MERIDIAN, MS — Rep. Dale Fenton, 61, announced a sweeping 12-city constituent listening tour this week, visiting communities across three congressional districts he does not represent, with zero advance notice issued to any of the cities on his itinerary.

Fenton arrived Tuesday morning at a Meridian community center that had been booked for a water aerobics class. He stood at a folding table for 47 minutes with a legal pad and a bowl of individually wrapped mints before departing. His office described turnout as “intimate.”

“I was there. I was listening,” Fenton told reporters. “The people of Meridian chose not to speak, and I respect that. Silence is also a message. I wrote that down.”

His communications director, Ashley Pruitt, 29, confirmed that press releases announcing the tour were drafted, approved, formatted, and saved as PDFs before the decision was made not to distribute them “until after the tour wrapped, to avoid any media circus.”

“We wanted this to be about the people, not the press. It turns out that if you don’t tell the people, it ends up being about neither.”

Fenton is scheduled to visit nine additional cities over the next two weeks. His office confirmed that the listening tour will be formally announced to the public following its conclusion, at which point a recap video will be released featuring Fenton nodding thoughtfully at empty chairs.

At press time, Fenton had added a thirteenth city to the tour after misreading a map, which his office described as “expanding the mandate.”