David Kelly, an employee with H.D. Gibbes & Sons country store, has lived in Learned for 22 years. He said he and many in Learned were never approached about the census. (The Vicksburg Post/MELANIE DUNCAN)

[04/16/01] LEARNED Learned is a town where everyone knows everyone else. If more than half the people left, residents said, they would notice.

The Hinds County town, pronounced in two syllables (lur-ned), is just one in Mississippi that saw its official numbers shrink since the last census in 1990. Specifically, Learned lost 55.5 percent of its population, dropping from 111 people in 1990 to 50 in 2000, according to the federal government.

“Children have grown up and moved away, so we expected to see a small decrease, but nowhere near what it is,” said Chip Gibbes, owner of H.D. Gibbes and Sons country store in Learned. “There’s no way over half the population is gone.”

Other area towns seeing lower counts were Raymond, down 26.9 percent; Utica, down 6.5 percent: and Bolton, with a loss of 1.2 percent.

People in Learned said they think they know why they were left out. It’s because for the most part they use post office boxes for mail and census forms were delivered only to residential addresses.

Gibbes said he was not sent a census form and no census worker approached him during last year’s count. He said he did end up turning in a census form for his family, but only after he called the U.S. Census Bureau and asked that one be delivered to his house.

David Kelly said he wasn’t counted at all. As with many others, he doesn’t use a street address and receives all correspondence through a post office box.

“I never received a census form, and no one ever came to my house about it,” Kelly said. He said he was certain he must not have been counted.

“Personally, I think the job was done rather shabbily,” Gibbes said. “They didn’t come door to door and where you have a post office box, you didn’t get one.”

Learned town clerk Margaret Dozier said when Census 2000 numbers were released two weeks ago, she and Learned Mayor Barbara Boyd counted for themselves.

“Fifty is incorrect,” she said. “We did a head count house to house and found the population to be about 90.”

Although Learned may not get a lot in federal funds, Dozier said the small town needs what it does get and can’t afford any big losses. And Dozier said she wasn’t counted, either. “I even called the Census Bureau and requested a form, but never received one,” she said.

Raymond Mayor Isla Tullos said the post office vs. street address issue caused an undercount there, too.

“I don’t think it’s possible we lost 600 to 800 people,” Tullos said. “It’s an issue of mail. We do not have household street delivery for everyone and post office officials in 2000 would not put census forms in post office boxes.”

Tullos said the numbers a 10-year drop from 2,275 residents to 1,664 are just not right. “As a matter of fact, I think we’ve had a small increase.” And she worries what the official numbers will mean for Raymond, the hometown of Hinds Community College, one of the state’s largest colleges.

“It’s scary because it will have a big impact on us,” Tullos said. “I hope it can be resolved but it might not be for the next 10 years.”

A possible solution for officials who believe their numbers did not accurately reflect the population will be available in June.

“One option is the Census Question Resolution,” said Paul Campbell of the U.S. Census Bureau. “When local officials have enough evidence to prove counts were too low, the results can be challenged.”

Campbell said if a claim is made, the Census Management Division will investigate to see why people were missed, if boundary lines were incorrect or something, and fix errors. If numbers don’t change, they will let local officials know why, he said.

“If they get new numbers, they will fix the numbers to reflect the change, and although it won’t show up on the census, the numbers will be fixed when estimates are produced in attempting to get federal monies,” he said.

Campbell said officials can use evidence regarding the post office box problems to argue their case. If they can show addresses of people in their towns who have post office boxes and were not mailed census forms because of it, that can be used as evidence.

Overall, the entire state lost out according to Census 2000 results, Phil Alperson, legislative official for District 4 U.S. Rep. Ronnie Shows, said.

“Mississippi will go from five to four members of Congress as a result of its numbers, and there’s no changing that,” Alperson said. “That will mean one less voice in Congress and one less opportunity to serve on a committee to help Mississippians.”

Alperson said state aid will be affected because federal funds are often based on population, which will also have complications for cities and counties because there will be less money to go around, meaning that census figures will have a huge impact on funding decisions.

Actually, Mississippi’s numbers showed a slight increase but compared to increases in surrounding states, the numbers hurt, Alperson said.

“We just didn’t grow fast enough,” he said.