I grew up in south Mississippi, in a small city known as Petal - the “Friendly CIty.” A few feet outside of those city limits is a community known as Leeville, located in Forrest County, and that’s where I call home. I grew up there on land that my father inherited from his father, who inherited it from his father and so on. As a distant relative of the Lees by marriage, those relatives are the namesake for that road that I grew up on.
Later in life, my parents divorced, but that didn’t change much about the landscape or location of my upbringing. My dad has stayed put on that land that we call “Camp Hill,” while my mom has moved a few times, never more than a few miles down the road.
Present day, she calls Longleaf Acres her home. That subdivision is located at the Forrest/Jones county line.
As you can tell, we’ve never gone far from those longleaf pines that give the Pine Belt their unique story. Those longleaf pines also gave me my story, and I would like to share that with you all today.
LongLeaf Acres
My mom, Tammy Berry, who is also a Petal native, grew up in a part of town just outside of the other end of the city limits of Petal, in a community affectionately known as Carterville. A descendent of the Carters by marriage, her parents were kin to the namesake of that area.
To this day, my mother is the owner and keeper of the Carterville Cemetery - not the one located on the church property, but the one right beside that, which is the burial ground for some of the very first founders of this city. Rumor has it that she and her second husband were married at the historic Carter Cabin, but that is a story for another time.
Carterville Baptist Church - photo by Cayla
My mother’s father, Charles Berry, was a school teacher at a little school known as the Sunrise School, located in - you guessed it - the Sunrise community. Her mother, among many other things, worked for the Forrest County annex when it was located at the old Methodist hospital. When she wasn't doing that, she was busy raising their many children.
Sunrise School Plaque - Photo by Cayla
Pawpaw Berry (Charles) had a father, Carl Berry, who was supervisor for District 3 in Forrest County for several terms. In 1950, when the East Hardy Bridge was built, he was the representative of that area.
His name is still adorned on a plaque that is welded to that old bridge, which is now being remade into a pedestrian bridge to make way for the new river district.
Photo of East Hardy Bridge plaque - Photo by Cayla
Pawpaw Berry had a brother, Carl Jr., who was a city attorney for nearby Hattiesburg during the civil rights movement. He passed away far too soon in a fiery explosion that made the front page of the Hattiesburg American newspaper at the time.
Rumor has it, while Carl was working on the case of the murder of civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer, someone planted an explosive device in his vehicle. While he was on his way home from a meeting in Laurel one day, his car blew up on Interstate 59.
His body turned to ashes before paramedics could even respond to the scene.
My grandaddy, Franklin Camp, worked for United Gas Company and he spent a lot of time in Louisiana until he retired at a fairly young age and came home to tend to the family land. His wife, Betty Jean, was a school bus driver, and when she was not doing that she was busy raising many kids of her own.
Franklin Camp, United Gas Co.
Those children included Marsha, Greg, Brian, Brad, Bruce and Sandy. Franklin and Greg passed away in 2021 as a result of COVID and we miss him dearly.
Grandaddy's dad, Tom Camp, was justice court judge for Forrest County. According to the grandkids, he was "meaner than a hornet.” (I am sure they mean that in the most loving way possible).
Aunt Marsha went on to be the payroll clerk for the Petal School District, where she still sits to this day, awaiting her inevitable retirement. She is a fixture in the halls of the district’s central office, and if you don’t find her there, you have likely seen her at the gates of any Petal High School football game.
Sandy eventually married Mike Williamson and they built Catfish Corner - twice. The first one was a dine-in eatery in the center of downtown Petal, where families would often come eat lunch after church on Sundays.
The second time, they brought the business back as an express take-out style drive-through, which also sat in the center of downtown Petal, in the former Domino’s Pizza building.
Catfish Corner Express - photo by cayla
Uncle Greg grew up to be a "free bird" - he enjoyed collecting arrowheads and roaming the family land. He also passed away because of COVID, just one day prior to his father, my grandfather.
They both passed in their homes, on that Leeville family land that we call Camp Hill. My uncle Brian grew up to go into the field of oil and gas and later moved to Texas to work on the pipeline.
Aunt Michelle worked for Murray Envelope in Hattiesburg. Uncle Brad was always the baby of the bunch. Because of a lifelong special disability, he is still the family favorite of them all.
Then there is my dad, Bruce Camp - or “Big Daddy Bruce,” as I call him.
Bruce and Tammy (mama and daddy) were high school sweethearts, and just a year apart in school. Daddy graduated in 1976, which was the year that the Petal school District incorporated, and just two years after the City of Petal incorporated.
Bruce Camp class of 1976
He could have gone anywhere and played football, but instead he chose to sell his letterman jacket and class ring to buy my mother an engagement ring, and the rest is history. He took a job right out of high school working for the same industry that his dad worked for, in the field of natural gas, and that’s where he works to this day.
Bruce Camp
Currently, he is an operator for Boardwalk Pipelines. Before that, he worked for Enterprise Products and over time, after a series of buyouts, he has remained a loyal employee up on that "hill" as we call it, where the Petal Gas Storage salt dome sits just off Highway 11.
Bruce Camp and his first and only granddaughter, Layla
Remember that Camp land I told you about earlier on Leeville Road? It abuts that very plant that my dad has spent 50 years working at. 
I grew up watching my dad leave for weeks at a time during the heat of the summer to train to fight chemical fires and explosions in the event of an emergency. As an adult, I was able to learn about his key role as chairman of the Petal Dome Mutual Aid organization that works with emergency management to train for emergency events.
As a little girl and adult, I’ve grown accustomed to hearing the sounds of the turbines and shutdown valves, riding four-wheelers down the pipeline and taking the back gate on holidays to deliver Thanksgiving dinner to the day shift. Watching Dad ride his lawnmower to work is my favorite memory of them all, probably.
A close second is going to his work as a young kid and cooking mini microwavable pancakes and eating them in the break room with him.
Bruce Camp on his lawnmower
Mom ended up being a teacher’s aid for a while; then she managed a spa and later in life went back to school at William Carey University to earn a double major, where she graduated and became the truancy officer for Forrest County, in her office at Petal Middle School.
Prior to this and after mom and dad’s divorce, mom married another man named Bruce (I know, right?) and he was a Mississippi highway patrolman. He also worked for the state auditor's office for a while, and he was a warrant officer for the National Guard.
My step dad helped me get my first job working for Forrest County right out of high school as a college student. I never even realized back then how fortunate I was for having those opportunities.
Tammy and Bruce Rodgers
Dad also re-married too, and it turns out they both had good taste - my step mom, Lisa Camp, was an English teacher for a very long time for Petal High School, the flagship of the Petal School District. She helped shape me into the writer that I am today.
If not for her mentoring, I likely wouldn't be publishing this content at all.
Suffice it to say, Forrest County and the cities therein mean more to me than many people will ever comprehend. They are a part of me.
My story, from start to finish, before I came into this world and long after I leave this world, has and will always be about this place I call home and I am proud of that. Nothing makes me more proud than my heritage, my history, my family, and I am excited now more than ever for my future here.
Today, I am married to Haskel Burns, the senior staff writer for this fine publication - he knows the history of this place better than I do in some respects. I am just here to pick up the slack when it comes to the few things that he doesn't know about and I can honestly say that I love that about us.
Haskel and Cayla on their wedding day with Toby Barker, Mayor of Hattisburg. He officiated their wedding.
We complement one another - balance each other out - and we give each other what we need, which is all we need, if that makes any sense.
We connect because of the community that we share and serve. The very community that we document, photograph, write about and sometimes rant about, is in many ways, also our family, our heritage and very much so our home.
This family, this town, this county - it means something to us and it always will. It is what brought us together and it is what keeps us together.
It is what brought my parents together and their parents together, and someday, God willing, it will bring my little girl Layla face to face with her future person, too.
So the next time you see us on a byline, or see a photo I have taken, or a story he has written, remember that the authors behind that work are here for this and in a real way. We care about the outcome and we care about the people involved every step of the way, through the good, the bad and the ugly - and we are always just one click away.
If you need us, you know where to find us.
Until next time -
Cayla Camp Burns, signing off.
Fun fact: Haskel also has a road named after his family, Haskel Burns Lane, which is located off Old Richton road in Petal. Now if that isn't fate, I don't know what is.
