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On this edition of Mississippi Roads,
community spirit unites an all-state marching band,
the hunt is on in Glenn Allen for haunting spirits
and in Ridgeland we capture the whimsical spirit
found in one artist's bottle trees.
Mississippi Roads is made possible in part by
the generous support of viewers like you.
Thank you!
Support for the Arts Segment of Mississippi Roads
comes from the Mississippi Arts Commission
whose vision is to support and celebrate
Mississippi's creative and innovative spirit.
Informaiton available at arts.state.ms.us.
♪ Down Mississippi roads... ♪
♪ Mississippi Roads... ♪
Welcome back to Mississippi Roads.
I'm your host Walt Grayson.
This week coming to you from one
of the most historic cities in the state.
We are in beautiful Natchez
for the 12th Annual Food and Wine Festival.
Every year this culinary extravaganza gathers
together celebrity chefs from across the south
for three fulfilling days of feasting festivities.
Events begin Friday night at the Natchez
Convention Center with Tastings Along the River,
where regional restaurateurs serve up
a virtual smorgasbord of scrumptious samplings.
Amongst this display of delectable delights
even the most precocious peruser is bound
to find something pleasing to the palate.
Saturday morning starts off with Biscuits, Beignets
and Breakfast at the Natchez Coffee House.
Then that afternoon there's a Wine & Cheese Tasting
at Dunleith mansion,
followed by Brews, Blues & Burgers at Bowie's tavern.
A few of the region's most prominent chefs show off
their culinary skills Saturday night by preparing
a multitude of multi-course meals at many
of Natchez's most historic homes,
treating guests to an evening of fine dining
and soulful entertainment in elegant settings.
And finally the festivities culminate
Sunday Morning with a Champagne Jazz Brunch
at The Carriage House Restaurant
where Osgood and Blaque strike up the band.
Speaking of bands, every year some of the most talented
high-school musicians in the state come together
to form the Mississippi Lions All-State Band.
(Marching band music)
I think excellence draws young people.
I think young people today are
just like they were 64 years ago.
They are drawn together to the Lions All-State Band
because they know it is a two-week period band-wise
that is going to be like heaven.
They know for those two weeks that they are going
to get to achieve a level of excellence that they
can't achieve anywhere else:
at their home schools or anything else.
Mississippi Lions Band is a group
of 145 young people from Mississippi.
They survive a two-stage audition process.
They come from all parts of Mississippi.
We have 54 different high schools
represented this year.
The Lions Band has been in existence for 64 years.
It is sponsored by the Lions of Mississippi
and its main purpose is to represent them
at their annual convention.
♪♪
They have to survive a two-stage audition.
The first stage, a student goes before five judges.
Then we bring them back to a second tryout
with a totally different set of judges.
So we are getting the very best we can.
Every year when you audition,
you go into this practice room
and you get a chance to warm up
and get ready for your actual audition
and you hear all the players in there
and you are like wow, they are all amazing.
It's pretty nerve-racking especially when you know
how great all the players are.
I had tried out my freshman year
and I didn't make it.
I made callbacks but it was really hard for me
but I took that as a way saying I need
to work harder and whenever I worked harder,
it all paid off in the end.
One of the worst things I ever saw was a child
that had been in the Lions Band for three years,
had made callbacks, made the cut for the second one
and then didn't make it at all
after having been in it for three years.
He came from a family of four brothers
that had all been four-year members.
So nobody is guaranteed a spot.
Nobody.
I think that's one of the reasons it has been
really good for a long time.
You can make it this year
and easily not make it next year.
Adjust your block, please.
Adjust to the woodwinds.
Woodwinds, make sure you are in line.
Just go to standby with your feet together.
The kids lovingly call camp Hell Week.
It's very, very difficult.
The day starts just before 6:00 everyday.
The staff wakes the kids up.
We have breakfast at 7:00.
We start marching at 8:00.
We take a little break in the middle of the morning
then we have concert rehearsal until noon.
Then we have reversals again in the afternoon,
take a little break for supper then we come back
and march for two more hours.
Take a short break
and then we do concert rehearsal till 10:00.
Then at 11:00, they go to bed
and then we start all over the next day.
♪♪
Let's just say that traveling with 145 students
is not your most ideal vacation travel arrangements.
But if you're going to travel with 145 students,
these guys are the best.
This year we have 80 seniors that have
graduated from high school.
We have a lot of repeat students,
so they are travel savvy.
They know how to get around.
We have a really highly trained staff.
We have been preparing for this trip,
really, since before last year's trip was over.
We are going to hike Diamond Head.
Were going to snorkel in Honama Bay.
We are going to let them have surf lessons
on Waikiki Beach, not to mention the performances
and things like that, so they
are going to be really busy.
(Hawaiian music playing)
Every year, Lions International has a parade competition
in conjunction with their convention.
The Mississippi Lions Band has won the competition
more than any other all-state band,
in fact more than any of the others combined.
The band has not been defeated since 1999.
I get nervous sometimes, yes,
when we go and compete.
I'm worried one year.
This is my year I'm going to be in it.
I don't want to mess it up for everybody
and ruin the streak.
But we are doing pretty well and I don't think
we are going to mess up the streak anytime soon.
Here's the thing: we never talk about winning or losing ever.
What we talk about is achieving excellence
both individually and as a group.
We understand that our streak is going
to come to an end some day.
Someday someone is going to figure it out
and they are going to do what it takes
to do what our band does.
I think, honestly, our kids will be okay with that.
That's a life lesson.
Once you have done your personal best,
how much more can you give?
They take great pride in the knowledge that if
someone beat them, they must be pretty good.
I want it to be a life- changing experience
for them, a positive life-changing experience.
I want them to make friends
that will last them forever.
And hopefully we are achieving that.
Lions Band has helped me to grow.
It has helped me lead others.
You really feel more responsible, I guess,
because you are pretty much expected
at the highest standard
and you have to meet those.
It has really grown me as a person
and I absolutely love it.
It has made me want to do music more.
It has encouraged me because it has surrounded
me with people who enjoy it as much as I do.
It's what I want to do for the rest of my life.
I'm going to major in music
and Lions Band has played a large role in that.
♪♪
(Applause)
The Old South Winery in Natchez is just one
of the local purveyors of libations that participates
in the Wine Festival every year.
Founded in 1979
by Dr. Scott O. Galbreath Jr. and his wife Edeen,
the Old South Winery specializes
in muscadine wines of varying sweetness.
But if you find muscadine wine is not your cup of tea,
the festival offers other beverages sure
to enliven even the most tepid taste bud.
There you'll find on display a dazzling array
of medicinal spirits designed to delight and gratify.
In our next story we follow a band
of paranormal investigators as they explore spirits
of a different kind.
(spooky music playing)
(heartbeat beating)
Ghost hunts characteristically take place at night.
Nighttime is the right time for ghosts.
Well, we do it at night
because the theory is between the dead time.
In between 2:00 and 4:00 is the dead time.
And that is where the most of the activity usually generates.
I mean, they're out during the daytime, too.
Grayson: But if you are undertaking a ghost hunt
you can't wait until dark to start setting up
the myriad of monitors and putting out the battery
of batteries and to untangle cables and set up cameras
and check out all of the other equipment
that modern ghost hunters have at their disposal.
Man: His power supply was dead.
So we just switched out power supplies with him.
Grayson: That is a mid-afternoon
assignment at the latest.
And a walk-through of the haunted property
in the daylight is a must.
This particular house was lived in by an elderly lady
who died of quite ordinary causes.
The home was never lived in again,
left completely furnished until it was leased out
for the filming of a movie at which time the more
valuable pieces were removed to a warehouse and
only odds and ends were left behind in the home.
But still there are signs of life everywhere.
Old film negatives and reels and reels of home movies
caught my attention being a photographer at heart.
They were just strewn across floor.
Obviously by trespassers who slipped through
the boarded up and locked doors to sight-see
and perhaps search for valuables that may have
been overlooked, either oblivious of the rumors
of the hauntings, or chancing they'd not run into
any of the other-worldly inhabitants.
Now, I was told that even when they were filming
the movie here there were instances of doors
slamming on their own and even a hammer was reported
to have flown across a room under its own power.
So today, several ghost hunters,
all under the banner of the Delta Paranormal Group
are here to investigate the house to determine,
as best as they can, if the place
is really haunted or not.
And to do that, they have invested thousands
of dollars in equipment and have already spent
countless hours of time in other haunted houses
gaining experience and collecting data.
Curiosity about life after death is another of the elements
that separates us from the animals.
Of all creatures, only humans ponder their own mortality.
And since time immemorial we've wondered whether
ghosts really exist and have tried to find them,
or avoid them, as we could.
And to say you don't believe at least
in the possibility is an attempt to deceive yourself
about your own inner feelings.
For who HASN'T had to steal themselves to keep
from dashing out of a darkened room,
or been too afraid to turn and look and see
for SURE that there was nothing behind,
following them on a dark path at night.
These paranormal seekers come to their hobby
from various mind-sets.
Some out of curiosity after seeing ghost hunts on TV.
Some of these ghost seekers just like the thrill
of the expedition and the company of the others
along as do any other hunters.
But for whatever reason, as night begins to fall
and shadows begin to fill the house,
and the last flecks of the sun lick at the window panes
and there is more dark than light inside now,
the group of hunters pauses for a ritual
they perform before every hunt.
A prayer for protection from the unknown,
just in case they ARE trespassing where they
should fear to tread.
Then the hunt begins.
The group divides into teams and they enter the house
with just the barest of lights to get them
from room to room and then they stop
and start their observations: temperature readings,
magnetic readings, attempts to make contact.
And attempts to get EVP's, that is electronic voice
phenomenon where questions are asked
while a digital device is recording audio.
Man: Give us your name.
Grayson: And oftentimes, responses are recorded
when nothing was heard by the ear at the time.
And while the session is going on inside,
on the porch outside the observations are taking place.
Monitors from all the carefully selected camera angles
are being watched for any movement.
The stairs was chosen because steps
have been heard on them.
The camera hopes to see something.
And the room on monitor 4 is chosen because
the last time this house was evaluated,
both of these doors slammed on their own.
The night wears on from late evening to early
morning hours, to the sweet spot.
The time of night when ghosts come out.
Dead time.
That's when I went back in on another investigation
series and this time kept the camera light on so we
could see what was going on.
And upstairs, in the room where the doors
had slammed on the previous hunt in this house
a few weeks earlier, a noise was heard.
Man: What was that?
Grayson: And I quickly realized the difference between
me and professional ghost hunters.
Because when THEY heard the noise in this room,
they went IN there.
Had I been in charge and heard the noise
in the room, I'd have been out of the house.
It turns out that another door had closed on its own.
This one leading to a bathroom.
And it not only closed, it continued to rock on its hinges
while we were standing there watching it.
And asking it to swing wider.
And it did.
Soon I realized evidently nothing was going to hurt me,
and the novelty of the door swinging grew old
and the ghost hunters went to another room.
But the door swinging was enough to give the group
incentive like saying AMEN to a preacher,
or sic-um to a bulldog.
All of a sudden, the time changed from being very late
in the hunt to the hunt just beginning.
The rest of the night we're just going
to keep on going till sunlight.
Grayson: Now at that point I left the ghost hunters.
They were still looking for more evidence,
but I had gotten what I had come for:
The chance to go on a ghost hunt
and see something and then walk away.
It's the only instrument I really know how to play.
Hundreds of years ago there was an old legend
that wandering spirits could be lured to
and trapped inside bottles.
In our next story we're going to meet
a kind-hearted spirit who wandered down to Mississippi
and has become ensnared by bottle trees.
>> Woman: Art is defined as
whenever something moves you.
So art is all around us.
That's why photographers take pictures of still objects.
It's moved them in some way to take that picture
and thus creating art.
So my work is purely subjective.
It appeals to certain kinds of people.
I'm not going to please everybody in my art.
No artist is going to please everybody.
But I think because it is an extension of you,
if you really put your heart and soul into the piece,
whatever it is you're making and people
know that, they are going to value that.
I think that that is what my connection is
with people and my trees.
When I first started doing bottle trees,
I didn't know but the history was.
But when I did art shows,
I started talking to people.
People would come into my booth
and they would tell me their stories about
their bottle tree experiences growing up.
So I realized there was something
very special about these trees.
The more I heard people's stories,
the more energy and focus I would put
into the trees.
They kind of started having a life of their own.
They came here from Africa back in the 1700's
particularly in the Mississippi Delta.
They've rooted deep because people still hold
on to the tradition of the bottle tree more so than
any other place in the South.
Experiencing that, that's your connection with your past.
The connection I made with folk art is every piece
of folk art that you see, that is an extension
of that person that created it.
So somewhere in that piece is there a personality.
Out of necessity, I became an artist.
I was an artist growing up,
I just didn't know I was an artist.
I wouldn't ever label myself that.
When I came to Mississippi,
it was just out of necessity.
I had my plasma cutter, I had my welder,
I had my dog, I had my cat,
I had furniture and then all of a sudden,
I'm not kidding, it was the bottle tree that did it.
The bottle tree really pushed me into a whole
different realm of work.
I came to Mississippi in 2006.
It was early August, late July.
I was in an abusive relationship where
I had to get away from it because I wasn't able
to move on in life.
When I got down to Mississippi,
because I was so broken in spirit,
I think that I gravitated towards the metal
for healing purposes.
So I started focusing all the sadness
and all of the emptiness, everything into my work.
And then gradually it just started evolving.
I moved into the house with my mom and my stepdad
and I realized seeing my mom in her relationship
with my stepfather and reliving my childhood
with him, it made me realize that the toxicity
that I was encountering in relationships evolved
from the relationship my mother had with my stepfather.
He's a very controlling person...
Let's just say I was raised believing I was
worthless and that what I had to say
didn't amount to much at all.
So there's an empty void there.
But I filled it with my work and no matter how
many times he would tell me that I was- -
just breaking me down.
Breaking me down.
He found pleasure in that.
And the more he did that,
the more I would focus on my work.
My stepfather and I had a head to head
and I got kicked out of the house
and the whole neighborhood took me in.
It was a very painful experience,
but it was also the best thing that
ever happened to me because all of these
people came out of nowhere to step up to the plate
and say no, you are worth something and your work is
good and you need to keep growing.
That's all I needed to hear.
Once I started hearing the positive aspects
of my work, I just went with it.
Are you sharing?
When you are raised in an environment where you
feel like you're a burden and you feel like your
opinion doesn't matter, you feel like that as an adult.
Now it's funny because I feel like I have a voice
and I'm using it and some people get
real tired of hearing it, I'm sure.
But when it comes to animal welfare,
I can't keep my mouth shut.
If I don't speak, if I don't say anything,
nothing gets done.
When I was growing up and, same thing.
I didn't have a voice.
All of a sudden our animals would disappear.
Well where is our dog?
Where is our cat?
I found out later that my stepdad got rid of it.
When it comes to animal welfare,
I think I'm right up there.
They are both equal in my passion.
I think the thing that hurts me the most is when
I know when I have this information in my head
about animals where they are victims of abuse
and there's nothing I can do about it.
There's nothing I can say.
There's nothing I can do.
Everywhere I go, I seem to have a little bit of
an impact on people and if one person goes out
and gets their animal spayed or neutered
because I kept hounding them,
that makes me feel really good.
I get really nice e-mails from people
from time to time saying
I had my dog neutered because of you.
That means more to me, sometimes,
than saying your art is outstanding.
That hits more here.
This is Blue and he was found
up in Clarksdale in a ditch.
They had fought him for who knows how long.
He's approximately 5 years old.
He is scarred up, chewed up.
He was emaciated when I found him.
He was on death's door for sure.
The vet was surprised that he even made it
for the ride home.
But he's doing really good and because of Facebook,
I was able to find a foster home for him.
And that is great.
That's Gracie, she's our baby.
She and Trip tear it up.
But she is my foster but if for some reason
we don't find a home for her, someone doesn't
step up to the plate and take her, we will keep her.
Fostering I have been doing for a long time.
It hurts me when I know that people aren't
responsible for their animals.
I look at animals as an extension of your family.
I do believe that we are supposed to take care of them.
Man: Wow look, it's Stephanie Dwyer!
(Laughter)
How you are, honey?
Dwyer: I love the fact that the people
I have met down here are so supportive of the arts.
I think that's first and foremost
down in Mississippi.
That stands out to me the most
is the support of the arts.
Woman: You can tell there is
a lot of passion in her work.
It's very well done.
Things have a lot of energy in it.
I think every element that she adds in her artwork
speaks of her and where she's been
and where she's going and I don't think anybody
could ever duplicate what she does because
I think it happens while she's doing it.
Dwyer: I consider myself a Mississippi artist.
I wasn't born and raised here,
but the art came from here.
The inspiration for art.
In my mind, I'm only on this planet for so long.
The question is what are you going
I only have so much time and I have so many trees
to build and the planet is a big place.
I've got a lot of work to do.
Regrettably, that is all the time we have
for this episode from Natchez.
If you have any questions about anything you've seen
on tonight's show, contact us at:
Until next time, I'm Walt Grayson.
I'll be seeing you on Mississippi Roads.
♪♪
♪ It's sweat and mud and our roots run deep. ♪
♪ The livin' ain't easy but it sure is sweet. ♪
♪ Make you feel inside what there ain't no words to say. ♪
♪ Got the river rollin', gamblers floatin', ♪
♪ singers singin' what the writers wrote. ♪
♪ Can't always see the signs but we find our way ♪
♪ Down Mississippi roads. ♪
♪ Mississippi Roads. ♪
♪ Ah ah... ♪
♪ Ah ah ah.... ♪
Mississippi Roads is made possible in part by
the generous support of viewers like you.
Thank you!