By John Howell Sr.
and Billy Davis

It wasn’t the NFL draft, but in a shaky economy, with double-digit unemployment, it might feel like it.

 Jerry Lloyd of Batesville, a certified welder, was hired Thursday by a Batesville business.

He had been laid off a year ago by a manufacturer, reported Gary Mills, the Special Projects representative for the Miss. Department of Employment Security.

Mills was present Thursday in Batesville at the Northwest Mississippi Job Fair, where he reported good news as the day proceeded.

The sixth-annual job fair was held at the Batesville Civic Center.

Other positive news from Mills included Sharla Davis, of Senatobia, out of work since 2009.

She was hired by a Yalobusha manufacturer.

Mills said Lashaundua Coleman, of Coldwater, had been laid off three months ago by a Tunica casino. She received a job offer from Batesville’s Cracker Barrel restaurant at the job fair.

Job seekers have learned that the jobs available through the employers who attend job fairs at the Batesville Civic Center are not offered on a first-come, first-serve basis.

So as the job fair opened Thursday morning, there was no large crowd pushing against the civic center’s front doors waiting to rush in at the 9 a.m. opening.

Instead, a laid back group patiently waited during opening preliminaries: Nyanthia Townsend sang the national anthem, Governor’s Job Fair Network Director Joe Buckner and Batesville Mayor Jerry Autrey made brief remarks. Then people calmly walked down the steps leading to the civic center floor and began working the booths set up for the 45 or so prospective employers who were looking for workers, offering training or other advancement opportunities.

Job seekers kept arriving during the next several hours. Ruthie Mae Rudd of Pope said she first planned to visit the booth manned by Tri-Lakes Medical Center representatives. Rudd was laid off from her old job last August, she said.

Jeremy Faulkner has a job — sort of. The 28-year-old works out-of-town three nights a week as a security guard. He is also a self-employed yard maintenance worker, mowing grass and trimming weeds. Faulkner was looking for something full-time, less seasonal and more lucrative.

Betty Wilbourn of Sardis said that she had been out of work since she was laid off at a local industry in June, 2006.

There were as many stories as their were job seekers.

Mississippi Department of Human Services program specialist Clay Ashford of Water Valley herded a group of TANF students into the civic center. Through TANF — Temporary Assistance for Needy Families — Ashford teaches people receiving assistance “basically how to look for work and if they find a job, how to hold onto it,” he said.

Within an hour of the job fair’s opening, Debbie White of ACI said that she had already spoken with applicants who would probably be hired by the Batesville steel building manufacturer. White said that six or eight new workers were needed immediately and that several applicants who were qualified welders had made application.

As anticipated by Mississippi Department of Employment Security representatives who helped planned the job fair in Batesville, long lines of applicants formed immediately at the job booths of Tri-Lakes Medical Center, GE Aviation and ACI.

Elsewhere on the civic center floor, Marsha May of Southern Illinois University provided information to prospective students. That’s right, Southern Illinois University. The institution operates a satellite facility in Millington, Tenn., which offers a bachelor of science degree in Industrial Technology through alternate weekend courses that are convenient for non-traditional students. “It’s a very marketable degree, (there’s) not one like it in the mid-south area,” May said.

Thus far, students have come into the program from Viking in Greenwood, Insituform in Batesville, Heatcraft in Grenada, and BorgWarner in Water Valley, she added.

At a booth under the banner, “Praying for Jobs,” they did just that. Randall Mooney and Will Barnett encouraged job seekers to fill out a card with their name and prayer request. Mooney said he became inspired by Job 42:10, where scripture states that after his long ordeal Job prayed for his friends. After a career in the construction business in Jackson, Mooney said, he found himself last year facing “the hardest year we’ve had. For the first time in my 38-year career I found myself out of work.”

“When it dried up, it got my attention,” he added.

Mooney said that he discovered the passage in Job while he was praying about his own troubles and was inspired to begin praying for others, which led to purchasing the space in a job fair booth to reach people. Before his ordeal, Mooney continued, “I would hide behind other people,” when his minister called on members of the congregation to pray. Now he receives prayer requests constantly, he added.