JANUARY

2 - Ole Miss caps Houston Nutt’s first season as head coach with a Cotton Bowl win over Texas Tech. The Rebels finish 9-4 and ranked No. 14 in the nation.

6 - Robert Khayat announces that he will retire June 30 after 14 years as University of Mississippi chancellor.

20 - Northeast Mississippians join the throngs attending Barack Obama’s inauguration in a frigid Washington, D.C.

31 - HealthWorks!, a children’s health museum, opens in Tupelo; it is the first national full-scale replication of the original HealthWorks! in South Bend, Ind.

FEBRUARY

10 - Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, once among the country’s most powerful attorneys, pleads guilty to a second charge of attempted judicial bribery involving Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter. He gets seven years, concurrent with his previous five-year sentence.

17 - Two Baldwyn natives, James David and Laura Pendergest-Holt, are charged in connection with the Stanford Financial Group scandal.

MARCH

11 – ATK receives a $25 million incentive package from the state for the expansion of its plant in Iuka, a move that is expected to increase its work force from 175 to 800 in eight years.

28 - In a scene repeated throughout the spring across Northeast Mississippi, National Guard troops receive a sendoff from Tupelo for training at Fort Sill, Okla., before their deployment overseas.

APRIL

8 - Gov. Haley Barbour signs Children First Act of 2009, aimed at improving public school achievement

13 - Douglas Hodgkin, who was convicted in the 1986 murder-rape of an Ole Miss graduate student, is released on parole over protests from his victim’s family and others.

15 - Taxed. Enough. Already. As part of the national movement, Tea Parties are staged in protest in Northeast Mississippi, starting on Tax Day.

MAY

15 - The state’s tobacco tax goes up to 68 cents a pack from 18 cents a pack, which was the third lowest in the nation.

29 - Trooper Steve Hood is killed in Baldwyn when his car hits a tree during a high-speed chase.

JUNE

2 - Municipal elections result in new mayors for several Northeast Mississippi cities, including Tupelo, Pontotoc, Starkville and Oxford.

17 - The College Board selects Hank Bounds, the state’s public school superintendent, as commissioner of higher education. Bounds’ replacement is Tom Burnham, who had served as superintendent in the 1990s.

JULY

1 - Two new eras in education begin in Northeast Mississippi. Dan Jones takes over for Robert Khayat as chancellor at the University of Mississippi, while Randy Shaver succeeds Randy McCoy as superintendent of the Tupelo Public School District.

30 - Bobby DeLaughter, part of the second Scruggs scandal, pleads guilty to lying to investigators in the case. The former judge is sentenced in November to 18 months in prison.

AUGUST

10 - School President Claudia Limbert recommends Reneau University as the new name for Mississippi University of Women. In October, Limbert announces she will retire in 2010.

28 - Swine flu forces cancellation of the “Joe Bowl” between Falkner and Walnut in Tippah County. The outbreak also created long lists of absences in classrooms as well.

29 - In what company officials call a maintenance accident, an explosion at Mueller Copper Tube in Fulton kills one and injures three.

SEPTEMBER

3 - Sluggish revenue collections lead Barbour to trim $171.9 million from the budget, including $115.2 from education. He cuts another $54 million in December, with more than a third coming from Medicaid.

15 - Tupelo’s ban on Sunday alcohol sales is lifted by a 4-3 vote of the City Council. Starting in October, restaurants and stores can sell beer and light wine. In December, the Tax Commission agrees to Sunday liquor sales as well.

22 - Tupelo’s Cooper Tire plant, which survived a corporate closing plan in 2008, breaks ground on a $7 million, 32,000-square-foot addition. New jobs are expected as well.

OCTOBER

6 – The Tupelo City Council votes to designate the century-old Spain House as a local historic landmark, a move that protects the three-story home against demolition. But the split vote goes against the property owner’s wishes: Calvary Baptist Church wanted the home removed to develop the land for other uses.

15 - Climatologists report that the Sept. 1-Oct. 15 rainfall total in the region is the highest for that period since they started keeping records more than 100 years ago.

16 - Mark Keenum, who has been on the job since January, is installed as Mississppi State University’s 19th president.

27 - The Tupelo School District announces a deal with Apple that will give each student and teacher a laptop, with the first computers being handed out this school year.

27 - Tobacco auction falls flat

NOVEMBER

16 - Anticipating more hard times for the state’s economy, Gov. Haley Barbour presents a budget proposal that calls for, among other things, the merger of several universities.

23 - New public school accountability rankings, designed to score Mississippi students against nation standards, are released. Only two districts – Booneville and Pass Christian – earn the top “Star” designation.

28 - Mississippi State upsets Ole Miss, giving new Bulldog Coach Dan Mullen a win in his first Egg Bowl.

DECEMBER

3 - North Mississippi Medical Center announces a $55 million construction project to update 250 rooms

5 - “America’s Most Wanted” airs a show about Ramon and Janet Barreto, a Union County couple who fled while faces charges in connection with the 2008 death of their daughter.

9 - The Tupelo Regional Airport Authority fires Executive Director Terry Anderson, saying it had lost confidence in his leadership.

18 – United Way of Northeast Mississippi announces that even in a down economy, the 2009 campaign met its $2.1 million goal.