As I walked into the Fanning home, I saw a display of St. Louis Cardinals memorabilia, and Mr. Mack Fanning exclaimed, “That’s my team! I started listening to them on the radio when I was six.” It was quite understandable that he would go on to become one of the greatest coaches this area has ever seen, supported and blessed by his wife, Ms. Marie, quite capable in her own right, with a smile for everyone she meets.
James McGee Fanning was born Feb. 11, 1946, to J. B. and Hazel Fanning, of Hickory, Mississippi, and Glenda Marie Caraway Fanning was born Nov. 26, 1946, to Glendon and Hazel Caraway, of Hickory. Marie said they probably met in the nursery at Hickory Baptist Church. Mack has an older brother, Mr. Tom Fanning, 82, living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, while Marie has a sister, Betty Murphy, living in Brandon, Mississippi.
Marie told me, “We grew up together,” and added, “We were friends all the way up and had to get away from each other to start dating.” That would be after high school. She told me what she loved so much about Hickory High School was the band, and Ms. Marian Thornton, the band director. Marie was a majorette, then became the drum majorette, before graduating from Hickory High School in 1964. At East Central Junior College, she was also a majorette and member of the Centralettes, the band’s dance group. She graduated from ECJC then went on to earn her B.S. in Elementary Education from Mississippi College in 1968.
Mack graduated from Hickory High School as Mr. Hickory High School in 1964. He had played football, basketball, and baseball, under “good coaches,” Mr. Richard Harris and Mr. John Kenna, and a principal, Mr. H.T. Strickland, who he said “was very good and used many opportunities to teach.” He then went on to Mississippi College, graduating in 1968 with his B.S. degree in Business Administration, and a minor in Secondary Education. He also joined the Mississippi Army National Guard in 1971.
Marie taught first grade in the Meridian Public Schools for one year, then went on to teach at Newton, later Hickory, then Newton County Elementary, where she retired in 1998 after 26 years. She earned her Master’s from Mississippi State in Meridian, in about 1991 or 1992, in Elementary Education. Young Mrs. Fanning, with a six-month-old baby at home, taught five high school subjects at Hickory High School, subbing for her husband while he was off doing his basic training at Fort Polk from January to June 1971.
Janna Marie was born August 20, 1971, then James Mark joined the family November 14, 1973. Janna is now a Registered Nurse and a Nurse Educator at St. Dominic’s, and is married to Rodney Gillis. Their children are Morgan, 16, and Macy, 12. Mark is married to Patti Lisk, and they have a son, Rolen, 14. Mark has been a well-respected coach and teacher at St. Andrews School in Jackson for about 20 years.
Marie spoke of how their children were a miracle and have been joys to them. The trials they have had have been with Mack’s health and well-being. Marie testified, “God has always been there for me. In 2008, Mack fell through the dugout roof at Southeast Lauderdale High School, hitting concrete, breaking everything on his left side. Then in 2013, he was so sick. I didn’t know where to go, what to do. He was in the hospital nine times in 2013, lost eighty pounds, and almost died from ulcerative colitis. They removed his colon. The surgeon didn’t think he’d make it, but God worked that miracle with Mack!”
She has been a Christian since a child of about nine or ten, being rebaptized when she was 14, when she understood more. Marie spoke of how her parents and grandmother were fine Christian people and very influential in her life. She’s always attended Hickory Baptist Church and practices what she preaches, that one should use your gift not only in your occupation but in church. She teaches a kindergarten Sunday School class and works with a preschool children’s choir. From the age of fourteen, with Ms. Thornton as her teacher, Marie played piano for church every Sunday night, only stopping a few years ago. She was also assistant pianist for several years.
Mack was also reared in church, and he is also a church worker, being a deacon, chairmen of deacons, and teaching a Sunday School class of older men. He remembered, “My grandfather, who was quite a cutter, got baptized at seventy years of age. Man, he had some influence on me!” He told me, “The biggest influence in my life was my father.” Mr. Fanning had built quite an establishment on the corner in Hickory, with a service station, a grocery store, a café and small motel. He taught Mack to work there from the time he was three or four years old.
He also said he was fortunate to have been around a lot of Christian people growing up. He was baptized when he was nine years old, and confessed that he “may have wavered along through life one way or the other.” He continued, “A person that’s had a lot to do with my Christian lifestyle is Dr. Randy Rich, our present preacher. He’s helped me grow as a Christian. The Lord was there when my life was very questionable in 2013, and that was also the time Dr. Rich had come to Hickory. He took after me like I was a special person, and he was a special person to me.”
Mr. Mack Fanning has been a special person in the lives of many a young person, as he taught school 36 years and coached sports for fifty years. He began at Hickory High School, where he coached for eleven years, winning three conference football championships there in 1971, 1972, and 1979. In 1981 and 1983, he led the baseball team to win two state championships. He also coached boys and girls basketball teams for two years, having winning seasons both years.
At Newton County High School, from 1990 through 1999, Mr. Fanning coached baseball, and girls’ softball from 1990 – 2004. At NCHS, Coach Fanning led the girls to two slow pitch championships, 1993 and 2001, and three fast pitch championships, 2000, 2002, and 2003. Newton County School System dedicated its softball field to Mack Fanning in 2004.
In 2004, he had to go on active duty with the Guard. He became the administrator over the food service operation at Camp Shelby, where he was in charge of 27 dining halls, feeding 9500 military personnel before they went to Iraq. In 2006, he turned sixty and retired after 33 ½ years. In 2007, Coach Mack Fanning was placed in the Mississippi Coaches’ Hall of Fame. He coached girls’ softball at Clinton for two years, then at Southeast Lauderdale for six years, where they won a slow pitch championship in 2012. He then came back to NCHS and helped Coach Tullos in baseball for three seasons.
The Fannings have led such full lives, I know there has been a lot they didn’t even tell me. But it has been such a joy to be able to write about another strong Christian couple who mean so much to the people of Decatur and Newton County.
Live for Jesus! He’s Coming Soon!
You may contact me at lagnesrussell@gmail.com or 601-635-3282.
