Reviving nonprofit eyed to save Crow’s Neck center
 TISHOMINGO – Reviving a dormant nonprofit may prove the key to extending
the life of the Crow’s Neck Environmental Education Center.
A
group of interested parties met earlier this week to discuss that
possibility, said Dr. Johnny Allen, president of Northeast Mississippi
Community College, which has managed the facility for the past 10 years.
The
Northeast Board of Trustees last month voted to end its contract with
the Tombigbee River Valley Water Management District to operate the
facility. Barring any new funding sources, the center is slated to close
June 30.
“When Crow’s Neck was started back around 1987, a
501(c)3 nonprofit was set up with a five-member board to receive private
contributions to Crow’s Neck,” Allen said. “Somewhere along the way it
ceased to function.”
The nonprofit has not functioned for at
least the past decade that Northeast has operated the center, Allen
said, and everyone with knowledge of it thought it had been inactivated
with the secretary of state’s office, which monitors nonprofits.
“After
all these years it still functions despite inactivity,” Allen said.
“Our idea is to see if we can get the original board back together.”
That
board consists of representatives from Mississippi State University,
Itawamba Community College, University of Mississippi, Northeast and the
water management district.
“Of course, none of these individuals
were at the table when this organization was formed,” Allen said. He is
writing to each institution’s leader to ask them to meet and discuss
the possibility of “reorganizing and re-energizing that organization.”
He said a meeting of that board requires 30 days notice, so it will be several weeks before there may be further developments.
“It
gives us another option under which we might preserve Crow’s Neck in
one way or another, and sets up a new environment for potential donors,”
Allen said.
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