What Happened and Why It Matters
wigginsms.com launched this week as a civic media platform for Stone County, Mississippi. This is why it exists.
I sat through the county board of supervisors meeting last Monday. I had attended once before, but it was as the president of the Stone County Business Collective and my purpose was to introduce the organization. I left when I was done speaking.
My purpose this time was much different. This time I was there representing my own business — to gather what happens, to share the information, and to begin building belonging.
I knew quite a few faces in the room, but didn’t expect to see Seth Bond. I know him as Bond AC and Heat, but he was at the meeting to provide the devotion. He spoke on Psalm 133. Unity.
The point that stuck with me — unity is not agreement. It sits with me still.
Unity doesn’t assume sameness. It points to the work of moving something in the same direction. A marriage. A business. A county.
I don’t know anyone I agree with completely. I ask a lot of questions, and I think perspective and lived experience make it difficult to agree completely. There are people I trust and people I agree with often. There are people I love with my whole chest and still disagree with about ordinary things, serious things, things in between.
I don’t see that as a failure.
I think that’s why building a media company that bridges what happened with why it matters is important to me. Because belonging and unity go hand in hand.
You cannot have a real sense of belonging in a place where people do not know what is happening. You cannot ask people to participate in civic life if the only way to understand it is to sit through every meeting, follow every Facebook page, know every calendar, and already be connected to the right people.
People care. But care has to compete with work, bills, children, aging parents, dinner, exhaustion, weather, deadlines, and the ordinary noise of being alive. When local information is scattered across meetings, calendars, Facebook pages, flyers, screenshots, and word of mouth, participation becomes something only the already-connected can manage. By the time someone realizes something mattered, the moment to show up has often already passed.
People still want to know what happened.
They want to know what passed, what’s being built, which roads are closed. They want to know where events are taking place, who needs support, which businesses are open. People want to know because it might matter. It might make a difference in their day.
People want to belong to the place they live, but belonging doesn’t happen by accident. It is built over time and needs to be tended. It has to be made visible in ordinary ways people can actually reach.
A county meeting at 9 a.m. on a Monday matters, but most working people cannot be there. A school event matters, but not everyone sees the flyer. A small business opening matters, but not everyone follows the right page. A road closure matters, but information often travels by screenshots, group texts, and word of mouth after someone has already been inconvenienced.
Today that local information is scattered.
That’s what wigginsms.com is for.
Not to replace the meeting, the flyer, the Facebook page, or the word of mouth. To sit above all of it. To translate what happened into why it matters — in plain language, without a paywall, without an agenda beyond the community itself.
Stone County has good people doing real work. Most of it goes unseen.
We’re here to change that.
wigginsms.com is free, always. Find us at wigginsms.com.