Welcome to Poplarville: Chapel Hart’s quaint Mississippi hometown gets the spotlight
Editor’s note: This a truncated version of story by the Hattiesburg American and Clarion Ledger.
Anyone who lives in Poplarville might run into someone they know as they walk down Main Street on any given day. They’ll likely run into several people they know.
Poplarville, Mississippi, with a population of roughly 3,000 people, is the cozy, close-knit community that country music trio Chapel Hart calls home. Although small, the town sits off a major interstate highway with easy access to the Gulf Coast and New Orleans.
The group, comprised of sisters Danica Hart and Devynn Hart and cousin Trea Swindle, has taken the country by storm with their original toe-tapping songs and snazzy covers. The trio stole the hearts of America when they auditioned on America’s Got Talent, garnering rave reviews from the judges and a rare unanimous golden buzzer.
The band’s social media presence is far-reaching with nearly 110,000 followers each on TikTok and YouTube and 65,300 Instagram followers. They have more than a quarter-million fans following their Facebook page.
Poplarville is known for it’s festivals and blueberries
If Poplarville residents hadn’t heard of Chapel Hart before the audition, they surely have now. Photos, signs and other memorabilia are in displays at just about every shop in town.
Until Chapel Hart took center stage, Poplarville was mostly known for its annual Blueberry Jubilee and the Sweet Tea Festival. It is home to Pearl River Community College and an extension service of Mississippi State University.
It is the county seat of Pearl River County and bears the nickname of “Blueberry Capital of Mississippi.” The town sits just a few miles from where the Pearl River flows between Mississippi and Louisiana before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico.
Poplarville is surrounded by lush farmland, less than an hour’s drive from beaches and big cities.
Small-town Mississippi girls with big hearts
Danica Knight and Kandice Netto, both of Baxterville, own Main Street Coffee Co. The best friends hosted a watch party at the cafe for Chapel Hart’s AGT audition in July.
“The definition of a hero is someone who is idealized for outstanding achievements,” Knight said. “That’s exactly what they are. They have a true heart of gold.”
On any given day but Sunday, customers filter into the cafe to visit with friends over lattes and muffins or snuggle in a corner with their laptops, hoping to catch up on school work.
“You can have him, Jolene — Chapel Hart” says a sign on the countertop where customers wait in line to place their orders. The sign is there to honor the young women whose album, “The Girls Are Back in Town,” shot to No. 1 on iTunes’ country album chart the day after their AGT performance aired. It is there to recognize the trio whose homemade video “Made for Me” was picked up by Country Music Television. The video was filmed in Poplarville at some of Chapel Hart’s favorite places.
“They bring dreams to everyone,” Knight said. “When you come from a small town, you don’t always get visited with great opportunities. They have proven to all of us around here that there are opportunities.”
Shop on Main Street carries heart of Poplarville for 55 years
Across the street at Apple’s LTD, a men’s and women’s clothing boutique and gift shop, owner Pam Applewhite LaHaye sells official Chapel Hart T-shirts that are popular not only with locals, but with fans across the country.
“We ship some to wherever,” LaHaye said. “Yesterday it was to Pennsylvania.”
The shop opened in 1968 by LaHaye’s parents, Bob and Bettye Applewhite.
Bob Applewhite began working at the pharmacy next door after he graduated with a degree in pharmacology from the University of Mississippi. He eventually bought the pharmacy, which boasts a soda fountain still popular today.
When the Provost brothers decided to sell their business next door, C&L Mercantile, they approached Bob Applewhite and asked him to buy it.
It took some persuading before Bob Applewhite agreed to buy the building next door, but he eventually agreed. The building sat empty for a couple years while he decided what to do with it.
Around the same time, supporters of the community college’s football team had to travel to bigger cities to buy T-shirts and other team merchandise. Some of the coaches with the team asked Applewhite to open a clothing store so he could stock PRCC merchandise.
“That’s how Apple’s evolved,” LaHaye said.
The Applewhites later knocked out the wall between the pharmacy and the boutique so customers could move easily between the two stores, both of which continue to thrive.
LaHaye said the business, like many others on Main Street has seen its ups and downs over the years. Downtown Poplarville was hit hard in 2006 when a fire took out the block of shops across the street.
Chapel Hart is extremely talented, independent, friend says
Down the road at Posh, a women’s clothing boutique on South Main Street, fans can buy Chapel Hart tank tops and CDs. According to Posh employee Michele Lewis, Posh is one of Danica Hart’s favorite places to shop.
Lewis found something she thinks Danica Hart would love to wear and put it in the mail.
She told the group’s manager Darrick Williams, “It is imperative that Danica gets this.”
Posh is becoming a favorite for Chapel Hart fans as well. Lewis said two sisters visited the store recently just to see it for themselves and buy some of the band’s merchandise. One sister was from South Carolina. The other, from Georgia.
It comes as no surprise to Lewis that Chapel Hart has so many fans. They are down-to-earth and genuine, which endears them to whomever they meet. In addition, they are independent women who write and produce their own music and videos, she said.
“They are loving, personable,” Lewis said. “They work really, really hard. They are extremely talented. Danica is so quick-witted. It’s natural. She has a God-given talent.”
Chapel Hart brings town together, remains humble
Main Street Poplarville rose from the ashes and began rebuilding into what it is today. LaHaye said she would like to see the town blossom into a small tourist spot where locals and visitors mingle in a cozy microcosm. Chapel Hart’s popularity can help make that happen.
“If Poplarville plays it smart, Chapel Hart could bring us to the next level,” LaHaye said. “My dream for Poplarville is to be a small Ocean Springs. We have the ability, we just need to put it together.”
Ocean Springs is a vibrant community on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where generations of artists, most notably the late watercolorist Walter Anderson and his brother potter Peter Anderson, founder of Shearwater Pottery, have made a living off their work.
But that’s not all, LaHaye said. The Hart sisters and Swindle are polite, intelligent and humble. They show respect for their town and its inhabitants and have been champions for unity in a town once torn by a racial divide, added Alderwoman Anne Gendusa Smith.
“When those girls said they were having a concert here, every race, creed, age — I mean like everybody — all pulled together,” Gendusa Smith said. “And it’s in the name of something everybody believes in and whose hearts are touched.”
LaHaye has known the Chapel Hart singers most of their lives. It’s not hard to do in a town as small as Poplarville. And the Hart family is a big one. The family’s matriarch had 17 children and 108 grandchildren, LaHaye said. Swindle’s sister played basketball with LaHaye’s daughter when they were in school.
“Their personality on stage is their personality in real life,” LaHaye said.
Just outside Poplarville on a narrow, windy road is an area called Hart’s Chapel, named after the family. Hart’s Chapel Missionary Baptist Church sits at a V in the road, its spire visible through the surrounding trees. During services, the choir can be heard echoing through the hills.
“Hart’s Chapel is named after our family because there are way too many of us,” Swindle said during the group’s AGT audition.
This story was originally published September 9, 2022 at 3:19 PM.