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This story originally appeared in the Jackson Free Press. It was added to the Mississippi Free Press website in 2025.
Note that any opinions expressed in legacy Jackson Free Press stories do not reflect a position of the Mississippi Free Press or necessarily of its staff and board members.

According to Roll Call, Barbour wasted no time in getting back to his other job, working as a high-powered lobbyist for the firm named in his honor — BGR Group — formerly Barbour, Griffith and Rogers.

In a short statement, the firm said it “is pleased to announce Governor Haley Barbour will return to the firm as Founding Partner.”

Barbour took what appears to have been a paid leave of absence from the firm in 2004, but has now fulfilled his gubernatorial sabbatical and will return to his home town of Washington, D.C.

It’s unclear from the report whether he will take his wife with him.

Mississippi native Donna Ladd and partner Todd Stauffer founded the Jackson Free Press in 2002 in the capital city. The heavily awarded local newspaper did many investigations heralded across the state and nation and served as a paper of record due to its diversity, inclusion, in-depth reporting and deep connection to readers and dedication to narrative change in and about Mississippi. In 2022, the nonprofit Mississippi Free Press, founded by Ladd and JFP Associate Publisher Kimberly Griffin in 2020, purchased the journalism assets and archives of the Jackson Free Press. A Google grant through AAN Publishers enabled Newspack's integration of the JFP archives into the Mississippi Free Press website to become part of a more searchable archive of recent Mississippi history and essential journalism.