Governor Musgrove) Well, I believe the important thing is to set up or develop a vision for the state. What are you trying to accomplish? What do we want to be and what direction do we want to go?

And for me those things were focus on education, focus on economic development, creation of jobs and focus on improving health care in the state of Mississippi. And so, if you focus kind of all your efforts toward that and secondly put people in charge of your various agencies where the governor has responsibility in doing that share the same vision and want to make sure that the agency runs efficiently, and it actually makes lives better for the people of Mississippi then what happens is that you start going in a great direction.

And I believe that I was one of those that woke up early in the morning. I would wake up at three o’clock every morning when I was in office. And I would read from about three to seven in the morning because the truth of the matter is that’s the only time of the day you’re going to get some quiet time for some ability to kind of think through what’s going on because it comes at you so fast.

And so, for instance one of the things I would if an agency I thought something ought to be improved, I remember calling the division of Medicaid in and department of health and others and I said, you know the children’s health insurance program had been in existence for about a year and a half. And we had less than a thousand children in Mississippi on it. I said that doesn’t make any sense to me. Explain to me the program. So, we changed the program of how we went about doing that and in a one-year time we added over 60,000 children to the children’s health insurance program. But it’s just kind of finding the spots that fit into that vision that you want to go and make sure you make those things happen.

(Paul) Wow. Fascinating and moral of the story if you want to run for governor expect not to get a lot of sleep, right?

(Governor Musgrove) That’s correct or if you do you’re not expected to do much. Really. It’s the truth.

(Paul) Fair enough. Fair enough. So, Governor Musgrove, we’ve covered a lot of ground. I kind of want to know what are you up too these days? What all is going on in your world?

(Governor Musgrove) I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer since I was eight years old so consequently I graduated from law school and have practiced law ever since. And I’ve practiced law since I’ve left the governor’s office. Certainly, enjoyed that mainly litigation business litigation is what I do. But also, I do some consulting and I’ve done some teaching as well which I thoroughly enjoy doing. And I’ve done so at several different universities across the state.

And in addition to that most recently when the legislature passed the medical marijuana or really before that when the initiative process was underway I became involved in it because I felt like it was an opportunity for people to be helped that had debilitating medical conditions and it was a positive economic opportunity for Mississippi. And so, I became involved in it to the extent that I represent people in the industry but also have ownership in some as well.

A lot of people don’t realize this but obviously my close friends do. My wife in the latter part of 2020 was diagnosed with leukemia. And so, we spent most of twenty twenty-one at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and she unfortunately passed away September. A great lady a great Mississippian, a person who spent most of her life as a public servant, head of the special education in Mississippi, also the head of special education at the U.S. Department of Education overall education special education in the U.S. Just a great great person.

But we never know what will happen to us. But in her time of being so painful she said medical marijuana would be something that would help me. And I said, “It’s not there yet but you’re right. It would.” It would have been one of those situations where she would have benefited from it. It wouldn’t have cured her but would have benefited from the pain that she had. So, to me it was one of those things that was a logical next step to me that I thought I would be involved in.

(Paul) Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that with us and hopefully the program helps out a lot of people for sure. So, we just have one more question for you and it’s my co-host Will he’s not here. He handles government constituent affairs for the agency. It’s his favorite question. So, when you’re out traveling I know as governor you’ve traveled all around the state. So, where is your favorite place to get a bite to eat?

(Governor Musgrove) The question implies that you’re on the road.

(Paul) Right. Traveling.

(Governor Musgrove) So, you’re right. I’m probably going to hurt the feelings of a lot of people across the state because there’s so many great places. And I know that, and they know it. But probably my favorite place would be Rose’s just south of Hattiesburg on 49. We’ve stopped there many times and some of my friends always liked it and they would meet us there. And so, I would get the benefit of one having great barbeque but also having some time with good friends.

(Paul) There you go. We’re adding it to the list. Me and Will have a list of places that we’re going to hit so thank you for that answer. Some people try to dodge it, but we get a direct answer.

(Governor Musgrove) I at lest wanted to give a conditional statement because there are you know a bunch of great restaurants. And I will leave here just as Thurgood Marshall used to always say when he was a lawyer the best closing argument he’s ever given is when he was in the car leaving the courthouse on the way home thinking about what all he could have said, should have said it, didn’t say. So, I could probably say the same thing about that answer.

(Paul) There you go. Well, Governor Musgrove, thank you for joining us today. Lots of great information, history and anecdotes. So, we really appreciate it, sir.
(Governor Musgrove) Thank you very much, Paul. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

(Paul) Yes, sir. And so, we’ll just go ahead and wrap things up like we usually do. We want to thank all our listeners out there for tuning in to The Extra Mile podcast. We also want to thank our producer Katey Hornsby, our editor Drew Hall. Remember you can listen and watch each episode by visiting GoMDOT.com/TheExtraMile. Of course, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter @MississippiDOT is the handle. We’ve got a lot to update you every day and to close things out as always remember to drive smart out there on Mississippi highways.