Oktibbeha County, City of Starkville team up to pave major road

OKTIBBEHA COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – A partnership between an Oktibbeha County Supervisor and a Starkville Alderman paves the way for improving a major connector road.

Garrard Road is a busy stretch of road connecting the Starkville City Limits and Highway 25.

Thousands of drivers travel the road every day, and it was beginning to show the strain.

Both the city and the county had it on their improvement lists, so Supervisor Marvell Howard reached out to Vice Mayor Roy A. Perkins about joining forces to get the work done seamlessly.

With both boards on board and pooling resources, the stretch of road was rebuilt from the ground up from the county into the city limits.

Both Perkins and Howard say the biggest beneficiaries are area residents.

“Their commute now, back and forth to work and into the marketplace is so much better. It’s so much better. They’re so appreciative of that project and of the completion of this road. It’s a really great road to travel now,” said Howard.

“This road was in a very terrible condition. A lot of work had to be done on it. The work had to be done with the county doing the base and doing the foundation work, and they built a solid foundation,” said Perkins.

Perkins and Howard are looking for more projects for the city and county to cooperate on.

Oktibbeha County put in $185,000 and the City of Starkville kicked in $330,000 on the one-mile stretch of road.

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