You can't believe everything you hear on the radio

If you're not familiar with the concept of 16th Section land, these tracts were set aside for funding local schools as townships were surveyed and established west of the Appalachian Mountains. Most states sold these sections to build the early schools.

But in Mississippi, the state held onto the land and empowered local counties to rent out the acreage for farming or other purposes. Portions of several cities in the state are actually built on this land, and people take out long-term leases for the lots on which they've built homes and businesses.

Most of this land, though, is in some kind of agricultural production, and keen competition often develops when 16th Section leases come up for bidding and renewal.

Which brings us to this story that happened years ago in a Delta county...

The school board, as was the procedure, rented some awfully productive farm land for five years at a time to the highest bidder. And, of course, the bids were sealed. All this happened before the coming of cell phones, back when people relied on "private line" radios that weren't really all that private. Some businesses shared frequencies, plus plenty of folks had scanners and snooped in on radio conversations.

As it would happen, some of the nosy folk also were farmers.

This fellow had been renting a section of school land and did not welcome the idea of losing those profitable acres. But it was not a question of would the rent go up. How much it would go up was the question. So, the man and his son cooked up the deal.

They would engage in conversation over their radios as to the bid they were submitting and their agreed dollar amount, knowing full well those scanners would be running. And then the dirty deed was done.

Over their radios the father urgently asked his son, "Are you sure you have the correct bid number?" His son replied, "Yes sir, we are bidding $30.25 per acre for five years.

Well, the next morning at 9 a.m. the sealed bids were opened. A whole bunch of them were in the range of $30.00 to $34.50. The gentleman's bid of $35.05 was the last one to be opened that morning. There was a bunch of shocked and sick bidders. I don't know what ever happened to those scanners.

It is much the same today. You can't put a whole lot of faith in what you hear on the radio. Especially when the topic is politics or weather. It looks like rain here.

(PS: For more on 16th Section land, click here.)

--Tom Crumby