Talk of the Town: Petal Area Chamber of Commerce

Forrest County Supervisor Steve Stringer has spent more than two decades in public service, and he is clear that it has never been glamorous. A lifelong Petal resident, he served as a Petal alderman from 2001 to 2023 before moving to the county board, where he now represents District 3. In this episode of Talk of the Town, Stringer sits down with the Petal Area Chamber of Commerce to talk about the senior center he helped start, the roughly $33 million the county put into infrastructure last year, and why replacing old wooden bridges matters even when no one sees it happen.

He explains how a county road plan shifts when emergencies arise, shares the story of his wife Kim's surprise decision to run for alderman, and describes the investment going into The Center at Forrest County. He also warns that too few people are willing to put their name on a ballot, and makes the case for teaching servant leadership early. The conversation closes with a lightning round about root beer, Friday night football, and why he does not plan to retire.

Dr. Matt Dillon didn't grow up in Petal. He grew up forty-five minutes away in Columbia, Mississippi, on twenty-one acres with cattle, a garden, and a whistle instead of a dinner bell — and he still remembers getting his brains bashed playing baseball against Petal in high school. Thirteen years later, he's the superintendent of the district that built the town around it.

In this episode of Talk of the Town, Dillon traces the winding path that brought him here: a semester of nursing school that didn't take, a move to Oxford for a girl who turned out to be his wife, and the mentors who nudged him from the classroom into leadership. He talks through Petal School District's landmark year — its 50th anniversary, a record-setting bond referendum, and the new facilities it built — while explaining why, out of every place he could have landed, he chose to raise his own kids here. It's a conversation about calling, community trust, and what it means to become part of a hometown you weren't born into.

Jesse Carter didn't plan on running a restaurant and a boutique hotel outside Petal, Mississippi. She was living in New York City, acting in Law & Order and chasing a career that started with an audition monologue about a girl who ate a bag of weed — the gamble that got her into NYU Tisch. Then COVID sent her home, and a casual 'why don't you just buy it' turned into zero dollars down on a run-down roadhouse and hotel. She built furniture herself, floated sheetrock, and made three trips to Lowe's a day to get it open.

Two years in, a kitchen fire nearly took it all. Standing in the parking lot on the phone with her insurance agent, she got the first real break she'd had since starting the business — full coverage, payroll included, three months to rebuild. In this conversation, Jesse talks about starting over with intention, why she now protects her own well-being as fiercely as she protects Roadhouse, and what she learned the week a viral moment turned her own Google reviews into a battlefield.

On their first date, Annah Johnson's husband told her they'd own a Chick-fil-A one day. She laughed it off — she didn't even cook at home. Years later, sitting in a Chick-fil-A interview meant for the two of them, the rules changed everything: franchises only go to one person, and the recruiter pointed at Annah, not Justin.

In this episode of Talk of the Town, "Chicken Annah" walks through the real story behind Petal, Mississippi's Chick-fil-A — the myth-busting cost of a franchise, the food truck she ran out of a church parking lot during Covid, the 116-degree day she passed out from heat, and the years of phone calls to corporate asking why Petal didn't have a location of its own.

Annah also talks about what it's like running a family business with two kids underfoot, why she partners with local businesses and youth sports teams instead of treating Petal like just another zip code, and what's coming up on the menu and in the dining room this summer.

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Mayor Tony Ducker of Petal, Mississippi has been in office long enough to remember borrowing half a million dollars just to make payroll. That was 2009. He is still there.

In this episode of Talk of the Town, Tony Ducker sits down for a conversation that is part financial history, part infrastructure briefing, and part quiet philosophy about what it means to govern a place you genuinely love.

He describes the year he came into office with a board that actually worked together — and why he moved as fast as he could, knowing that kind of alignment never lasts. He explains the fat-cow-skinny-cow problem of municipal cash flow, what a $1 million annual loan payment does to your ability to fix anything, and why a water pipe installed in 1955 finally letting you know it is tired is both inevitable and still somehow a Friday afternoon problem.

Tony is candid about the bind every small-city mayor faces: the infrastructure that needs to be fixed is expensive, the grants require patience, and raising water rates is a good way to lose the next election. He does not pretend any of it is easy. What he offers instead is a long view — the idea that the job is not to fix everything, but to hand the next person a better position than you started with.

The episode also covers the Star Spangled Celebration and America's 250th, the Mayor's Youth Council, a close look at what Petal's growth pace actually means for schools and services, and a moment of genuine weight — a reflection on a tragic Memorial Day accident and what it means to live inside the Petal bubble.

If you live in Petal, this episode explains more about how your city actually works than most city council meetings ever will. And if you do not, it is an honest portrait of what small-town leadership looks like when someone is paying attention.

What does it take to build a community where every child starts school ready to succeed? For Nadine Coleman Gay, the answer is 30 years of work — and the story of how Petal, Mississippi became the state's first Excel by Five certified community. Nadine moved to Petal in the early 1990s as one of Mississippi's very first public kindergarten teachers. What followed was a career devoted to connecting families with the resources, support, and early childhood education they needed — work that eventually led to her founding and directing the Petal Parent Center, now named the Coleman Center in her honor. In this episode of Talk of the Town, Nadine shares the origin of Excel by Five — including how a kindergarten teacher's dinner-table conversations with her husband sparked a statewide initiative backed by Chevron and Governor Haley Barbour. She breaks down what Excel by Five actually means for Petal families, how the Coleman Center serves as the community hub for early childhood resources, and why catching developmental delays before age three can change the entire trajectory of a child's life.

What happens when a small town's favorite flower shop goes up for sale — and the right person almost can't stop herself from buying it? In this episode of Talk of the Town, Elizabeth Porter sits down with Kyndal Hrapmann , the new owner of Sweet Blossom in Petal, Mississippi, to talk about accidental entrepreneurship, the weight of carrying a career that was never really yours, and what it actually means to invest in the place you call home.

Kendall shares how Sweet Blossom landed in her lap after years of embroidery, healthcare, and a winding road through Pittsburgh, Arizona, and New Orleans — and why coming back to Petal wasn't giving up, it was finally figuring it out. They dig into what it looks like to run a gift shop, full-service florist, and embroidery business all at once, how Kendall is reshaping the Sweet Blossom experience through community partnerships, and the exciting new rental concept — the Petite Posy flower cart — launching just in time for prom season.

You'll also hear Kendall's take on hydrangeas having "mean girl energy," why prom flowers deserve the same intentionality as wedding flowers, and what it looks like to build a business not just for yourself, but as a living example for your kids.

Millie Swan joins us to talk about her career, how she got started in healthcare, raising children, and the legacy she hopes to leave behind at Forrest Health.