Brittney McPherson

Brittney and I go way back.

Check out those cool haircuts that me and Mallory had.

Mal and my Pocahontas birthday party at the skating rink. Mal and I are obviously the two that are dressed alike and Brit is on the front in the purple. :)

Somehow we missed each other in the kindergarten hall of Shannon Elementary, maybe because I was confined to Mrs. Shumpert’s room and Brittney to Mrs. Porter’s. When it came time for 1^st grade, though, we were both lucky enough to be in Mrs. Christian’s class. We (we being myself, Mallory, and Brittney because Mallory and I were kind of a package deal back then) really bonded when it came time for the 1^st grade Peter Rabbit play and we escaped being vegetables and were cast into the roles of Peter’s twin sister rabbits, Floppsy and Mopsy, and Brittney was our rabbit mom, Mother Rabbit . We were rabbit kin. Brit even remained my friend after I gave myself a terrible haircut and Mama made Mallory get one that matched. That was very nice of Brit, because we looked like special kids. By the end of our 1^st grade year, Brit, Mal and I were coping without a nap time, reading about a kid named Nan, and were big buddies.

We were put in the same class in 2^nd grade too and got to watch Mrs. Collins drag Corey Winfrey all of the way from Monday row into her storage closet of doom. Elementary school rolled on by and we moved into the awkward junior high years. And liking boys. I think that we must have been the most boy-crazy girls ever. It’s hilarious how we were convinced that we were both in love with Cody Scott, and at the same time, mind you. I will cherish all of those nights of sitting in the McPherson house and calling into the All Dedication Hour on KZ105 and dedicating Alicia Keys’ “Fallin” to Jim and Braxton from Nicole and Leeanna to conceal our identity. We were oh so dumb, but it was fun.

Brittney’s birthday is in October, so she was the first one of our friends to get our license in high school. That was when I stopped hanging out at home so much and starting spending most of my Saturday nights at Skate Zone chasing boys on Christian Skate Night. I’m glad that the red Cavalier wasn’t exactly a hottie-getting magnet, because I could have been stuck with a not-so-classy skating rink boy instead of Ben Bunch.

 After graduation, I went to ICC and Brit ventured north to NECC, but we got to room together when we both ended up at State for the last few years of school. My Mama always says that you don’t know anyone until you live with them, and I suppose that’s true because I there’s a lot that we didn’t know about each other. For example, I didn't know that anyone could kill plants like Brit can. It's pretty amazing. Neither one of us are great cooks, but we've learned the hard way that a clove of garlic IS NOT the entire bulb of garlic.  When Mallory moved back home to do her student teaching and I had some sort of twin separation anxiety, Brit became my fill-in sister. I’ll always be thankful for her letting me sleep in her room those first few nights.

I think that your best friends are your best friends not because they have some kind of super powers, but because you experience life at the same time. There are very few times in my life when I can say that Brittney hasn’t been there. She has been my running buddy since first grade and I couldn’t imagine getting married without her on the stage with me.

Cassidy Warren

I have been hanging out with Cassidy since high school.  We have hung out a lot over the past few years due to his employment allowing him lots of free time.  I feel like we were college roommates even though we weren't, due to all the nights he spent on our couch in Oxford.  Cassidy is always down for just about anything, especially beach trips to Miami, Key West, Panama City, Orange Beach, and Biloxi.  Cassidy likes taking it easy. When we were in Biloxi a couple summers ago, we wanted to go do something but Cassidy just wanted to sit around and enjoy a coke on a lazy Sunday afternoon.  He's just a laid back kind of guy.  He can also grow a heck of a mustache when he is in between jobs!

Hillary Jones

It was an August afternoon in 1997 on the playground at Shannon Elementary. My friends and I were in a wad making up dance moves to the new Spice Girls song when Mrs Keith, a 4th grade teacher, came over and directed our attention to the new blonde-headed kid in her class that was standing on the sidewalk. Mrs. Keith said that this Hillary kid had just moved to Shannon from Tupelo and that it would be nice if we introduced ourselves. I remember thinking, "why not?" We were forming a Spice Girl performance for the talent show and she did resemble Baby Spice, so I thought that it would be perfect. Our efforts did not work, though, because Hillary was a jerk face and said that she did not want to talk to us. Whatever. She eventually stopped pouting about her move to Shannon and agreed to be Baby Spice in the talent show. The rest is history.

We have spent a lot of time together, be it shooting turtles with a BB gun in her families pond or at sleepovers on Cherry Street. By the way, never ever feed Hillary cheese cubes. It leads to a long night. :)

Some of my greatest adventures in life have involved Hillary and Brewer Baptist Church. I'm pretty sure that we've gone from singing Father Abraham in Mrs. Kathryn's children's choir to playing I've Never every chance we could get. "I've never had blonde hair" got the Jones's every time. As a matter of fact, the youth group years were some of my favorite of the past 24 years. It's unbelievable how much time we all spent together. I don't think that there was a Sunday night that went by that were weren't at the Wendy's on South Gloster having pickle races down the windows.

We ate a lot of weird stuff back then and jumped off a lot of crazy stuff, so it's amazing that we're still alive. We had fun, though. Hillary really has been there though a lot of important times in my life and me in hers. That's why I want her up there by me on the Big Day. We share a lot of inside stories so it would just be weird if when we're old and gray, I couldn't say, "Little Hill, remember what happened on July 14, 2012." She'll be at the bar with a lot of makeup on.

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Justin Dickinson

I started hanging out with this guy in high school and have been friends since we had a few classes together.  We were roommates at Ole Miss for two years, the longest of any of my former roommates.  From grilling out every Friday night with the neighbors to going to Cotton Bowls in Dallas we have had a lot of good times in Oxford.  I credit him with getting me to try a lot of new things that I now enjoy, such as eating sushi, wearing shorts, and sometimes staying up past 10:00 PM.  I don't think we ever got in a fight when we lived together, but he has made me mad when we lived together by waking me up while I was sleeping in my leather recliner by throwing the TV remote at me.  We decided on who got the bedroom with the private bathroom by playing an epic 5 game series of NCAA baseball 05.  With the series tied at 2 to 2. He won the 5th game 2 to 1 and the private bathroom.

The Draft

I don't know if y'all have ever had to share anything with anybody, I'm assuming that you have because most people do, whether it be a Barbie Dream House with your sister or a 4-wheeler with your brother. Well, Mallory and I have literally shared EVERYTHING most of our lives, starting with Mae Whitehead's womb. I'm talking about pets, toys, a Nintendo 64, an iPod there for a little while, a computer, the Ford Fusion for about six years, a room for as long as I can remember. That is, except for that one week when we were about 11 and she got mad at me and moved down the hallway. I guess that you can say that we have shared hair styles because when I maliciously cut my own hair in  first grade, Mama made Mallory get the very same hair cut. She must have known about some unwritten twin rule that we didn't. We share a birthday, and have shared a birthday cake for the past 24 years (Mama may have gotten us each for for our first birthday and maybe once during our teenage years, but that's still 22/24 years of sharing a cake.) As of March, we were up to 48 candles on one cake. 

We even shared a cell phone for a little while, which seems completely insane now. It was right at the end of the massive-sized permanently attached car phones and the beginning of "The Brick - Nokia 5110" era. The first text message that I ever got was from a boy named Obie. I didn't know what a text was or if it was meant for me or Mallory, but he was cute so I claimed it. That's what happens when you share stuff. We eventually got separate cell phones, but it was only after we started working at two different jobs our first year at ICC.

After ICC, we moved to Columbus to go to the W, where we shared an apartment. Mama being Mama bought us lots of household items that we, of course, had to share:  a Crock Pot, George Foreman grill, deep fryer, etc. Then there are the things that we went in together to buy for our apartments, like an awesome green chest of drawers, end tables, and kitchen tables. There were lots of things that belonged to both of us.

Then we had our legal divorce.

On April 26, 2012, in honor of the 77th annual meeting of the National Football League, we split our stock. We did it right, too, true draft style. Since neither of us had the worst record in the league, we flipped a coin to see who would go first. Mama and Baby Black Cat officiated. 

I won the coin toss!

For anyone who cares, here are how things panned out..

1st pick - Megan - sewing machine.

2nd and 3rd - Mallory -metal chicken and hand-me-down China cabinet

4th and 5th - Megan- blue end table and green chest of drawers

6th and 7th - Mallory - green decorative platter and ugly orange chair

8th and 9th - Megan - George Foreman and vacuum cleaner

10th and 11th - Mallory - clothes hamper and hand mixer

and after a lengthy discussion,

12th and 13th - Megan - CrockPot and deep fryer

14th and 15th - Mallory - table and bathroom cabinets

It really did go much smoother than anyone anticipated. I reckon that every once in a while I'll miss sharing a bedroom with Mallory. And I really will miss looking in her closet when there's nothing to wear in mine. But, we're both getting new people to share stuff with: Ben and Jeremy.

Justin Campbell

One of my first Mississippi friends.  I probably wouldn't have done near as good in school if it weren't for our fierce academic competitiveness with each other.  If you need something, he will be there. You can count it!  After high school we rode together to ICC which was a lot of fun and were roommates at UNA for a semester.  Justin was my connection with the Ozark Baptist crew (Adam, Cassidy, and JD).  So through Justin I got to know them.  He has been married the longest of any of my friends, so I might have to turn to him for some marriage advice.  

Tara Morgan

You know, I really don't know when I met Tara. I feel like we've grown up together.. and I reckon that we have. I'm pretty sure that Ashley McMillen introduced me to her as, "This is my best friend. She's the one that I skipped your graduation to go see." Thanks Ashley. I got over that, though. We all became friends and did whatever the heck it was that we did at ICC. After our fun-filled years in Fulton, Mallory, Kallen, and I transferred to the W and the original Apartment 12 girls took us under their wings for our weekly escape from Hogwarts.. I mean, the W. I'm still very grateful for all of the those conversations at the Starkville Abner's. 

Tara was also part of one of one of my and Ben's very memorable first dates. It was sometime around the spring of 2009 when Ben asked me to go to Oxford to watch an Ole Miss baseball game. I'm sure that he wasn't too happy with me inviting my friend on our date, but she took the edge off of the awkwardness of a first date, so I invited her along anyway. (Btw, Tara, I'm not sure that I told you upfront that it was a date. Thanks for going along with me.) Anywho, off we went; me, Ben, and Tara; to Oxford.

Once we got there, Ben suggested that we try the Japanese restaurant called Kabuki. We sat down at the hibachi grill and Ben ordered shrimp. Let me stop right here and say that I hate shrimp. If anyone ever wants to make me sick, just slip some shrimp juice in my food, or surprise me with a bucket of shrimp, or, shoot, you could probably just show me a picture of one. I just don't like the little fellas! But Ben didn't know that, so he ordered the shrimp. I really thought that I would be okay with just ordering the chicken hibachi and avoiding eye contact with the uncooked slimy sea creatures on the table in front of me, but I wasn't. At the end of our meal, I started feeling super sick and the nerves of being on a date with a super cute fella didn't help either. 

I made it out of Kabuki and into the truck when things turned for the worse. I asked Ben to crank up the air and put my hands over my mouth. I've never seen someone pull out of a line of traffic that quickly. Before I knew it, I was puking my guts out in the parking lot of some unlucky tire store. I was more than embarrassed about the whole ordeal, but Ben was real sweet. After I had left my entire meal in the parking lot, he drove me right over to Wal-Mart to buy me some new flip-flops, a Sprite, and a pack of gum. And then the sparks flew. I say all of that to say this.. Tara has been right there through many of the ups and downs of our relationship. :)

I think that I'll keep Tara around as a friend for a while. I mean, she is probably going to be the governor of Mississippi one day and that's somebody that you want in your corner. Honestly, she's wise like an owl. I have went to her for advice on everything from boys to the Bible to how to cook those cheese biscuits to who to vote for. She recently even gave me advice about losing a few pounds. "Just switch from Coke to Diet Coke." Wise words from a wise friend.