TUNICA - Nowhere in Mississippi - with the possible exception of the Choctaw Indian reservation in Neshoba County - has legalized gambling changed the landscape, literally and figuratively, as it has here in this Delta community just south of Memphis.
I never have been a great proponent of the gaming industry, and I don't spend much time or money in the casinos. I'm familiar with the moral arguments against gambling.
But being a person who attends a lot of conventions and meetings as a member of probably too many boards, commissions and associations, I do visit the hotels and other amenities provided by the gaming industry. If you go to a convention in Mississippi these days, chances are you'll be housed in a gaming resort hotel, and I go to my share of them, my Baptist heritage notwithstanding.
I attended a meeting in Tunica last week, my second visit to that area in the past 21/2 years.
This time the group I was with, the Mississippi Commission on the Environment, was given an afternoon tour of the county, arranged by one of the commissioners, Dick Flowers of Tunica, and local officials.
Naturally, they showed us the good side of what is happening there, and there is plenty to show.
Two decades ago Tunica was considered to be the poorest county in the poorest state of the union. That no longer is the case.
It's almost like a mirage, viewing high-rise hotels from dusty cotton fields and watching stretch limos pass farm tractors.
But it is the change in the Tunica County infrastructure that perhaps is the most amazing and the most beneficial to the average citizen of the area.
Tunica County is benefitting from a local and private bill which dedicates a tax on hotels, food and beverage to the Tunica Convention and Visitors Bureau as well as a cut of the gaming tax going to the county.
It seems to me that Tunica officials are spending their newfound wealth wisely.
For one thing they hired a visionary planner and administrator as county administrator. Ken Murphree is a Tunica native and Ole Miss graduate who was brought back home in 1994.
The county also has other competent personnel in the Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The officials hired outside professional help to assist them in planning.
They have put in a more than adequate road system in and around the resort area, one that envisions future growth. No traffic delays like one finds in Branson or Pigeon Forge.
They have installed a countywide water system and are working on a countywide sewage system.
Drainage, always a problem in the Delta, is being improved.
They are expanding the airport to where the runway will soon be longer than the one at Washington National, able to accommodate big jetliners bringing in tourists on chartered flights.
They have a state-of-the-art health and wellness center, ballfields and other recreation facilities, after-school programs for children and senior adult programs for the older residents.
In the county are three world-class golf courses, two owned by casino companies and one by the county, tennis courts, soon to be two museums, one with a Mississippi River theme, and an arena and exposition center designed to accommodate a variety of events, including livestock shows and equestrian events.
Because of its location, nearly 300 miles north of McComb, Tunica is attracting visitors from much of the Midsouth and Midwest. Mostly they are adults, many of them retired.
Local officials are working to make it a tourist destination in addition to a gaming destination, hoping to hold over visitors for an extra night are two.
Are there still problems in Tunica? Certainly.
The sheriff, who was defeated in the August primary, is under indictment on extortion charges. I'm told this is not related to gaming.
However, an alarming increase in armed robberies is related to the casinos.
I'm told the schools in Tunica County are still subpar, although they are improving. I saw some after-school study programs in progress, and they were impressive. So were the computers available to the kids.
Brooks Taylor, the publisher and editor of The Tunica Times newspaper, said, "It's a mixed bag," when I asked her if locally owned businesses, like hers, are better off because of the casino boom.
"We get advertising we wouldn't get otherwise and there are new businesses," she said.
But so far there hasn't been a great influx of new residents, despite improvements in housing and public facilities. Some people are commuting to the county to work, and wage scales and benefits are increasing, putting pressure on local businesses to hire and retain employees.
But, Taylor said, there is "no doubt the quality of life is being improved" for most of the approximate 10,000 people who live in Tunica County.
