State and local officials gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the long-awaited opening of the U.S. 82 Greenville bypass, a $216 million transportation project that promises to transform travel, safety, and economic opportunity across the Mississippi Delta. The event also served to dedicate the newly completed stretch as the Anse Dees Memorial Bypass, honoring Anse Dees, a Delta civic leader whose decades-long advocacy for improved highways left a lasting mark on the region.
Elected officials, contractors, and community leaders lauded the teamwork and coordination that brought the 16-mile, interstate-level connector to fruition ahead of schedule. The bypass, linking the Greenville Bridge to Leland, is expected to boost commerce, reduce travel times and traffic through downtown Greenville, and attract new business investment.
“This project is more than just pavement and bridges – it’s a lifeline of safety, a highway of opportunity, and a pathway to prosperity,” Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons said at the ceremony. Economic leaders noted the area has already seen a 16% increase in small business openings since work on the bypass began, reversing downward trends in the Delta.
Engineers and contractors overcame construction challenges, including environmental permitting and material transport issues due to low river levels, maintaining a focus on safety and quality. Eutaw Construction Company and Michael Baker International received special recognition for delivering the project ahead of its scheduled completion date in October.
The ceremony included the official naming of the highway segment for Anse Dees, a Greenville insurance agent, attorney, and World War II veteran who helped spearhead the four-lane highway movement in Mississippi. Dees played a leading role in lobbying for state and federal investment in Delta roadways, advocating for the AHEAD (Advocating Highways for Economic Advancement and Development) program and Highway 82 improvements from as early as the 1960s. Friends and family recalled Dees’s decades of public service and his instrumental role in shaping the region’s transportation network.
Officials say the bypass not only delivers a “generational” investment in public safety and logistics but also honors the legacy of a citizen who devoted much of his life to moving the Delta forward.
Who is Anse Dees?
There are a few reasons every person in Mississippi lives within 30 minutes of a four-lane highway.
One of those reason is a former Greenville resident, Anse Dees.
A line in the 2016 Mississippi Code regarding roads bridges and highways states simply, “The U.S. Highway 82 bypass within Washington County, Mississippi, is designated and shall be known as the ‘Anse Dees Memorial Bypass,’ and the Mississippi Department of Transportation shall erect and maintain appropriate signs along and approaching the bypass.
The bypass project around Greenville was lying dormant at the time of the proclamation. Bridges had been built, rights-of-way purchased and road-bed determined.
There was no asphalt on the ground and the thoroughfare construction was all but dead in the water.
The money had simply run out.
That is, until a grant from the federal government for $71.46 million was awarded for completion of the bypass last week.
That the bypass is even a consideration in Greenville owes to contributions and work done by Dees in his role as the legislative chairman of the Advocating Highways for Economic Advancement and Development campaign in the 1980s.
That program led to the passage of the landmark legislation creating both the four-lane highway system in Mississippi and the fuel tax to fund its construction and maintenance.
The legislation created 1,089 miles of four-lane highway in Mississippi.
Chip Morgan was executive director of Delta Council at the time and said Dees was a tireless champion of roads and highways as a vehicle for economic development.
“Anse got active very early in his life in highway safety,” Morgan said. “He was an insurance man and insurance was extremely expensive for cars in the early 1950 and 1960s. There were just lots of people driving who had never driven before.”
Dees had studied whatever he could about highways and roads and was the driver for all of Delta Council’s road legislation along with Bill Gresham. He also served on the National Highway Users Association.
Before Dees began a life of working on highway policy and selling insurance in the Delta, he spent some time in another form of transportation.
Dees was a flight instructor and supervisor of instructors at Gunter Field in Alabama and served in the European Theater of Operations as a P-47 Thunderbolt pilot with the 405th Fighter Squadron, 371st Fighter Group, Ninth Army Air Force in England from May 1944 until February 1945.
He participated in the D-Day Invasion of Normandy and was wounded and shot down over Normandy behind German lines about two weeks after D-Day and evaded German forces and walked out. His actions in evading capture have been used as a case study by the Air Force in survival training for its pilots. Thereafter, he returned to action and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1944; the Air Medal with 10 Oak Leaf Clusters, 1944-45; and the Purple Heart in 1944. Dees also served as an Instructor, with the U.S. Air Force Reserve Ground School as well as a staff officer with the state of Mississippi Air Force Reserve Unit. He retired from the U.S. Air Force Reserve as a lieutenant colonel in 1978.
During his time in Greenville, he was a member or leader in many civic groups including, a former president of the Greenville Kiwanis Club in 1963; YMCA in 1970; and Greenville Propeller Club in 1972. He served as Chairman of the Industrial Foundation of Washington County in 1972, President of the Greenville Area Chamber of Commerce in 1967, Chairman of the Highway 82 Improvement Committee in 1963-65, Chairman and member of Chamber and Delta Council transportation committees and vice president of the Delta Council.
Morgan was a young man in the 1970s when he first came to work at the Delta Council.
Dees’ impression on Morgan in those early days was strong.
“He showed great respect for other’s views,” Morgan said. “To the extent he would allow someone else to express their point and listen carefully even though he knew the most about the subject.”
It was this same restraint that allowed Dees to operate in the political world of statewide highway projects.
“Even if he often had the winning hand, he would sometimes let the other man win if he knew it was the only way they could get up from the table and remain friends,” Morgan said. “He was just constantly building more and more in the business of himself and that helped the Delta.”
While Dees had the foresight to help construct a roads program throughout Mississippi, he had the prescience to work to place control of the state’s roads outside the hands of the legislature and into the hands of the Mississippi Department of Transportation.
“Could you imagine if the governor had control of where the road money went,” Morgan said. “Rural Mississippi, and I consider the Delta rural, would be left out.”
Former legislator and Mississippi Transportation Commissioner Dick Hall said Dees was one of the key people in convincing the legislature to tackle the 1987 road bill and fund it with a gas tax.
“He was just a person who had great vision,” Hall said. “The roads bill is the greatest economic development action in the history of Mississippi.”
Dees had his own cabin, #210, at the Neshoba County Fair and that cabin was a regular stop for legislators and road commissioners.
“I went there after my speech every year,” Hall said.
While current Central District Transportation Commissioner Willie Simmons said the completion of the bypass project is still some time in the future, Hall said he would be there himself to be sure Dees’ name is applied to the roadway.
“If they don’t put a sign up,” Hall said. “I’ll go put it up myself.”
While some have pointed to bypasses in other areas as a negative for the town they bypass, Hall said Dees knew the bypass was a smart thing for Greenville.
“It won’t kill Greenville,” Hall said. “Greenville is too big for that. The 18-wheeler going through town are a big traffic problem and people avoid traffic problems.”
Morgan agreed.
“It crossed Anse Dees’ mind early that if you have a four-lane highway and a bridge (on the Mississippi River), you’ll have to have access to I-69,” Morgan said. “So he went to work on doing what he could to see it happen.”
Simmons has said once the funds have reached Mississippi from the federal level in October, preliminary work can begin on finishing the bypass.
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