Best of Panola 2025 (thepanolian2): How Voting Works & How to Win

What Best of Panola is and who runs it

Best of Panola 2025 is the readers' choice ballot The Panolian puts before its audience each summer. The Panolian is the newspaper based at 363 Hwy 51 N in Batesville, Mississippi, and the program asks its readers to name their favorites across Panola County, which places it in the best-of vertical rather than the sweepstakes or photo-contest formats. Second Street carries the ballot, and the same platform hosts the publisher's other promotions, with the 2025 edition living at thepanolian2.secondstreetapp.com/Best-of-Panola-2025.

The Panolian is a county-seat newspaper, and its contest calendar reflects that role. Alongside the readers' choice vote, the same Second Street organization runs quarterly sweepstakes and a Pets of Panola pet calendar ballot. The readers' choice program is the one that speaks directly to local businesses, because a placement on it is a public statement of customer loyalty rather than a prize draw.

For a business owner, the practical shape of the program is simple: a summer window, a public ballot, and a market made up of the paper's readership. The table below lines up the program's fixed details.

Everything a supporter needs to act on, from the category list to any repeat-vote rule, is printed on the ballot, not on a separate rules page.

The dated record: which editions ran and when

The Panolian ran the ballot in 2023, brought it back in 2024, and ran it again in 2025, each time on Second Street under its own year-specific address. The 2025 edition is the one this page documents in detail: its voting window opened on July 23, 2025 and closed on August 20, 2025, a stretch of roughly four weeks in midsummer. That window is now closed, and the 2025 ballot page no longer accepts votes.

The pattern continued. A 2026 edition, titled Best of the Best Panola County 2026, ran from July 22 through August 20, 2026, and is also closed. Four consecutive summers with a Panola County ballot make the late July to late August slot the program's settled shape, even though the exact open date has shifted by a day or two between editions.

The publisher has not put the fine print anywhere public: no printed cap on repeat voting, and no eligibility list outside the ballot; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The exact category roster for any given year appears only on that year's ballot.

For planning purposes, the useful takeaway is the season, not a specific day. A business that wants to campaign in the next edition should expect a window opening in the second half of July and closing in the second half of August, and should watch The Panolian's contest page for the announcement instead of relying on the previous year's dates.

How a supporter votes on the ballot

Voting in Best of Panola happens on the Second Street ballot, and the mechanics are the ones regulars of readers' choice contests know. A supporter opens the current year's ballot address, sees the category list laid out by the publisher, and picks a favorite in each category they care about. Nothing published about this program mentions a separate nomination round; the ballot is the voting stage.

The 2025 ballot at thepanolian2.secondstreetapp.com/Best-of-Panola-2025 is closed, so a supporter arriving there today sees a finished edition rather than an open form. To vote in a live cycle, the supporter should follow the contest link from The Panolian's own site, which points to whichever edition is currently running. Each year gets its own address on the thepanolian2.secondstreetapp.com host, so an old link will reach an old ballot.

Two practical habits make a supporter's vote count. First, fill in the categories that matter before submitting, since a partially completed ballot still registers the choices made. Second, keep the confirmation the platform shows after submission, which is the supporter's own evidence the vote went through.

On repeat voting, the honest position is that The Panolian has never printed a daily-return rule outside the ballot. If the form allows one person to come back on multiple days, that instruction sits on the live ballot, and anyone planning a second visit should read it there instead of assuming.

How this ballot sits beside its Mississippi neighbours

Mississippi has several readers' choice ballots, and Best of Panola occupies a distinct slot among them. Where the statewide Best of Mississippi program asks voters to pick favorites across the whole state, The Panolian's ballot stays inside Panola County, which keeps the competitive field local. A Batesville diner competes against the businesses it actually shares customers with, not against a statewide chain.

The nearest neighbours in format are the other publisher-run ballots. Best of Oxford, run by the Oxford Eagle, covers a nearby college town with its own paper. The Daily Journal Readers Choice in Tupelo is a larger regional paper's version of the same idea. Best of the Best Jackson brings the format to the capital's metro. Each one answers to a different publisher and its own window.

Broadcast-side programs round out the field: the WCBI Viewers' Choice Awards come from a television station rather than a newspaper, and Best of Coastal Mississippi serves the Gulf coast. What separates Best of Panola from all of them is scale and focus: one county, one paper, one summer window, and a ballot where a small business with a loyal local following can genuinely place.

For a Panola County business deciding where to campaign, that focus is the argument. The same effort spread across a statewide ballot dilutes; concentrated here, it meets the exact audience that walks through the door.

Strengthening support during the window

A campaign in Best of Panola works best when it is built on the ballot's own rhythm. The window runs about four weeks in late July and August, so the ask to customers should start in the first days, not the last ones. Name the category in the ask, hand over the direct link, and remind regulars that the ballot closes in late August. A counter sign, a receipt insert and a short social post each speak to a different part of the same customer base.

The Panolian has not published a standalone rules document outside its ballot, so whatever the live form says about repeat voting and eligibility is the rule a campaign should plan around. Reading it before the push starts avoids building a routine the ballot does not allow. For tactics that fit a local readers' ballot, from email lists to in-store prompts, see how to get more votes online.

One caution belongs here: a push built on fake or inflated activity puts the entry itself at risk. Steady, genuine asks to real customers are both safer and more effective in a market this size, where the paper's readers are also the voters.