Heightened security continued at Mississippi Valley State University’s campus this morning as classes resumed following two bomb threats against the university last week.
Officers from the Valley Police Department and the Mississippi Highway Patrol were searching cars and checking IDs as students and staff returned to campus.
The university received two bomb threats last week — one on Wednesday and a second on Thursday morning — leading administrators to cancel classes, close the campus and move students from residence halls for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.
Maxine Greenleaf, director of communications at Valley, said classes were back on as normal but the added security would continue for the time being.
School administrators also postponed or relocated basketball games over the three-day weekend because the Leflore County Civic Center, the temporary home of the MVSU teams, was named in at least one of the bomb threats.
The Valley men’s and women’s basketball teams will play Southern University at the civic center Wednesday. The women tip off at 5:30 p.m., with the men’s game to follow at 7:30 p.m. The games had been originally scheduled for Monday.
A second set of games, against Alcorn State University on Saturday, was scheduled to be played at the civic center but was played at Alcorn instead.
The schools swapped home dates, with Alcorn now scheduled to travel to Leflore County to take on Valley Feb. 15.
Greenleaf said Valley police continue to investigate the original threats in conjunction with local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies. Making a bomb threat is a felony offense under both Mississippi and federal law and carries prison terms of up to 10 years.
