Wesson cottage baker now has bakery

By Bob Arnold

Nekitha Jackson

A local cottage baker is moving to her first permanent retail location outside her home in the 6,700 square foot mini shopping and office complex under construction on the southwest corner of Church Street and Highway 51.

Nekitha Jackson will open Destiny’s Delights in the first of three commercial spaces Salmon Point Development has rented – a 1,000 square foot structure.

Jackson says she makes cakes, cookies and all kinds of treats with love the secret ingredient.  Since 2014, she has done the bulk of her baking  at her Wesson home on Lott Smith Road and sold her products and baked some of them on site at farmers and other outdoor markets throughout southwest Mississippi.

Now she’ll go to work in her own bakery, where three or four workers will also help her serve customers regularly.  It’s a status that has been a dream since her childhood, Jackson says.  Being known as a baker in her community beyond her home base.  The pink and brown colors that she has made a trademark of her business as a tribute to her sister who died in a car crash will also be part the new status.

Ron Bath, a former Reno, Nevada, commercial and residential developer who retired to Wesson and transplanted Salmon Point Development here, expects construction of the bakery to be completed this month.   His goal is find tenants for the 2,100 square foot and 3,600 square foot units and finish the new development by year end.

The additional units will be built as commitments are made for occupancy.  Bath estimates total cost of the complex will be approximately $700,000.

Over 52 years, Bath developed two million square foot of shopping center space in and around Reno, Nevada, before resettling in retirement with his wife Teri in the Wesson area, where she had family roots and now serves as Wesson Chamber of Commerce president.

Bath found Jackson, who has long been active in community service, on the Wesson Chamber of Commerce board.  For many years, Jackson also served as president of the Wesson Attendance Center Parent Teachers Organization.