By NELL LUTER FLOYD
Sun Staff Writer
Locke Ward’s efforts to clean up the city of Jackson have brought kudos that he never expected when he began work about a year ago.
This month, he was among the Urban Landscapers, which includes mainstay Roger Parkes of Jackson and others, honored as the marshals of the Fondren Christmas parade.
“We had a good time,” Ward said. “It was a lot of fun.”
The Mississippi House of Representatives commended Ward with a resolution noting “his determination and amazing efforts to revitalize our capital city” and his work “galvanizing others to do the same.”
The Jackson City Council also noted his efforts and Keep Mississippi Beautiful named Ward the 2024 Volunteer of the Year.
Perhaps the most meaningful endorsements are these on Facebook: “Your parents would be proud of what you’ve accomplished.”
Ward’s parents, Suellen and Gayden Ward, and grandparents, Sudie and Jack Schultz, would no doubt be pleased They were so delighted when he was born that his birth was announced in an advertisement in the Northside Sun.
A 1974 advertisement for Sudie’s and Hardwick’s, a clothing store for children and women that Ward’s grandparents owned, carried the headline: New Merchandise Manager Weighs In At Sudie’s.
The advertisement reads: Mr. and Mrs. Jack Schultz Tuesday announced the appointment of a new merchandise manager for Sudie’s and Hardwick’s of Woodland Hills. He weighs seven pounds, seven ounces. His name is Gayden Locke Ward.
When he was a youngster, Ward appeared in numerous advertisements for Sudie’s, which was the first children’s clothing shop in Jackson and located in what was initially named Morgan Center and is known as Woodland Hills Shopping Center. Sudie Schultz made all the clothes when the shop opened in 1946, and Jack Schultz became known for his ability to fit children’s shoes. The shop outfitted generations of Jacksonians.
“My grandmother was something else,” Ward said. “I used to spend half my time at her house. Sudie was one of a kind. We could go on for hours and hours about my grandmother.”
Ward graduated from Jackson Academy in 1993. He grew up playing baseball and tennis team.
At the University of Mississippi, he earned a bachelor’s degree in business in 1997. Ward settled into real estate as a career, and that’s how he makes a living since.
It was while he was showing two physicians around
Jackson that Ward realized just what an impression the city’s trashy, unkempt appearance made on visitors.
“I drove the two doctors into Ridgeland on the highway and one of them said, ‘This is a lot better,’” he said. “I came back home and began to look at everything from a different perspective.”
Ward considered what to do and how to do it. He didn’t want to get bogged down by meetings but wanted to achieve results.
He didn’t complain about how the city looked during the public comment section of a Jackson City Council meeting and ask the city to do something. He didn’t wait for civic clubs or other organizations take up the cause.
Taking on the role of organizer, Ward began in November 2023 seeing that brush was cut, years’ worth of sediment removed and debris picked up along the I-55 frontage roads in northeast Jackson.
“We had a 14-foot dump trailer and we filled it to the top three times,” he said.
Thanks to the efforts of Ward and Casey Can, a home services business whose employees did much of the work, the retaining walls along stretches of the frontage roads are free from weeds and the concrete sidewalk is clean and visible, no longer covered by dirt.
Scrapping many years’ worth of overgrowth, grass and roadside grime is labor intensive but necessary to give the roadside a well-maintained appearance, said Casey Bridges of Gluckstadt, a real estate investor who owns and operates Casey Can.
“Without getting that overgrowth out of the way, it doesn’t look clean,” he said.
Ward sought donations from 10 businesses along the I-55 frontage roads for his cleanup efforts but didn’t get a single one.
At a friend’s suggestion, he turned to Facebook where he posted about his efforts and, soon after that, people began to applaud his work and make contributions via Venmo and then using a GoFundMe link.
Ward said he had no big plans past the initial cleanup of the frontage roads, but donations kept rolling in.
“I thought we’d clean up the frontage roads and be done with it, but it exploded,” he said, noting that donations total $100,000. “It got bigger.”
Ward and Parkes, who is known for his efforts to pick up trash along Briarwood Drive, collaborate.
Hired workers handle the heavy work, Ward said, and donations go to pay them.
Earlier this month, Ward officially established Clean Up Jackson, a nonprofit with 501 (c) (3) status, to accept donations that are tax deductible.
“As long as the donations keep flowing in, I’ll keep sending people out like Casey Can to do work,” he said. “This is strictly voluntarily for me. I have a real job that pays my bills.”
The scope of the work still includes picking up trash but it has expanded to power washing bridges in neighborhoods as well as sidewalks along the frontage roads.
The underbrush on a wooded lot in front of the Willie Morris Library on Old Canton Road was cleared so that the library is visible to drivers as they pass. The underbrush at Parharm Bridges Park was also removed. “People walking at the track said, ‘We feel safer,’” he said.
The latest venture is cleaning storm drains that are clogged with dirt and trash so that water can once again flow through them and won’t pool on city streets.
About 75 storm drains have been cleaned in neighborhood such as Fondren, Woodland Hills and Heatherwood. Neighborhood associations have heard about the work being done and some have called and requested help, he said.
Ward believes a cleaner city will make Jackson more attractive to people who want to invest in the city. One reason he’s doing what he does is so “people will look around and say, ‘Jackson is a great spot. I’d like to live there.’”
Living in the city is convenient– “You can get to any place you need to go in five or 10 minutes – and there are great restaurants, he said.
Having the goal of cleaning up the city and doing so has been personally satisfying, he said.
“I’m a goal setter, and I like to see if I can accomplish something,” he said.
When I get something in mind, I want to accomplish it.”
Ward believes his children, Mary Pender, a senior at Jackson Prep, and Alden, a fourth grader at First Presbyterian Day School, are proud of his efforts to make the city better, although they express it each in a different way.
“My daughter’s embarrassed when her friends say, ‘I saw your dad on the side of the highway cleaning up trash,’” he said. “When I pick up my son from school, he asks which job I’ve been doing, picking up trash or real estate, and when we’re driving down the road, he’ll point a piece a trash I missed.”
Ward’s wife, Melanie, editor at Mississippi Magazine, said she’s not surprised by her husband’s intention to improve the city.
“He’s always been very passionate about Jackson since he grew up here,” she said. “His family has been here for five generations.”
