Category: Good Neighbor

Paula Fairconnetue

One of the community's most vibrant women reveals her secret for getting things done: Keep moving.
- story by Pat Saik, photos by Ellis Anderson

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Lane Shaw

The Bay's Poet Laureate, Keeper of the Mockingbird Garden and Decorator Extraordinaire, Lane Shaw brightens up the world.
- story by Pat Saik, photos by Cynthia Miller

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Joe Tomasovsky

A retired photography teacher returns to the Mississippi coast and finds another volunteer career: restoring extraordinary, never-seen-before historical images - and helping start a new photography museum.
- story by Pat Saik, images by Joe Tomasovsky

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Joe Tomasovsky and one of the enormous panoramic prints that will be displayed in the new museum

Good Neighbor - October 2015

10/1/2015

Courtney Thomas

As director of one of the most progressive library systems on the coast, Courtney Thomas may call herself a small town girl, but she's got a worldwide vision.
- story by Pat Saik

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Good Neighbor - September 2015

9/1/2015

Dr. James Mahler

A "country boy" turned molecular science researcher turned small-town veterinarian? Meet Dr. James Mahler of Bay Animal Clinic, this month's Good Neighbor!
- story by Pat Saik, photos by Ellis Anderson

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Good Neighbor - August 2015

8/2/2015

Dale Pohl

This award-winning teacher considers herself a lifelong learner - and perhaps that's the most important lesson she imparts to her students: Never stop joyously reaching out to learn more.
- story by Pat Saik

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Good Neighbor - June 2015

6/1/2015

Pete Benvenutti

The patriarch of the Benvenutti clan may be 90 years old, but his memory and community spirit are as strong as his spirit.
- by Pat Saik

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Good Neighbor - May 2015

5/1/2015

Pam San Fillippo

As one of the few female career fire chiefs in the country - and the first one in the state - Pam San Fillippo remains fired up about her job, the department, and its work of protecting Bay St. Louis
- by Pat Saik

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Good Neighbor - April 2015

4/1/2015

Nicholas Carter
Owner of Alternate Reality Artist Gallery

by Pat Saik
- This month - A well-traveled artist returns to the Mississippi Coast, then creates a home and gallery in one of the most remarkable buildings in the Bay.

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Good Neighbor - March 2015

3/1/2015

Russell Guerin - A Passion For History

by Pat Saik
- This month, a visit with one of the community's most dedicated historians, Russell Guerin, as he tracks down the truth behind Hancock County legends.

Good Neighbor - Shannel Smith

2/1/2015

by Pat Saik
This month, the Cleaver Good Neighbor is Shannel Smith, who is opening doors - and minds - for children in the community!

Katharine Truett Ohman - A Force of Nature

12/1/2014

by Pat Saik

Dress her in blue jeans, hand her a shovel, and Katharine Truett Ohman is happy. For her, gardening is not just a hobby, it is a passion.

Fierce advocate for “re-greening” Bay Saint Louis, Ohman is a one-woman beautification machine. Having worked on project after project, especially after Hurricane Katrina’s destruction, Katharine has accomplished the kind of change that has transformed a broken landscape from a dirty gray to a thriving green.

For example, one of the first projects she brought to fruition after Katrina was planting 450 Crape Myrtles along the roadway. Helped along by donations of flower bulbs from the organization “America Responds with Love,” Ohman also helped organize a community trade-off of flower bulbs for metal cans or canned food. Through these efforts Hancock County residents received free of charge over a quarter of a million bulbs to plant.

Years ago, Katharine had her own landscaping business. The nursery businesses that she worked with then remain part of her re-greening support system. As a result of her good relationships with suppliers, most if not all of the trees, bushes and bulbs, were donated for the project at hand. Dan Batson’s GreenForest Nursery is just one of the generous donors to her projects.

Katharine receives help in implementing her projects from the Bay St. Louis Beautification Division as well as the City’s Division of Public Works, not to mention countless volunteers.

Support and approval for her projects from the City of Bay St. Louis is astounding. Katharine commends Mayor Les Fillingame for his love for a healthy community and his willingness to work together in support of the next project Katharine proposes.

“It takes a lot of work to get projects done,” Katharine muses. “It takes the entire community.”

One of Katharine’s sisters describes her as “a connector—someone who knows how to pull it all together and make it happen.”

Ohman has been showered with recognition for her community work with the environment—more awards than she can remember. She believes it important to acknowledge and thank any individual who has contributed to a project. But what is most important to Katharine is seeing how Bay St. Louis has had a rebirth of her natural beauty.

Katharine’s roots are deeply embedded in the community she loves. While growing up in New Orleans, she and her family drove often to Bay St. Louis via old US Highway 90. Both her mother’s parents and her father’s family had a summer house on the Mississippi coast.

In 1977, when Katharine was a young teenager, she and her parents, her two sisters and two younger brothers moved to Bay St. Louis. Sadly, her father died just a year later. Next-door neighbors Bill and Nell Frisbie provided loving emotional support, as well as their daughter, Jo Frisbie Gilmore, and the community at large.

Katharine credits her parents with instilling in her, by example, the duty one has to serve their community. Her father, for example, ministered to men in prison. Following in his footprints, Katharine often has and continues to work with jailed offenders held by the city and county. Together they accomplish re-greening projects.

In partnership with Mississippi State University’s Christian Stephenson, one on-going project has been creating and maintaining a community garden. Katharine—who has a master’s degree in psychology -works at building relationships with young offenders using her skills as both gardener and therapist. The men learn a useful skill and a sense of self-esteem.

All of the fruits and vegetables grown at the community garden are donated to the senior citizen center or the food pantry in Bay St. Louis.

Katharine is grateful to her parents for encouraging each of their children to be whatever they wanted to be, but always to work from a foundation of love and commitment to family and community.

She respects her parents for teaching her the credo she now lives by: be respectful to the environment and respectful to each and every human being.

Katharine’s fierceness and commitment to bettering her community may spring from her maternal lineage. She is a descendent of Susan B. Anthony, an activist in a Quaker family of social activists. Anthony (1820-1906) became an ardent advocate for women’s suffrage rights and other social justice issues. She spent her life working for justice with a moral zeal.

Likewise, Katharine says that she is “strongly pressed” to do what she is doing—that sometimes one must take on “what is heavily placed upon you.”

Katharine believes that a beautiful-looking community goes hand-in-hand with good mental health and good economic health.

When Katharine worked with public schools across the coast in improving mental health programs, she most enjoyed working with children. In order to help children remember her last name, she told them to just think “Oh, man, here she comes!”

Katharine Truett Ohman is a force of nature and luckily for Bay St. Louis, a good omen for re-growth through re-greening.

Good Neighbor - November 2014

11/1/2014

Helen Mestayer

- by Pat Saik

Good Neighbor Prima Luke

11/1/2013

Good Neighbor Mary-Miles Coe Higgins Walker

8/1/2013

by Pat Saik

A firecracker has moved into a house on Sycamore Street. Mary-Miles Coe Higgins Walker is her name. Full of life and full of stories, she shines as she recounts tales of her long life. She celebrated her ninety-second birthday this summer and gives no hint of slowing down.

“There are so many projects I want to finish before I leave this world,” she announces.

A newcomer, Mary-Miles moved to Bay Saint Louis from Baton Rouge about two years ago, at the encouragement of her son, Skip Higgins, who also calls Bay Saint Louis home.

Good Neighbor Phil Williams

3/1/2013

If you don’t know Philip Williams, you must not live in Bay St. Louis. That’s because just about everybody in town knows Mr. Williams. Gospel singer. Fisherman. Chef. He has been dishing out barbeque in the Bay for three decades.

He belts out gospel in his baritone voice at St. Rose on Sunday and rhythm and blues at the Hundred Men Hall. And he’s the go-to man if you want to find out where the fish are biting.

by Pat Saik

Good Neighbor Eddie Coleman

2/1/2013

by Pat Saik

Good Neighbor - Elizabeth Veglia

12/1/2012

by Pat Saik

Picture a 15-year-old languidly lying on the beach in the sun, smoking a cigar.

This was Elizabeth Veglia with an attitude: playful and mischievous and clearly destined for fame. “I had a wild childhood,” she confesses, “but I did stop smoking when I reached 21.”

Born in New Orleans to Ambrose and Cecile Veglia, the growing family summered in Long Beach.

Good Neighbor - Myron and Rhonda Labat

10/1/2012

by Karen Fineran

In a cozy, welcoming home on Third Street, live members of one of the oldest families in Bay St. Louis – and one of the oldest Creole families on the Coast. Myron Labat, Sr. and his wife Rhonda Labat greeted me warmly and told me a little bit about their family.

Myron, the former principal at North Bay Elementary School, has lived in Bay St. Louis his entire life. He attended St. Rose Elementary and St. Rose High School until it closed in 1968, graduating from Bay High. Rhonda is from Meridian, Mississippi, and met Myron while they were in school at USM Hattiesburg. Rhonda has worked at DuPont for 37 years as an Administrative Assistant in the medical department.