Thad Cochran, Scenes at a New Albany jewelry store

U. S. Senator Thad Cochran married Kay Webber, a longtime aide, in Gulfport on Saturday, May 23, 2015, according to  reports confirmed by his office.

Photographs taken in New Albany the afternoon of Thursday, December 18, 2014, suggest that Cochran and Webber may have been shopping for jewelry in New Albany that day.

Cochran’s relationship with Webber became an issue during 2014 campaign for the U. S. Senate seat to which Cochran was first elected in 1978. Cochran was challenged for the Republican senate nomination by State Senator Chris McDaniel. Some of McDaniel’s supporters alleged during the bitterly contested primary campaign that Cochran had carried on an affair with Webber.

Cochran’s office categorically denied the accusation.

He was re-elected to the Senate.

Cochran and his first wife Rose Clayton, a New Albany native, were married in New Albany in 1964, and had been married 50 years when Rose Clayton Cochran died on December 12, 2014, after a long battle with dementia. She had lived in a Jackson area personal care facility for 13 years. After funeral services at St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Jackson the morning of Tuesday, December 16, Rose Cochran was buried in New Albany that afternoon.

New Albany native Rose Clayton Cochran in happier days, before a long and sad battle with dementia.

New Albany native Rose Clayton Cochran in happier days, before a long and sad battle with dementia.

Although NAnewsweb.com was not officially launched until February 2015, one of the website’s principals was checking his e-mail while sitting in his automobile in front of a New Albany jewelry store the afternoon of Dec. 18, 2014.  Being appreciative of attractive women of all ages, he observed one such exit the jewelry store and walk alone westward on the Bankhead St. sidewalk. She looked familiar to him, but he did not know who she was and returned to reading his e-mail.

A few minutes later he looked up and saw same the lady walking back east on Bankhead with a tall distinguished gentleman in tow. The observer immediately recognized the man as Mississippi’s senior Senator, whom he had first met in Natchez more than 20 years earlier. He then realized that the pretty, familiar-looking lady was Kay Webber, the Senator’s long time aide.

The pair entered the jewelry store, remained inside for a while, and emerged together about 20 minutes later, at which time the observer used his cellular telephone to take the photographs shown here.

Another photo of Thad Cochran and Kay Webber, taken December 18, 2014

Another photo of Thad Cochran and Kay Webber, taken in New Albany on December 18, 2014

It is not known whether Cochran and Webber made a purchase while in the New Albany jewelry store on December 18. The store is renowned as one of the foremost jewelers in the South, a jewelry shopping destination for prominent people from throughout the United States. The store’s owner is famously discrete, and NAnewsweb.com knows better than to ask him if Cochran and Webber did any business there that day, or at any other time.

Although these photographs were taken more than five months ago, less than ten people saw them before they were posted here today.

Whatever may or may not have transpired in the past, we at NAnewsweb.com voted for Senator Cochran and are glad he whipped Chris McDaniel. Cochran’s service to our state has been long and distinguished. He is an honorable man and deserves all the good things that may come his way. We do not know whether he and his bride bought any jewelry in New Albany, but we hope they did, and we wish them a long and happy life together.

For more on this story see NAnewsweb: Thad Cochran and his judges

9 replies
  1. Dale says:

    Thad Cochran via his campaign lied to the people of Mississippi about his relationship with Ms Webber long prior to Mrs. Rose’s death and this story only solidifies that fact. How brazen can you be going into a jewelry store with the woman you are going to marry in five months two days after your wife’s funeral in the same town she grew up in and was buried?

    Do you define lying to the people of our State as honorable and distinguished?

    Reply
  2. Andy says:

    Yeah that last paragraph just ruined the whole article. What kind of journalism is that? Report the facts and let the readers deduce their own opinions. Especially when the entire article is describing our sitting Senior United States Senator having an affair on his long time wife, including while she’s dying in hospice, while he and his staff habitually lies about the affair for years, maybe the praise and compliments at the end aren’t the most sound idea to lend any credibility to this outlet. That is a rather bizarre definition of “honorable.”

    Reply
  3. Charles Jennings says:

    As an out-of-stater looking in, this “news site” reads like a gossip tabloid that belongs on a Walmart checkout stand. Maybe good for entertaining, but I wouldn’t trust it as far as I could spit

    Reply
  4. Mildred Lewis says:

    I think we all knew what was going on between Thad & Kay Webber for a long time. It’s hard to believe Mississippians don’t care that Thad’s establishment lied to democrats & got them to vote & win the Republican race for him! I voted for Chris McDaniel & hope he runs again. He is young, smart, and conservative and deserved the chance.

    Reply
  5. Matt says:

    Yeah, the first thing I think of when the words honorable & distinguished are mentioned is a doddering old man who gets lost in the Capitol building on occasion, and who has lived with his mistress for years & years, while his wife lay dying in a secluded nursing home. A shame and disgrace this man is…

    Reply
  6. Paul Haney says:

    Honorable man? Whatever…Your last paragraph shows why you’ll always be a hack “reporter” living in a podunk town like New Albany. It also goes to show that all of the McDaniel supporters were correct and the Cochran/Baaaaabuh camp are categorical liars. Cochran has done nothing but hurt our country and our State ever since he got into politics. You sir are a moron.

    Reply

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