spring-summer 2004 millsaps magazine

S U M M E R 2 0 0 4S U M M E R 2 0 0 4

Dynamic DuoOur Rhodes Scholar

and Carnegie Professor

Once More,With Feeling

Celebrated composer Milton Babbitt

comes home to Jackson

Reeling In The Years

On videotape, a Millsaps College

living history

Dynamic DuoOur Rhodes Scholar

and Carnegie Professor

Once More,With Feeling

Celebrated composer Milton Babbitt

comes home to Jackson

Reeling In The Years

On videotape, a Millsaps College

living history

From the President It has been a wonderful year at Millsaps College, with a remarkable spring that often drew me outside. As I write this column, amid our magnifi cent azaleas and lush trees, I am inspired by a recent meeting of our Board of Trustees and the College’s 110th Commencement. Seeds we have planted are beginning to mature as our Millsaps Campus Plan takes shape, and we see the growth of scholarships, bequests, and foundation gifts, resulting in our ability to attract topnotch scholars. We could not be more proud of Kenny Townsend, who was named the fi fth Rhodes Scholar in Millsaps history. Kenny will study political theory in Oxford, England. We see in him the epitome of what a liberal arts education can foster. Besides teaching and inspiring students like Kenny, our faculty members continue to gain accolades. Professor of English Greg Miller became the fourth Millsaps College professor to win the prestigious Carnegie Foundation award as the 2003 Mississippi Professor of the Year. In March, Associate Professor of History Bill Storey was chosen from a competitive fi eld for a National Endowment for the Humanities summer stipend. In April, junior geology major Angela Pell was selected as a Goldwater Scholar. Angela was one of only two students from Mississippi to be selected. I also have the pleasure of telling you about our new dean of the Else School of Management, Dr. Ken Harmon. He will replace Dr. Randy Boxx. Ken has served as chair of the Department of Accountancy and Business Law at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. We are feeling a surge of energy around fund raising. Trustees, alumni, friends, and foundations recognize the value of a Millsaps education. Our work toward a capital campaign is taking shape. Under the direction of Trustee Murray Underwood, the campaign steering committee is laying the groundwork for a successful push to strengthen our endowment, enhance our outstanding programs, and fund major initiatives outlined in the Millsaps Campus Plan. Millsaps is now the owner of the fi rst new-generation artifi cial surface in Mississippi for soccer and football. A generous gift of $575,000 provided the Sprinturf fi eld, an attractive venue for state and regional sporting events, professional sports, and high-profi le sports camps. Vice President Brit Katz has spearheaded two new student awards at Millsaps. The fi rst Millsaps Hall of Fame recipients were announced at a ceremony this spring. And in recognition of his more than 30 years here, our chaplain, Dr. Don Fortenberry, has been honored with a student award in his name. We’re all anticipating a summer of cultivation and growth here on campus. You can look forward to reading about the fruits of those labors in our fall issue.

Warmly,

f e a t u r e s

Once More, with Feeling Composer Milton Babbitt comes home to Jackson

Reeling In the Years On videotape, a living history of Millsaps College

Dynamic Duo Our Rhodes Scholar and Carnegie Professor

d e p a r t m e n t s

On Campus 2 In the Spotlight 9 Fine Arts

Faculty & Staff 12 In the Spotlight 15 Campus Community

Athletics 34 Exploring New Turf 35 Major Strides Major Notes 36 In the Spotlight 39 Classmates 46 In Memoriam

Parting Word 53 Tending the Landscape of Millsaps Memories

MILLSAPS MAGAZINEs u m m e r 2 0 0 4

Executive EditorStephen Becker

d i r e c tor o f c om m u n i c at i on s a n d m a r k e t i n g

DesignCommunication Arts Company

Contributing EditorsJohn Webb

c om m u n i c at i on s w r i t e rJesse Yancy

a s s o c i at e d i r e c tor o f m e d i a r e l at i on s

Major Notes EditorTanya Newkirk

a s s o c i at e d i r e c tor o f a l u m n i r e l at i on s

Editorial AssistantsAshley Nichols, B.A. 2004

Kaley Payne, 2006Elizabeth Stewart, B.A. 2004

Becca Day, 2005 J. D. Graffam, B.A. 2004

Chris Spear, 2007

Contributing PhotographersKatie Brown, 2005

Greg CampbellJason Jarin, 2006

Lewis LoweCynthia Thompson

John WebbPaul White

Hubert WorleyJesse Yancy

Administrative Officers Dr. Frances Lucas

p r e s i d e n tDr. Richard A. Smith

s e n i or v i c e p r e s i d e n t f or ac a d e m i c a f f a i r s

a n d d e a n o f t h e c ol l e g eLouise Burney, M.Acc. 1996

v i c e p r e s i d e n t f or f i na n c eDr. R. Brit Katz

v i c e p r e s i d e n t f or s t u d e n t a f f a i r sa n d d e a n o f s t u d e n t s

Dr. Charles R. Lewisv i c e p r e s i d e n t

f or i n s t i t u t i ona l a dva n c e m e n tTodd Rose

v i c e p r e s i d e n t f or c a m pu s s e rv i c e s

m i l l s a p s m ag a z i n e i s pu b l i s h e d by m i l l s a p s c ol l e g e,

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a n d f r i e n d s o f t h e c ol l e g e. p l e a s e s e n d a l u m n i u p dat e s

a n d a d d r e s s c or r e c t i on s to m i l l s a p s m ag a z i n e,

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In This Issue18

24

30

On the Cover Kenny Townsend, left, and Greg Miller in front of Jackson’s Bailey Magnet School, where they tutored young refugees from Sudan. Some are now enrolled at Millsaps.p h oto by g r e g c a m p b e l l

6

2 m i l l s a p s m a g a z i n e

Ex-Governor Winter Shares His Faith in The Work of PoliticsStirring in the timbre of his compassion, entertaining and often self-effacing in his recollections of Mississippi politics,William Winter, the popular former governor of Mississippi, shared his “Reflections on a Life of Public Service” for a Millsaps College audience in March.

Winter, whose address was moved from a smaller venue to the Recital Hall of the Ford Academic Complex to accom- modate the turnout, delivered his comments in the context of the Faith & Work Initiative, which according to the director, Dr. Darby Ray, aims to help students “connect passion and compassion.”

And Winter did just that. Calling Millsaps “an oasis of intellectualism and spirituality for a long time when those places were hard to find in this state,” he challenged students to a life of idealism and service, rooted in faith.

But he warned that we have to be careful in seeking faith-based answers to complicated secular problems. “There is

a disturbing tendency in some circles these days to equate sectarian dogma with political ideology and to suggest that God is allied with one political side or

the other,” Winter said. “That can make for a lot of trouble. It seems to me that in these times, when we are just about overwhelmed by the shrill and sensational images of talk radio and the high powered TV pulpit and the big movie screens, we could use just a little peace and quiet as we try to figure it all out. This is when we have to fall back on that faith, which can provide us not with specific answers to complicated questions but with an instinctive insight that leads us to a wise, fair, and compassionate sense of what is right.”

Winter’s sense of what is right has had a profound impact on one distinguished Millsaps student. “What I think I found most inspiring was the way he leads and lives with continued hope for the best for humanity,” said Millsaps senior Kenneth Townsend, who was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship this year, in introductory remarks. “He’s seen Mississippi through some rather dark days. But, in spite of this, he told me that he still believes everyone has some good in them. And it is our job to look for that good, to recognize that good, and appreciate it. I thought if this man at this point in his career can reflect back and still find the best in people, then maybe, just maybe, there is a chance that I can hold on to some of my youthful idealism, as well.”

Winter recalled how the years he spent growing up during the Depression ignited in his heart a passion for the kind of progressive public policy that could make a difference in the lives of the people of Mississippi. “I was just a schoolboy, but I vividly remember what Mississippi was like in those harsh years,” Winter said.

“Gullies along country roads deep enough to hide a house in. The streams polluted with raw sewage and industrial waste. The virgin forest stripped away. The roads, mostly dirt or gravel, many impassable when it rained. The rural houses, unpainted and in disrepair, without electric lights or indoor plumbing.

“What I think I found most inspiring was the

way he leads and lives with continued hope

for the best for humanity.”

Winter and senior Kenneth Townsend, a Rhodes Scholar.

i n t h e s p o t l i g h t

OnCampus

s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 3

“And the people of Mississippi: mostly poor, many desperately poor. Adult men and women, white and black, walking barefoot down the road. The per capita income of the state was less than half the national average; over half the people were functionally, if not totally, illiterate.”

One in four whites finished high school, he said. One in 40 blacks.

Thus it was that Winter began to mold the twin pillars of his political ideology from his vision for education and racial equality. “Within those two monumental areas there have existed and still exist the great fault lines that divide us, between people of different races and perhaps now what is even more critical: between people who have gotten a good education and those who have not,” Winter said. That was the “motivation that drove me as a politician to do what I could to change that.”

But maintaining idealism amid the turmoil of the 1950s and ’60s was not always easy, Winter said. When he was first elected to the state legislature in 1947, as a veteran of World War II and a law student at the University of Mississippi, Winter

“had seen enough of hard times and human misery growing up in the Depression and serving overseas in the war to know the difference between campaign flag-waving and solving real problems.”

“Not only was our state still dead last in almost every measurable comparison in education, income, and care for our most vulnerable citizens, but we were also coming face to face with the most explosive issue of all: the long neglected issue of race.”

He said one week after he was elected, President Harry Truman delivered the famous manifesto in which he called for an end to racial segregation. “I shall never forget the furor that resulted,” Winter said, citing South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond’s call to a “fanatical effort of massive resistance that would last for 20 years.”

It was “a difficult time to be in politics in Mississippi,” Winter said “As an elected

official I was viewed with suspicion in many circles. Because I chose not to join the white Citizens Council. Because I had not been a Dixiecrat. Because I had supported John Kennedy in 1960….Because I bore the most onerous of labels in a state where everyone was supposed to be a conservative.”

He paused and smiled: “I was a moderate.”

Winter said that he was “walking a very narrow tightrope. If you said too much and took too public a stand on some issues, it could end a political career.

Maybe some of us didn’t stick our heads up high enough, but if we stuck them up much higher we wouldn’t have been around to do anything else.”

Winter said it took three bids for governor to finally get the timing right.

“Of all the qualities I have found most important in my political career, the element of persistence would rank very high,” he said. “But persistence alone is not enough. It must be accompanied by the commitment to a purpose that is worth struggling for, or else it becomes simply a meaningless ego trip. It must also involve a certain amount of luck.”

Surrounded by a youthful “team of the brightest, most creative, hardest-working men and women that I believe ever served in a governor’s administration,” the Winter administration was able,

“after three years of struggle, to pass in a dramatic special session what was termed by the national media as ‘the most significant and comprehensive education reform legislation in the nation.’ The Mississippi act became a model for the country. And helped to reshape Mississippi’s long-tarnished national image.”

When asked whether a progressive stood a better chance of political success by leaving Mississippi, Winter responded:

“For my part, I think it’s most important to stay. Here I think the chances for getting things done at the local and state level, really meaningful changes, are greater than in that massive maelstrom of politics in Washington…. I still think political opportunity here in the state of Mississippi for progressive people is as great as it is anywhere in the country.”

Winter said his tenure on a White House advisory board on race was a watershed in his life and that it even brought him face to face with some of his own prejudice. “When the White House told me about serving on this board, they told me who my colleagues would be,” Winter said. “The chairman was Dr. John Hope Franklin, the distinguished African-American historian.” Also on the board, he said, was a black woman preacher from Harlem.

“It was an impressive group, but I must tell you I had some reservations about a black woman preacher from Harlem. I thought to myself, without ever having met her, ‘That woman is going to be trouble.’ And then I met her. She was absolutely delightful. We bonded immediately. Later, when we got to know each other well, I told her about my initial reservations.”

“She said, ‘Let me tell you something. When they told me there was going to be some ol’ white ex-governor of Mississippi on the committee!’”…

—John Webb

Eric Griffin, professor of English, poses a question to Winter.


House literary symposium on the works of Truman Capote, Flannery O’Connor, and Welty, the fourth in a series of programs titled “The White House Salute to America’s Authors.”

“Eudora Welty’s nieces, their husbands, and I were invited to the White House as individuals who might take a particular interest in a symposium honoring her,” Marrs said, “and all five of us were impressed by the wonderful program that transpired in the East Room.”

Dana Gioia, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, moder-ated the program before an audience of about 200. “He did so with style, after first making an eloquent statement about the importance of the arts to the nation,” Marrs said. “Then two actresses and an actor, all very accomplished, presented excerpts from works by Capote, O’Connor, and Welty.”

After a program of songs associated with stories by the three writers, the authors Tom Wolfe, Brett Lott, and Elizabeth Spencer (also a Mississippian) spoke respectively about Capote, O’Connor, and Welty. “The program provided three very

different but equally creative perspectives on the work of three Southern writers, and I was thrilled to see Eudora Welty recognized again by the White House, as she had been in 1980 and 1986,” Marrs said. “A smaller pleasure, but a delight nonetheless, was seeing myself quoted in a White House foyer display about Eudora Welty’s work.”

“I was also very glad to see Jon Peede, the former Millsaps director of communications, at the White House event,” Marrs said. “One of the top assistants to Dana Gioia, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Jon played a key role in organizing this symposium.”

Welty had a long and close association with Millsaps, where she taught creative writing, served on the Board of Trustees (1977–1985), and was named a Life Trustee. Millsaps established the Eudora Welty Chair of Southern Studies in 1983. Interdisciplinary scholars who have occupied the position have included C. Vann Woodward, Cleanth Brooks, Will Campbell, Beth Henley, Ellen Douglas, and others. Dr. Peggy Whitman Prenshaw, a distinguished scholar of

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Welty Partnership Casts a Wide NetDr. Suzanne Marrs, professor of English at Millsaps, has been named the College’s first Eudora Welty Foundation scholar-in-residence. The position is the result of an innovative alliance between the College and the Welty Foundation, a partnership designed to provide academic programs relating to the life and work of Eudora Welty.

Marrs will assist in the Welty Foundation’s support of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History by cataloging and providing a guide to the department’s new acquisitions of Welty manuscripts, photographs, and correspondence. At Millsaps, Marrs will design courses that introduce students to Welty’s fiction, bring contemporary writers to campus, and provide opportunities for original student research. Beyond the campus, she will plan programs for teachers and high school students, organize scholarly conferences, and schedule readings and lectures for the general public.

“I am excited about this opportunity,” Marrs said. “I’ll be able to work with correspondence and manuscripts that offer tremendous insight into Welty’s life and creative process. And I’ll be able to teach Welty’s fiction in new ways and in new venues.”

Marrs has a national reputation in Welty scholarship. In March, she was among the guests of First Lady Laura Bush for a White

Dr. Suzanne Marrs, left, at the White House with Eudora Welty’s nieces Mary Alice White (seated) and Elizabeth Thompson and her husband, Fred Thompson. They were present for a symposium on American authors that included Welty.

The Eudora Welty House in the Belhaven area of Jackson.

s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 5

Eudora Welty. Marrs received the Phoenix Award for Outstanding Achievement in Eudora Welty Scholarship in 1998.

Partial funding for the Welty Foundation scholar-in-residence comes from a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that was awarded to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in December.

—Jesse Yancy, J.W.

Fed Chief Addresses Renaissance Forum

The Millsaps College Else School of Management presented a Renaissance Forum in March on Southeastern economic development, featuring Jack Guynn, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and Leland Speed, executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority.

The forum presented an opportunity for the Millsaps community to witness firsthand a discussion of economic issues of national importance. “A part of the Else School of Management mission that we take very seriously involves providing opportunities for the local business community to examine contemporary business topics that are pertinent to the state and local economy,” said Dr. Randy Boxx, dean of the Else School. “The Renais-sance Forum is an important vehicle for driving that portion of our mission. By bringing faculty, students, and the local business community together into a common classroom to interact with individuals of the caliber of Jack Guynn and Leland Speed, we are facilitating the discussion of important ideas that will move our state and region forward.”

Southern literature, holds the Welty Chair for the 2003–04 academic year. The Millsaps/Welty Foundation partnership will complement and enhance this current program.

Marrs believes the Millsaps/Welty Foundation partnership will foster research and writing about Welty. “Dan Jordan, president of the Thomas Jefferson Foun- dation, says that scholarship drives the mission of his organization,” she said.

“We hope that will be true here. Ongoing scholarship is very important in maintaining a writer’s reputation and making that writer’s works accessible to readers.”

Marrs received her Ph.D. at the University of Oklahoma. She teaches courses in composition, 19th- and 20th- century American literature, and 20th-century Southern literature. Her research interests center on the American South and especially upon Welty. She has lectured on Welty’s fiction in this country, Russia, and France and was a consultant for a 1987 BBC documentary on the writer. She has written numerous articles and published three books: The Welty Collection; Welty and Politics: Did the Writer Crusade? (co-edited with Harriel Pollack), and One Writer’s Imagination: The Fiction of

Guynn told the forum that the nation’s economy was evolving from manufacturing to service jobs. He also said that business investment spending would drive growth this year, but that CEOs would be spending more on new equipment and technology than on workers.

Speed, whom Governor Haley Barbour has named to head the Mississippi Development Authority, told the forum that the recent announcement by the multi-industry giant Textron that it was locating a plant in Greenville “was 100 percent Haley. He was optimistic that he would be elected governor and started lobbying Textron to come to Mississippi before he was elected.”

The Renaissance Forum is a regularly scheduled event designed to provide a platform for regional and national leaders in business and finance to comment on topical issues. Past forums have addressed such issues as postwar economic recovery and corporate ethics.

—J.Y.

Jack Guynn, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, at the Renaissance Forum on Southeastern economic development.

Else School Dedicates New Study RoomsEach year, Donna Else Roberts and her brother, Peter Pryor, along with their spouses, Wilson Roberts and Joyce Pryor, travel to Millsaps College to attend the luncheon that honors the recipients of the scholarships endowed by their parents, Charles and Eloise Else.

This year, the Robertses and the Pryorses refurbished the study rooms on the second floor of Murrah Hall in honor of their parents. New carpet, furniture, and computers were also added to the rooms. “Visually, it looks so much better,” said Dr. Kevin Pauli, professor of information management. “The changes make Murrah Hall more comfortable for our students.”

Part of that refurbishment is a wall display that highlights the lives of the Elses and includes the names of each of the Else Scholars.

“It’s a very unique display,” said Dr. Randy Boxx, dean of the Else School. “The naming system allows you to visualize the impact these two people had on the lives of so many young people and on Millsaps College.”

Wilson Roberts and Donna Else Roberts at the dedication of the Else study rooms.

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these students, I was able to learn about my own teaching style and the importance of one-on-one instruction,” she said.“For these students, I created a risk-free environ-ment, got them excited about reading, and boosted their self-confidence.”

Shay Steckler, a sophomore education and French double major, also noted the impact her fourth-grade students had on her. She recalled her last day with the students: “As we walked back to the classroom, my kids walked with their

arms around me, and all wanted to walk right next to me. One child asked if I intended to keep his folder so I could always remember his name. The students

were reluctant to say goodbye, and I was sad to see them go. I know I had an impact on them academically because I saw their actual progress, but it was the emotional impact they had on me that is most important.”

Junior Erica Poe, an education and psychology double major, said:

“The students made tremendous progress. On average, the students improved four grade levels or more. The feeling it gave me to actually see their progress cannot be explained by mere words. This opportunity has taught me how to be more loving, patient, and hopeful.”

Goldwater Scholarship Goes to Geology MajorJunior Angela Pell, a geology major, has been selected as a Goldwater Scholar for 2004 -05.

This year, Pell is the only Millsaps student to receive a Goldwater Scholarship, one of only two from Mississippi to receive this award, and one of only seven geology majors. The Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,113 mathematics, science, and engineering students nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide.

A graduate of Tara High School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Angela attended

Louisiana State University before transferring in fall 2002 to Millsaps, where she has consistently been on both the dean’s and president’s lists. In addition, Pell works at the U.S. Geological Survey field office in Pearl,

Mississippi, near Jackson. Her ultimate goal is a Ph.D. in geology.

A Literacy Program That Reads WellEnthusiasm and hard work poured out of Boyd Elementary and Chastain Middle Schools these past few months as Millsaps students worked individually with students who were behind in their reading skills. Students of Dr. Connie Schimmel’s Field Research in Reading class, offered through the education department, were each assigned five students to work with twice a week.

A structured 30-minute time period was spent with each child during the instructor’s visit. During this period, a specific remediation program designed by Schimmel was implemented.

Kelly Miller, a junior education major, worked with fourth graders and immediately recognized the wide range of reading ability within one classroom. Although some of her fourth graders could easily read stories on the sixth- grade level, others struggled with passages from the second-grade reading level.

“Going into this experience, I was hesitant that I would actually be able to make a difference in these children’s lives,” Miller said. “After the first few visits, I found that each of my students possessed so much potential. They just needed a little individual attention and instruction in order to make big gains!”

At the end of this program, each of her students moved up at least three grade levels in their reading ability, and some even more. Even though this program improved students’ reading skills, Miller feels she was the one that benefited the most from the program. “In working with

Spiritual SpotA statue of the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was unveiled in a November ceremony on the walk between the Ford Academic Complex and Sullivan-Harrell Hall. The statue, a gift of the India Association of Mississippi, honors a man who influenced the lives of millions through his philosophy of nonviolence and peaceful resolution to conflict. “The Gandhi statue is the first of many that we hope to place around the Millsaps campus to encourage our students, faculty, and staff to reflect on the great thinkers, writers, artists, and leaders who have made outstanding contributions for the good of humankind,” said President Frances Lucas.

“One child asked if I intended to keep

his folder so I could always remember

his name.”

Goldwater Scholar Angela Pell

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s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 7

Methodist Church. The scholarship will assist United Methodist students who exhibit outstanding leadership and service in their school, church, or community.

“We are convinced that Millsaps has produced, by far, the largest number of alumni bishops of any United Methodist college or university in the world,” said President Frances Lucas. “This scholarship will create a meaningful and lasting tribute to celebrate these extraordinary leaders—those who are bishops now and those who will be elected in the years to come.”

“We are so proud to initiate this fund,” Lucas said.“It will stand as permanent recognition of the achievements of these Millsaps alumni and of the strength of the relationship that exists between Millsaps and the United Methodist Church.”

The eight Millsaps alumni bishops are Roy Clark of Nashville, Tennessee, B.A. 1941; Ellis Finger of Asheville, North Carolina, B.A. 1937; Larry Goodpaster of Montgomery, Alabama, B.A. 1970; Clay Lee Jr. of Jackson, B.A. 1951; Mary Ann McDonald Swenson of Pasadena, California, B.A. 1969; Timothy Whitaker of Lakeland, Florida, B.A. 1970; the late Joel McDavid, B.A. 1941; and the late Nolan Harmon, B.A. 1914.

Scholarship organizers have set a goal of $500,000 for the fund, which will make it possible to assist several

students each year. The first scholarship will be awarded when the fund has reached $100,000. To make a donation or to request more information about the Millsaps United Methodist Bishops Scholarship, please contact Kay Barksdale at 601-974-1483 or [email protected].

—Kay Barksdale

Duty in Iraq Delays Senior’s GraduationYulon Stewart of Philadelphia, Mississippi, a senior who had only six hours to complete before graduating, left in February for a tour of duty in Iraq.

Stewart, who was stationed in Georgia with the U.S. Army Reserves, said before leaving for the Middle East on a flight bound for Kuwait: “I am very ready to go now so that I can hurry and return to Millsaps. I’ll stay in touch with you all.”

Stewart has been in touch with her friend Sonya Brown, a senior from Puckett, Mississippi. “I’ve been in touch with her ever since she’s been gone because she has been able to call and write letters and email,” Brown said. “She is very cheerful. She’s always been a very spiritual young woman, and I definitely think her spirituality has helped her get through this. I think being there she has been able to encourage others, as well.”

“I really hate that I will be missing the Multicultural Festival and Mahogany Ball this year, but I have to say I have experienced a whole lot of culture— very different from my own—here in Iraq and in Kuwait,” Stewart told Sherryl Wilburn, director of multicultural affairs for Millsaps. “This trip has really been an experience, and I can’t wait to show you all the pictures.”

A biology major with a minor in psychology, Stewart has been a Ford Fellow, an officer in the Black Student Association, and a member of Fight Against Abuse of Women, the Tri Beta Club (biology honorary society), and the Wind Ensemble. She has also served as a teacher’s assistant.

Stewart’s military commission is for a year and a half.

“I hope to go into geophysics and seismic studies in graduate school,” Pell said. “I feel really lucky to get the award. James Harris, who is the departmental chair, came to me with the scholarship information, and he and Lee Lewis, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, helped me fill out the app-lication and were a big help all around. It’s technically a one-year scholarship, since I’ll be a senior next year.”

“I knew she would be competitive for this award,” Harris said. “She’s extraordinarily gifted when it comes to the interpretive aspects of geology, and she is a very determined and mature student.” Angela is married to Jason Pell, and the couple have a four-year-old daughter, Jane.

The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by Congress in 1986 to honor the late Arizona senator who served his country for 56 years as a soldier and statesman, including 30 years in the U.S. Senate.

Freshman Scholarships Honor Alumni BishopsA scholarship for freshman students will honor the College’s eight alumni who have been elected bishops in the United

From left, President Lucas, Mississippi Conference Bishop Kenneth Carder, Bishop Mary Ann McDonald Swenson, Bishop Roy Clark, and Bishop Clay Lee Jr.

Yulon Stewart, a biology major.

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Pikes Back on Campus After Four-Year HiatusAfter an absence from the campus of more than four years, the Alpha Iota chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity has returned in good standing to the Millsaps campus. The chapter was founded in 1905.

In the fall of 1999, Dr. George Harmon, then president of the College, suspended the fraternity for disciplinary reasons related to rush week of that semester. The original projection was a ban of four years, or enough time for the deposed members of the chapter to fl ow through the academic process, before the College would allow the Pikes to return and occupy their house.

A seven-member alumni steering committee was selected in fall 2001 to coordinate efforts between the fraternity’s

Memphis-based international offi ce, the College’s new administration, and the students who were colonized in fall 2002 to represent the returning chapter.

In April, after a two-year probationary and assessment period, 26 colonists were initiated by teams of active members

from Arkansas State University and Louisiana State University. The return was celebrated at a banquet in Jackson by the colony, the steering committee, the Alpha Iota alumni

advisory board, and representatives of Pike International.

“On balance, our committee feels very fortunate and privileged to have received the cooperation and encouragement afforded us by President Frances Lucas and her cabinet,” said Buddy Buchanan of Jackson, a steering committee member and 1960 Alpha Iota initiate.

William Jeanes of Pass Christian, Mississippi, B.A. 1959, a Millsaps Board of Trustees member, former Millsaps

Pike, and a member of the steering committee, represented the College at the gala and spoke on behalf of the Millsaps administration. John Michael Williams, a former Pike national president and Oklahoma State initiate, made the keynote address.

Millsaps Students Teach in Germany Millsaps Seniors Claire Kurtts, Katie Henke, Jen Nagelin, Christi Walden, and Bob Marston were placed this spring in U.S. Department of Defense Schools in Germany. These schools are provided for the children of U.S. military personnel stationed abroad and are located throughout Europe.

Nagelin, whose elementary school was in Darmstadt, said, “Student teaching in Germany was an amazing experience. Not only was I at a beautiful school and learning from the diverse faculty, but I was also able to travel throughout Europe on the weekends.”

The students feel that student teaching overseas had many benefi ts. Primarily, they say it is great preparation for leaving Millsaps and being away from friends and family. The experience also introduces students to the differences between Department of Defense schools and stateside schools, and the worldwide teaching options available.

Two of the students are applying to teach in such schools next year because, as Nagelin said, “the opportunity is too fantastic to pass up.”

2004 Pikes initiated by teams from Arkansas State University and Louisiana State University.

Jen Nagelin taught elementary school in Darmstadt.

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s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 9

Acclaimed Musicians Ring In Bell SeriesMillsaps has drawn music lovers to campus from around the region with its new Bell Concert Series, an eclectic performing arts program featuring piano performances by a diverse array of solo artists and chamber ensembles specializing in classical music, jazz, and more. The series is named for and presented in memory of Estelle Bell, grandmother of John Palmer, the U.S. ambassador to Portugal and 2004 Commencement speaker.

The performances included, in September, Cyrus Chestnut, the famed Lincoln Center jazz artist; in November, Robert Taub, the internationally acclaimed classical soloist, appearing with the composer and former Jacksonian Milton Babbitt; in January, the José White String Quartet, a group of Cuban-born musicians, presented with faculty pianist Lynn Raley in a piano quintet performance; and in February, Estelle Park, the Wideman Piano Competition winner.

The performances were complemented by educational programs, including presentations in public schools, pre-concert lectures, and master classes for advanced students. Through high-quality performances and inspiring programs, the series encourages

piano study, renews excitement about piano music, and provides opportunities to enjoy the work of the music world’s foremost artists.

Next year’s Bell Series includes Lambert Orkis, the multifaceted pianist, fortepianist, and synthesizer virtuoso, who will present a program entitled “From Hammers to Bytes,” playing the 18th-century fortepiano, the modern Steinway, and a dazzling piece written for him by James Primrosch (for one player on both piano and synthesizer). Orkis, a friend of Palmer, is also the key- board player for the National Symphony in Washington and accompanies the world- famous cellist Rostropovich.

The season will also feature the Martinu Collegium Praga, helping celebrate the centennial of Czech composer Antonin Dvorak’s death, and Orrin Evans, the post-Coltrane, hard-driving, and innovative jazz pianist.

—J.W.The José White String Quartet performed at Millsaps with faculty pianist Lynn Raley in a quintet performance.

The cast of Fiddler on the Roof, which received rave reviews and packed the Christian Center Auditorium night after night.

Millsaps Players Raise The Roof with FiddlerThe Millsaps Players packed the Christian Center in October with their hit autumn musical Fiddler on the Roof, one of the more popular Millsaps productions in recent memory.

The show featured Brent Lefavor, associate professor of theatre, as the central character Tevye, a peasant father of a large Jewish family in czarist Russia. Like the play’s Fiddler character, who represented the character’s attempt to maintain balance in a changing world, Lefavor, who also designed the production, had to work hard to keep his balance during a hectic production schedule.

“I met myself on campus coming and going!” he said, during the weeks leading up to the production.

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OnCampus


flew over the kids, and the kids loved that. They really enjoyed the interactive nature of the show and how the puppets came out into the audience.”

Zapletal also directed the Mississippi Puppet Arts Theatre’s holiday performances of Peter and the Wolf and The Nutcracker Suite.

—J.W.

At Kennedy Festival, A LIE of the MindThe Millsaps Department of Performing Arts played host this fall to the annual Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, which featured nine productions from Mississippi colleges and universities.

Millsaps has served as host three times, but this was the first occasion for a Millsaps entry. The play, LIE, was written by Mike Padilla, a Millsaps English and theatre major from Olive Branch, Mississippi, and directed by Sam Sparks of Jackson, a 2001 Millsaps graduate in theatre. It was one of the few productions

recommended to be presented at the next level of the festival.

The festival, begun in 1969, is held to encourage and enhance college and university theatre. Students set up, perform, and take down their productions within a five-hour time frame. Each performance is evaluated by theatre professionals, and the best productions are recommended for regional and national festivals. The festival also offered workshops for students.

—J.W.

Arts & Lecture Series Majors in HistoryFeaturing writers who have chronicled the 16th Street Birmingham bombings—on the 40th anniversary of that event—and an acclaimed John F. Kennedy biographer who came to campus almost 40 years to the day after Kennedy’s assassination November 22, 1963, the 36th season of the Millsaps Arts & Lecture Series was chiseled from the milestones of U. S. history.

Sena Jeter Naslund, whose latest novel, Four Spirits, refers to the victims of the Birmingham tragedy, and Anthony Grooms, whose novel Bombingham was set against the backdrop of the 1963 civil rights movement, kicked off the series in September.

In November, Robert Dallek, a professor of history at Boston University whose book An Unfinished Life balanced Kennedy’s public and private weaknesses with his many strengths, presented the president in bold, brave, and human terms.

In counterpoint, in October the controversial columnist Christopher Hitchens took an unflinching look at such American institutions as the New York Times and the Kennedy family, raising more than a few eyebrows with his lively and iconoclastic program, “Through the Political Looking Glass: Why Things Aren’t Always What They Seem.”

Bookending the series in March, and augmenting written history with the

The Players’ 80th season continued in November with a student-directed production of Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy. Set in London in the 1960s, the play follows a series of misfortunes that befall a poor sculptor. Charles Whitman’s Utah frontier drama, Papa Married a Mormon, a Mississippi premiere, was presented in February.

Peter Zapletal, the Emmy Award-winning puppeteer who was brought to Millsaps College in the autumn as the first recipient of the Lance Goss Endowment for the Performing Arts, directed a student production of Hansel & Gretel in April, a complement to the Glory of Baroque Dresden exhibit in Jackson during the spring. The Lance Goss Endowment honors the longtime theatre professor and Millsaps Players director Lance Goss, who passed away in 2001.

“I had seen Peter’s work before, some of his traveling shows, but I had never seen such an intricate and elaborate production,” said Nicole Bradshaw, B.A. 1999, director of public relations for the USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson. “The witch

LIE, written by Millsaps junior Mike Padilla and directed by Sam Sparks, B.A. 2001.

The life-size puppets of Hansel & Gretel.

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s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 11

photographer’s perspective, was Deborah Willis, a professor of photography and imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her book Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers, 1840 to the Present recognizes the cultural contributions of African Americans to sports, music, dance, literature, and politics, as well as black social and economic life.

The program was rounded out in late October with Justine Shapiro, the host and co-writer of the award-winning

adventure-travel series Lonely Planet; David Burgess’s crowd-pleasing performance in January of “The Guitar Music of Brazil”; and Adrienne Young’s fresh approach to bluegrass music in February.

“The Millsaps Arts & Lecture Series is the oldest program of its kind in the Jackson area, and I’m really proud of

all that our board has done to make it one of Jackson’s perennial success stories,” said Luran Buchanan, executive director.

A microcosm of Mississippi’s cultural universe, the board has included Betsy Bradley (B.A. 1984), director of the Mississippi Museum of Art and former state arts commissioner; Ward Emling (B.A. 1976), the Mississippi film com-missioner; Seetha Srinivasan, winner of the 1998 Livesay Award and director of the University Press of Mississippi; and

Harvey Johnson Jr., the mayor of Jackson. Dr. Raymond Martin (B.S. 1942) and Sarah Posey Smith (B.A. 1944), both of whom are founding members, remain active to this day.

—J.W.

Moooove Over, WinterDarby Ray, associate professor of religious studies and director of the Millsaps College Faith & Work Initiative, taking in the sun with her daughter, Elena, among whimsical bovines in the Bowl. The cows were made by Bea Zeigler of Winona, Mississippi, a junior and art student, for a campuswide art project involving students from Colin Asmus’s sculpture class.

—J. Y.

Deborah Willis’s book Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present recognizes cultural contributions of African Americans.

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f i n e a r t s

“The Millsaps Arts & Lecture Series is the

oldest program of its kind in the Jackson

area, and I’m really proud of all that our

board has done to make it one of Jackson’s

perennial success stories,” said Luran

Buchanan, executive director.


The Rehabilitation of Whitehead. “It is rich and thickly textured, encompassing psychological (empirical desire, satisfaction, contentment) as well as philosophical approaches (justice, the quest for the right and the good). The resulting discussion of the many dimensions of ‘the good life’ encompasses much more than philosophy alone traditionally covers, including work, play, love, the quest for authenticity, fulfillment or distinctiveness, as well as discussing the meaning of happiness and the challenge of embodying moral values in one’s life. The chapters on play and love are brilliantly conceived and the section on death is a stunning tour de force. This is truly an outstanding book.” In addition to writing four books, Smith is the author of more than 40 journal articles and reviews.

NEH Supports Storey’s Writing And Research

Dr. William Storey, assistant professor of history and current recipient of the Millsaps College Outstanding Young Faculty Award, has been awarded a National Endowment for

the Humanities stipend to support a season of writing and research. NEH Summer Stipends provide an opportunity to pursue research in the humanities that contributes to scholarly knowledge or to the public understanding of the humanities. Successful applicants receive an award of $5,000 for two consecutive months of full-time research and writing. Storey plans to use the stipend along with the release time included in the Outstanding Young Faculty Award to complete a book entitled Black Guns and White Power: Disarmament and British Rule

Humanities Council Recognizes Smith

Dr. Steven G. Smith, professor of philosophy and religious studies and chair of the reli-gious studies department, was the recipient of the 2003 Humanities Teacher Award for Millsaps College. Every year, the Mississippi Humanities Council recognizes October as the Arts and Humanities month. Each college nominates a professor to receive the Humanities Teacher Award. “I am very proud to be this year’s award winner,” Smith said. “I have great admiration for previous winners. Millsaps has a very distinguished faculty, and I am proud to be one of their colleagues.” Meanwhile, Smith’s forthcoming book, Worth Doing, is scheduled for publication

in May. It exam-ines a wide range of moral issues, including war, in relation to ideals of personal worthiness. It

also considers religious challenges of “transworth” lying beyond those ideals. “Distinguishing concepts of ‘worth’ and worthiness of human lives and human activities from questions concerning value, well-being, or virtue, Smith explores how worthwhile acts implement ideals of worthiness in four major domains—work, play, action in concert, and love,” according to the State University of New York Press, publisher of the book. “He touches on a wide range of theoretical material, including Western and Eastern philosophy, ancient and contemporary figures, and literary texts, to provide a comprehensive look at how we rely on ideals of worthy action in the pursuit of moral happiness.” “Worth Doing is worth reading,” writes George R. Lucas Jr., author of


&FacultyStaff

“Worth Doing is worth reading. The chapters on

play and love are brilliantly conceived and the

section on death is a stunning tour de force.”

s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 13

in South Africa. This book examines gun proliferation, gun regulation, and political culture in 19th-century South Africa, with a focus on how representations of technological skill were shaped by colonial political culture. Storey will also travel to Cape Town, South Africa, to complete the research for his book. Storey earned a B.A. from Harvard University (magna cum laude) and an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University. Since coming to Millsaps in 1999, Storey has established himself as an excellent teacher and scholar. Storey is also the author of an edited volume, two books, and articles, essays, and reviews, and numerous conference presentations. His research has been supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foun- dation, the National Science Foundation, the American Historical Association, and the Fulbright Scholarship program.

Lucas HonoredThe President’s Commission on the Status of Women at Mississippi State University in March recognized Dr. Frances Lucas, president of the College, as the 2004 Outstanding Mississippi

Woman. The commission was created in the late 1970s to advise the MSU university president on issues affecting the status and role of women on the MSU campus.

Promotional Material:Staffers Move UpThe College has promoted three senior administrators in the areas of academics, finance, and campus services. Dr. Richard Smith, former vice president and dean of the College, has

been named senior vice president and dean of the College. Smith completed his undergraduate degree at Whittier College in California and continued his education with graduate degrees from the University of Rochester in New York. Before coming to Millsaps in 1997, Smith served in academic administration at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania. Smith’s new position will entail additional leadership responsibilities in implementing the strategic plan of the College. Lou Burney, the former assistant vice president for business affairs and controller, has been named vice president for finance. Burney has provided leadership for the Millsaps financial team for 16 years. She earned an undergraduate degree in accounting from the University of Mississippi and continued her education with a master’s degree from Millsaps. In her new role, Burney will manage support staff working in accounting, payroll services, accounts payable and receivable, budget development, and investment management. Todd Rose, former vice president and dean of students, will assume leader-ship as vice president for campus services, a newly created position at Millsaps. Rose completed his undergraduate degree at Southern Methodist University in Texas and continued his education with a master’s degree from Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the administration of higher education at the University of Southern Mississippi. In his new role, Rose will provide leader-ship for the physical plant, the post office, human resources, food services, campus safety, and the Millsaps bookstore. “I believe these administrative decisions and promotions will help take Millsaps College to even higher rankings and more notable achievement,” said President Frances Lucas.

Sallis Awards Honor Outstanding ServiceThe winners of the Harrylyn G. Sallis Award for Quality Service for 2003 are, for individual excellence, Ruth Wilkinson, director of payroll and employee benefits; and Janet Langley, director of academic support services and the Gateway Program. The award for excellence by a department went to the maintenance department, supervised by David Wilkinson. The Sallis Awards, named in honor of Dr. Harrylyn Sallis, dean emerita of adult learning and a strong proponent of the Millsaps quality-service initiative, are given to staff members and departments in recognition of outstanding service within and outside the College community.

King Takes the HelmOf Development

Vernon King has been hired as director of development in the Office of Institutional Advancement at Millsaps.

King holds a bachelor’s degree in public administration from the University of Mississippi and has studied at the

Protestant Episcopal Seminary in Virginia. He was a member of the honorary societies

Student artwork in the Ford Academic Complex.


Becker Named Head Of Communications

Millsaps College has named Stephen Becker director of communications and marketing for the College.

Becker holds a B.S. in mathematics from the

U.S. Naval Academy, an M.S. in public relations from American University, and an M.S. in management from Salve Regina University. Becker spent 20 years in the U.S. Navy, where he served as director of communications and chief spokesman for several departments. In 1986, he directed the Navy’s salute to the Statue of Liberty, which resulted in a Silver Anvil Award for the best public relations program in government for that year. Becker has served as director of the communications program at the University of the South (1990–94), and he led the advancement program at the institution (1994–98). Most recently, he has served in advancement leadership capacities at Whitman College and Overlake Hospital Medical Center, both in the state of Washington. Becker has also been a leader on the Council for Advancement and Support of Education in District III, comprised of the nine Southeastern states.

Sigma Tau Delta for English and Pi Sigma Alpha for political science. He comes to Millsaps after having served as director of development at Mississippi University for Women and, most recently, Mississippi College. King has also worked for AmSouth Bank in Jackson and Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. in Houston, Texas. King is involved in many civic organizations, including the Community Stewpot Ministries, the Greater Belhaven Neighborhood Foundation, and the Amer-ican Red Cross. King is also a member of the Outreach Commission at St. Andrew’s Cathedral and co-chair of the Laurel Street Park Improvement Project.

Rumsey Appointed To Annual Giving Post

Hunter Rumsey, a native of Sylacauga, Alabama, has been named director of annual giving at Millsaps. Rumsey’s duties will include managing the student calling program,

in which students are hired to help assist the annual giving staff by calling Millsaps alumni, friends, and parents and asking them to support the College’s annual fund. She also oversees the department’s direct-mail program. “This career move is a wonderful opportunity for me,” said Rumsey, who received her B.A. from the University of South Alabama in 1999. “The environment at Millsaps is exciting, and I’m looking forward to helping the College succeed.” Previously, Rumsey served as a fund-raiser for the Birmingham Metropolitan Development Board. She has also served as a program coordinator and public relations officer for the Biotechnology Association of Alabama.

MyMillsaps.com: The alumni online

communityThe Millsaps alumni online community

makes it easy for alumni to stay in touch with classmates and their alma mater.

Access to the online community is a password-protected benefit

exclusively for Millsaps alumni.

Registered users enjoy a number of services, including an online search for other alumni

and permanent email forwarding which allows alumni to receive email no matter how many times their addresses change. An online events calendar alerts alumni to upcoming events on and off campus,

enabling graduates to stay informed. Alumni can also report changes in their

address and personal information.

If you would like additional information, or if you have questions or comments about the online community, please email web manager Shelly Bass at odemsd@ millsaps. edu or call

1-86-MILLSAPS .

mymillsaps.com

s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 15

Arts and LettersJames Bowley (religious studies) published the article “Rethinking the Concept of ‘Bible’: Some Theses and Proposals” (with John Reeves) in the journal Henoch: Historical and Philological Studies on Judaism and served as associate editor of The Dead Sea Scroll Concordance, the official concordance of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He spoke at the 2003 Kaleidoscope Conference at Hinds Community College on “The Middle East: What’s Wrong with This Picture?” and addressed regional members of the clergy on Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ at a panel presentation at the Beth Israel synagogue in Jackson.

Gail Buzhardt (modern languages) directed a language immersion workshop for high school French teachers at Millsaps. The title was “Une journée dans la ville de Lyon” (One Day in the City of Lyon). As part of the workshop, Claudine Chadeyras (modern languages) gave a slide show and lecture on “La comédie musicale” (The Musical Comedy).

Raymond Clothier (Faith & Work Initiative) gave a presentation entitled “Best Practices of the Millsaps College Faith & Work Initiative” for a conference of grant recipients in the Programs for the Theological Exploration of Vocation, funded by the Lilly Endowment, held at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wis.

David Davis (history) represented the Millsaps faculty and administration at the aforementioned Lilly conference. The associate dean of arts and letters was also scheduled to travel this spring with Iren Omo-Bare (political science) to Ghana to set up a study abroad program.

Tim Coker (performing ar ts) traveled nine days in England this spring with 31 students to present concerts and take advantage of the nation’s cultural riches.

c a m p u s c o m m u n i t y

&FacultyStaffLaura Franey (English) had her first book published, Victorian Travel Writing and Imperial Violence: British Writing on Africa, 1855-1902. Issued by Palgrave Macmillan Press, it is part of the monograph series Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture.

Kathi Griffin (Writing Center) attended the Atlanta conference of the Southeastern Writing Center Association with four peer writing tutors. The group presented a panel entitled “Becoming Mindful of the Absent Professor.” From left, Griffin, Wes French, Mike Parks, Megan Parks, and Michael Pickard presented at the conference.

Julie Maisel (performing ar ts) chaired the 2004 Flute Festival Mid-South on the Millsaps campus. The event brought in more than 125 flute teachers, performers, and students from all over the Southeast. The weekend included concerts by flute teachers and a gala closing concert that featured international flutist Susan Hoepnner, accompanied on the piano by Elizabeth Moak (performing ar ts). There were competitions for all age levels and workshops on various concepts related to the flute and music in general. Maisel performed in the opening concert and also conducted a flute choir that she organized in Jackson.

Robert McElvaine (history) and Nancy Chodorow (University of California-Berkeley) were scheduled to present the two keynote addresses at the International Freud Conference in Melbourne, Australia, this spring, when he was also scheduled to give lectures at three Australian universities.

Greg Miller (English) will spend the spring semester of 2005 in residence at the Camargo Foundation’s Study Center in

Cassis, France. The Camargo Foundation sponsors creative projects by writers, visual artists, photographers, video artists, filmmakers, media artists, and composers. He hopes to complete his third book of poetry during his stay.

Peggy Prenshaw (English) gave a lecture entitled “Composing a Life: Welty, Faulkner, and Literary Tradition” as part of her tenure this year as the Eudora Welty Professor. She also gave the Phi Kappa Phi keynote lecture, “Story-Telling Southerners: Lies, Lives, and the Art of Writing,” at South- eastern Louisiana University in Hammond.

Lynn Raley (performing ar ts) gave a solo recital of contemporary piano music in Manhattan that included the New York City premieres of two works written for him by Charles Wuorinen and James Romig. Wuorinen, a major force in contemporary music who has won the Pulitzer Prize and the MacArthur Foundation Award, has written an opera based on Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories. He was commissioned by Raley to write “The Haroun Piano Book,” the first installment of a set of pieces based on material from the opera. Also on the program were Wuorinen’s “The Blue Bamboula” and works by James Romig (“Transparencies,” also written for Raley), Edward J. F. Taylor, and Arnold Schönberg.

Holly Sypniewski (classical studies) gave a paper from her current research project in Hellenistic Greek poetry, entitled

“The Lover’s Self-Delusion in Theocritus Idylls 10 and 11,” at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle-West and South in St. Louis. She was also named as one of the Margo Tytus Visiting Scholars at the Burnham Classics Library at the University of Cincinnati this summer. In addition, she was scheduled to attend the Sunoikisis Summer Seminars in Greek and Latin Literature at the Associated Colleges of the South Tech Center in June and Conventiculum Latinum, a spoken Latin immersion program, at the University of Kentucky in August.


Pickard. Their work was published in the festival anthology. The Millsaps literary magazine, Stylus, received fi rst place in the festival’s college literary magazine competition.

Else SchoolAjay Aggarwal (management) has been appointed chair for the Quantitative Theory and Methods Track for the 2004 meeting of the South-East Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. He received the Best Paper in Track Award at the 2004 South-East Decision Sciences Institute meeting for his paper on outsourcing. He is currently serving for the fourth consecutive year on the instructor innovation committee of the Decision Sciences Institute.

Harvey Fiser (business) and Kim Burke (accounting) presented their paper “SAS 99: Raising the Audit Malpractice Bar?” at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Accounting and Finance in New Orleans. Burke and Stacy Kovar (Kansas State Univer- sity) presented their paper “Public Percep- tions of CPAs: Before and After the Recent Financial Crises” at the same conference. Burke, Penelope Prenshaw (marketing), and Kovar had their papers “Under-standing the Satisfaction Process for New Assurance Services: The Role of Attitudes, Expectations, Disconfi rmation and Perform- ance” and “Unraveling the Expectations Gap: An Assurance Gaps Model and Illustra- tive Application” accepted for publication in Advances in Accounting and Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research, respectively.

Ray Grubbs (management) has directed M.B.A. Field Service for Parkway Properties, DeBeukelaer Corp., Bethlehem Center, Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Mississippi, and Genesis Ministry at Christ United Methodist Church.

Walter Neely (fi nance) took 12 students to Memphis, where they visited with such fi nancial fi rms as Morgan Keegan, First

Tenn, and GreenSquare Capital. They also visited FedEx. In each case, Millsaps alumni spoke to the group.

Susan Taylor, Blakely Fender (economics), Howard McMillan (business), and Kim Burke (accounting) led a group of Millsaps accounting and economics students on a trip to Washington, D.C. Students toured the Federal Reserve Offi ces and spoke with Federal Reserve Board Governor Mark Olson about national economic issues. In addition, economics students met with representatives of the American Banking Association, and accounting students spoke with the deputy chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Students also toured the White House and the Capitol. In addition, Taylor, Fender, and Burke presented their paper “Unraveling the Academic Productivity of Economists: The Opportunity Costs of Teaching and Service” at the Southern Economic Asso- ciation Meeting in San Antonio, Tex.

ScienceGeorge Bey (anthropology) contributed chapters to two recently published volumes on Mesoamerican archaeology. The fi rst is entitled “The Role of Ceramics in the Study of Confl ict in Maya Archaeology” and appears in Ancient Mesoamerican Warfare, published by Altamira Press and edited by M. Kathryn Brown and Travis Stanton. The second (co-authored with William Ringle) is entitled “The Decline of the East: The Classic to Postclassic Tran-sition at Ek Balam, Yucatan.” It appears in The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands:

f a c u l t y & s t a f f


Elise Smith (ar t) presented a paper entitled “ ‘The Aged Pollard’s Shade’: Gainsborough’s Landscape with Woodcutter and Milkmaid” at the annual meeting of the Southeastern College Art Conference in Raleigh, N.C.

Steve Smith (philosophy and religious studies)

presented a paper entitled “Appeals and Meaningfulness” at the 2004 meeting of the Mississippi Philosophical Association.

Sandra Smithson (ar t) had a solo exhibition of her paintings and etchings at the Southwest Missouri State University’s Art Gallery last fall. The paintings and prints that she created, with the support of the Hearin Grant, were exhibited in the Lewis Art Gallery this year during the faculty art exhibition. She has been accepted again into the Vermont Studio Center and has been awarded an Artist Grant from the center. Smithson will be an artist-in-residence at the center this summer. She assisted master printer Matt Christie in the printing of a large John Buck woodcut at the 2004 Conference of the Southern Graphics Council. An etching of hers was also accepted for the 10th Annual National Juried Fine Art Competition & Exhibition at the Germantown Art League in Memphis. The Printmaking Department of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville has invited her to present a slide talk about her work. Smithson looks forward to having a solo exhibition of her etchings on fabric in fall 2005 at the Concordia University Art Gallery in Irvine, Calif.

Austin Wilson (English), who serves as executive director of the Southern Literary Festival, attended this spring’s festival

at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Three Millsaps seniors were prize-winners in the festival competition: Ashley Nichols, Matthew Luter, and Michael

at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Three Millsaps seniors were prize-winners in the festival competition: Ashley Nichols, Matthew Luter, and Michael

s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 17

Collapse, Transition and Transformation, published by University Press of Colorado and edited by Arthur Demarest, Prudence Rice, and Don Rice.

Melissa Kelly (psychology) co-authored a chapter in The Handbook of Mathematical Cognition called “Learning Mathematics in China and the United States: Cross-Cultural Insights into the Nature and Course of Preschool Mathematical Development” with Kevin Miller and Xiaobin Zhou. She also traveled to the Baltimore biennial conference of the Society for Research on Adolescence to present her paper

“Contextualizing Cases of Academic Achievement” with a team of researchers in a paper symposium entitled “Educational Pathways: Challenges and Resources for Latino and White Students.”

Mark Lynch (mathematics) has had his paper “Compact, Convex, and Symmetric Sets are Disks” accepted for publication in the International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology. He dedicated this paper to the memory of Dr. Samuel Knox, past professor of mathematics at Millsaps. Also, his joint paper with Asif Khandker (physics), entitled

“A Physicist’s Take on Cardinality,” was accepted for publication in the Journal of Mathematics and Computer Education.

Jim McKeown and Sarah Armstrong (biology) presented a poster entitled “Initiating a Field Biology Program for Undergraduates” at the national meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in New Orleans. They also gave the presentation

“Developing an Undergraduate Field Biology Program” at the Mississippi Academy of Sciences’ annual meeting in Biloxi.

Julian Murchison (anthropology) has traveled to Tanzania to set up a study-abroad program.

Jimmie M. Purser (chemistry) gave a presentation entitled “Ethics Scenarios in a Senior Chemistry Seminar” at the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference in Atlanta. The presentation described

the use of information technologies to involve chemistry majors with ethics in professional chemistry, as described in the American Chemistry Society’s “Chemist’s Code of Conduct.”

Bob Shive (mathematics and computer science) gave the presentation “Bridging the Gap Between Computer Literacy and Computer Science” with two colleagues from Furman University at the Fourth Annual Learning and Teaching Support Network-Information and Computer Sciences Conference at the National University of Ireland, Galway. This work is an outgrowth of the information fluency initiative of the Associated Colleges of the South, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

StaffJanis Booth (counseling and health services) presented a program entitled “Exploring Alternative Conceptualizations for Mental Health Emergency Management” at the American College Personnel Association national conference in Philadelphia. She has also been nominated to run for directorate body for the association’s Commission for Counseling and Psychological Services.

Don Fortenberry (student affairs) attended the Delta Delivery missionary trip to Mound Bayou, Miss., in March along with Raymond Clothier (Faith & Work Initiative) and 17 Millsaps students.

Brit Katz (administration) addressed the Mississippi Association of Housing Officers with a lecture entitled “Why Today’s Effec- tive Housing Officer May Be Tomorrow’s Effective Vice President” as well as the Resident Assistant Drive-In Conference of Mississippi with a lecture entitled “Keeping the Faith, Keeping in Touch.” He was the keynote speaker at both organizations’ annual statewide conferences. Katz was also honored as the namesake of the “Brit Katz Award for Service to Students,” a new award created by the senior class of his former

employer, Emory University in Atlanta. In addition, he was a plenary speaker for the first statewide gathering of college/university health-care providers and student leaders, commenting on the public health issue of “HIV Infection and AIDS on Mississippi Campuses.”

Lynne Montgomery (computer services)

gave a presentation entitled “Training and Documentation” at the annual Association for Computing Machinery/Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services conference in San Antonio. Her paper was selected and published in the organization’s Conference Proceedings Journal: Deep in the Heart of Technology.

Kendrick Schetter (student affairs) was appointed area coordinator for Mississippi for the Association of Fraternity Advisors and to the National Risk Management Committee for the Association of Fraternity Advisors. He was also selected as a National Facilitator for the program Seeking Alliances through Leadership and Diversity by CampuSpeak, an agency that represents campus speakers.

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Conferring over coffee at the Kava House.

s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 19

The year is 1920, and a small boy is practicing the violin in his family’s home in Belhaven, that historic district of Jackson just across North State Street from the Mil lsaps

campus. It is a close, warm night, before air conditioning isolated neighbors from one another, and the boy’s mother opens a window to get a breeze. As she does, passersby hear the sound of music drifting from the house; perhaps the melody is original, for the violinist has already begun to compose at the age of four.

Fast forward more than 80 years and pan west to the Millsaps campus, where an aural constellation of dissonant electronic pings from the Ford recital hall provides a haunting soundtrack to the au-tumn evening. As a virtuoso accustomed to such venues as Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall performs “Reflections,” a complex com-position for piano and synthesizer, the otherworldly arrangement seems to transcend time. Fittingly so, for sitting in the audience is its composer, Milton Babbitt, that same musician who as a boy had practiced his violin just a few blocks away.

Tonight, Babbitt, who graduated from Central High School and went on to warrant perhaps the longest entry in the lexicon of contemporary classical music, is being heard in his own backyard. Heard and celebrated, not only by those scholars who have come from across the country to pay homage to this most pioneering of musicians, but also by his hometown. As it is announced that the

governor has declared Nov. 1 Milton Babbitt Day, a cheering audience rises to its feet in a rousing ovation—an extraordinary outpour-ing of love for Babbitt.

An unassuming figure in heavy-rimmed black glasses, Babbitt takes the stage. He seems, for a moment, speechless. From his home at Princeton University, where he is an emeritus professor, Babbitt later offered, simply: “One never anticipates such things.”

“I think that Milton was very moved by the fact that his hometown offered him such warmth, respect, and gratitude,” said Robert

Taub, the pianist who performed the Babbitt program at Millsaps as part of the Bell Concert Series. “I’ve never known Milton to be at a loss for words, but I could tell that he was very visibly moved by the dedication that occurred right before my concert.”

“I will never forget the image of Babbitt, sitting on the front row of the recital hall just after having accepted the awards, listening to Bob play his composition ‘Canonical Form’ and then a beautiful Chopin set,” said Lynn Raley, the Millsaps performing arts professor who organized the festival. “His eyes were closed as he listened, and a broad smile stayed on his face through the Chopin pieces. I feel like we did something wonderful for a great man.”

Babbitt, who is one of the first composers to use electronically generated sounds and has influenced composers from Stravinsky to Sondheim, is hardly a populist. After all, he set the classical music establishment on its ear with the 1958 essay in High Fidelity Magazine

Young Milton Babbitt

Renowned composer Milton Babbitt — whose often misunderstood essay “Who Cares If You Listen?” once cast him as elitist — is celebrated by scholars

and a hometown audience, alike.

by Joh n We b b

IF WEHE CARES

LISTEN

20 m i l l s a p s m a g a z i n e 20 m i l l s a p s m a g a z i n e

“Who Cares If You Listen?”—which according to some readings seemed to imply an intellectual and academic disdain for the listening public. Babbitt has said that the now-infamous headline distorted his point, yet he does have a reputation as a purely academic composer.

But that night in Jackson, we all listened. Academics, yes. But also everyday Jacksonians. Friends who remembered the Babbitts of Belhaven. And Bab-bitt cared. “It was a wonderful occasion for me,” said Babbitt, whose many awards and acco-lades include the MacArthur Fel-lowship, recognition from the Pulitzer committee for his “life’s work as a distinguished and seminal American composer,” and a Mississippi Arts & Letters Award. “I liked the people, I liked the general atmosphere, and I liked seeing how Millsaps had been transformed from the way I remember it. You know, as a boy my brother used to play golf there, and I can remember when the campus was oriented in the other direction.”

If anyone knows how to bring home the importance of a native son who has influenced the world of classical music, it is the Mississippi public radio personality William Fulton. “In my opin-ion, Milton Babbitt is one of the most important musical figures to come out of Mississippi,” said Fulton, director of arts and cultural programs for Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Fulton, who once lived near the original Babbitt home, said Babbitt’s “influence, his prestige throughout the country, throughout the world, is tremen-

dous. Whether you like to listen to his music or not, you have to admire the remarkable intellectual energy that goes into it. When I mention Milton Babbitt, most people, even in Mississippi, think he is from the East Coast because of his associations with Princeton and Juilliard. But as he told me himself, he definitely considers himself a Mississippian.”

As such, Babbitt, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a part of the American Academy of Arts, was featured in such mainstream local publications as Mississippi Magazine and the Clarion-Ledger, Jackson’s daily paper, reminiscing on his life at the vanguard of classical music, as well as his Mississippi roots—and how you can’t get authentic grits in New Jersey.

And for the academics present, the Mill-saps conference was, finally, Milton Babbitt in Context. “Having the celebration in Milton’s hometown highlighted the fact that two of the leading figures of their respective art forms—Babbitt and Eu-

dora Welty—grew up as neigh-bors and childhood friends,” said Dr. Anthony Brandt, a Babbitt scholar who presented a paper on the composer’s use of rhythm. “Each in their own way achieved a personal and comprehensive vision: Welty with her imaginary county filled with so many wonderful characters, and Babbitt with his unique expressions of musical patterning and interrelation-ships. What a neighborhood that must have been three quarters of a century ago!”

It was, in fact, Welty’s father who had brought Babbitt’s own father, an actuary, from Phila-delphia, Pennsylvania, where

Babbitt was born, to Jackson to work at the Lamar Life Insurance Company. And it was in Jackson that Babbitt first took to music, be-coming accomplished at the violin, clarinet, and saxophone—even touring with jazz bands as an adolescent.

He has often said that he was influenced by the music that was popular in Jackson in the 1930s. Indeed, Babbitt recalls a musical boyhood in a Jackson that in his day had great cultural refinement. There was the school music teacher who spent an hour a day with each class (“would that it was that way today!” he laments). And there was the daily clarinet and saxophone practice, and “all the playing I did in the Jackson Boys Band.” He can even recall his first

Babbitt and William Fulton of Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

“The conjunction of Babbitt and Jackson was unexpectedly powerful. The Southern, and specifically Jacksonian, context for his life and development was a crucial missing piece of the puzzle for me.”

20 m i l l s a p s m a g a z i n e s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 21 20 m i l l s a p s m a g a z i n e s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 21

violin teacher, Betty Lou Hutcherson, and his clarinet teacher, an Italian named Louis Pullo.

Babbitt left Jackson at the age of 15 and was educated at the University of Pennsylvania (mathematics, 1931), New York University (music, 1932–35, B.A.), and Princeton University (music, 1942, M.F.A.), where he was a student of the vaunted 20th-century composer Roger Sessions. He had originally intended to study math, as his father had. And al-though Babbitt’s renown is for formulat-ing complex equations for modern com-position, he also taught mathematics at Princeton and served during World War II as a U. S. government mathematician.

Babbitt may have ultimately estab-lished himself amid East Coast academia, but he is quick to credit his early educa-tion in Jackson. “My early musical infl u-ences were in Jackson, Mississippi, where I grew up, of course,” Babbitt told Ameri-can Mavericks, a radio and Internet series produced by Minnesota Public Radio.

“My fi rst infl uence was my violin teacher whom I went to study with at the age of four. My teacher was a lovely woman who had studied with Leopold Auer (the Hungarian master) and was a very sophisticated woman. I know you Yankees think that if you grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, you went around in bare feet. But it was a very cultivated crowd and the public school to which I went was a very sophisticated one, and we were taught how to speak English in a very special way because we were the last bastions of high culture, and there was a little bit of that that brushed into everything.”

Several Babbitt scholars who attended the conference said that their experience in the composer’s hometown brought new dimen-sion to their understanding of this complex fi gure of American music. “Seeing where Milton grew up, seeing buildings he had lived near or in, seeing and feeling the climate, all helped deepen and enrich my sense of the man and his music,” said Dr. Andrew Mead of the University of Michigan, perhaps the most famous Bab-bitt scholar. “Seeing, too, the historical documents, the photographs, the memorabilia of his childhood, and seeing the warmth with which he was greeted and accepted by his hometown just plain moved me in a deep, human way.”

“The conjunction of Babbitt and Jackson was unexpectedly powerful for me,” said Dr. Jeff Perry, associate professor of music theory at Louisiana State University. “The Southern, and specifi cally Jacksonian, context for his life and development was a crucial miss-ing piece of the puzzle that is Milton for me.”

And the fact that the conference took place at Millsaps, as opposed to a musical mecca like Juilliard or Eastman, created a refreshingly casual atmosphere for the ac-ademics. “We out-of-towners were treated with great courtesy and hospitality,” Perry said. “I found Millsaps a welcoming artis-tic and intellectual community and hope to have the opportunity to return.”

Perry said that the conference was “much less formal” than it might have been elsewhere. “I especially enjoyed the fact that people from the commu-nity—some of them family acquaintances of the Babbitts—participated in many of the events, and also the fact that stu-dents were encouraged to participate and contribute. I can’t see that happening at a big, elite school of music chock full of specialists who might be tempted to monopolize Milton, to the exclusion of us lesser mortals.”

“The conference was an intimate and very warm affair, attended by people for whom Milton means a very great deal,” Mead said. “While there may have been a greater number of people participat-ing had it been held at a larger school of music, it would not have had the personal

quality that having it at Millsaps offered. Further, the conference was able successfully to sidestep the unnecessary controversies surrounding Milton’s writing and music, so that we were able to concentrate on our shared plea-sures. Milton’s personal connec-tion with the town of Jackson added a quality of history to the experience that holding the conference elsewhere simply could not have afforded.”

The conference was co-sponsored by the Associated Colleges of the South, whose new music ensemble per-formed works by the composer.

“I got enormous support from the ACS, which funded the ex-cellent concert that included the Luna Nova contemporary music ensemble and guitarist William Anderson, who played two solo guitar pieces by Babbitt (which he has recorded),” said Raley, who said he conceived of the confer-ence when he fi rst interviewed at Millsaps. “Without the ACS, the

At the Mark II RCA synthesizer, Columbia Princeton Studios, New York City, late 1950s. Photo courtesy Milton Babbitt.

The Clarion-Ledger featured a story on the conference.The Clarion-Ledger featured a story on the conference.Clarion-Ledger featured a story on the conference.Clarion-Ledger


conference might not have materialized. Certainly it wouldn’t have been as good an event.”

And though it had hometown flavor, the symposium was any-thing but provincial. “The conference was charming, but there was nothing regional or Southern about it,” said Babbitt, who has served on the composition faculty at the Juilliard School since 1973. “The people who came to this had theoretical and compositional inter-est.” Babbitt said that conference participants were knowledgeable—

“many were students of my students”—and very similar to the types he had met at other conferences at perhaps larger, more renowned musical venues. “These were interested, bright young people who asked a lot of questions about my life in music.”

Among those interested, bright young people was junior Ben Tomlinson, from Corinth, Mississippi, a Millsaps premed student whose minor is music. “Regardless of whether I, as a student, un-derstand the works of Babbitt, the focus remains on the tremendous opportunity of experiencing firsthand the musician, his work, his life, and his humor,” said Tomlinson, who turned pages for Taub during his concert. “Such an occasion is rarely given to students and professors alike today—and such an event is exceedingly rare in Mississippi.”

“I was overwhelmed by the response, and the conference ex-ceeded my wildest dreams in terms of the quality of its participants,” said Raley. “The people who know Milton simply love him.”

The defining quality of this conference, versus similar events at other venues, was Babbitt’s personal connection with Jackson. Babbitt said that he had often returned to Jackson over the years until his father died in 1972 and that most of his friends and contemporaries were gone. Nevertheless, several Jacksonians at the celebration re-membered him and his family. The late Dr. Ellis Moffitt, a retired al-

lergist, had last seen Babbitt in the 1970s, when Moffitt was an intern at the Baptist Medical Center. “His father had come into the hos-pital on his deathbed, and I got to visit with Milton at that time. That was more than 25 years ago.” At a Millsaps breakfast attended by a few bastions of Old Jackson, Moffitt reintroduced himself. “Milton Babbitt said, ‘Yeah, I know you,’ ” Moffitt said. “He grew up two doors down the street, at Carlisle and Kenwood. His mother would raise the windows while he was practicing, and we got a lot of free concerts. He was already an accomplished musician back then. He played weekends at the old Rotisserie restaurant.”

Babbitt didn’t care to revisit his boyhood home “because it had been remodeled sev-eral times,” said Muller Addkison, who made his living in a family hardware business that was located downtown for 77 years. But he was extremely “interested in being brought up to date on the Jacksonians he knew,” Ad-

dkison said. “I got him started talking about people he knew in Jackson back in those days, and of course I knew a lot of them.”

Addkison, who played in the Jackson Symphony Orchestra for 40 seasons and has served as the Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra Society president, updated Babbitt on some of the Jackson person-alities from his past. “He took violin lessons from Betty Sue Hutch-erson, and I knew her, too, because I played viola. He also knew the violinist Armand Coullet, from Algiers, who died in the 1980s, and I filled him in on his successful career. His wife, Magnolia, lived on several years, teaching voice and Latin, and later German at Millsaps.”

As the hometown connections clicked, the academic confer-ence wrestled with a larger picture, that of Babbitt’s impact on the international world of classical music. After all, the composer has long been studied by music theorists fascinated by his advancement of serialism—or the assignment of numeric values to elements of music, melody, rhythm, and timbre—and Arnold Schönberg’s 12-tone system.

“It was impressive to see and hear so many scholars and art-ists from all over the United States as they related their own sto-ries of how Milton’s mus ic , ideas , and personal example of courage, insight, and pe r s eve r ance h ad affected their lives,” said Perry.

“His hometown and state were honoring him for the power of his independence, his farsightedness, and his transcendent gifts. Milton did carry on, in spite of going against public tastes, and his society was there to eloquently express its gratitude.”

A seminar with the composer, who said his earliest musical influences were in Jackson.


“Being in Jackson and seeing Milton’s yearbook and other ju-venalia made it clear that, for a composer so revered for his mind, it was his musicianship and musicality that drew a lot of atten-tion when he was little,” Brandt said. “The yearbook, for instance, proclaimed ‘We have a composer in our midst’ and imagined him writing an opera.”

And here he was on that autumn night, “a composer in our midst,” after so much history, after so many years spent in the trenches at the forefront of music as a pioneer of contemporary music’s avant-garde, basking in a hometown ovation from an audi-ence both populist and scholarly. “In his sorely misconstrued and unfortunately titled article ‘Who Cares If You Listen?’ Milton made the argument that those who practice so-called ‘advanced music’ should be supported and shielded from the vagaries of public taste in the same way as experimental scientists,” Brandt said. “Sitting in the audience and hearing the proclamations being read from the mayor of Jackson and the governor of Mississippi declaring Nov. 1 Milton Babbitt Day, I couldn’t help but think that, after enormous ef-fort, sometimes against great odds, Milton had actually realized his dream: His hometown and state were honoring him for the power of his independence, his farsightedness, and his transcendent gifts. Milton did carry on, in spite of often going against public tastes, and his society was there on Milton Babbitt Day to eloquently express its gratitude.”

During one forum, Babbitt told the story of how Central High’s senior “class prophet” performed a skit in which she played a street cleaner who stumbled upon a sheet of manuscript. It turned out to be the title page of an opera by a young composer named Milton Babbitt.

The name of that opera? I May be Small, but You Should Hear Me Blow My Horn!

As part of the Babbitt festival, the composer and Taub presented a Millsaps

Forum on “What Makes ‘New’ Music New?” “One of my lasting impressions

is that the music of Milton Babbitt is here to stay,” said Taub, appointed artist-

in-residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1994, becom-

ing the fi rst musician to be so recognized in the Institute’s 65-year history (the

only previous artist-in-residence at the Institute had been T. S. Eliot, in 1948).

“It was wonderful to see people enamored from all perspectives, performers,

audiences, scholars, an aesthetic point of view from all parts of the country, all

convening at Millsaps College under these very special conditions. I’ve always

felt that Milton Babbitt’s works are destined to become classics, to withstand

the test of time, and the weekend festival was a further affi rmation of that.”

Taub’s professional relationship with Babbitt dates back more than two

decades, and the pianist has pre-

miered many of Babbitt’s works.

“I’ve known Milton Babbitt for

many years, simultaneously a

student at Juilliard and Princeton,”

said Taub, who is known for his

masterful performance of the

complete cycle of 32 Beethoven

sonatas. “He heard me play a

concer t, and then after that I

asked him very gingerly for a suggestion of what piece of his I might look

at. I had always admired him from afar, in the early ’80s, and he suggested a

piano work of his called ‘Three Compositions.’ It was fi endishly diffi cult, but

incredibly fascinating and very expressive. I stuck with it, six or seven months,

which is a long time for me, and fi nally felt ready to play the piece for him.

I remember doing so at Juilliard, and from that point forward our musical

friendship began. Over the years, I have premiered many of his works.”

“Bob Taub’s recital was really spectacular, and the Millsaps concert hall

was a wonderful venue to hear him play not only Babbitt but Beethoven,”

Mead said. “Having a major pianist in our midst was a rare and remarkable

treat, one that was only enhanced by the intimacy of the conference.”

The Millsaps Babbitt program included “Refl ections” (1974) for piano

and synthesized electronics and “Canonical Form” (1983), which he com-

posed for Taub. “To play these pieces in front of the composer at any time

is special, but to play them in circumstances where he was in his hometown,

with all the love fl owing from both sides of the stage for the entire weekend,

was extremely special,” Taub said.

Babbitt with piano virtuoso Robert Taub.

The View from the Bench


REMEMBRANCES OF M ILLSAPS PAST

Digital documentary project brings campus history into focusby Joh n We b b

24 m i l l s a p s m a g a z i n e s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 25 s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 25

The campus lore and legend, the comings and goings of faculty, the evolution of curricula and social culture, those figures who have become larger than life through

their devotion to Millsaps College, the world events that have shaped and challenged the institution—all these combine to define the human face of Millsaps College. To line the forehead with wisdom. To set the jaw with determination. To etch laugh lines around the eyes. And, sometimes, to knit the brow with worry.

Now, the College is putting a human face on its history. Many faces, in fact, through an oral history project that is under way in the Offi ce of Alumni Relations. Armed with a digital video camera, a light kit, and what he calls a “small-scale, professional-grade documentary setup,” John Conway, director of alumni relations, is conducting interviews of those who can help “paint the picture” of the College. “If a picture says a thousand words,” he said, “then a video paints ten thousand.”

Mississippi is known for its tradition of storytelling, which some say explains why some of the best literature in the world comes out of this state. And putting these stories on tape seems to be an approach to history whose time has come. The University of Southern Mississippi, for instance, has begun a statewide oral histo-ry project in cooperation with the Mississippi Humanities Council.

“The notion of doing this has been batted around for a long time—at least during the six years that I’ve been here,” Conway said.

“In alumni relations we’re constantly hearing the greatest Millsaps stories. And they’re often the fi rst foray into a conversation with alumni. There is a natural nostalgia, a reminiscence, to being an alumnus. They fi lter their thoughts about the College through their experiences at Millsaps, whether in 1929 or 1989.”

With the enthusiasm of a director taking on an epic production, Conway said that the tapes would be assembled into an encyclope-dic video history of the College: e.g., Millsaps

College (Volume One), Millsaps College (Volume Two), etc. “The collection will not only be of archival importance,” he said. “We can also use video captures for college publications, segments, and sound bites for promotional material on the web or broadcast me-dia, and we can even produce an exhaustive college video history. There’s an endless amount of information there, and it’s a project that could ideally go on in perpetuity.”

Debra McIntosh, who oversees the J. B. Cain Archives of Mis-sissippi Methodism and the Millsaps College Archives, said that the interviews would serve as “rich, colorful commentary that will complement the facts-and-fi gures-type records we hold in the ad-ministrative papers, and the more in-depth information included in faculty and manuscript papers and college and student publications.” Written and video accounts of history, she said, would “connect with their audience through personal stories and refl ections.”

Conway plans to interview two to three subjects per month, starting with some of the eldest, in order to capture history before

At that time [1947], there was a big rivalry between Millsaps and Mississippi

College. One of the most important things you would do when you were a

freshman, if you were not a veteran, is that you had to have your head shaved and

you had a little beanie that you had to wear. When you would go downtown the

Mississippi College crew would come over with their beanies on. And the thing was

to see how many beanies one school could steal from the other…. I’m proud to

say I still have my beanie.

—Jack Woodward, 75, B.A. 1951, former director of student aid and fi nancial planning

When we were at Millsaps, there were some little cottages around campus,

and my sister and brother and I lived in one of those—we called them

“the shacks.” And we did our own cooking and of course our studying there. We

shared a bath with another shack next door. They were just ordinary little houses.

Nothing fi ne, but they were all right. I remember my sister and I sitting on our little

porch and studying Latin. Millsaps just gave me a good, steady foundation—on

religion, and other subjects, too.

—Ruth Alford, 100, B.A. 1929

John Conway, director of alumni relations, reviewing an interview with alumna Ruth Alford.


it fades away. “A natural place to start is with the generations from the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s,” he said. “These people are the fi rst chapter in our history that we have access to.”

“There are of course a lot of people who are already gone—people we’ve lost who were the backbone of the College for so many years,” said Kay Barksdale, director of church and parent relations. Among those who have passed away in the last few years are such fi gures as Profes-sor Lance Goss, the beloved Millsaps Players director whose dramatic productions routinely fi lled the Christian Center with audiences; the longtime Chairman of the Board Jim Campbell, a forward-thinking fund-raiser who completed the $47 million Cen-tennial Development Campaign in the 1980s; Dr. Ross Moore (B.S. 1923, M.S. 1924), the popular history professor; Dr. Frank Laney Jr., the longtime history professor and dean of the faculty; Jim Livesay (B.A. 1941), the College’s fi rst alumnus of the year, as well as its fi rst alumni director. The list goes on.

Potential interview subjects abound: Some names that have been casually mentioned include Robert Padgett, an English pro-fessor who was parent of the Heritage Program; Dr. T. W. Lewis, professor emeritus of religion, an alumnus who returned to teach at Millsaps in 1959 and marched with students in the civil rights movement; Joe Lee Gibson, a Millsaps custodian since 1935; Jim Parks, the Millsaps librarian emeritus who came to the College in 1969 and helped establish the College archives; and the four former Millsaps presidents who are still living—Dr. Benjamin Graves, Dr. Edward Collins Jr., Dr. Ellis Finger, and Dr. George Harmon.

Faculty wives can be another important resource, said Dr. Harrylyn Sallis, dean emerita of adult learning who, with

her husband, Dr. Charles Sallis, emeritus professor of history, has been a fixture on the Mill-saps campus for decades. “There is a generation of women whose full-time work was homemaking and childbearing and being full-time partners with their spouses in everything that happened at Millsaps,” she said. “These women have keen memories for what went on.”

Take, for instance, Carol Bergmark, widow of Dr. Robert Bergmark, the dynamic teacher, provocative civil rights advo-cate, and emeritus professor of

philosophy who died in March 2003. “She keeps meticulous daily journals,” Harrylyn Sallis said. “There are volumes of these journals that she keeps, and they are an extraordinary source of human and factual information about the College. They’re beautifully written, and she is an elegant conversationalist, with a beautiful memory.”

Millsaps history infl uences and was infl uenced by the history of Jackson, the state of Mississippi, and the nation. “It would be reveal-ing to get the personal accounts of alumni and faculty who were here during the civil rights era,” McIntosh said. “That is a topic of much discussion and scholarly research these days. We are fre-quently contacted by writers interested in the role of Millsaps and the Methodist church in the struggle for equality and integration.”

She said that the only existing oral history project in the Mill-saps archives, entitled ‘‘Contemporary Life and Viewpoints in Mis-sissippi,” addresses that topic. “It is comprised of 39 interviews conducted in 1965 by Dr. Gordon Henderson, then chair of the political science department at Millsaps. The project was not com-pleted, however, and only 23 are available for study.” The project proved that such recordings can be a “gold mine” of information, she said.

“We are frequently contacted by writers interested in the…

struggle for equality and integration.”


The video archives could fill some gaps in the history of the campus as recorded in the student newspapers the Millsaps Collegian, published between 1898 and 1909, and the Purple & White, published from 1909 until the present. The video archives could also bring detail and texture to por-tions of the Millsaps canvas left empty by the evolution of yearbooks from written records into photographically oriented publications. “There are all kinds of things out there that we really don’t have good records of,” Barksdale said. “Because it cost a lot to do photos in the early years, Bobashelas up until the early 1950s served as a written record of the year and of offi cial happenings on campus. They were fi lled with wonderful information that we’re not getting anymore because the more contemporary yearbooks are more of a photo memoir.”

Furthermore, by their immediacy, these interviews can breathe life into history in ways that the printed page cannot. “Emotion, nuance, intensity, clarity, give-and-take, humor, details, and spon-taneity give history personality,” McIntosh said. “An intentional interview effort captures memories that could be forever lost be-cause the time and effort to write a memoir may never be invested by the interviewee, and the interviewee’s written history—i.e., letters, manuscripts, and photos—often are underappreciated by the interviewee and family descendants, who humbly decline or unintentionally neglect to share them with an audience that may fi nd great value in them.”

Bob Oertel, a Millsaps design and media consultant, helped with the fi rst installment of the series with his interview of Jack Woodward, the retired director of student aid and fi nancial plan-ning who has been called “a walking miracle,” renowned as he

was for his ability to find the money to help students in need. If students were brought into the documentary process as well, learning about such campus per-sonalities could provide a bridge between Millsaps generations. Such involvement of students in the production of this living his-tory would “bridge the gap and give them a better understand-ing of the legacy and heritage of Millsaps College,” Oertel said.

“Through some of the stories the subjects provide, the students would get a fi rsthand opportu-

nity to see how college life shapes your entire life.”Dr. William Storey, professor of history, believes that students

are interested in contemporary history and that learning to conduct an interview and being mentored in that process could contribute to their education. “Many students at Millsaps are curious about the College’s history, and yet there are few opportunities for them to learn about it,” he said. “There is not much that has been published, even though we have rich archival resources and distin-guished alumni.”

The interviews could be synthesized with the taping of the Millsaps Majors events, Millsaps Players productions, and historic occasions like campus appearances by such fi gures as the former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the primatologist Jane Goodall, the composer Milton Babbitt, and former Governor Wil-liam Winter. Subjects would not necessarily be limited to alumni and faculty. “We might be interested in anyone who can help paint the picture we want to try to capture,” Conway said. “Maybe you interview an ex-president, ex-staffers, even a Belhaven resident who has watched the College grow.”

There already exists a video database upon which to build. “We have an audio-visual series collection in the College archives,

“Emotion, nuance, intensity, clarity, give-

and-take, humor, details, and spontaneity give history personality.”


which currently has 225 audio or video recordings of lectures, ad-dresses, symposiums, interviews, and centennial events,” McIntosh said. “In the College history manuscript collection, we also have the transcripts of the interviews conducted with various prominent Millsaps alumni and friends from which excerpts were taken to publish in the 1985 Newcomen Society booklet, Millsaps College: Determining the Agenda.” She added that other audio-video mate-rial included a 1968 series of interviews with prominent Millsaps

“old-timers” and Early Days Club members, interviews with Moore and his wife, Alice, and promotional and centennial celebration videos produced in the 1980s.

The oral history project could help complete what past Millsaps historians have already begun. “There have been a couple of efforts to write the history of the College in the last 35 years or so,” McIntosh said. “One by Ronald Goodbread, whose papers are housed in the Col-

lege archives, and one by the late Carroll Brinson, whose biographical project on Major Millsaps was unfi nished. We have his research fi les in the archives, as well. I see the oral history project as a continuation of these earlier projects to collect and compile the history of the College, working toward a complete published work to tell the story of Millsaps College, its founders, its distinguished history, its lasting impact on students, faculty, and the state of Mississippi.

“Not only would such a book be meaningful to alumni and the current Millsaps community, but it would also be valuable as a recruiting tool—articulating the values and legacy of a Millsaps education to prospective students and their families. Just last week I had a call from a prospective student requesting to borrow a copy of Millsaps’ history. I had to explain there was no comprehensive volume, but only several smaller works. Almost all have to do with the founding of the College and its early years.”

Why start such a project now? After all, video recording has been around for decades. “What has made this doable are the ad-vances in technology that have allowed the amateur user to record at such a high quality,” Conway said. “We’re able to produce a profes-sional-grade product.”

Involvement of students in production would “bridge the gap and give them a better understanding of the legacy and heritage of Millsaps College.”


And then there are the legal and ethical considerations about material that could be sensitive. “This material is most useful when transcribed into written format and accompanied by a signed re-lease allowing its use by scholars or researchers,” McIntosh said.

“Some interviews might be available for restricted use to keep the media from presenting comments out of context. Another major concern of mine is the permanence of the format, hence the further need for a written transcript.”

Meanwhile, creative and technical parameters of the interview process are still being determined. For instance, do you bring sub-jects in on the process, coaching them to repeat the interviewer’s question so the interview can stand alone as a video segment, or do you aim strictly for video verité?

A “full capture” of the institution’s history is what the visionar-ies behind this project hope to achieve—the curve of its terrain, the arc of its horizon, its bright points and dark crevices, its shadows and its light.

In short, a full capture of the soul of Millsaps College.

Existing Millsaps histories:“History of Millsaps,” by Marguerite Watkins Goodman, 1982, a 182-

page typescript of “the human-interest phase of early Millsaps” (1892 –1907),

written in 1952 and annotated in 1972 by Dr. Ross Moore.

“Millsaps College—The Noble Work of a Noble Man in Mississippi,” an

account of Major R. W. Millsaps’ founding of the College, as it appeared in the

Daily Picayune, New Orleans, Feb. 18, 1894.

“The History of Millsaps College,” by G. L. Harrell, published in the

Millsaps College Bulletin, September 1943, a chronological history drawn

from minutes of the Board of Trustees, the College catalog, and other

College publications.

“Historical Sketch of Millsaps College,” by Dr. David Key, professor

emeritus and former president of Millsaps College, published in the Millsaps

College Bulletin, December 1946, a chronicle of Methodist, administrative,

academic, and fi nancial growth of the College.

“In Search of the Historical Millsaps,” an address by Ronald Goodbread

on Founders Day, 1983, an account of the history of Millsaps and its place in

Mississippi higher education, and accompanying politics.

“Millsaps College: Determining the Agenda,” May 1985 address dealing

with the history of Millsaps College by Dr. George Harmon, College president,

delivered at the Newcomen Society meeting at which he was guest of honor

and speaker.

Most recently, “The Inaugural Acceptance” address by President Frances

Lucas in April 2001, published in Millsaps Magazine, summer 2001.

30 m i l l s a p s m a g a z i n e s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 31 s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 31

In 1987, Simon Deng, then a young boy in Sudan, awakened to the sound of screaming and gunfi re, and heard his mother’s voice for the last time.

“She was calling to my two sisters to follow her and telling my brother to go with me,” Deng said. “I was still lying on the bed not knowing what to do. My brother grasped my hand, and we jumped. Our neighbor’s houses were already on fi re. As I ran across the yard, I heard bullets in the air, breaking the tree branches with a noise like a thunderstorm.”

Deng’s story is similar to that of thousands of children who grew up in war-torn Sudan, Africa’s largest country, which has been in almost continual turmoil since its independence from Great Brit-ain in the mid-1950s.

But this story that began in bloodshed in the Horn of Africa ended in peace on the Millsaps College campus and brought to-gether two scholars of the highest order in a project that embodies the spirit of creativity, sensitivity, and tolerance; the ability to inform and challenge others; and an appreciation of humanity that is at the heart of the College itself.

Nine of these stories, written by Sudanese refugees living in Jackson, have been collected by a class of Millsaps students under the direction of Greg Miller, professor of English. “Over the course of eight weeks, my students in Introduction to Liberal Studies, an

OUTofAFRICASudanese outreach project teams Rhodes Scholar and Carnegie Professor of the Yearby J e s s e Ya n c y

interdisciplinary freshman semi-nar, collaborated with refugees in writing and editing these nar-ratives,” Miller said. “The Mill- saps College Faith & Work Initia-tive sponsored the collaboration.”

Miller explained that the Sudanese entered his life three years ago, when a few dozen tall young Africans began attending St. Andrew’s Episcopal Cathedral in Jackson, where he worships

as a chorister and a congregant. He learned that these young people, many of whom were orphans, were reared as Episcopalians and brought to Jackson by Catholic Charities of Mississippi.

“During the fi rst year of their lives in the United States, several of the refugees came to Millsaps College for tutoring in English, math, and other subjects,” Miller said. “Many of the refugees who came to Jackson as unaccompanied minors are now adults eager to tell their stories. This pamphlet is the result of the happy collabora-tion between the 15 students of my freshman seminar and nine refugees, two of whom, Simon Deng and Deng Mabil, are them-selves students at Millsaps College.”

“So very often in our lives, events occurring in the larger world go unnoticed and unseen,” said Chris Spear, a participating student.

“They quickly fade from our consciousness because of their distance from our personal experiences. Yet that makes them no less impor-tant to other members of humanity.”

Kenneth Townsend Greg Miller


According to Kathy Gray, program coordinator for the Millsaps College Faith & Work Initiative, “The booklet is a trea-sure trove of stories.

“It has been their deep desire to tell them since they arrived in the United States,” Gray said.

“They often say, ‘Education is my mother and my father.’ The sto-ries of their painful past, their challenging transition to life in America, and their hope for the

future for themselves, as well as their beloved country of Sudan, are compelling, dramatic, and a testament to the indomitable human spirit and the power of faith.”

Among the students who worked on the Sudanese project was Kenneth Townsend, a senior from Kosciusko, Mississippi, selected late last November as one of 32 American Rhodes Scholars.

The Rhodes Scholarships, the oldest international fellowships, were initiated after the death of Cecil Rhodes in 1902 and bring outstanding students from many countries around the world to the University of Oxford. The fi rst American Scholars entered Oxford in 1904. American Rhodes Scholars are selected through a decen-tralized process by which regional selection committees choose 32 Scholars each year from among those nominated by selection committees in each of the 50 states. Through December 2002, ap-plicants from more than 300 American colleges and universities had been selected as Rhodes Scholars

Townsend is the fi fth Rhodes Scholar from Millsaps College since the inception of the program. The other four recipients were Frank Mitchell (1919), Mack Swearingen (1922), Hugh Hall (1952), and Brad Chism (1982). Incidentally, Millsaps’ fi rst Rhodes, Mitchell, was also from Attala County. Townsend and his fellow scholars will enter the University of Oxford in England this October, 100 years after the fi rst class of Rhodes Scholars in 1904. Created by Cecil Rhodes, a British philanthropist and colonial pioneer, the scholarships provide for two or three years of study at Oxford, where Townsend will study political theory.

Townsend is the son of Lane and Janice Townsend of Kosciusko. His father is a longtime special ed teacher and pastor at Smyrna Presbyterian Church, and his mother is a hospice nurse and ex-teacher at Presbyterian Day School. A distinguished Truman Scholar—the fi rst at Millsaps—and a Ford Foundation fellow, Townsend is also past president of the Student Body Association, a leader in many campus organizations, plays four intramural sports, and is councilwide co-chair of the Campus Ministry Team. Townsend plans to study philosophy and political science, but he isn’t sure yet what career path he wants to take. But he has made up his mind about one thing already: He wants to return to Mississippi to put his knowledge to work.

There are only nine living Rhodes Scholars from Mississippi, according to material Townsend brought back with him from the weekend selection process in Atlanta. He was one of 32 American students chosen from 963 applicants. Four recipients are chosen from eight geographical regions. No Mississippians had been cho-sen in the last three years. The last Mississippi Rhodes Scholar was Ole Miss’s Calvin Thigpen of Jackson, selected in 1999. The Schol-arship is worth $30,000 per year. It includes a monthly stipend of £800 (about $1,200), and “a cheap guy like me can go a long way on that,” he said with a laugh.

When he returns to the states, he’ll have $27,000 more in Truman money for graduate studies, which he may use to get his law degree.

Because Rhodes Scholars are selected for their potential over a lifetime, importance is properly attached to their capacity to meet the demands for physical fi tness imposed by an active career. Townsend, who graduated from from Kosciusko High in 2000, was a standout in basketball and track. “He was high energy,” said Dr. David Sistrunk, superintendent of Kosciusko Schools. “I remem-ber seeing him run up and down that court, and he could jump so high.”

“I want to get the best education possible, then come back and work on Mississippi’s problems,” Townsend said. “I can identify with our problems as a Mississippian. I have a sense of a passion and a sincere desire to serve and make a difference.”

“As someone who has lived much of his life playing and watch-ing sports, I can’t help but use a sports analogy to describe how it feels to receive a Rhodes Scholarship,” Townsend said. “All my early life I dreamed of being drafted to play NBA basketball, and being selected as a Rhodes Scholar feels a lot like being a fi rst round pick. Although I haven’t yet proven myself on the court or in life, I feel that I’ve been put in a position so that if I work hard, I can fi nd success. I hope that receiving this scholarship will open doors that otherwise would not have been opened.”

Townsend’s activities with the Sudanese students through the Millsaps College Faith and Work initiative brought him into contact with Dr. Greg Miller, who has also won accolades for himself and the College this year. Miller has been selected as the Carnegie Foun-dation for the Advancement of Teaching Professor of the Year for Mississippi in 2003.

The Council for Advance-ment and Support of Education, which administers the Carnegie Foundation program, released the news of Miller’s award ear-lier this year. The national awards were created in 1981 to recog-nize excellence in undergraduate teaching and mentoring.

Among those involved in the project were, from left, Gabriel Panchol, Jessica Knight, Deng Mabil and Kenneth Townsend.

A text version of The Long Journey is available online (www.millsaps.edu).


Miller, a Kentucky native, received his doctorate in English from the University of California at Berkeley, where he wrote his disserta-tion on the poetry of George Herbert and Emily Dickinson. Miller received his M.A. in English and creative writing from Stanford University and his B.A. in French literature and political science from Vanderbilt University. He was a writing fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts (1994–95) and at the Yaddo and MacDowell Colonies (1999–2000), and his poems have appeared in the Paris Review, the Chicago Review, the Threepenny Review, Verse, Agni, and other journals.

This is the second consecutive year that a Millsaps professor has won this prestigious award. Professor of History Bob McElvaine was selected as Mississippi’s 2002 Professor of the Year. The College also had the first two professors in the state distinguished by the award, Professor of English Richard Mallette in 1989 and Associate Profes-sor of English Judith Page in 1990.

“Receiving the Carnegie Award was humbling,” Miller said. “I have the honor of working with colleagues who are accomplished scholars in their fields as well as gifted and dedicated teachers, some of whom I hope will be similarly honored in the future. I find the award particularly meaningful because it is based in large part on letters by students and former students. And I am honored to have been nominated by Dean Richard Smith and to have been recommended by scholars from other institutions, as well as my colleagues at Millsaps.”

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Council for Advancement and Support of Education invited all state winners to a reception in Washington in November. There Miller had lunch at the National Press Club, met with Senator Thad Cochran’s staff, toured the Senate during a debate over a judicial nominee from Mississippi, and attended a reception in the Senate Office Building.

This story, which began in bloodshed, ended in peace on the Millsaps College campus and brought together two scholars in a project that embodies an appreciation of humanity that is at the heart of the College itself.

“I enjoyed my time with scholars and artists from around the country and was deeply moved by our reception,” Miller said.

“Clearly there are national leaders for whom the support of scholar-ship and teaching remains central.”

To have even one of these awards conferred upon a faculty or student at an institution of higher learning is an honor both for the individual and the school, but to have two selected in the same year is an extraordinary distinction, even more so in light of their collaboration.

The Sudanese outreach program resulted in the naturalization of 12 young people from a climate of hor-ror to one of hope. Such results might seem meager, in light of the world at large, but still proof that strong minds and good hearts in tandem can make a difference, one life at a time.


Exploring New TurfMillsaps College received a gift of $575,000 to be used towards a new athletic field, and work began in March on preparing Alumni Field for the installation of a new artificial

surface.“We are thrilled to have what will be the only new-generation artificial surface in Mississippi that

doubles as a playing field for our men’s and women’s soccer teams in addition to football,” said President Frances Lucas.

She added that the anonymous gift, from a former

Millsaps College athlete, would have an immediate impact “not only on our student-athletes, but on our entire athletic department and virtually all of the Millsaps College family.” The new field was installed by Sprinturf Inc., based in Wayne, Penn-sylvania. The artificial surface is a marked improvement over older synthetic models, such as Astroturf, which have been common since the 1970s. This new surface is more giving and safer for student-

An aerial photograph of Alumni Field, which has been refitted with Sprinturf, a state-of-the-art artificial surface.

Athletics

“This gift will also provide one of, if not the best,

venues in Mississippi for high profile sports camps.”

s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 35

athletes than natural turf. Line markings are composed of water-based paints, which allow for relatively rapid reconfiguration for both soccer and football. “The new Sprinturf surface will allow us to provide a consistent, even surface for our competitive NCAA Division III teams,” said Director of Athletics Ron Jurney. “And at the same time we will be able to realize significant savings in maintenance costs and countless hours of grounds-keeping, while we forgo over $350,000 of necessary planned upgrades to our soccer field by using the Sprinturf field for this sport.” In addition, Millsaps College will be able to host summer sports camps over an expanded period. “This gift will also provide one of the best venues in Mississippi for high profile sports camps, such as the one we have scheduled with New Orleans running back Deuce McAllister,” Jurney said. “We’ll also be able to host high school championship competitions in men’s and women’s soccer in addition to football, not to mention serve as a professional sports venue for soccer exhibitions, lacrosse, and other sports which require a larger athletic field.” —J.Y.

Major StridesThe Millsaps spring sports programs wrapped up successful seasons with the culmination of the 2004 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Spring Festival in Atlanta. The Majors fielded teams in baseball, softball, tennis (men’s and women’s), and golf (men’s).

The baseball squad, under the guidance of Head Coach Jim Page, turned in its best record in school history. Its 33-9 mark topped its previous record of 30-10, set in 1996. This year’s edition was crowned the 2004 SCAC Western Division Champions by virtue of their sterling 17-3 conference record. At one point, Millsaps had won an astonishing 22 of 23 games. Coach Joe Kinsella’s softball team nearly made the NCAA tournament field as it reached the finals of the SCAC Tournament, only to lose a 2-1 heart- breaker to Sewanee. The Majors finished strong, winning 10 of their last 12 games to post a 24-20 slate, 9-3 in the SCAC.

The tennis team made strides in 2004 under the direction of first-year head coach Scott Pennington. The women finished 9-7, while the men posted an 8-10 mark. No. 1 singles player Matt Chow will be sorely missed next year, but a strong nucleus returns. First-year coach Dill Gunn guided the men’s golf team to a seventh-place finish in the SCAC. Gunn will have to replace

No. 1 player Charlie Spence, along with Chris Hallmark and Jim Bush. The women’s golf team, under first- year coach Denny Hayles, sent one member, Betsy Powell, to the SCAC Tournament. —Denny Hayles

Garaner Wetzel in a game against Mississippi College. The baseball squad turned in its best record in Millsaps history.

Alumni Field during the transformation.


A Passport To StudyMedicine in London

Robert Caskey, a first-year student at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, has been awarded a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship for study abroad in 2004–05. A graduate of Millsaps, where he earned his B.S. in biology, Caskey, a native of Jackson, will use the scholarship to study at the London School of Tropical Medicine

and Hygiene. Caskey is one of two scholarship recipients. “My goal in life is to work in tropical medicine in Third World countries with people who do not have the privileges we have,” Caskey said. “A lot of the diseases these people have are caused by insects—like malaria and yellow fever, to name a few. And I’ll be using this money to go and do research in medical entomology in London toward a Ph.D. in vector biology.” The purpose of the Ambassadorial Scholarships program is to further international understanding and friendly relations among people of different countries. The program sponsors several types of scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as for qual- ified professionals pursuing vocational studies. Upon returning home, scholars share with Rotarians and others the experiences that led to greater understanding of their host countries. According to Joe Harris of the Central Mississippi Rotary District, in addition to

going to school, the Rotary ambassadors are expected to serve as “ambassadors” of goodwill to whatever country they are sent to, in this case England. “He is an ambassador from this Rotary district, which includes 46 clubs, to Rotarians and others in England,” Harris said. “He will be expected to attend Rotary meetings and make presentations about central Mississippi. This is an annual award for us, and we are always looking for qual- ified applicants.” Caskey’s application was sponsored by the North Jackson Rotary Club. “A Millsaps emeritus professor, Dr. Eugene Cain, knew of my aspirations and told me maybe I should apply for the Rotary,” said Caskey, who is also a Fulbright Scholarship finalist. “I did that at Millsaps during my senior year; I missed the dead-line for my senior year, but I went for it again and got it. The practice panel was very helpful. They challenged me and made sure I was ready to answer any questions they thought would be thrown my way during the process.”

Alumna of the YearAnd Livesay AwardsPresented on Campus Millsaps College presented the 2004 Alumna of the Year Award to Nina Cunningham Redding in recognition of her outstanding work on behalf of numerous community service organizations, most notably Habitat for Humanity. The 2004 Livesay Award winners, named at the February ceremony on campus, were: Mississippi Supreme Court Associate Justice James Graves Jr., William (Billy) Carter Jr., Karen Ezelle Redhead, and Janet Gildermaster. A native of Memphis and the daughter of a Methodist minister who also attended the College, Redding entered Millsaps in 1958. She was active in many campus organizations, graduating cum laude in 1961 with a degree in history.

Robert Caskey on a biology field trip to the Yucatán.


MajorNotes

s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 37

Graves has served as a circuit court judge and director of the division of child support enforcement of the Mississippi Department of Human Services. Graves received a B.A. from Millsaps in sociology in 1975 and went on to receive a law degree and a master’s in public administration from Syracuse University. Respected for his outstanding ability as a judge, Graves received the National Conference of Black Lawyers’ 1992 Judge of the Year Award and the National Bar Association’s first Distinguished Jurist Award in 1996. Billy Carter has made significant contributions to the Millsaps community as an alumnus and former adjunct professor. Carter was born in Clarksdale and attended public schools in Greenwood and Lexington. After graduating from Millsaps with a B.A. in 1948, Carter received an L.L.B. from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1950, and in 1953 he organized the first legal aid organization in the state. He served three terms as the chair of the uniform probate code study committee of the state bar and three terms as chair of the complaints committee. He is currently with the Jackson law firm Wise Carter Child & Caraway, which he joined in 1950 and where he has served as managing partner and president.

Karen Ezelle Redhead,1974, has demonstrated a strong spirit of commitment to and support for Millsaps. While a student at Millsaps, Redhead served as secretary of the Student Body Association and vice president of Kappa Delta and was a member of the Millsaps Singers. She received a master’s degree in social science with a history emphasis from Mississippi College in 1994 and taught social studies for 11 years at Murrah High School in Jackson. She received the Parents for Public Schools Teacher of the Year Award in 2000 and the 1997 Law-Related Educator of the Year Award. A member of the Millsaps College Alumni Council (1998–2003), Redhead served on the executive committee and as president. She is currently mentoring three education students as part of the Millsaps Faith & Work Initiative’s Lilly Internship program. Janet Gildermaster is an accomplished artist whose works are held in corporate and private collections throughout the United States and Europe. Her love of the arts and the College has made her an invaluable source of support for the Millsaps art department in recent years. The Gildermaster Sponsored Scholarship directly benefits art students, and the Gildermaster Art Gallery Endowment has helped to significantly increase the gallery’s operating budget. Thanks to her generosity, the department has purchased equipment for the print shop and has set up a computer lab for art students. Gildermaster was the first director of the Mail Car Art Gallery in Ponchatoula, Louisiana. The Livesay Awards honor the spirit of commitment in which Jim Livesay (1920– 2001) served the College as an alumnus, a member of the College administration, and as a volunteer. “The awards acknowledge leaders who represent the excellence of Millsaps,” Lucas said. “They are outstanding examples of all that Millsaps is and can be.”

The executive director of Habitat for Humanity/Metro Jackson since 1990, she has worked tirelessly to improve the quality of life for Jackson’s citizens. Under her leadership, Habitat has housed 264 families and has grown to become one of the top 20 Habitat affiliates in the country. Redding is also a dedicated volunteer with various church and civic organizations. She serves on the community advisory boards of BancorpSouth and the Junior League of Jackson. “Nina’s service is an incredible example of what this world needs,” said President Frances Lucas. “Her leadership has propelled the Metro Jackson Habitat for Humanity into one of the most effective chapters in the country, and I’m proud to say that the Millsaps community has helped in this important work. We are pleased to be associated with her work with Habitat and with her as a representative of Millsaps College.” Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. said,

“When we define the strength of the fabric that is the Jackson community, we look to people like Nina Redding, whose work has indelibly affected the tapestry of our city.” Appointed to the Mississippi Supreme Court by Governor Ronnie Musgrove in October 2001, Livesay recipient James

From left, Janet Gildermaster, Karen Ezelle Redhead, Justice James Graves Jr., President Lucas, Nina Redding, and William Carter Jr.


for a future time in which farmworkers will receive better wages, safe living and working conditions, and greater respect,” Wiggins said. Millsaps College played a pivotal role in her life. “Studying political science at Millsaps enabled me to begin exploring the root causes of social injustices faced by poor communities in rural areas,” she said. “Several professors, including John Q. Adams and Howard Bavender,” now emeritus professors of political science,

“were infl uential in my decision to work with immigrants and farmworkers as they seek to make positive change in their workplaces, as well as infl uence policy that affects their communities.” A political science major who graduated summa cum laude from Millsaps, Wiggins received a master of theological studies degree from Duke University in 1994.

Window ofOpportunityFor Artist Pennebaker Leigh Pennebaker, B.A. 2001, a native of Star, Mississippi, was a featured artist in the windows of Saks Fifth Avenue in New York in January. Her wire sculptures, called

Leigh Pennebaker was a featured artist for Saks Fifth Avenue.

Fashionistas, were selected to complement a display of couture bridal gowns. A rising presence in the world of fashion and window display, Pennebaker and her wire dress sculptures have recently caught the eye of various notable retailers. Last year her work was featured in the designer showroom Frock and in the window of the SoHo jewelry store Fragments. “My sculpture deals with my lifelong fascination with fashion, women, and beauty,” said Pennebaker, whose studio is located in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood.“I view my work as three-dimensional caricature through which I channel the spirits of Southern belles, divas, and ingenues. The opportunity to have my work displayed at such an institution of glamour as Saks is a dream come true for me.”

m a j o r n o t e s


Making a Difference In the Lives

Of FarmworkersBrought up on a cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta, Melinda Wiggins, B.A. 1992, has dedicated herself to social action for a decade as the executive director of the nonprofi t organization Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF). As a result of her experiences, Wiggins has co-edited the book The Human Cost of Food: Farmworkers’ Lives, Labor and Advocacy,published in 2002 by the University of Texas Press. She also co-wrote the how-to manual Into the Fields: Mobilizing Students to Work with Farmworkers on Campuses and in Communities (1997) and co-edited the bilingual publication Fields Without Borders/Campos sin Fronteras (1998), which documents the lives of migrant farmworkers. SAF also publishes a quarterly newsletter, From the Ground Up. Housed at the Center for Documentary Studies in Durham, North Carolina, SAF mobilizes and supports college students to advocate improved living and working conditions for farmworkers and to document cultural traditions of immigrant farmworkers. The majority of students with whom SAF works are from farm- worker families. The organization’s mission is to bring students and farmworkers together to learn about each other’s lives, share resources and skills, improve conditions, and build diverse coalitions working for social change. “SAF’s successful years of standing in solidarity with farmworkers bodes well

Making a Making a Difference Difference In the Lives In the Lives

Literary LandJoe Edd Morris in front of the Millsaps-Wilson Library on Homecoming Weekend, signing copies of his book Land Where My Fathers Died, which won the Mississippi Library Association’s 2003 Mississippi Authors Award for fi ction.

Would you like to see your news in Major Notes? To submit your information, please contact Tanya Newkirk, Major Notes editor, at 1-86-MILLSAPS or [email protected].

Please note that only information specifi cally submitted for Major Notes will be included in Millsaps Magazine.

Offi ce of Alumni Relations • Millsaps College • 1701 North State Street • Jackson, MS 39210-0001

s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 39

1941Dr. David Herbert Donald, B.A. 1941, of Lincoln Center, Mass., is the author of We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends (Simon & Schuster, 2003). Donald, an authority on the periods of the Civil War and Reconstruction, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War and in 1988 for Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe.

1947Clarence R. Smith, 1947, of Cleveland, Miss., was inducted into the Academy of Honor in Agricultural Credit by the Farm Credit Bank of Texas on March 26, 2003. The bank established the academy to recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to the field of agricultural finance. As part of the award, the academy established a $5,000 scholarship in Smith’s name. He selected Mississippi State University, which awarded the scholarship to John Michael Riley, a graduate student in agricultural finance, during a luncheon honoring Smith at the University Club in August 2003. A farmer since 1945, Smith is director emeritus for the Land Bank of North Mississippi’s board of directors.

1952Mary Sue Best, B.A. 1952, of Indianapolis teaches writing classes for OASIS, a national organization for adults over age 55, headquartered in St. Louis.

Dr. William (Bill) E. Riecken Jr., B.S. 1952, of Kosciusko, Miss., received the ninth annual American Hiking Society’s Volunteer of the Year Award in June 2003. The society conducts a nationwide search each year for volunteers who demonstrate dedication to trail preservation and maintenance. A member of the society since 1991, Riecken was

chosen as the winner for Mississippi because of his longstanding efforts to build, maintain, and promote trails in the state.

1954Dr. Louis W. Hodges, B.A. 1954, of Lexington, Va., was inducted into the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame at a ceremony and dinner held in April 2003 in Richmond. The Hall of Fame, maintained at the School of Mass Communications at Virginia Commonwealth University, was established in 1986 to honor men and women who have shown exceptional achievement in the field of journalism, journalism-related organizations, or journal-ism education. Hodges is one of the most knowledgeable experts in journalism ethics in the country and is in his final year as Knight Professor of Ethics in Journalism at Washington and Lee University. He has published numerous articles in academic and professional publications and is frequently quoted in newspaper, magazine, and television stories.

1957Rev. Tex S. Sample, B.A. 1957, of Goodyear, Ariz., received a doctor of divinity degree from Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on May 24, 2003. He retired in 1999 from Saint Paul School of Theology, where he taught for 32 years and was the Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor of Church and Society. He works as a freelance lecturer, presenting seminars on theology in the U.S. and abroad, and serves as coordinator of the Network for the Study of U.S. Lifestyles.

1958Betty Trapp Chapman, B.A. 1958, of Houston, Tex., received a Good Brick Award for 2002 from the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance for outstanding leadership in historical preservation.

Her projects include developing school curricula based on historic preservation, creating a women’s history walking tour of the downtown area, and serving as historian for a marker-placing project along a historically rich downtown street. She has published two books on the history of the city and also writes a weekly column entitled “Houston Heritage” for the Houston Business Journal.

Dr. Thomas H. Naylor, B.S. 1958, of Charlotte, Vt., has been included in Marquis’ Who’s Who in the World (2003). A professor emeritus of economics at Duke University, where he also taught management and computer science for 30 years, Naylor is a writer and social critic. He co-authored the first college textbook on computer simulation techniques and was one of the first people to predict in the New York Times the massive changes in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. An international management consultant specializing in strategic management, Naylor has consulted with governments and major corporations in over 30 countries. His articles have been published in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor, the Nation, and Business Week. He has appeared on ABC’s Nightline, CBS News, CNN, National Public Radio, and Minnesota Public Radio. His recent books include Downsizing the U.S.A. and Affluenza.

1963Dr. James C. Brown, B.S. 1963, of Madison has been named co-director of the Office of Academic Counseling at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. This position was

Send It In: Millsaps Magazine would like you to know that its Major Notes policy has changed. The magazine is now printing only information sent in specifically for Major Notes. In the past, material was

gleaned from newspaper clippings and other sources. The change was made to protect the privacy of alumni and to simplify the editing process. We would like to encourage all alumni to send in their news,

whether big or small, personal or professional, to: Tanya Newkirk, Major Notes Editor, Office of Alumni Relations, Millsaps College, 1701 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39210-0001. Or fax : 601-974-1088.

Phone: 601-974-1038 or 1-86-MILLSAPS (1-866 -455-7277), the alumni relations toll-free number. Email: [email protected]. Please include your name, address, phone numbers, email address, graduation

year and degree, and any news you want to share. Appropriate items include births, weddings, advanced degrees, awards, job promotions, etc. Photographs are also welcome. If you are aware of alumni who

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established as part of the newly created Office of the Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. Brown began his new duties in May 2003, having served several posts in the School of Dentistry since 1980, including associate dean for student pro grams and professor in advanced general dentistry and diagnostic sciences. The author of three books and author or co-author of more than 70 dental publi-cations and presentations, he is a member of Sigma Xi, the international honor society of science and engineering, and has received several honors, including a listing in Who’s Who among Human Services Professionals.

Bonnie Jean Coleman, B.A. 1963, of Dallas has retired as director of music and the arts from Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas. Under her direction, the Chancel Choir doubled in size, growing to 150 members. The choir also presented two major masterworks concerts each year, including Handel’s Messiah, John Rutter’s Magnificat, and Brahms’s German Requiem. One of her greatest contributions was to the children’s music ministry. Under her tutelage, the youth choir blossomed into two choirs with more than 130 members, and countless numbers of youngsters have enrolled in school and college music programs due to her mentoring.

1965Dr. Carl W. Grubbs, B.A. 1965, of Tupelo has been appointed district superintendent of the Tupelo District of the United Methodist Church’s Mississippi Conference. He began June 5, 2003.

Ernest J. (Joe) Roberts, B.A. 1965, of Jackson has been admitted to membership in the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis. The society is the largest U.S. organization for health and mental health care professionals using clinical hypnosis. He has also been designated Psychologue FSP, licensure to practice psychology in Switzerland.

1966Michael (Mike) K. Gemmell, B.A. 1966, of Ferriday, La., has been appointed to the faculty of the School of Business at Alcorn State University in Lorman, Miss. A certified association executive, he recently retired from the Association of Schools of Public Health in Washington, D.C., where he served as executive director for 25 years. At Alcorn, he teaches undergraduate courses on the principles of management and organizational behavior.

George B. Pickett Jr., B.A. 1966, of Jackson has been named president of the Million Dollar Round Table, an association of

financial professionals. A 33-year Round Table qualifier, he has earned two Top of the Table and four Court of the Table honors, designations reserved for producers who have demonstrated the highest level of

professional knowledge, client service, and ethical conduct. For more than 25 years, Pickett has been actively involved in numerous leadership positions within the association. He is a principal at Pickett, Bradford & Associates P.A. in Jackson.

1967Dr. Lovett H. Weems Jr., B.A. 1967, of Washington, D.C., was honored on April 22, 2003, by donors of the Saint Paul School of Theology with the establishment of a $1.2 million endowed faculty chair. The creation of the Lovett H. Weems Jr. Chair in Congregational Leadership marked his 18 years as president of the United Methodist seminary. In July 2003, Weems began an appointment as Distinguished Professor of Church Leadership and founding director of the G. Douglass Lewis Center for Church Leadership at the Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington.

1969Martha Gunn Poole, B.A. 1969, of Germantown, Tenn., was honored in June as a 2003 Coca-Cola Educator of Distinction by the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation. A biology teacher at Houston High School in Germantown, she was nominated for the award by the valedictorian of the Class of 2003, who is a Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation winner. Each of the 250 annual winners, who receive college scholarships, nominates the teacher who inspired him or her most during high school.

1971Gene W. Aldridge, B.S. 1971, of Kernersville, N.C., has been promoted to right-of-way coordinator with Colonial Pipeline Co., headquartered in Atlanta. He negotiates encroachments on the company’s right-of-way, handles land disputes and budgets, and assists the area’s right-of-way manager.

1974Charles W. Hill, 1974, of Memphis was named to the Memphis Regional Chamber’s board of directors in September 2003. The Chamber is a membership-driven organization dedicated to the growth and development of the Memphis region. Hill is an attorney with Glankler Brown, PLLC, and specializes in employment law, broker/dealer litigation, contracts, and commercial litigation.

1976Charles Araujo, B.A. 1976, of Jackson received the 2003 Social Worker of the Year Award from the Mississippi Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers on March 6,

2003. The award honors a member of the chapter who exemplifies the best of the profession’s values and achievements through specific accomplishments.

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Araujo has served the local chapter in many capacities over the past 20 years, including his work as chair of the Metro Jackson Program Unit, as state chapter treasurer, as PACE treasurer, as Merit Awards chair and committee member, and as executive board representative. Most recently, he has served as the legislative chair, working to keep the focus of the Association on unmet needs in the area of child and family services. Employed by the Jackson Public Schools since 1993, Araujo has been recognized by the Association as one of the few social workers in the state with expertise in the area of special education. He is also one of only three social workers in Mississippi to hold a School Social Work Specialist certificate.

1978Dr. Deborah S. King, B.S. 1978, of Madison received a Faculty Achievement Award from the University of Mississippi on August 22, 2003, at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts in Oxford. The coveted honor, established in 1985, recognizes professional scholarship, high scholarly standards, and overall outstanding career performance. King was honored for her work in the clinical pharmacy department at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. At UMC, King works with pharmacy students through the fourth- and fifth-year levels, assisting with clinical rotations and patient care.

James (Jim) C. Ranager, B.A. 1978, of Jackson is the head of the information technology department at the Mississippi Fire Academy in Jackson.

1979Dr. Lisa M. Allen, B.A. 1979, of Jonesboro, Ga., received a master of divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University on May 12, 2003. She is a member of the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Rev. Jimmy M. Boone, B.A. 1979, of Northport, Ala., is on leave from the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church and serving as

coordinator of transportation for the Tuscaloosa, Ala., city schools.

Joseph R. (Reilly) Morse, B.A. 1979, of Gulfport is an attorney concentrating on environmental law, representing a variety of public interest and community groups in state and federal courts. He has returned to solo practice after serving as a municipal court judge for the past three years.

Mark H. Simon, B.S. 1979, of Plano, Tex., is an attorney with Palmer, Allen & McTaggart LLP in Dallas.

1980Esther Bailey Smith, B.B.A. 1980, of Decatur is a vice president of Decatur Telephone Company. Her parents, William and Louise Bailey, have owned the company since 1945. Since 1991, Smith has been responsible for the daily operations of the company, which has grown from a very small business to a successful family-owned company serving 2200 customers. The company serves East Central Community College as well as a service area about 20 miles east and west and about 10 miles north and south of Decatur. Smith, who was valedictorian of her graduating class at Millsaps, earned an M.B.A. from the University of Mississippi and a Ph.D. from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa while working full-time at the company over the course of several years.

1981Rex R. Moak, B.S. 1981, of Pascagoula was named an Instructor of the Year by Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in March 2003. A science instructor at the Jackson County campus since 1997, he has served on numerous college committees and councils and is currently pursuing two sizeable grants. In addition to serving as a liaison between the College’s science department and local high schools, Moak works with the Civitan organization, involving his classes with food collection for the local community. He is a member of several professional organizations, including the Mississippi Academy of

Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association.

James (Jim) G. Walker Jr., B.S. 1981, of Raymond is an instructor of technology applications at the Madison County Business and Commerce Center in Canton. He teaches computer-aided drafting, machine robotics, computer networking, computer programming, animation, web page design, and desktop publishing to students from Madison Central High School, Ridgeland High School, and Velma Jackson Magnet. He is also a part-time instructor for the Nissan plant in Canton, where he teaches pre-employment training.

1982Sandra M. Shelson, B.A. 1982, of Jackson has been named the 2003 Adult Mentor of the Year by the Mississippi Mentoring Network. She is special assistant to the attorney general.

Rebecca Woodrick, B.A. 1982, of Hattiesburg is the director of the Office of Affirmative Action at the University of Southern Mississippi.

1983George Noflin Jr., B. Ed. 1983, of Green-wood was a contestant on “The Price Is Right” game show in July 2003. His winnings included an all-expense-paid trip for two to Zurich, Switzerland. Noflin is the principal of Greenwood High School.

Douglas A. Walker, B.A. 1983, of Jackson- ville, Fla., is the director of institutional advancement and stewardship for the Episcopal High School of Jacksonville.

1984Elizabeth (Betsy) L. Bradley, B.A. 1984, of Jackson was appointed by Gov. Ronnie Musgrove to serve on the board of the Mississippi Commission for Volunteer Service. The board, which consists of 22 commissioners, guides the funding decisions for all national service grants. Bradley is the director of the Mississippi Museum of Art.

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Stanton (Stan) P. Gibbens III, B.B.A. 1984, M.B.A 1987, of Baton Rouge is a project manager for Lamar Contractors Inc. in Kenner.

Irwin (Irv) R. Westheimer, B.B.A. 1984, of Clinton is the account manager at CVR (Computerized Vehicle Registration). The company, headquartered in La Palma, Calif., also has an office in Clinton.

Robert Williams, B.A. 1984, of West Hollywood, Calif., is the artistic director for Dancing Barefoot Productions, a non-profit theater company in Los Angeles. The fall 2002 production of An Appalachian Twelfth Night was named outstanding production by Backstage West, and Williams received a best adaptation mention for it. The play, which was named to the best of critics’ list by the Los Angeles Times, Curtain Up, Daily Variety, Frontiers, and Will Call, is currently being developed as a film for Touchstone Pictures. Besides Williams, the cast included fellow Millsaps alumni Gerald Hopkins, B.S. 1986; Susan Brindley-Jessop, B.M. 1982; and Patricia Lamkin, B.A. 1985; and was dedicated to the late Lance Goss, Millsaps emeritus professor of theatre. Williams also produced and performed in the Los Angeles premiere of The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), which held the record for the longest running comedy of the 1999-2000 L.A. theater season.

1985Dr. Tara L. McPherson, B.S. 1985, and Robert Knaack, of Los Angeles announce the birth of their son, Dexter Gordon Knaack, on April 9, 2002. She is the author of Reconstructing Dixie: Race, Gender, and Nostalgia in the Imagined South, published in April 2003, and co-editor of Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture, published in January 2003. McPherson in an associate professor of gender studies and chair of the critical studies division at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-TV, where she teaches courses in television, new media, and contemporary popular culture.

1986Aletha Burge, M.B.A. 1986, of Pass Christian was elected to chair the strategic planning committee of the Mississippi Center for Nonprofits in January 2003. In the summer of 2002, she was chosen to represent south Mississippi on the center’s board of directors. As such, she is one of 21 state leaders selected to guide the center, which provides workshops, training, and a full range of management services to nonprofit organizations throughout the state. Burge is the director of community impact for the United Way of South Mississippi, located in Gulfport.

Renee Coates Harrison, B.S. 1986, of Hazlehurst announces the birth of her daughter, Holly Renee, born January 15, 2003. Holly has one sister, Heather.

Ralph A. Kaiser, B.A. 1986, of Alexandria, Va., has been named president and chairman of the board of UATP (the Universal Air Travel Plan), effective October 15, 2003. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., UATP is an $8-billion business travel credit card company with offices in Singapore, Switzerland, and Australia. Kaiser has been with the company since 1999 and most recently served as vice president and general counsel.

William (Bill) L. Lang, B.A. 1986, of Birmingham is the public relations manager for Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama LLC in the U.S. The public relations department oversees all internal and external communication for Hyundai. Lang serves on the board of directors for the Alabama chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. He is also a former president of the state chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.

Stephen (Steve) H. Napier, B.B.A. 1986, of Atlanta received a master of divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University on May 12, 2003. He is a member of the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church.

1987Barbara Hearn Keeler, B.S. 1987, of Memphis is an environmental engineer with The Premcor Refining Group, Inc.

Dee P. Spencer, B.B.A 1987, M.B.A. 1989, and Sid Spencer, of Clinton are the parents of Molly Dee, born March 25, 2002. She has two brothers, Troy and Woody. Dee is a financial analyst for Entergy Nuclear South.

1988Robert T. (Toby) Davis, B.A. 1988, of Titusville, Fla., is a history teacher and varsity football coach at Temple Christian School in Titusville.

Emily C. Fleshman, B.B.A. 1988, and Roger Fleshman of River Ridge, La., announce the birth of their daughter, Grace Sentell, born Aug. 8, 2002.

Mary Margaret Judy, M.B.A. 1988, of Ridgeland has been promoted to executive director of St. Catherine’s Village, St. Dominic Health Services’ continuing care retirement community in Madison. Judy has served St. Catherine’s Village since 1988, beginning as the director of marketing.

Lee Ann Riley Newman, B.B.A. 1988, and Doug Newman of Biloxi are the parents of twin girls, Camille Ann and Katharine Lee, born October 16, 2002. They have one sister, Nancy.

Kathleen A. Terry-Sharp, B.A. 1988, and Dr. David C. Sharp of Gulfport announce the birth of their daughter, Genevieve Bazzett, on October 2, 2002. Kathleen is the director of academic relations for the American Anthropological Association in Arlington, Va.

1989Angela (Angie) L. Brackbill, B.A. 1989, and R. (Marshall) Brackbill, B.S. 1989, of Dallas are the parents of Luke Alton, born May 23, 2003. He has one brother, Sam. Angie is a private jewelry-maker, and Marshall is co-portfolio manager with RPM Metropolitan Capital, a multi-manager hedge fund.

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Warren T. Burns Jr., B.B.A. 1989, and Jennifer Burns of Atlanta announce the birth of their son, Dylan Trimble, on March 10, 2003. Warren is a technology architect for the Coca-Cola Company.

Chris S. Kochtitzky, B.A. 1989, of Atlanta is the deputy director of the division of human development and disability in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. He began this position in April 2003, after serving for two years as the associate director for policy in the center’s division of emergency and environmental health services.

1990Dr. John W. Maynor, B.A. 1990, of Oxford, England, is a lecturer in the department of philosophy at the University of Sheffield. His political science textbook, Republicanism in the Modern World, was published in May 2003.

Trace D. McRaney, B.A. 1990, of Diamondhead is a shareholder with Dukes, Dukes, Keating & Fancea.

1991Dr. John Paul Broussard, M.B.A. 1991, of Cherry Hill, N.J., is co-author of Using SAS in Financial Research, published in April 2002 by SAS Institute. The book illustrates how to use SAS software to conduct basic empirical analyses of stock market and financial statement data. Broussard is an associate professor of finance in the School of Business at Rutgers University in Camden, N. J.

Brian D. Campbell, B.B.A. 1991, of Cordova, Tenn., is a sales representative for Bristol-Myers Squibb. His wife, Meredeth Purser Campbell, B.A. 1993, is the director of communications and development at Christ Methodist Day School in Memphis.

Eryn Lynn Hackett Fisher, B.A. 1991, and Jason Fisher of Collierville, Tenn., are the parents of Mary Virginia (Ginny), born June 27, 2002. She has one brother, Will.

Jennifer M. Hoffman, B.A. 1991, and Jeffrey A. Hoffman of Nashville are the parents of Michael Bond, born February 27, 2002. He has a sister, Caroline, and a brother, Will.

Chris Odom, B.S. 1991, and Kathleen O’Neal of Newtown, Pa., are the parents of Josephine Elise O’Neal-Odom, born Feb. 26, 2001. She has one brother, Archer. Chris teaches physics at George School, a Quaker boarding school in Newtown.

Harold (Hal) C. Stanley, B.A. 1991, of Memphis founded his own law firm, Stanley & Williams, in July 2002.

1992Amie Peele Carter, B.A. 1992, of Indianapolis, Ind., was elected to the board of directors of Ovar’Coming Together in September 2003. Ovar’Coming Together is a nonprofit ovarian

cancer education and resource organization dedicated to creating awareness among women and the greater community regarding early warning signs of ovarian cancer and providing resources for support, networking, and education for women diagnosed with ovarian cancer and their caregivers. Carter, an associate with Baker & Daniels in Indianapolis, practices intellectual property law with an emphasis on trademarks, copyrights, and licensing.

Kathleen Mitchell, B.A. 1992, M.B.A 1997, and Thomas (Mack) Mitchell, B.B.A. 1993, of Jackson are the parents of Thomas Montgomery (Mont), born July 7, 2003. He has one sister, Mary Margaret. Mack is the manager of corporate development for W.G. Yates & Sons Construction in Jackson. Kathleen is a full-time mother.

Heather Rhea Patterson, B.A. 1992, of Jefferson, La., is a middle- and lower-school counselor at St. Martin’s Episcopal School in Metairie.

1993Louis G. (Graham) Arceneaux, B.S. 1993, and Ann Arceneaux of New Orleans are the parents of Amelie, born January 11, 2002. She has one brother, Graham. Louis is the managing member of the law firm of Graham, Arceneaux & Allen LLC.

Elizabeth Banks, B.B.A. 1993, and Al Banks of Brandon are the parents of Andrew Henry, born December 5, 2002. He has one brother, David.

William M. (Mike) Bielskis III, M.B.A. 1993, of Memphis is an account executive with Archer-Malmo. He performs public relations strategic planning for such clients as Kraft Food Ingredients, Merry Maids, ServiceMaster Clean, and Southwest Tennessee Community College.

Susannah Grubbs Carr, B. A. 1993, of Brandon has been named chaplain coordinator of Hospice Ministries in Ridgeland. The organization is Mississippi’s most experienced provider of inpatient and in-home hospice and bereavement services. As chaplain coordinator, Carr directs the chaplain services department, which provides spiritual support for patients and their families facing end-of-life issues associated with terminal disease.

Lucy Pittman Culver, M.B.A. 1993, and Eskridge van Naarden Culver, of New York City announce the birth of their daughter, Jennevieve Grace, on July 23, 2003.

Rev. Angela L. Gafford, B.A. 1993, of Indianola, Iowa, is the chaplain of spiritual development at Simpson College in Indianola. She is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and a member of the Texas Conference.

Rev. Elisabeth (Lisa) Garvin, B.A. 1993, of Jackson received a master of divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University on May 12, 2003. She works for the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church as the conference staffperson for youth, higher education/campus ministry, and camping ministry.

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Gregory (Greg) E. McNeely, B.B.A. 1993, of Ridgeland is the president of Mega Plastics, a manufacturer of plastic bags and film that he started in 1996. He also serves as president of McNeely Plastics, a company started by his father in 1983. The business is a distributor of flexible packaging to food processing and general manufacturing companies.

Leigh Ann Travis, B.A. 1993, and John Travis of Jackson announce the birth of their daughter, Anna Katharine, born November 18, 2002. Leigh Ann is a geriatric psychometrist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, and John is an attorney with Butler, Snow, O’Mara, Stevens & Cannada PLLC.

1994Angela (Angie) Williams Antici, B.B.A 1994, and Brad Antici of Ridgeland announce the birth of their son, Andrew (Drew) Bradley, born May 9, 2003.

Laura S. Flynn, B.B.A. 1994, and Kevin Flynn of Dallas announce the birth of their daughter, Merritt Elizabeth, born September 18, 2003.

Aimee Drott Oxley, B.S. 1994, and David Oxley of Germantown, Tenn., announce the birth of their son, Drew Peter, born April 2, 2003.

Brent E. Wilson, B.B.A. 1994, of Madison is vice president of finance at the YMCA of Metropolitan Jackson.

1995Ellen Luckett Baker, B.A. 1995, and Justin Baker of Atlanta announce the birth of their daughter, Eva Snowden, born December 19, 2002.

Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Honeycutt Breazeale, B.S. 1995, of The Woodlands, Tex., completed a residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in June 2003. She is in private practice in The Woodlands.

Dr. Kimberly W. Crowder, B.S. 1995, of Jackson was named the 2003 Robert S. Caldwell Memorial Award winner at the 135th Mississippi State Medical Association

Annual Session in Biloxi on May 30, 2003. This award is given annually by Medical Assurance Company of Mississippi in recognition of excellence in medical care, record keeping, leadership, and high standards in the teaching of medical students and fellow residents. Dr. Crowder joined the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s faculty on July 1, 2003, after completing a residency in opthalmology there.

1996D. Lea Barton, B.L.S. 1996, of Flora was selected by New York art critic Lilly Wei for publication in the 2003 Mississippi Invitational, a biennial survey of the visual arts in the state. Barton’s work was on display at the Mississippi Museum of Art through August 31, 2003. Her artwork was also published in the Fall 2002 editions of Southern Cultures and Contemporary Impressions. Barton is the co-founder of Five Points Art, an after-school arts program for students in grades four through six at Operation Shoestring in Jackson. She also teaches in the Art Department at Tougaloo College.

Michael S. Brooks, B.A. 1996, and Allison Brooks of Washington, D.C., announce the birth of Cynthia McClain, born August 12, 2003. He is an attorney with the Center for Auto Safety in Washington.

J. (Brian) Gomillion, B.S. 1996, of Walnut Grove was selected in fall 2003 to participate in the Mississippi Economic Council’s 2003–04 Leadership Mississippi program. In May 2002, he was appointed to the Leake County Industrial Development Association’s board of directors. He was elected president of the Leake County Chamber of Commerce at the 49th Annual

Membership meeting in April 2002. He also serves on the board of directors of the nonprofit Leake County Foundation. Gomillion is the director of projects and communications for Central Electric Power Association in Carthage.

Ellen McRaney, B.S. 1996, of Lawrenceville, Ga., is a professional photographer working in the Atlanta area and throughout the state of Mississippi. Her work, which includes figures, landscapes, people, and “fun” subjects, has been exhibited in numerous venues, including group showings as well as solo exhibitions. In 2003, she exhibited her work at several Atlanta locales, including the Apache Café, the Martini Girl Gallery & Boutique, the World Congress Center, Emory University, the APG Gallery at the TULA Art Center, City Hall East, and the Downtown Library. She placed third in the alternative processes division at the 2003 Southeastern Flower Show.

Jeanette L. Popsack, B.S. 1996, and Craig Hagood of Raleigh, N.C., were married July 27, 2003, in Las Vegas. She is the safety and compliance manager for House-Autry Mills, Inc.

Lendy Van Slyke Sevick, B.B.A. 1996, M.B.A. 1997, of Pearland, Tex., is the author of a chapter entitled “The Circle of Life: Respecting Patients’ Preferences Near the End of Life” in the book series, Ethics, Law, and Aging Review. The book, published in October 2002 by Springer Publishing, was edited by Marshall B. Kapp of Wright State University. Sevick is an associate with Strasburger & Price LLP in Houston.

1997Stephen A. (Ashley) Dalton, B.A. 1997, and Jennifer Leigh Stringer of Brandon were married May 3, 2003, in Leland. He is a customer sales and service representative for the Jackson office of C.H. Robinson, a Fortune 500 company that provides third-party logistics sourcing and information services. She works for Hawthorne Pharmaceuticals in Gluckstadt.

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William A. (Ashton) Randall III, B. S. 1997, of Gulfport has joined the Dallas law firm of Godwin-Gruber as an associate in commercial litigation.

Heather Welch, B.S. 1997, and Duncan Welch, B.B.A. 1998, M.B.A. 1999, of Brandon are the parents of Tristan Sage, born July 11, 2002. He has one brother, Gray.

1998Vickie V. Feazelle, B.A. 1998, of Collins teaches sophomore English and drama at Mendenhall High School. She is also pursuing a master’s degree in English education at William Carey College.

David Fontenot, B.B.A. 1998, M.B.A. 1999, and Danielle Bowling Fontenot, B.A. 1999, of Germantown, Tenn., are the parents of Thomas Wesley, born Jan. 6, 2003. He has one brother, Charles. David is the fund manager at The Stanford Financial Group.

Lucille (Lucy) Brinson Watkins, B.B.A. 1998, of Mobile, Ala., is sales manager at the Radisson Admiral Semmes hotel in Mobile.

1999Will Beard, B.S. 1999, of Ocean Springs is a financial planner with MRG Employee Benefit Solutions. His spouse, Amanda (Mandy) Hooker Beard, B.A. 2000, is an attorney with Balch & Bingham.

George W. Crook Jr., B.A. 1999, of Franklin, Tenn., is a regional development director for the YMCA of Middle Tennessee. He and his wife Kristin have announced the birth of their son, Wills, born Aug. 29, 2001.

Jamie D. Harris, B.A. 1999, of Narberth, Pa., is a resident-in-ministry at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

Heather Jarratt, M.B.A. 1999, of Jackson has been promoted to assistant vice president at Trustmark Bank’s main office in Jackson.

Terry Kizzar, M.B.A. 1999, of Alpharetta, Ga., is the director of sales compensation and incentives for Cingular Wireless in Atlanta.

Genevieve Gebheim McLeod, B.A. 1999, of Forest graduated cum laude from the Mississippi College School of Law on May 16, 2003. A member of the Women’s Student Bar Association and the STAR mentoring program at MC, she serves as a clerk for Justice James Smith of the Mississippi Supreme Court.

2000LeAnna L. Chambers, B.B.A. 2000, M.Acc. 2001, and Matthew Torres of Brandon were married August 31, 2002, in Denham Springs, La. She has been promoted to senior associate in the Audit Department of Horne CPA Group in Jackson. He is a programmer analyst II with the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission.

Catherine Hall, B.B.A. 2000, M.B.A. 2001, of New York City is a media manager at Condé Nast Publications, in the Corporate Sales and Marketing department. She develops and implements marketing packages and advertising schedules across all Condé Nast magazine titles on behalf of technology, financial, and luxury goods advertisers.

George D. Lumm, B.B.A. 2000, and Leah Sams Lumm, B.B.A. 2001, of Memphis were married August 17, 2002, in Columbus, Miss.

Katherine A. Revere, B.B.A. 2000, of Jackson was promoted in October 2003 to senior competitive analyst, manager of C3 intelligence, in the GodwinGroup’s Jackson

office. Her responsibilities include tracking and analyzing market intelligence for a variety of industries, including travel and tourism, food, healthcare, banking, education, entertainment, technology, and economic development. GodwinGroup, headquartered in Jackson, serves clients nationwide in the areas of marketing, advertising, strategic planning, research, e-commerce, direct marketing, and public relations.

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Kelly C. Sudduth, B.S. 2000, and Jose M. Acevedo, of Duluth, Ga., were married May 24, 2003, in Atlanta. Rebecca Abbott Zotti, B.A. 2000, served as a bridesmaid, and John Gomez, B.A. 2000, was a groomsman. Sudduth graduated from Emory University’s School of Nursing with a bachelor of science in nursing in 2002. She works at the Wesley Woods Geriatric Hospital of Emory University in Atlanta. Acevedo is a certified surgical technician at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville.

Michael L. Wade Jr., B.B.A. 2000, of Birmingham is an attorney with Adams and Reese.

2001Katherine E. Russell, B.B.A. 2001, M.B.A. 2002, of Memphis is a financial analyst with FTN Financial in Memphis.

2002Daniel M. Browning, B.A. 2002, and Andrea N. Green, B.S. 2003, of Clemson, S.C., were married on June 21, 2003, in Hattiesburg. The wedding party included Aleksey M. Mashnitskiy, B.B.A. 2002, Artem M. Mashnitskiy, B.B.A. 2002, Elizabeth E. Adams, B.A. 2003, Emily B. Rivers, B.S. 2003, and Elizabeth (Liz) Stewart, B.A. 2004. Green is pursuing a Ph.D. in industrial organizational psychology at Clemson University. Browning is a book inventory specialist at Books-A-Million.

Blair H. Burnside, B.A. 2002, of Houston is a graduate student at South Texas College of Law.


Charles (Charlie) M. Adams, B.S. 1935, of Macon died April 20, 2003.

Geraldine Reagan Alliston, 1944, of Houston, Tex., died Aug. 13, 2003. While at Millsaps, she was a member of Phi Mu sorority, Eta Sigma Phi honorary, and the Baptist Student Union.

Sara A. Bailey, 1935, of Jackson died Aug. 21, 2003. While at Millsaps, she was a member of Phi Mu sorority.

Lyle Lee Baker, B.A. 1951, of Jackson died April 22, 2003. While at Millsaps, he was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and campus correspondent for the Jackson Daily News.

Margaret Bynum Blackburn, 1930, of Jackson died May 23, 2003. While at Millsaps, she was a member of Kappa Delta sorority, the Golf Club, and the Millsaps Players.

Joseph W. Bufkin, 1959, of Jackson died Aug. 26, 2003.

Rev. Cawthon Bowen Burt, B.A. 1942, of Memphis died March 4, 2003. While at Millsaps, he was an active member of the Ministerial League, serving as vice president his senior year.

John Canaris, 1947, of Eagle Lake, Tex., died May 23, 2003. He attended Millsaps as part of the Navy V-12 officer training program.

Rev. John W. Carr, 1951, of Rowland Heights, Calif., died July 25, 2003.

Linda E. Cooper, 1961, of Jackson died Feb. 6, 2003. While at Millsaps, she was a member of Chi Omega sorority, Kappa Delta Epsilon, and Phi Delta Phi.

Reginald Daughdrill Jr., 1950, of River Ridge, La., died Sept. 6, 2003. While at Millsaps, he was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Dr. Thomas E. (Ed) Freeman, B.S. 1952, of Gainesville, Fla., died Sept. 16, 2003. At Millsaps, he was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity.

Betty Denton Furstenberger, B.A. 1962, of Clinton died Jan. 8, 2003. While at Millsaps, she was a member of Phi Mu sorority, Alpha Psi Omega, and the Millsaps Players.

Harriet Carothers Gregory, 1934, of Jackson died Nov. 7, 2003.

Annie Lee Sanders Guider, B.L.S. 1994, of Lafayette, La., died July 22, 2003. While at Millsaps, she was a member of the Adult Student Association. Upon completing her degree in history, she became the oldest graduate of the College at the age of 83.

Matthew (Matt) R. Henry, B.A. 1997, of Dallas died Sept. 23, 2003. At Millsaps, he was a member of Kappa Alpha fraternity, Alpha Psi Omega, Campus Ministry, and the Millsaps Players.

Thomas L. (Larry) Hillhouse, B.S. 1969, of Concord, Calif., died Nov. 1, 2001. While at Millsaps, he was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.

John Sharp Holmes, B.A. 1936, of Yazoo City died Aug. 27, 2003. At Millsaps, he was a member of Kappa Alpha fraternity and participated in athletics.

Nancy Hannaford Horne, 1958, of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., died March 31, 2003.

Lucy Robinson Hovious, B.S. 1949, of Vicksburg died Nov. 17, 2003. While at Millsaps, she was a member of Chi Omega sorority.

Dr. Warren W. Johnson, B.S. 1950, of Terry died Jan. 27, 2003.

Wendell C. Keith, 1942, of Jackson died Oct. 19, 2003.

Ann Elizabeth (Liz) Woods Davis, 1950, of San Antonio, Texas, died Sept. 13, 2003. While at Millsaps, she was a member of Phi Mu sorority and served as chapter president.

James Y. Downing, 1935, of Laurel died Sept. 8, 2003. At Millsaps, he was a member of Kappa Alpha fraternity and participated in athletics.

Dr. William B. (Barnett) Dribben, B.A. 1929, of Greenwood died Dec. 13, 2002. While at Millsaps, he was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, Omicron Delta Kappa, and Eta Sigma.

Read P. Dunn Jr., 1936, of Chevy Chase, Md., died May 12, 2003. While at Millsaps, he was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, Gamma Gamma Gamma, Omicron Delta Kappa, and Alpha Epsilon Delta.

Fred (Pee-Wee) J. Ezelle, B.S. 1937, of Ridgeland died May 11, 2003. While at Millsaps, he was very active in athletics, playing on the football, basketball, baseball, and tennis teams. As captain of the football team, he was named Best Blocker and All-State quarterback. A letterman, he was president of the M-Club and represented his fellow lettermen on the Student Executive Board. He was also president of his junior and senior classes, a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, Omicron Delta Kappa, the Glee Club, and the YMCA Cabinet. His senior year, he was selected as Master Major.

Howard Paul Foltz, 1947, of Oklahoma City, Okla., died April 26, 2003. He attended Millsaps as part of the Navy V-12 officer training program. At Millsaps, he was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity and the Millsaps Singers.

Ann Hobbs Franks, B.A. 1947, of Jackson died Aug. 7, 2003. At Millsaps, she was a member of Chi Omega sorority.

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MajorNotes

s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 47

Allison Coggin Lee, B.A. 1991, M.B.A. 1995, of Jackson died Jan. 8, 2003. While an undergraduate at Millsaps, she was a member of the honorary leadership society Omicron Delta Kappa and was involved in student publications and the Student Body Association. While at the Else School, she was a graduate assistant, a recipient of the Dean’s Scholarship Award, and the first recipient of the Charles Sewell Leadership Award for most outstanding M.B.A. student.

Mary Ann Phillips Lipscomb, B.A. 1954, of Daphne, Ala., died April 6, 2003. She was a member of Chi Omega sorority and the Baptist Student Organization.

Kelton L. Lowery, 1941, of Jackson died April 9, 2003. He was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and Alpha Epsilon Delta honorary.

Miller E. Marett, 1935, of Potts Camp, Miss., died July 25, 2003. He was a member of Kappa Alpha fraternity.

George R. Mars, 1961, of Philadelphia, Miss., died Sept. 29, 2003. He was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

Charles L. McCormick, B.S. 1944, of Greenville died Feb. 10, 2003.

Bishop Joel D. McDavid, B.A. 1941, of Mobile, Ala., died Jan. 8, 2003. He was a member of Omicron Delta Kappa honorary, the Ministerial League, Campus Ministry, and the Y.M.C.A. He also served as president of the senior class.

Dudley R. Moore Jr., 1938, of Byhalia died Nov. 11, 2003. He was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Mary Miller Murry, Grenada College 1930, of Port Arthur, Tex., died Jan. 25, 2003. During her time at Grenada College, she

was involved in student government. She was a generous benefactor of Millsaps. The Mary Miller Murry Endowed Scholarship Fund was established in 1995 to support pre-ministerial or pre-med students with financial need. Miller also generously supported the College’s Center for Ministry.

Claude W. Passeau, 1932, of Lucedale, Miss., died Aug. 30, 2003. He was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity. He earned 12 athletic letters as a standout member of the baseball, basketball, football, and track teams.

Margaret A. (Ann) Peetoom, B.A. 1968, of Oklahoma City, Okla., died Sept. 13, 2003. She was a member of Chi Omega sorority, Beta Beta Beta, and the Millsaps Players.

Opal Brumfield Peyton, B.S. 1937, of Raymond died April 6, 2002. She was a member of Beta Sigma Omicron sorority, Eta Sigma honorary, and the Y.W.C.A.

Evelyn Myers Rhinewalt, 1933, of Columbia, Miss., died July 28, 2003.

Dena Sessums-Hanway Sutton, B.A. 1962, of West Jefferson, N.C., died Feb. 18, 2003.

Ruby L. (Lenora) Howarth Thomas, 1950, of Gainesville, Fla., died Sept. 23, 2003. She was a member of Beta Sigma Omicron sorority.

Tom R. Tohill, 1975, of Jackson died Aug. 5, 2003.

Ruth Tucker, B.S. 1927, of Ridgeland died July 29, 2003. She was a member of the Y.W.C.A.

Theo Inman Vaughey, B.A. 1945, of Jackson died Feb. 21, 2003. She was a member of Chi Omega sorority, the Baptist Student Union, the Student Executive Board, the Glee Club, and was involved in student publications.

Troy B. Watkins, B.A. 1947, of Natchez died Sept. 12, 2003.

John G. Weiss, M.B.A. 1994, of Greenville, Miss., died Nov. 2, 2003.

Frederick (Fred) J. Weston, 1939, of Leland, Miss., died Oct. 30, 2003. He was a member of the varsity football team.

Martin F. White, B.A. 1953, of Pearl died May 29, 2003.

Rev. Clifton Whitlock, B.A. 1957, of Ridgeland died April 23, 2003.

Charlotte A. (Ann) Williams, B.A. 1986, of Jackson died June 12, 2003. She was a member of Phi Mu sorority and Eta Sigma Phi honorary, and served as manager for the women’s basketball team. She also participated in the Heritage program.

Dr. Robert (Bob) D. Wilson, 1947, of Valparaiso, Fla., died Jan. 18, 2003. He attended Millsaps as part of the Navy V-12 officer training program.

Dr. John Evan Wimberly, B.S. 1958, of Pensacola, Fla., died Feb. 27, 2003. He was a member of the Dean’s List, band, and the varsity tennis team. He served as reporter for the Alpha Epsilon Delta honorary and as social chair and correspondent for his fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha.

William R. Winans, B.S.1949, of Biloxi died March 3, 2002. He played varsity football. A member of the M-Club, he was known as the “Canton Crusher.”

Joseph (Joe) Enoch Carruth of McComb died Sept. 14, 2003. A former Millsaps parent, he had established a scholarship in honor of his parents, the Felder and Carruth Memorial Endowed Scholarship Fund.

The Office of Alumni Relations would like to extend its sincerest apology for listing Dr. William H. Parker Jr. as deceased in the Spring-Summer 2003 Millsaps Magazine.

We regret the error and any hardship or inconvenience this may have caused.


Dr. Allen David Bishop Jr.Professor Emeritus of Chemistry

Dr. Allen David Bishop Jr., professor emeritus of chemistry, died June 23, 2004, following a brief illness. Bishop was a 1960 graduate of Millsaps. He returned to his alma mater in 1967 and remained in the classroom, teaching chemistry for the next 35 years.

Bishop was instrumental in the organization of the Computer Studies department on campus and served as director of academic computing until his retirement.

In 1998, he received the College’s highest honor, the Distinguished Professor Award. One of his students said in the nomination: “His enthusiasm for learning is inspiring. To keep the attention of his students, Dr. Bishop may play sound effects from Star Wars, incorporate his test questions into a story containing the names of class members, or dress up as Darth Vader. Constantly challenging me to do more, never satisfied with less than my absolute best effort, Dr. Bishop has increased the breadth and depth of my education.”

From a colleague came these words: “The man is made of the teaching material that has made Millsaps a great institution for the student. His students know it today, and they return after they have graduated to visit with this instructor who always had time to stretch their thinking.”

In 1999, Bishop was named Outstanding Educator by the United Methodist Foundation for Christian Higher Education, an award that is presented each year to one full-time faculty member of the church’s 123 United Methodist colleges and universities. He also received the Outstanding Educator Award of the Mississippi Section of the American Chemical Society in 2000.

Dean Richard A. Smith, in conferring the emeritus title on Bishop at Commencement in 2002, said: “His energy in the classroom is matched only by his dedication to providing the best computing technology to our faculty and students. Dr. Allen Bishop has shown how much a person can achieve, and how many lives a person can affect with a lifetime of commitment.”

Professor Robert Shive, commenting at the memorial service for Bishop, characterized his colleague and friend as “the very best of Millsaps, the spirit of Millsaps.” Shive recalled the many faces of Al Bishop known by students and faculty: J. E. Fuzzwinkle, Esq., J. Ellington Q. Fuzzwinkle, Willard Wombat, Manual Transmission, Wilber J. Huntsmachs, Darth Vader, Marshall Dillon, and Willit Ever End.

“Allen’s teaching style and commitment,” Shive said, “backed up by his clear authority in chemistry, kept the interest of his students and earned him their respect. Countless students over many years considered him their mentor.”

Memorials for Bishop have been designated to the J. B. Price Library Fund, Office of Institutional Advancement, Millsaps College, 1701 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39210-0001.

— K. B.

“Constantly challenging me

to do more, never satisfied

with less than my absolute

best effort, Dr. Bishop has

increased the breadth and

depth of my education.”

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C. Leland BylerLongtime Director of the Millsaps Singers

Former Millsaps Singers gathered August 1, 2003, at Galloway Memorial United Methodist Church to pay tribute to the memory of C. Leland Byler, retired director of the Millsaps Singers. Byler, who had been a member of the Millsaps Music Department faculty from 1959 until 1979, died Tuesday, July 3, 2003, at his home in Sarasota, Florida.

Byler joined the Millsaps faculty in 1959, directing the Millsaps band as well as the Millsaps Singers. In his first year, he took the Millsaps Singers to Denver to the General Conference of the Methodist Church. He was chair of the Music Department during most of his 20-year tenure at the College, with approximately 25 percent of the student body involved in some sort of choral music. Among his many accomplishments at Millsaps were choral works accompanied with orchestra, and joint performances with the Jackson, Memphis, and New Orleans symphonies, the Chicago Chamber Orchestra, and Dave Brubeck. During his years at Millsaps, he directed orchestras for Damn Yankees, Oklahoma!, Camelot, The Sound of Music, and South Pacific, as well as many other shows. Byler is also credited for directing Jackson’s first “contemporary” musical, Brigadoon, at Central High in 1954. His direction of Amahl and the Night Visitors at Murrah High School received critical acclaim as being “a thing of sheer beauty, completely delightful, and deeply moving.”

“Lee Byler always seemed to have a stern look,” said Bob Leggett, an alumnus in Great Falls, Virginia, “but underneath it all he had a ready smile. He could also be a bit of a prankster with a wry sense of humor, particularly on Singers tours.” Bob and his wife, Dee, endowed a scholarship in honor of Lee Byler in 1994. “Singing under Lee Byler gave me a great appreciation of just what power choral music could have,” Leggett said. “This has had a profound effect on my life.”

In 1964, Byler organized the Millsaps Troubadours, a small group of Millsaps Singers who performed popular music and traveled to Europe, the Caribbean, and the Northeast, including Greenland, Newfoundland, and Labrador. In addition to directing the group, Byler also accompanied the group on bass. Marion Francis, of Annapolis, Maryland, said that performing with the Troubadours was a memorable experience. “One thing was certain,” Francis said. “When push came to shove, we put our heart and soul into a performance for him, whether it was a concert for the Millsaps Singers, the Troubadours, a Broadway musical on the Millsaps stage, or an anthem at a church service.”

Many of the Millsaps Singers who have gone on to professional careers as musicians and teachers look upon Byler as an inspiration and a catalyst for their work. “His exact interpretation of music, as well as his distinct moral example, gave us lifelong insight into goals to which we could aspire,” said Paula Page of Sarasota, Florida, and Frankfurt, Germany, whose vocal career has included roles for major European opera houses.

Anna Dennery McDonald of Jackson began her musical journey with the Bylers in the junior choir at Galloway Methodist Church and continued through her years at Millsaps and beyond as a soloist in numerous choral performances. “He taught us respect, not only for the music, but for ourselves and for him,” McDonald said. “Even with the volunteer choirs, you were expected to be prepared. He instilled a sense of responsibility, and everyone wanted to live up to his expectations. We wanted to do our best.”

Memorials may be made to the Leland Byler Endowed Scholarship, Office of Insti-tutional Advancement, Millsaps College, 1701 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39210-0001.

— K. B.

“He taught us respect, not only

for the music, but for ourselves

and for him.”


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Dr. Samuel R. KnoxDistinguished Professor of Mathematics

Dr. Samuel R. Knox, professor of mathematics at Millsaps from 1949 until 1988, died July 13, 2003. During his tenure at the College, Knox served as chairman of the Department of Mathematics for 23 years.

Knox received the Distinguished Professor Award in 1978. Students and faculty members who nominated him for this prestigious award made the following statements about him: “He is patient and shows a genuine concern for those whom he teaches.”

“He is a person of the highest professional standards.” “He is respected for his admin-istrative ability…for his contributions to the athletic programs at Millsaps, and for his leadership on numerous committees.” “Without doubt, his greatest contribution has been excellent instruction in the classroom.” Dean Harry Gilmer, upon presenting the award, said of Knox, “He is an example of what Millsaps College should be—excellence in action.”

Knox taught several thousand students in the course of his tenure at Millsaps. He also served the College in many other ways, not the least of which was his role as official photographer for the Millsaps football team. When the regular teaching load was 15 hours, Knox sometimes taught as many as 21 hours. When there was no one to coach track, he took on this responsibility.

In 1988, Knox received the Distinguished Athletic Service Award from the College. In 2003, Director of Athletics Ron Jurney announced that this service award is now named the Sam Knox Distinguished Service Award. “I can think of no one who was more devoted to Millsaps College and its athletic program,” Jurney said.

In a letter written to Knox and his wife, Dot, on their 50th wedding anniversary, Rob Rice, B.S. 1978, captured the essence of his former professor: “At the center of my warm memories of Millsaps is my friendship with Sam and Dot Knox. I would not have guessed this the first couple of weeks of my freshman pre-algebra class. A crew-cut dynamo in a short sleeved dress shirt with a neatly tied tie would stride into the room, place his books in the same place on the desk, erase the board, and begin class—after glancing around the room and taking roll with a bouncing of his head. We were all intimidated initially, and then someone bravely asked a question…about the third week! The eyes of the smartest mathematician I ever met lit up, and he patiently explained the problem’s solution. Another asked a question, and then another. We soon realized this person loved teaching students even more than he loved teaching mathematics.”

In reflecting on nearly 40 years’ experience as a college teacher, Knox said he remembers best the students. He recalled with appreciation the great variety of students he had taught and the many different career paths they had taken. As befits a teacher at a liberal arts college, some of the warmest tributes he has received came from students who did not major in mathematics but who encountered him through a course taken to meet a general education requirement. He was truly a “teacher for all seasons” in the best Millsaps tradition.

Robert Leggett, B.A. 1962, a former student of Knox, has established the Dr. Samuel Knox Mathematics Scholarship. Memorials may be sent to the Office of Institutional Advancement, Millsaps College, 1701 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39210-0001.

— K. B.

“We were all intimidated

initially, and then someone

bravely asked a question…

about the third week!

The eyes of the smartest

mathematician I ever met lit up,

and he patiently explained the

problem’s solution.”

s u m m e r 2 0 0 4 51

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Katherine Lefoldt ‘First Lady of the Academic Complex’

Katherine Lefoldt, beloved “First Lady of the Academic Complex,” died October 2, 2003. Lefoldt joined the Millsaps staff when the Academic Complex was completed in 1971, but those who worked with her knew her hand extended to the larger campus.

Lefoldt’s responsibilities were numerous. She made sure not only that official receptions were appropriately decorated and staged but also that proper protocol was followed for each. She provided fresh flowers for events both large and small, assisted in decorating campus offices and residence halls, and worked tirelessly with the Millsaps Players to locate props and costumes to stage their productions.

The Millsaps family will remember Lefoldt first and foremost for her dedication to and love for Millsaps College. From a quick campus poll, here are a few recollections: “Always gracious—a true Southern lady, creative and thrifty.” “She could do more with a little bit than most anyone around here. You were always glad to see Mrs. Lefoldt headed your way.” “Unfailingly optimistic, always a lady (with a twinkle in her eye), she could make you do anything for her (like cut forbidden flowers on campus while she sat and gave instructions).” “She could take three magnolias and decorate for a banquet.”

Others added: “She was always willing to give of her time and knowledge and could be relied upon to do the right thing for all people and every occasion.” She was considered the consummate hostess for Millsaps College, gracious in every encounter, and dependable to a fault. These words from a professor: “I can think of few people that I’ve felt so much drawn to talk to. She had a killer sense of humor.”

One of her customs was to bring a basket of apples and present an apple to each new member of the faculty on the first day of class. She remembered the housekeeping and security staffs with a special gift at Christmas, and went “above and beyond,” moving flowers from one event to another to brighten a spot and spare a budget.

In the early 1990s, Lefoldt and her lifelong friend Mittie Welty, affectionately called “The Bobsey Twins,” assisted with Family Weekend by hosting bus tours of Belhaven and downtown Jackson for Millsaps parents. They boarded the bus with their straw hats and white gloves and regaled their listeners with stories of the “old Jackson” as they pointed out landmarks along the tour.

In 1999, alumni and friends gathered at the College Awards Dinner to honor her as a recipient of the Jim Livesay Service Award for her untiring dedication to the College. She was also tapped for honorary membership in the Millsaps Chapter of Omicron Delta Kappa.

At her memorial service, Chaplain Don Fortenberry said, “Katherine was Mother Earth without sandals, Martha Stewart without hubris, a steel magnolia with an open heart, and a Renaissance servant without boundaries. We loved her dearly and were touched by her kindness.”

In her retirement letter to President George Harmon, she wrote: “Thanks to you, I was free to become a marine sergeant at happenings too many to count. I acquired the ability to beg, borrow, and a little bit of larceny—it was a craft I generated only when needed.”

Retired librarian Jim Parks summed it up in these words: “I’m happy to have known Katherine. She was a bright spot on the campus for a long time, and we all came to rely on her for a variety of things, one of which was a good eye for style and color, not to mention manners. She had a delightful sense of humor and, by example, advised us not to take ourselves too seriously. I know she was the campus hostess, but I sort of thought of her as our house mother. I miss seeing her bright smile and happy face.”

— K. B.

“Mother Earth without sandals,

Martha Stewart without hubris,

a steel magnolia with an open

heart, and a Renaissance

servant without boundaries. ”


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Otis A. SingletaryLongtime President of the University of Kentucky

Dr. Otis A. Singletary, B.A. 1947, who served from 1969 to 1987 as the president of the University of Kentucky, died September 20, 2003, at his home in Lexington, Kentucky, at 81. Services were held in the Otis A. Singletary Center for the Arts on the campus.

A native of Gulfport, Mississippi, Singletary oversaw more than $250 million of new construction at the University of Kentucky during his tenure, including the Otis A. Singletary Center for the Arts. The university’s library doubled its holdings to two million volumes, and UK implemented a program of selective admission.

It was also a turbulent period. Not long after he took office, the Kentucky National Guard was called to the UK campus to put down student protests against the Kent State University shootings and the invasion of Cambodia.

Singletary was educated at the Gulfport public schools, at Perkinston Junior College in Perkinston; Millsaps; and at Louisiana State University, M.A. 1949, Ph.D. 1954, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy during both World War II and the Korean War and served as a commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve. He joined the University of Texas History Department in 1954 as an instructor and subsequently held the rank of assistant professor (1957–58), associate professor (1959), and professor (1960). He also served as associate dean of arts and sciences at Texas (1956–1959) and assistant to the president during the 1960–61 academic year. Singletary wrote two books: Negro Militia and Reconstruction and The Mexican War and numerous scholarly articles.

Appointed chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1961, Singletary took a leave of absence from October 1964 until January 1966 to direct the federal Job Corps during the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. From 1966 to 1968 he was vice president of the American Council on Education and during 1968 and 1969 served as executive vice chancellor for academic affairs in the University of Texas System.

In August 1969, Singletary became president of the University of Kentucky. “Assuming his executive responsibilities during a period of campus turmoil kindled by student protest against the Vietnam War, and culminating on the UK campus in the Kent State demonstrations of May 1970, the new president’s dispassionate yet firm approach to dealing with the conflict, in time effectively restored calm to the campus and prevented a potentially incendiary situation from spinning out of control,” wrote Frank Stranger, for UK Libraries’ University Archives and Records Program.

Singletary served on the NCAA Presidents’ Commission and chaired the board of directors of the College Football Association. He also served as vice chair of the Southern Regional Education Board, president of Phi Beta Kappa, and director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Ohio.

Memorial contributions may be directed to the Otis A. Singletary Center for the Arts, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0241.

— J. W.

After Kent State, his

“dispassionate yet firm

approach to dealing with

the conflict” defused a

volatile situation.

You should have seen the campus this spring. The azaleas broadcast solid walls of color: brilliant whites, ruby reds and shades in between, all against a backdrop of lively greens. I was standing on the sidewalk in front of Sanders the other day, drinking in the newness of it all, and Joe Lee Gibson stepped out from between the hedges with his knapsack and can grabber and started talking as if he knew I’d be there for him to say something to. Sure enough, he started talking about his retirement, a subject he has been harping on for some years now. Joe Lee Gibson has been working on campus since 1936. He started when he was 17 years old, and this June 20 he turned 85. His daddy worked here before him, probably since the day the college was founded. Only two buildings on campus have been here longer than Joe Lee, and they aren’t holding up nearly as well. We speak of memory a great deal here in the South, and most particularly here in Mississippi. William Faulkner writes that there is no such thing as memory, that “the mind remembers only what the muscles grope for, no more, no less,” and Eudora Welty speaks of memory as a

“living thing.” No more muscular or living memory of Millsaps College exists than that of Joe Lee Gibson. He remembers boys and girls who didn’t know their way around campus but are now steering the state and the nation; he remembers students who went hungry who are now feeding others; he remembers the ones who found injustice then sought to set things right. Yet as surely as the azaleas bloom, Joe Lee will say that he’s retiring again. And who knows? Perhaps one day he will.

— Jesse Yancy

Tending the Landscape Of Millsaps Memories

Upholding A Strong TraditionAnnual fund gifts lay the foundation for Millsaps’ continued success. Each year, the Millsaps Annual Fund provides fi nancial resources that directly affect the quality of teaching and student life at Millsaps. Through scholarships, academic programs, faculty or library support, your annual fund gift is the keystone that helps the College build on its excellence. As our students take classes, laying the path to their dreams, your gift gives them the tools needed to get there. As our profes-sors craft and present creative lectures, your gift provides them with the resources to inspire students. As the College itself shapes its learning environment, cultivating its strengths and constructing new areas of study, your gift offers the support Millsaps needs to remain one of the nation’s fi nest liberal arts colleges. Give to the Millsaps Annual Fund today to ensure our success for generations to come.

Millsaps Annual Fund 1701 North State Street • Jackson, MS 39210 -0001601-974 -1037 • www.millsaps.edu

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spring-summer 2004 millsaps magazine

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