Guests observe a table recognizing former Lamar football coach Mac Barnes’ achievements at the school at an event honoring his coaching career Thursday, Dec. 23, 2021, at the Hamasa Temple Shrine in Marion.

Dusty Culpepper played two years for Mac Barnes during the 1993 and ’94 seasons at Meridian High School.

Culpepper still considers Barnes one of the most impactful people he’s ever met. After coaching at Meridian and Lamar for 41 years, Barnes retired from Lamar after this past season, finishing his Raiders career with six state championships to go along with the two state titles and two Big 8 titles he won at Meridian.

Thursday evening, Culpepper was one of many former players fellowshipping with Barnes at Hamasa Temple Shrine at an event titled “An Evening With Coach Mac Barnes.” It was a fitting way to honor a Meridian and Mississippi legacy, and Culpepper said it was no surprise to see so many of Barnes’ family, friends and former players on hand.

“Coach Barnes means a whole lot to a lot of people in this community,” Culpepper said. “I was honored to be able to play for him in high school my junior and senior year. I knew I’d see a lot of my teammates here, and it was fun to reminisce with them, but the real reason (I’m here) is to tell Coach Barnes how much he meant to us and how important all the life lessons we learned from him are.”

During a speech he gave, Barnes mentioned how his relationship with God has grown in recent years and how grateful he was for the relationships he made through coaching, as those relationships are, in his words, “the only thing that lasts.”

“I want you to know, there are a bunch of championship trophies up here, but very few people have talked tonight about winning a championship,” Barnes said. “There are players here who played on teams that won them and players here who played on teams that didn’t, but what they talked about is the process of winning and how much fun that was. I can’t tell you how excited I am to see guys come in here from all different occupations and stuff like this and be successful.”

Those words didn’t surprise Culpepper, who said while Barnes is a hall of fame football coach, he’s an even better person.

“With all the hardware you see, Coach Barnes was obviously good with Xs and Os, but he really did, every single day, try to give us life lessons and share his faith, and those are the things you remember the most,” Culpepper said. “The wins and losses were great, there were a lot of fun games, but where I’m at in my life now raising kids, you see the benefit of hard work, and he taught us that as players.”

Sandra Barnes, Mac Barnes’ wife, was the head organizer for Thursday’s event and said she and numerous friends wanted to make sure her husband got to do what he wanted most: visit with as many people whose lives he impacted as possible.

“You watch a team develop during the season, you learn the parents and get to be friends with them and even watch some of the games with parents,” Sandra Barnes said. “It’s a big family, and it’s always been sad for me at the end of the season when those seniors played their last game and I won’t see their parents as often as I see them.”

Her husband has always stressed the importance of relationships, Sandra Barnes said, and being their football coach and guiding them through difficult practices and games helped cement those relationships throughout the decades.

“It’s always what’s mattered to Mac,” Sandra Barnes said. “A lot of times this particular player or student will talk to him about things they maybe haven’t told other people before. I just can’t imagine being on the practice field during the hottest days of the summer and going through all those hard times together — I think just being together through those hard times makes those relationships even stronger.”

Tony Blackshear, who played for Barnes at Meridian from 1992-95, said being one of Barnes’ players was one of the greatest experiences of his life.

“He’s a mentor and father figure, and he was always hard-nosed and did everything the right way,” Blackshear said. “That was probably one of the biggest things I enjoyed having been around him. I happened to be one of the highest-rated recruits in the nation, and that was because of him and the hard work and the work ethic he instilled in us.”

Seeing so many people Thursday was great, Blackshear said, and it speaks to just how many people in the Meridian community love and respect Barnes.

“This is probably the nicest retirement party I’ve ever been to,” Blackshear said. “Having known him a long time and having gotten a chance to play for him, it’s probably one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”