By John Howell Sr.
Como will bid to bring a live broadcast of Thacker Mountain Radio to the town this fall.
Como aldermen voted at a special called meeting Saturday to appropriate $5,000 from tourism tax proceeds for matching funds to get a $5,000 Mississippi Arts Commission grant to underwrite the $10,000 cost of securing live broadcast.

Como librarian Alice Pierotti brought the proposal to Mayor Everette Hill last week.
“It’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Pierotti told town officials.

Thacker Mountain Radio is a live weekly radio show that features readings from authors and a wide array of musical performances. It is usually broadcast live on Rebel Radio 92.1 at 6 p.m. each Thursday from Off Square Books in Oxford. Each week’s show is taped and rebroadcast on Saturday nights at 7 p.m. over Mississippi Public Radio.

Because of a March 3 deadline to apply for the $5,000 MAC grant, Mayor Hill added the Thacker Mountain Radio broadcast to the agenda of a special meeting he had called Friday to consider the hiring of an engineer for the town. When the Friday meeting failed to gain a quorum, it was rescheduled for Saturday and new public meeting notices were quickly posted.

Alderwomen Teresa Dishmon and Ruby Higgenbottom and Alderman John Walton attended the Saturday meeting, giving the mayor the needed quorum.

Aldermen quickly approved the mayor’s recommendation that the town hire the Cook, Coggin Engineering firm, giving him a 3 to 0 vote.

Mayor Hill said that the engineering firm had been recommended by K. T. Newman who began work late last year as Como’s water and sewer contractor.

The decision to use money from the tourism funds as match for the MAC grant to bring the Thacker Mountain Radio broadcast to Como also passed with a 3 to 0 vote, but by that time Alderwoman Higgenbottom had left for her job and Alderwoman Rachel Powell had arrived to preserve the quorum.

Pierotti initially requested that the live broadcast come from the Hunter’s Chapel M. B. Church, east of Como.

“Was (there) something wrong with downtown Como?” Higgenbottom asked. She added that she thought the tourism money should be used “to promote Como.”

“Could we (use) tourism money and have it at the church?” Mayor Hill asked.

After further discussion of whether expenditure of tourism money for a project outside town limits would be appropriate, Dishmon made a motion to use the tourism money as a match to seek the grant with the first location choice an outside area downtown and an downtown indoor venue as second choice. The motion was also approved contingent upon review by town board attorney John Calvin Patterson.

The other business conducted during Saturday’s meeting was hiring a cleaning service for the town hall. Dishmon and Walton voted for the mayor’s recommendation to hire the service; Powell voted against it.