If you've ever gotten frustrated spending 20 minutes of your lunch break looking for a parking spot in Fondren, then "Captain" Ron Mills is your man.
Mills, 59, is the "spinnin' and grinnin'" conductor of the Fondren Express, a new trolley service that connects Fondren with the parking dreamlands of Millsaps College and St. Dominic's Hospital. Mills is the sole driver of the trolley from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Saturday, rain or shine.
Born in Aberdeen, Miss., Mills graduated from Philadelphia High School in the first integrated senior class, attended Hinds and graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi with a theater degree. But that doesn't make him an actor. "I prefer to call myself a performer," he said. "The way I develop a character is different than an actor."
Whatever you call him, Mills has been part of the Jackson theater scene on-and-off since the '70s, when he did several plays at New Stage. More recently, he played a Tammy Wynette-obsessed drag queen (really, is there any other kind?) in the HeARTS Against AIDS performance of "Sordid Lives," and he riffed on greed, envy and lust in the Fondren Theatre Workshop's "Seven Deadly Scenes" in April.
"For community theater, (FTW) is very dedicated and fearless in their choices of shows," Mills said.
Between his first arrival in Jackson in 1972 (after serving in the Air Force) and his current life as a proud Fondren resident, Mills also lived briefly in New York City, and for longer periods in Columbus, Ohio, and Philadelphia, Pa. "I've been something of a gypsy, shall we say," he said. He won't be going away again anytime soon, though: "I'm home now. I love this town. I love the South."
Mills met Alan French, who came up with the idea for the trolley, at a coffee shop Mills used to run. When Mills became available, the two worked together to make the idea come to life. Why Fondren? Mills said French "wants this neighborhood to truly be the arts and entertainment district of Jackson." Mills himself loves that Fondren "has a neighborhood feel to it. You go to Cups, and you see the same people all the time. Alan and I are there every morning!"
The future of the trolley depends on how other entertainment sections develop in Jackson, Mills said. He and French are watching the Capitol Green, the King Edward and the Farish Street areas, among others, with an eye toward expansion. In the meantime, they are building up loyalty in their current location.
"The trolley is becoming somewhat of a Fondren icon," Mills said, "and, by extension, I guess, so am I."
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