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The Memphis Flyer jumps right onto the odd small town angle of the arrest of Laura Pendergest-Holt in the Stanford Financial mess, going to visit her home town of Baldwyn, Mississippi.

The FBI is charging that Ms. Pendergest-Holt ” a liar whose gall verges on the ‘incredible.’”  The FBI and the SEC are as of Friday night calling Stanford a “massive Ponzi scheme.”

Ms. Pendergest-Holt rose quickly in Stanford financial after becoming the protege of Stanford’s chief financial officer James M. Davis, who was from Dry Creek in Prentiss County.

Baldwyn? Dry Creek?? At the top of an international Ponzi scheme? The article notes:

Pendergest-Holt was a protegee of Davis, who is 60 years old, married, and the father of four sons. They met at First Baptist Church in Baldwyn several years ago. Davis, raised in the community of Dry Creek, subsequently left First Baptist and helped start a new church in another nearby hamlet called Guntown. The administrator at LifeWay Community Church in Guntown confirmed that Davis was “one of the founders…

Up until the wheels came off, Ms. Pengergest-Hold was…

…a 35-year-old wonder woman who dispensed financial advice on Memphis radio stations and earned a million dollars last year…

Pendergest-Holt was arraigned in court in Houston Friday. But her home is in Baldwyn and her office was in the Crescent Center in East Memphis…

People from Baldwyn who knew her were, needless to say, surprised when I visited with them last week.

“She was one of the smartest women to come out of this town,” said Tammy Bullock, general manager of the Baldwyn News. Pendergest-Holt was a 1991 graduate of Baldwyn High School and a 1995 graduate of Mississippi University for Women…. Baldwyn Mayor Danny Horton called Pendergest-Holt “a fine young lady from a fine family.” Horton also knows her mentor, Stanford’s chief financial officer James M. Davis.

It’s worth a read.

h/t Beautimous.