The city council meeting on Tuesday opened with the recognition of three individuals; Susan Speirs, Sydney Stubbs, and Olaf “O.R.” Rueben Raybon.

Council Member Frank Ford with Picayune teacher Susan Spiers receiving recognition for 2nd place for teacher of the year.

Speirs, introduced by Council Member Frank Ford, was awarded 2nd place for Teacher of the Year. This was awarded for Keep Mississippi Beautiful. She also announced that she would be retiring at the end of this school year after 40 years.

Ford said, ” Whatever she sets her mind to, she gets done and done successfully.”

Mayor Jim Luke introduced Stubbs and said she had fallen ill in January 2023 after working at city hall. Luke said she returned near the end of April and received the Circle of Excellence award at the most recent Keep Mississippi Beautiful luncheon.

Rayborn, 87, passed away on March 17th, 2023. Rayborn served in the Marine Corps and worked for the Pearl River County Sheriff’s Department as a reserve police officer for the city for over 60 years. He also volunteered in the community serving as a scoutmaster for Troop 2 in Picayune.

Mayor Luke, who presented the certificate of appreciation to Rayborn’s family, said, “I am very, very honored tonight to recognize someone, who I call simply O.R.”

Mayor Luke with Sydney Stubbs, who received the Circle of Excellence award.

After the recognition and department updates, the board started on the consent agenda.

One agenda item discussed in the previous board meeting was the request to accept bids for a new welcome sign at exit 6 of I-59. Previously this was quoted to the board at around $132,000. However, during this week’s meeting, the city engineer and those at Dungan Engineering came to the board with another request to accept bids for the sign. This time the estimated cost per sign was closer to $26,000. The board approved this request.

Every item on the consent agenda brought up and discussed was approved.