Delta Grassroots Caucus Events

Credit Michael Hibblen/ KUAR News, Arkansas Public Radio; Former President Bill Clinton speaking to the Delta Grassroots Caucus on May 2, 2013, at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, Little Rock

U. S. Senator John Boozman, Arkansas, at a Delta Grassroots Caucus meeting at the US Capitol

Brad Cole, Executive Director of the Municipal League of Illinois; previously a senior aide to former Republican US Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, earlier Mayor of Carbondale, Illinois, veteran Delta regional advocate, speaking at the Delta regional conference in West Memphis, Arkansas on April 26, 2019.

President Bill Clinton makes a comment to Delta Caucus Director Lee Powell at a meeting in Blytheville, Arkansas (in the northeast Arkansas Delta) on Nov. 2, 2014

The Delta Caucus would like to pay tribute to the late, great U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, a powerful force in the US Senate for decades and a champion for the Delta. Sen. Cochran passed away on May 30, 2019. He spoke to the Delta Caucus on many occasions over the years (he is pictured above speaking to a Caucus event on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC) and his thoughtful, courteous and bipartisan leadership will be sorely missed.

Marcie Lawson, Executive Director, Sikeston, Missouri Regional Chamber and Area Economic Development Corporation, speaking at the Delta regional conference in West Memphis, Arkansas on April 26, 2019.

Alan Gumbel, Greater Memphis Alliance for a Competitive Workforce, Memphis, Tennessee, speaking at the Delta regional conference in West Memphis, Arkansas on April 26, 2019.

Mayor Shirley Washington of Pine Bluff, AR, speaking to the Delta Caucus at the Arkansas Capitol Rotunda in 2017.

Delta Council Meeting on June 12 in Mississippi to Feature Senator Blanche Lincoln

Posted on May 12, 2009 at 05:37 PM

We would like to encourage the Delta Grassroots Caucus partners to attend the annual Delta Council meeting at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi, on June 12, 2009, where the keynote speaker will be US Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. Sen. Lincoln is doing a great job for our region and we encourage everybody to take part in what will be a very important and informative Delta Council meeting.

Information on the June 12 meeting in Cleveland, MS was relayed to us by the Delta Council and we are glad to include the press release below to help get out the word about this important event. For more information see the Delta Council website at www.deltacouncil.org. Thanks-Lee Powell, MDGC

74th Delta Council Meeting to be held June 12

Arkansas U.S. Senator Lincoln to Keynote

Stoneville, Miss.–The 74th Annual Delta Council Meeting will be held Friday, June 12, 2009, and will include a featured address by U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. The annual meeting of the Delta’s regional business and agriculture organization will be at Delta State University’s Bologna Performing Arts Center, in Cleveland, Miss.

“We are pleased that Senator Lincoln will address the members and special friends of Delta Council at this year’s meeting,” said Delta Council President John Phillips of Holly Bluff. “During her tenure in Congress - first in the House of Representatives and now in the U.S. Senate - she has distinguished herself as an advocate of the fundamental issues facing the Delta such as rural economic development, sound agricultural policy, foreign trade policy, workforce training, and health care.”

Lincoln was first elected to U.S. Senate at the age of 38 in 1998, and re-elected in 2004. Senator Lincoln’s Senate Committee assignments include serving on Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; the Senate Finance Committee, the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources; and the Senate Special Committee on Aging. As one of the Agriculture Committee’s top-ranking Democrats, she was appointed Chair of the Production, Income Protection and Price Support Subcommittee for the 110th Congress. From these platforms, Senator Lincoln has served as a leading voice on national priorities like farm policy, health care, alternative energy, social security, tax policy, education, farm policy, hunger, nutrition, and veterans’ benefits.

Lincoln was first elected to public office in 1992 as U.S. Representative for Arkansas’s First Congressional District. Hailing from a seventh-generation Arkansas farm family, Lincoln is a Helena, Arkansas, native where her mother Martha Kelly Lambert still resides. Lincoln received a bachelor’s degree from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia, and studied at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Senator Lincoln and her husband, Dr. Steve Lincoln, are the parents of twin boys.

“Senator Lincoln has been a real friend to the Mississippi Delta region and has shown the ability to work with our entire Congressional delegation in Mississippi - particularly her colleague on the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee, Senator Thad Cochran - when issues important to rural areas like Arkansas and Mississippi are considered,” Phillips said.

Lincoln’s keynote address will follow a full morning’s activities, including a salute to Delta Honor Graduates by Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, and an annual report on the region’s activities and priorities. Delta Council will also recognize those who have made significant contributions in other critical areas of Delta life

Lincoln’s address is scheduled to conclude at noon, when the Delta Council members and guests will move to the University Quadrangle for a fried catfish luncheon.

The 74th Delta Council Annual Meeting will begin at 10:30 a.m. This year’s meeting is sponsored by BankPlus, Land Banks of Mississippi, Jimmy Sanders., Inc., and five organizations representing “Voices of Mississippi Agriculture;” Catfish Farmers of Mississippi, Corn Promotion Board, Cotton, Inc., Rice Promotion Board, and Soybean Promotion Board.