INTERIM DIRECTOR OF MBN NAMED

Dennis Woods has been named interim director of the Mississippi Bureau of
Narcotics.

Woods, assistant director of special operations, will temporarily head the
agency in the wake of the resignation of Executive Director Don Strange
Jr., who announced his departure Thursday.

"A new director of the MBN will be named shortly," Lee Ann Mayo,
spokeswoman for Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, said Tuesday.

Woods, of Vicksburg, joined the bureau in December 1983 as an agent. He was
resident agent in Meridian and Greenville before returning to run the
office in Vicksburg, his hometown. He also was a district supervisor, chief
of intelligence, training director and chief inspector.

He could not be reached for comment.

Strange, 55, resigned effective Dec. 1, citing a lack of funding for his
agency.

He requested $16.1 million in general funds, above Musgrove's proposed $10
million and the Legislative Budget Committee's recommended $9.7 million for
fiscal 2004.

Strange, who previously said he was leaving partly because of the firing of
his son from the state attorney general's office, said Tuesday his
resignation was unrelated to the dismissal.

His resignation letter, dated Nov. 20, to the governor does not state why
he resigned.

Strange, a former chief of intelligence for the Drug Enforcement
Administration, says he was offered a job as the director of the Air
Marshal Service in Atlanta for the Department of Homeland Security, but has
not officially accepted it.

"I'm looking at four or five job offers," Strange said Tuesday.