As an even warmer weekend approaches, the Vicksburg Warren School District has joined others statewide in banning all outdoor activities for students.

Superintendent James Price said he made the decision today after two band students were taken by ambulance from marching practice at Warren Central High School to River Region Medical Center about 5 p.m. Thursday.

Band director Allen Arendale said both students were released later that night and were back at school today.

Precautions were being taken. &#8220We give them water breaks every 15 minutes,” Arendale said, but heat has been extreme enough to result in the ban.

&#8220Parents are calling and they’re concerned,” Price said.

An exception is for high school football squads. They can practice outdoors, but only after 7:30 p.m.

Otherwise, all activities – cheerleading, PE and other sports – must be inside until temperatures moderate. Classes in the 9,200-student district began Wednesday. All 14 school buildings in use are air-conditioned.

The National Weather Service said it’s not just the heat, but a mass of stagnant air and the lack of any breeze that has led to a heat advisory for all of Mississippi, Alabama and parts of Louisiana daily until 8 p.m.

Vicksburg experienced an official high of 97 degrees Thursday with the heat index climbing to 105, and the forecast shows the weather pattern steady through Monday. Price said the district’s decision will be reviewed on a day-to-day basis.

A pep rally for middle and high school students at Vicksburg Factory Outlets Saturday morning was not canceled, but organizer Margaret Gilmer said extra precaution was taken.

Also on go was the &#8220Guns of Vicksburg” sporting clay shoot at Yokena, which raises funds for the Old Court House Museum. Tents and water are expected to be placed at all shooting stations, organizers said.

Wednesday a 17-year-old Mount Olive football player died after practice. Lonnie Magee was taken from the field to Covington County Hospital, where he died of cardiac arrest. Autopsy results were pending.

Thursday, a DeSoto County judge barred six schools in northern Mississippi from holding outdoor practices between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.

The ban applied to the team at South Panola High School, the top-rated school scheduled to meet Warren Central in the Red Carpet Bowl on Aug. 30.

South Panola football coach Lance Pogue said Chancellor Mitchell Lundy’s ruling won’t hamper his team as they work to prepare for the season – he scheduled practice indoors today at a University of Mississippi gym.

&#8220Coaches are trained in this business to take care of kids, and we understand the process of hydration,” Pogue said. The order, he said, &#8220insults our intelligence.”

Football players at St. Aloysius practiced through Thursday’s afternoon heat, with frequent water breaks. Coach Jim Taylor said heat is a concern, but should be managed by coaches keeping a close eye.

&#8220Yeah, it’s hot. It was hot this time last year. It’s gonna be hot again,” he said Thursday. &#8220It’s Mississippi in August. What did you expect?”

He said no decision had been made on whether outdoor practices would continue through the weekend.

Coach Curtis Brewer of the Warren Central High School football team ran practice Thursday, too, but kept it short and had sent the Vikings in by 3:30. This kept them out of the worst of the heat, he said.

&#8220We had what we’d call an abbreviated practice,” he said.

Breaks are worked into practice schedules, he said, but coaches will call them at any time. &#8220If the group is hot, the coach doesn’t even have to look at the schedule,” Brewer said. &#8220He makes the decision.”

It has been several years since outdoor activities have been canceled for the entire school district, Price said. Usually, that decision is left up to principals.

&#8220In this instance, since the public is so inundated with information about deaths and judges … we felt like an administrative decision would be an appropriate action.”