Summer 2011 Millsaps Magazine by Millsaps College

MILLSAPS Magazine

Summer 2011

From the President n many occasions during the past year I have had the opportunity to offer my thoughts about the future of Millsaps and our shared vision—our image of success going forward. Whenever I’ve done so, I’ve always concluded my remarks with this ﬁnal point: Our vision for Millsaps includes a College that transforms her students in positive ways and sends them forth with a high sense of honor, a desire to be informed and participatory citizens and leaders, an abiding loyalty to their alma mater, and a commitment to change the world for the better.

O Dr. Robert W. Pearigen

Millsaps Magazine

Executive Editor Patti P. Wade* Director of Communications and Marketing Design Kelley Matthews

Features

Publications Manager Nell Luter Floyd Contributing Editors Jason Bronson*; Lucy Molinaro*; Kara G. Paulk; Marc Rolph Student Assistants Jesse Crow; Alison Montgomery Contributing Photographer Greg Campbell; Casey Holloway; Leilani Salter; Will Smith; Melanie Thortis Administrative Officers Dr. Robert W. Pearigen, President Louise Burney*, Vice President for Finance; Dr. S. Keith Dunn, Dean of the College; and Dr. R. Brit Katz, Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students Board of Trustees Tom Fowlkes*, Chair The Rev. Zachary Beasley Paul Benton* The Rev. Warren Black* Dan Bowling* Bill Bynum James A. Coggin Elaine Crystal¨ Robert H. Dunlap*¨ Will Flatt* Mark Freeman Gale L. Galloway† The Rev. Lisa Garvin* Dr. Chris Glick William F. Goodman III* Maurice H. Hall Jr.* Monica Sethi Harrigill* The Rev. Heather Hensarling* Richard G. Hickson William R. James William Jeanes*† Peder Johnson* Earle F. Jones† The Rev. Geoffrey Joyner* R. Eason Leake* Robert N. Leggett Jr.*† John L. Lindsey Hal Malchow* J. Con Maloney Jr.*†

The Rev. William T. McAlilly* Jeff McDonald* Vaughan W. McRae Richard D. McRae† Michael T. McRee Richard Mills* Dr. Don Q. Mitchell* Cooper Morrison* Robert R. Morrison Jr.† Paul Ogden* The Rev. Luther S. Ott* Robert W. Pittman*¨ Dr. Bobby Robbins* E. B. Robinson Jr. Nat S. Rogers*† Toddy Sanders* The Rev. Joey Shelton* Steven Smith* Mike Sturdivant Jr.* Mike P. Sturdivant† Rowan H. Taylor† J. Murray Underwood* Mack Varner* John C. Vaughey† Bishop Hope Ward Ruth W. Watson*¨ Leila C. Wynn† William G. Yates III

*Denotes Millsaps Alumni † Denotes Life Trustees ¨Denotes Honorary Trustees

26 Traditions Cover: Students gather at the Blymer Bell beside the library as part of the Eve of the Seventh Season, a ceremony marking the beginning of their last year at Millsaps.

Fascinating Author Alumnus Duo

2011 concludes Work focuses 49-year career. on literacy.

Story captures Father and son media attention. write novel.

Commencement Research Creative Endeavor Piano

beyond campus 17 Dig 18 History

around the world 20 Fulbright/NYC

Millsaps Magazine is published by Millsaps College, 1701 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39210, for distribution to alumni, parents of students, and friends of the College. Send alumni updates and address corrections to Millsaps Magazine, care of the above address. You can also reach us at 601-974-1033 or communications@millsaps.edu. For the online magazine, visit www.millsaps.edu.

Legendary Reading Professor Expert

on campus 2 11 12 16

faculty & Staff 23 New Dean 24 Welty Expert

sports 42 Lacrosse 45 Baseball 46 Track & Field

alumni 47 Meet Alums 61 Bobashela 62

about the bell: The Blymer Bell, as seen on the cover and above, has signaled the end of chapel services, the hours of classes and meals, special athletic events, and the ending of World Wars. WebExtra For more information about the Bell, visit

www.millsaps.edu/about_millsaps/bell.php.

63 69

Judge Graves Class Notes In Memoriam

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are conf ident that, inspired by your predecessors “We and your own Millsaps experience, you, too, will serve and lead and make a positive difference in the world.” — Dr. Robert W. Pearigen

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

ON CAMPUS

2011 Commencement Ceremony focuses on examples of student excellence. BY NELL LUTER FLOYD AND KARA G. PAULK

tudent excellence was the emphasis of the 2011 commencement ceremony on May 7 at Millsaps College. “We could think of no better way to emphasize the College’s pursuit of excellence than by placing the focus of the 2011 commencement on our students,” said Dr. Robert W. Pearigen, president of Millsaps. “We are confident that, inspired by your predecessors and your own Millsaps experience, you, too, will serve and lead and make a positive difference in the world.” Marie Louise Thomas, of Hattiesburg, the first student graduation speaker at Millsaps College in recent years, offered graduates practical advice. Thomas, who received the Founders’ Medal for having the highest grade point average and receiving an excellent on comprehensive examinations, encouraged graduates to be true to themselves. “Don’t change who you are to fit someone else’s expectations,” she said. She also advised them to expect change and welcome it, to build their lives around what makes them happy, and to practice gratitude. “This is the only life you have, so make the most of it,” she said. Thomas received a Bachelor of Science in biology and geology. She plans to attend graduate school and study palynology, a branch of earth science dealing with pollen and spores. Lamees S. El-Sadek, of Crystal Springs, read a portion of her essay that received the Frank and Rachel Anne Laney Award given to the graduating senior who has written the finest essay reflecting the value of a Millsaps liberal arts education. She spoke about how her experience at Millsaps had transformed her life. El-Sadek received a Bachelor of Science in biology and had a self-designed major focusing on international health and economics. She plans to attend graduate school at Johns Hopkins University. Two-hundred seventy-three undergraduates and 60 graduate students participated in the College’s 117th ceremony in the College Bowl. Two graduates became “firsts” for the College. Sabira Ebaady, of Afghanistan, is the first student to graduate from Millsaps College from her country. She received a Bachelor of Science in biology.

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Katie Dennis, of Mandeville, La., graduated as Mississippi’s and the College’s first major in neuroscience and cognitive studies. She will begin medical school in the fall, and hopes to become a neurologist or a neurosurgeon. The College conferred honorary doctorate degrees on five individuals for their accomplishments and service to their communities. Dr. Rodney J. Bartlett, a 1966 Millsaps graduate and graduate professor at the University of Florida, received a Doctor of Science for his developments in computational chemistry. Leontyne Price, a Mississippi-born opera singer, recording artist, educator, and author, received a Doctor of Arts. Leontyne Price’s brother, retired Brig. Gen. George Price, accepted the honor on her behalf. Leontyne Price sent a message to the 2011 graduating class encouraging them to remember the importance of the arts. “I ask you not to turn your back on the arts. They are an integral part of the lifeblood of a society. The arts deserve a place at the table along with the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics. They represent all that we are and all that we hope to be.” Dr. Richard C. Miller, first pediatric surgeon in Mississippi, received a Doctor of Science. Robert H. Dunlap, a Millsaps alumnus and Mississippi businessman, received a Doctor of Public Service. Dr. Larry M. Goodpaster, a 1970 Millsaps graduate and president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, received a Doctor of Divinity. The Don Fortenberry Award, which recognizes the graduating senior who has demonstrated the most notable, meritorious, diligent, and devoted service to the college with no expectation of recognition, reward or public remembrance, went to Mary Kate Rees of Baton Rouge, La. She received a Bachelor of Arts in elementary education and French. Dr. Connie Campbell, professor of mathematics, received the Distinguished Professor Award. It recognizes faculty members who inspire students through their excellence as teachers and whose writing, research, and artistic accomplishments are of the highest quality and serve to enhance their teaching and the learning of students. WebExtra Read Marie Louise Thomas’ commencement

speech at www.millsaps.edu/commencement2011. Read Lamees S. El-Sadek's essay at www.millsaps.edu/commencement2011.

From Leontyne Price

orld renowned opera singer, recording artist, educator, and author Leontyne Price received a Doctor of Arts during commencement 2011. She was unable to attend the ceremony, but sent this message: “My heartfelt thanks and appreciation to you for the honorary degree of Doctor of Arts that you bestow on me today. In my view, honors that are given to you at home are made more meaningful because the awardees knew you before you achieved the success on which the award is based. I want to make it crystal clear that I am a proud Mississippian and that I appreciate, more than words can express, the opportunities that were afforded me to pursue my dreams and aspirations. I am also unashamedly patriotic and devoted to the principles on which our country was founded. We are blessed to be living in the greatest country in the world. I am a homegrown success and I hope that I have been and that I continue to be visible evidence of what is possible with hard work, dedication and loyal support from people that believe in you. It is not easy and there are many obstacles that must be overcome, but with determination and courage, you can turn these obstacles into stepping stones of success. Never give up on your dreams and aspirations. Over the course of my 55-year career, I have often been asked what it is like to be from Mississippi. My response has always been that I am not from Mississippi, because I take some of Mississippi wherever I go. I am proud of my heritage and I would not ever deny it the recognition it deserves. From my vantage point, I believe that God bestows the talent on you and it is up to you to determine how you will use it. I chose to nurture mine, develop it, and share

it with the world. My art has been my life, and my life has been my art. No one achieves success alone. You will have visible and invisible support from many people. In addition to having had great parents, one source that I would like to recognize is the support of the Chisholm family. They have been with me throughout all these years and our relationship continues to this day. It is one of those phenomenons that God grants us once in a lifetime. It deﬁes explanation; it is just there. To the graduating class, I ask you not to turn your back on the arts. They are an integral part of the lifeblood of a society. They represent all that we are and all that we hope to be. The arts deserve a place at the table along with the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics. I urge you to add an “A” to this acronym—thereby making it STEMA—Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Art. This addition is important to all of us. You only have to look at the enormous contributions Mississippians have made to the arts to understand what I mean. If my alma mater, Oak Park High School, could make Music Appreciation a required course “back in the day,” why can’t we use this example and include it in today’s educational requirements? We were taught that a different world would not be made by indifferent people. I am sorry that due to circumstances beyond my control I could not be with you in person, but I am with you in spirit. Thank you, again, for the tremendous honor that you bestow on me today. I appreciate it very much. To the graduating class, I wish you much success. Make every place you go a little bit better because you’ve been there.”

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

Meet a Student

Sara Del Castillo Sara Del Castillo, a sophomore at Millsaps, dreams of becoming a politician and enacting solutions for all of the problems she ever complained about while growing up in Mississippi, such as high teen pregnancy rates, low education standards, and immigration laws. Q: As a freshman, you presented a Millsaps Forum program on “Women in Mississippi Politics.” How did that opportunity present itself? A: “Women in Mississippi Politics” is a subject that was studied in my Women and Politics class which I decided to take in hopes to better understand female leadership and accomplish my goals of female empowerment. Q: What did you discover when you did research about women and politics? A: In the state of Mississippi, females are underrepresented and therefore, women often have a weak voice in politics. I came to ﬁnd that a lack of female representation can negatively affect a government because women have different leadership tendencies and often come to issues

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with unique perspectives and experiences that might not be considered in their absence. Some research studied in my class showed that on average, women are just as qualified to run for political office as their male counterparts, but comparatively more women were disinclined to seek high office because of responsibilities of the home. My hope is not that women will all leave the home to be politicians or feel bad for choosing motherhood over a political career; my hope is that women and men will one day have equal opportunity to share the responsibilities of both political and home life. Q: What are your career plans? A: I plan to double major in political science and philosophy at Millsaps, go to law school, practice immigration law, and then run for political office. Ultimately, I aspire to run for president and prove that gender does not determine one’s ability to run a country or be a great leader. I have no doubt that Millsaps will prepare me to accomplish these goals.

Meet a Professor

Shadow JQ Robinson Dr. Shadow JQ Robinson, an associate professor of physics, considers this a powerful question: How does everything work, and why does it work that way? Q: Does your name have any special meaning? A: I legally changed my ﬁrst name to Shadow when I was 20. I kept my original birth names, but added Shadow in front of them. In writing my name formally, I take my original birth name and middle name as a double middle initial, Shadow JQ Robinson. This proved useful in that most research papers in my ﬁeld are by initials and last name. The Q distinguishes my name from another scientist with a similar one in a closely related area of physics. Q: How important is the study of physics? A: The quest in studying physics, to understand the universe, is the most noble, important thing a human life can aspire to in our limited days. The quote by H.G. Wells— “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe”—summarizes how important I believe my job in the classroom is.

Q: What kind of research interests you? A: My published research work has been in theoretical nuclear physics, in particular low-energy nuclear structure. I perform calculations that examine the roles protons and neutrons play in determining properties of atomic nuclei. This has implications for understanding how the universe came to be in its present state. Q: What interests you besides physics? A: Running, riding my road bike, and writing. I have for the last six or seven years written a 50,000-plus word novel during National Novel Writing Month in November. In 1997, I began an epic poem in memory of my best friend in high school who died in an accident in 1994. The poem is about 200 pages in length now, and maybe a quarter complete. It, as well as all the National Novel Writing Month novels, is set in the fantasy world he helped me create while we were undergrad roommates. My No. 1 pastime, however, is my 3-year-old son, Elijah. Watching him grow and learn leads to the most touching and treasured moments in my life.

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

ON CAMPUS

A Higher Level of Success Mid-career professionals are targeted for program that will be the first of its kind in Mississippi.

EMBA at a glance

16 Months long

esigned for business professionals, the Executive MBA program will meet every other weekend for 16 months at Millsaps College. The first class will begin in courses January 2012 and applications are now being accepted. “The goal of the Executive MBA program is to offer the mid-career business executive a graduate degree option that fits into his or her life where your fellow students are also your peers in the business world,” said Howard McMillan, dean of the Else Faculty members School of Management at Millsaps College. “Study groups bring together real world experience that can give an executive immediate value in an ongoing career—an instant return on investment.” Global experience Participants must have a minimum of seven years of managerial work experience. The program expects to attract individuals from a variety of professions, including engineering, finance, health care, law, manufacturing, and non-profit sectors. “This program is tailored to meet the work/life balance of aspiring leaders seeking to enClasses start hance their careers,” said Dr. Bill Brister, director of the Executive MBA Program. “It’s an intense program that will include an international experience that will offer a global perspective.” The Else School of Management is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, which represents the highest standard of achievement for business schools worldwide. The Else School of Management is known for offering students intense preparation for the business environment, stressing ethical and professional standards and building leaders. The Else School also offers Bachelor of Business Administration, Master of Business Administration, and Master of Accountancy degrees.

19 1

Jan. 6, 2012

WebExtra For more information, visit the Executive MBA website at

MILLSAPS COLLEGE EXECUTIVE MBA:

A HIGHER LEVEL OF SUCCESS

www.emba.millsaps.edu or call the Office of Graduate Admissions at 601-974-1256.

www.millsaps.edu

Earn a Millsaps MBA degree in 16 months Attend class every other weekend Keep your career on track while you study Learn from nationally ranked faculty Top accreditation — known for excellence

601-974-1253 • emba.millsaps.edu

ON CAMPUS

Campus Visitors Academic scholars, authors, and musicians were among visitors on campus during the spring semester. Here’s a partial list: Esteemed master teacher and former Metropolitan Opera star Benita Valente, rising Metropolitan Opera soprano Susanna Phillips, and mezzo-soprano Catherine Keen performed at Millsaps as part of Extravoixganza! in January. Dr. Marshall Hussain Schuler, assistant professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, spoke in January about reward behavior, speciﬁcally drug and alcohol addictions. He gave the annual Moreton Lecture.

Dr. Sally Wolff-King

Amy Streeter, oral historian for the Southern Foodways Alliance, a member-supported organization of more than 800 chefs, academics, writers, and foodies that studies and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the changing American South, spoke in January about “The Stories Behind Southern Food.” The Millsaps College Arts & Lecture Series brought her to campus. Southern literature scholar Sally Wolff-King told her audience at Millsaps in February the story of her discovery of a plantation diary that gave writer William Faulkner factual access to the antebellum past in a way that stimulated his creativity. Also part of the program were Edgar Wiggin Francisco III, son of Faulkner’s close friend and great-grandson of the plantation-owner who kept the ledger; Bobby Little, who grew up across the street from Faulkner and went ﬁshing with him, spending time with Faulkner like his own father; and Cherry Fyke, who grew up in Oxford and whose mother’s sister was married to John Faulkner. Quattro Mani, the duo pianists Alice Rybak and Susan Grace, performed in February as part of the Millsaps College Arts & Lecture Series. Dr. Laurie L. Patton, author of 45 articles and eight books and now dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences at Duke University, spoke in March about the idea of “pragmatic pluralism,” a way of being interreligious in the 21st Century that pushes us beyond tolerance and dialogue and into a philosophy and practice of interdependence.

Dr. Marshall Hussain Schuler

Civil rights activist and original Freedom Rider Hank Thomas discussed in March the role of Freedom Riders. He gave the Nussbaum Lecture, which remembers the late Perry Nussbaum, who served from 1954 until 1974 as rabbi at Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson. Authors Alan Lange, Tom Dawson, and Curtis Wilkie discussed in March the status of traditional media and new media and how new media such as blogs and radio talk shows impact public issues. The Millsaps College Arts & Lecture Series brought them to campus. Mississippi chef and storyteller Martha Hall Foose and author of the cookbook, A Southerly Course: Stories and Recipes from Close to Home, entertained the Millsaps College Arts & Lecture Series audience in April. Martha Hall Foose

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011 9 Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

ON CAMPUS

Syllabus

Pearson Education, Inc.

English 3450: Writing for New Media prepares students to write and publish web content.

The advent of Web 2.0, a term used to describe web platforms that encourage interactivity, and most importantly, user-creation of content, put writing and publishing web content in the grasp of anyone with access to the web, regardless of his or her technical ability. Dr. Anita DeRouen and her students explored writing challenges and opportunities offered by new media formats by creating, writing content, and posting to personal web pages and blogs. Students also produced Xtranormal videos, podcasts, and video blogs. Millsaps is known for its commitment to developing future leaders with strong communication skills. As our cultural venues for communication expand to new media platforms (like video, the Web, and a host of multimedia venues), it’s only natural that we’d expand our pedagogical approach so that our students have a better grounding in writing for these venues. The ﬁnal project in the course—an exercise in multimodal composition—invited students to transform one text over three different platforms. In doing so, the students had to really think about how the affordances offered by a particular platform—like an Xtranormal video or a blog site—could be best used to communicate something new and fresh about the original text. Each new medium for communication offers challenges to communicators; this course was designed to help students meet those challenges head on. Millsaps student Douglas Kennedy said his decision to take the class has proven to be one his best decisions at Millsaps. “It has truly provided me with a set of skills that are very pertinent in today’s society. Having the ability to communicate in the electronic world will no doubt prove to be an asset when entering the job market," he said. Claire Stamm, a 2011 Millsaps graduate, said the class projects left her "more prepared and less daunted by the Internet, and its many forms of mass communication. I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of putting my own imprint on the web.”

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PROFESSOR Dr. Anita DeRouen is an assistant professor of English and director of writing and teaching. She completed her doctoral degree at the University of Georgia in 2007 and joined the Millsaps faculty in 2008. DeRouen’s main foci are composition and rhetoric, particularly issues related to the acquisition, practice, and retention of digital literacy skills, but her scholarly and teaching pursuits also include study of the British Romantic and Modern periods (particularly the work of William Blake and W. B. Yeats) and various topics related to writing and digital culture. She is currently working on studies of the literacy and communicative challenges of online reading and the role of anonymity in online discussion communities.

READINGS Writing for the Web: A Practical Guide by Cynthia Jeney (Pearson Education, Inc.) Selections from Aristotle’s Rhetoric Selections from The Economics of Attention by Richard Lanham (University Press of Chicago) Selections from Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins (NYU Press) Selections from Lingua Fracta: Towards a Rhetoric of New Media by Collin Gifford Brooke (Hampton Press) ASSIGNMENTS Personal webpage Blog design, creation, and reflection Xtranormal video and reflection Podcast and reflection Vlog and reflection Textual transformation

ON CAMPUS

Research Anthropology student studies Stairway to Heaven and earns Phi Beta Kappa Research Award.

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011 Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011 11

Photo © Kendall Messick

van Parker, a 2011 graduate, received the Phi Beta Kappa Award for Excellence in Honors Research. He focused his honors research on a small Mayan hilltop archaeological site in the Yucatán peninsula. The site, Stairway to Heaven, is comprised of several elite residences along with other dwellings that would have housed people who prepared food, made lithics, and built the dwellings on the hill. The goal of his project was basically to determine how quickly the inhabitants of the hilltop “When we reached abandoned their homes and to explore what may the floor surface of have led them to abandon the site. each building, we “From 2008 to 2010, we have been excavatfound that the Maya ing several of the structures on the hilltop,” he who lived there had said. “When we reached the floor surface of each building, we found that the Maya who lived there left many of their had left many of their belongings. For example, belongings...” when we excavated one of the elite residences, we found a large number of smashed pots on the floor. These were formerly whole vessels that the Maya had left when they abandoned the hilltop. Now, the interesting thing about this is that Evan Parker records data from the dig in the Yucatán Peninsula. most people don’t just leave all of their belongings when they move somewhere. You typically move things at a slow and steady pace. This is called a gradual abandonment. However, these Maya left all of their stuff, meaning that they didn’t take the time or didn’t want to take the time to move their things to a new location. This means didn’t return in this case, and we believe that this was most likely that the site was rapidly abandoned; however, we determined that tied to political processes in the region during this period of time.” Parker worked on his research with Dr. George Bey III, professor they rapidly abandoned the site but planned to return to it.” A combination of drought and political turmoil in the region of sociology and anthropology at Millsaps and one of the directors may have led to this case of rapid abandonment with a planned of the Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project. Parker presented return, he said. “These Maya didn’t have a source of running water his research at the 2011 meeting of the Society for American Arand couldn’t access the water table, so they had to store rainwater chaeology in Sacramento, Calif. He was the only undergraduate prein cisterns. The moment their cisterns ran dry in a drought, they senter in his particular research symposium. He will attend Tulane University in the fall to earn a doctorate in would have to leave the hill. In the past, they most likely would have returned as soon as rain refilled their cisterns. However, they anthropology, specifically Maya archaeology.

ON CAMPUS

Creative Endeavors The 2011 editor of the Stylus elaborates about the opportunities he found at Millsaps to express himself as an editor, actor, and writer. BY DAVID GUYOTT

the assistance of “...thewith highly literary Adobe InDesign for Dummies, we had a book.

”

ne of the things I love most about Millsaps is how deeply committed the College is to supporting the arts and creative endeavors. This commitment allows students who may not have had the opportunity to participate in creative endeavors in the past, or who have little experience, to participate in a myriad of ways. This year I had the privilege of serving as editor of Millsaps’ annual literary and arts magazine, the Stylus. Though I had worked on the selection staff my freshman and sophomore years, I had no experience with editing or designing a publication or being in charge of anything at all. This year’s book, however, was entirely mine. In my junior year, I got to round up works from the campus community, decide which works to publish and how the book should look, and work with a publishing company to bring that to reality. Hundreds of e-mails and ofﬁcial-looking forms later, and with the assistance of the highly literary Adobe InDesign for Dummies, we had a book. And I not only had the satisfaction of real-

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izing how much I learned from the experience, but I also had the pleasure of sharing our student writers’ and artists’ vibrant creative imaginations with the rest of the student body and the faculty. I also got the chance to act in two plays this year, though I had never acted before coming to Millsaps. I played the God Who Judges in Ethan Coen’s Almost an Evening and Scoop Rosenbaum in Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Heidi Chronicles. Both of these plays were put on by the Independent Theatre Group. This group, sponsored by Student Body Association, is entirely studentrun. Working with Grace Williams, our wonderful student director, we were able to share the contemporary, controversial, and highly relevant issues of these plays with the campus community. I think both were very well received. Finally, I got to work on my own creative writing this year. My short story, “Death Lemonade,” written for Dr. Steven Kistulentz’s Fiction class, won second place at the 2011 Southern Literary Festival in the short ﬁction category.

ON CAMPUS

Millsaps Miscellaneous Salute the spirit of the College, and read these news snippets

Summer Reading. Mal- Pop King Concert. Jane

Little, Brown and Company

colm Gladwell’s Blink will be required reading for incoming students in fall 2011. Gladwell identifies "the real lesson of Blink," as an understanding that "It is not simply enough to explore the hidden recesses of our unconscious. Once we know about how the human mind works—and about the strengths and weaknesses of human judgment—it is our responsibility to act." Each student will write an essay about how the book creates inspiration for action.

L. Gresley, B.S.1942, of Gainesville, Fla., had this to say about the Millsaps Singers concert that paid tribute to Singers director Alvin “Pop” King: “I’m still living in the euphoria created last week when I zipped over to Jackson for Pop King’s memorial concert and zipped back home. To hear the newly commissioned music and ﬁnally to stand on stage with the choir and mouth the words for the closing Benediction and “Seven

Fold Amen” brought tears to my eyes. Truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Sumner, and George share another family tradition: They majored in history.

It Runs in the Family. A Book Long Overdue. Ann Holmes, B.A. 1973, of Baton Rouge, La., brought a copy of the 1903 Millsaps diploma of her grandfather, George Nobles, for a graduation photo op with her son George, B.A. 2011, a fourth-generation Millsaps graduate on her side of the family. Ann's mother, Mildred Sumner, is a 1930 grad, and her husband Wendell is a 1974 grad. George is the second child of Ann and Wendell to obtain a degree from Millsaps. Their son, Sumner is a 2007 graduate. Ann, Wendell,

Pat M. Barrett Jr., B.A. 1964, of Lexington, Miss., returned a library book in April that he checked out in 1964 while a Millsaps student. The library forgave the fine, estimating it would be $1,500. The book is a biography of Edmund Ruffin who fired the first shot of the Civil War about 150 years ago. Barrett said this about returning the book: "I felt better after I left the library, and had lunch at Walker’s Drive Inn, where my buds and I spent a lot of time in the early 60’s."

Helping Hands. The Psychology Department, Psychology Club, and the Millsaps chapter of Psi Chi teamed up to beautify Jackson’s Midtown neighborhood by lending a hand to Pat Boland, owner of CS’s restaurant. Students cleaned the parking lot, planted ﬂowers and shrubs, and prepared the building for painting. The Psychology Department has a tradition, which has now spread to other disciplines in Sullivan-Harrell Hall, of having a party for graduating seniors at CS’s.

Unazungumza Kiswahili? Some Millsaps College students prepared for a trip to Tanzania this summer by taking Survival Swahili, a two-hour class. “The students will be staying with host families and will need to communicate in Swahili on many occasions,” said Dr. Julian M. Murchison, associate professor of anthropology at Millsaps. “Plus, Tanzanians are always very appreciative when you make an effort to speak some Swahili. In short, it’s designed to help get students the most out of their time and experiences in Tanzania.”

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

Shawn Spence Photography

ON CAMPUS

Millsaps College and its emphasis on writing proficiency to improve all types of learning drew the attention of the Lumina Foundation for Education. This photo of Dr. Anita DeRouen, director of writing and teaching, was in the most recent issue of the Lumina Foundation's Focus. The publication noted that Millsaps "educators believe that writing is essential to every academic pursuit and every career. Writing is not the responsibility of any one faculty member or department; it is the shared enterprise of all."

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ON CAMPUS

The Deans Recommend Looking for a good book to read? Check out what is on the bookshelves of our deans.

Dr. David C. Davis, associate dean for Arts and Letters The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men: Inspiration, Vision, and Purpose in the Quest to End Malaria by Bill Shore (PublicAffairs Books) The power of this book lies in its illustration of what it takes to solve one of the most intractable and lethal problems facing the world today—malaria. It challenges us to move beyond the reasonable and the safe in our quest for solutions and to dare to be “unreasonable risk-takers,” pushing the boundaries of knowledge. Dr. S. Keith Dunn, dean of the College Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by John Krakauer (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group) I think John Krakauer did a great job of

tying together the rise of the Taliban and Bin Laden (and others) in Afghanistan with contemporary events in Tillman's life and development as a football player. I'm a huge NFL fan, so that was the hook for me. I think Krakauer had a pretty clear political agenda, but he certainly didn't pull any punches with anyone in the military or government. The book helped me better understand the situation in Afghanistan. Dr. R. Brit Katz, vice president of student life and dean of students Bringing Out the Best in People by Alan Loy McGinnis (Augsburg Fortress Publishers) In an era marked by incivility, coarseness, loneliness, and a celebrity-soaked culture, this book quietly reminds us that life is worth enjoying with meaningful, intimate relationships. McGinnis insists that enriching friendships are everyone’s destiny if we will practice earning them. Howard L. McMillan Jr., dean of the Else School of Management The Kill by Jan Neuharth (Paper Chase Farms)

Random House

Dr. George Bey, associate dean for International Education Bangkok Haunts by John Burdett (Random House) I am a big mystery freak, ever since I took a course on mystery novels with Tony Hillerman back at the University of New Mexico. This book is the third in a series about a detective that works in Thailand. All three are good, because the portrayal of modern Thai culture is interesting, but also because the protagonist, Sonchai Jitpleecheep is, such a fun character. He is a Buddhist cop who, as one reviewer said, is “as closely attuned to karma as to crime.”

Jan Neuharth was a successful practicing attorney until she moved to Middleburg, Va., the “capitol” of the Virginia Hunt Country. She has written three very interesting mystery novels set

in Middleburg: The Hunt, The Chase, and The Kill. I have read all three. My son and his family live in Haymarket, Va., a small community adjacent to Middleburg. That is why we have an interest in the area. Michael Thorp, dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (Little, Brown and Company) I’m fond of David Sedaris on multiple levels. Because Me Talk Pretty is a collection of essays, it’s easy to pick up in short segments. Finally, and most importantly, it’s funny. I find Sedaris’ humor to be very human: it’s real and is always served with a twist. His sense of humor reminds me of Woody Allen, but toned down. Dr. Tim Ward, associate dean for Sciences With The Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge (Presidio Press) My dad was in the Marine Corps and survived five landings in the Pacific Ocean, including Okinawa, so this book holds a particular interest to me. It was loaned to me by Dr. Bill Storey in our History Department. He recommended it, and I am very drawn into their experiences and imagining what my dad must have experienced. He really never talked about his war experience other than indicating a tremendous pride in his service. Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

ON CAMPUS

Millsaps matches piano lessons with service learning project for youth Rachel Heard’s students become piano teachers. BY JESSE CROW

got it!” Kayla said excitedly with a glimmer in her eyes after she played the beginner piano exercise “Men From Mars” correctly the ﬁrst time through. Kayla is one of eight fourth- and ﬁfth-grade students who came to Millsaps College once a week earlier this year for an hour-long piano lesson. She participated in Project Innovation, an after-school program in the North Midtown neighborhood of Jackson. Students from Dr. Rachel Heard’s Piano Pedagogy II class taught piano lessons as the service learning component of their practicum-style class. The students from Project Innovation received 10 lessons during the spring semester. Heard, along with Director of the Faith and Work Initiative Dr. Darby Ray and Director of Project Innovation LaTanya Dixon, arranged the lessons. “Professor Heard and I worked together a couple of years ago to connect a couple of her piano students to children in Operation Shoestring’s after-school program,” said Ray. “What is new this time is that we now have a piano lab at Millsaps, which makes it possible for us to teach eight kids at a time.” The class began with Heard sharing the topic of the day and what they would study. Student teachers and Heard then paired off with the children, one teacher for every two students. New material was introduced to the students, and they worked on learning new solo and duet pieces. After the students practiced

“I

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their pieces individually, the class played them together or in pairs. Heard’s students gained experience in the field of teaching an instrument, and the students from Project Innovation developed skills and talents by learning to play a musical instrument. “The keyboard lab has a special control box which allows me to listen to the children play individually while observing the Millsaps students as they teach them,” Heard said. “Since I am also teaching two children during the class, the Millsaps students can observe my teaching of elementary-age beginner students. Following class, we briefly discuss how the class went.” Project Innovation students concluded their instruction with a recital for family and friends. Heard and Ray hope the program will continue. “Professor Heard’s piano pedagogy students will always need piano pupils, and of course there will always be kids who could benefit from music education, so in that sense the program will endure. What we’re not currently able to do, however, is keep the instruction going with a particular set of kids,” said Ray. “A child might get a semester’s worth of great piano instruction, but that might be the only instruction they’ll ever get. Right now we are able to get the ball rolling, but we can’t really keep it rolling over the long run.” Heard teaches the Piano Pedagogy II class in alternating years, so the next lessons will occur in spring 2013.

BEYOND CAMPUS

Students dig into history of Millsaps-Buie House, home of founder of College Michael Galaty’s students get hands-on experience. BY NELL LUTER FLOYD

illsaps College archaeology students learned how to conduct an archaeological dig while digging into the history of the Millsaps-Buie House in Jackson. They turned up pieces of pottery, bone fragments, oyster shells, and a light blue, square sequin, probably lost from an evening gown, perhaps that of Mary Millsaps, wife of Major Reuben Webster Millsaps. “Perhaps the most important discovery made at the MillsapsFor budding arBuie House in 2011 is that there are a lot of historic artifacts there, chaeology students, under the ground, waiting to be found,” said Dr. Michael Galaty, there is nothing professor of anthropology at Millsaps. “We hope to return in 2012 better than getting and expand excavations.” their hands dirty. The home, located at 628 N. State St., was completed around 1888 for Major Reuben Webster Millsaps, founder of Millsaps College. The historic building now houses the law firm of Hawkins Stracener & Gibson and the law firm of Louis H. Watson Jr. John Hawkins is a 1990 graduate of Millsaps. Eric Stracener is a 1987 graduate of Millsaps. Watson is an adjunct professor in the Else School of Management at Millsaps. Students in Galaty’s course in Archaeological Method and Theory excavated three 3-x-3-foot pits and one 3-x-6-foot pit in the backyard of the house. The dig provided students experience in archaeological field research and is preparation for those who plan careers in archaeology. Two students will accompany Galaty to do research in Albania this summer, while others will head to Yucatán with Dr. George Bey, associate dean for international education and professor of sociology and anthropology. Dr. Jamie Harris, professor of geology at Millsaps, used ground-penetrating radar to help students determine where to dig. Some of the artifacts will be analyzed in the Millsaps College W.M. Keck Center for Instrumental and Biochemical Comparative Archaeology, the only undergraduate lab in the country focused on biochemical archaeological analysis. The Keck lab has analyzed European and Central American archaeological artifacts from such places as Albania, Sweden, and Mexico, and collaborates with universities and colleges throughout the nation. “What is truly remarkable about the Keck Lab is the diversity of projects it can support,” said Dr. Tim Ward, associate dean of the Division of Sciences at Millsaps College. “In addition to the archaeological research, the lab has developed collaborations with the Audubon Society on projects such as the Gulf oil spill, assisted premed and other Millsaps students in the sciences with their research projects, and supported a recycling project in the Else School of Management at Millsaps College.” For budding archaeology students, there is nothing better than getting their hands dirty. “I really could not be more thrilled about my excavation pit at the MillsapsBuie House and the Albanian trip this summer,” said Frances Tubb, a sophomore at Millsaps. “For an anthropology student, there really is not anything more exciting than hands-on experience.”

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

beyond Campus

History comes alive at Gathering on the Green thanks to Millsaps students Stephanie Rolph’s students become researchers and re-create a grocery store. by jesse yancy, freelance writer

t Jones Bros. Grocery at the corner of Pearl and State in downtown Jackson, you can buy lemon drops for your sweet tooth, a tonic for what ails you, and flour for a batch of biscuits. That is, if you were shopping in the 1890s. Jones Bros. is gone, a casualty of time and the changing face of Jackson. Even so, students in Dr. Stephanie Rolph’s History of Mississippi class at Millsaps College recently rekindled its spirit, recreating a turn-of-the-century grocery store on the Old Capitol grounds. Their re-enactment was part of the second annual Gathering on the Green on the grounds of the Old Capitol Green in April and the capstone of their semester-long study of local history. Rolph’s students performed most of their historical research on Jackson during the 1880s and 1890s at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History using collections, microfilmed newspapers, city directories, and photographs. They established what the downtown area included during a period of significant growth in the capital city.

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Their research was challenging—and sometimes frustrating. “It was at times extremely discouraging to spend hours looking and not find anything,” said Kate Sundell, a history major from Franklin, Tenn. “Yet there were the days that I found speeches from senators and editorials written by yeoman farmers, and I was so excited. I felt as if I had discovered some ancient evidence that had forever been thought to be lost,” Sundell said. “The days when my blank notebook pages came into contact with fresh quotes and new dates and opinions were the days when I never questioned being a history major.” The students focused on Jones Bros. and used their research to construct a store display with candy, medicinal items, food products, and other notions of the day. Students conducted 19th-century games for children, such as sack races and gold sifting. They also displayed a city map from the period that marked the businesses in existence around the Old Capitol. “The students spent several weeks in the Archives before

BEYOND CAMPUS

they settled on what they wanted to do,” Rolph said. “They liked the idea of the Gathering on the Green because they wanted to do a family-friendly exhibit. They focused their attentions on the 1890s, located the grocery store, and found out that there were several traveling fairs and carnivals that came through Jackson at different times, and they used the advertisements for those to ﬁgure out what sorts of games were played.” Rolph, a Millsaps graduate and Jackson native, said that one of her goals when she returned to her alma mater was to tie her classes to local history and give history students the chance to take advantage of studying where they can get hands-on experience in the state’s Archives. “I worked with the Service Learning Project at Millsaps, where you can incorporate community service into the class for credit,” she said. “It’s also a way to contribute to the Old Capitol. They have a lot of resources, and it was almost an internship opportunity for the students to see what the Old Capitol Museum does and how it operates.” Clay Williams, director of the Old Capitol Museum, said the Millsaps project and Gathering on the Green came together as he assisted Rolph in her Mississippi History course. “I met Dr. Rolph this past summer and gave her a tour of the Old Capitol Museum,” Williams said. “She expressed interest in wanting her students to work on a public history project. Her class came to my museum, and then I met with them in their classroom to discuss public history and the museum,” Williams said. “After discussing many possible project ideas,

the group decided to focus their energies on our Gathering on the Green event.” Williams said that the class proposal had many good components. “The exhibits and displays touched on Jackson’s early history and games which would be great as well, since we do have plenty of families and kids who attend this event.” Andy Kennedy, a senior anthropology student from Brandon and 2011 graduate, said he and his classmates “have gathered much more knowledge on the state in general, and Jackson specifically, than anyone in the class had ever known before.” “We have also learned how hard and time-consuming putting a project together like this can be,” he said. “Research was especially difficult. Even with the Archives, much of the information we were looking for was either buried somewhere deep in the recesses of the Archives or simply non-existent.” Rolph said her students are “benefiting from the experiences they’re getting in the profession of history itself. “A number of them are history majors, and that shows them a different aspect of history, what we call public history, which you don’t get in the classroom. This keeps them conscious of the public use of history … how it is used to tie the community together.”

Bucket brigade helps salamanders cross Natchez Trace Parkway The numbers are in, and the volunteer amphibian rescue team known as the “bucket brigade” helped save 153 spotted salamanders, 57 marbled salamanders, 36 Webster’s salamanders, and three slimy salamanders this year, with assistance from Millsaps students in Dr. Markus Tellkamps’ conservation biology class. Also rescued were many frogs and toads, including Fowlers’ toads, gray tree frogs, green tree frogs, spring peepers, cricket frogs, pickerel frogs, southern leopard frogs, and bull frogs. As part of their service learning project, students helped creatures such as the spotted salamander cross the Natchez Trace Parkway between mileposts 85 and 87 in Hinds County. Why the fuss? Dozens of amphibians are killed by cars as they attempt to cross the parkway while they are on the move to a pond to mate and lay eggs. Many roads have been constructed between their forest habitat and pond, and they need help to cross the road safely. Others are killed as they move about to forage. In order to rescue these animals and gather scientiﬁc data about their migrations, the “bucket brigade” was begun ﬁve years ago by Tom Mann, a biologist with the Mississippi Natural Heritage Program of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks and Dr. Bill Stark from Mississippi College in cooperation with the National Park Service and with assistance from Dr. Debora Mann, assistant professor of biology at Millsaps College and other volunteers.

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

AROUND THE WORLD

Two students awarded Fulbright Fellowships to study abroad One goes to Mexico, and the other to Bangladesh. BY KARA G. PAULK

Sarah Hartzog

wo Millsaps College students have received Fulbright Fellowships, awarded by the U.S. Department of State, to spend next year abroad. Sarah Hartzog, a 2011 graduate from Silver Creek, received a Fulbright award to study business in Mexico. A double major in accounting and Spanish with a concentration in global business, Hartzog has traveled to Mexico several times with Millsaps and completed an international ac“Sarah is a remarkable counting internship in Merida, scholar and student Mexico during a summer break. with an adventurous As part of her Fulbright, spirit that will take her Hartzog will take master of to amazing places.” business administration classes at a university in Mexico and will have a full-time internship with an international corporation based in Mexico. “Sarah is a remarkable scholar and student with an adventurous spirit that will take her to amazing places,” said Harvey Fiser, associate professor of business law in the Else School of Management.

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Emily Tuberville

Emily Tuberville, a 2011 graduate from Germantown, Tenn., received a Fulbright award to teach English in Bangladesh. She graduated with degrees in English and elementary education. “Emily is visibly excited at the prospect of working in a new culture and making a difference in others’ lives through education,” said Dr. Greg Miller, professor of English at Millsaps. During her time at Millsaps, Tuberville tutored refugees from Sudan. “Emily is dedicated to education. She is already an excellent teacher, in my experience, and I am conﬁdent she will make new con“Emily is visibly extributions to her students cited at the prospect throughout her life. And I of working in a new fully expect that Emily will culture and makalso offer much to other ing a difference in teachers in the future—be others’ lives through that through her scholarship, her administrative abilities, or education.” her expanding knowledge of the world’s cultural diversity,” Miller said.

AROUND THE WORLD

Two students participate in History Scholars Program in New York One does research, and the other visits historical sites. BY NELL LUTER FLOYD

Natalie Rebentisch

Kelly Brignac

wo Millsaps College history majors spent part of historical tour of the area. She was one of 30 awardees who their summer in New York City on behalf of the attended lectures with leading historians and discussed career Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. opportunities for history majors. “We visited sites such as the Natalie Rebentisch was one of ten history New York Public Library,” she said. undergraduates nationwide chosen to spend five Brignac is a senior from New Orleans. After graduation weeks in New York City working on a primary research from Millsaps, she plans to pursue a doctorate in earproject in the field of American history. In addition ly modern European history with a specialty in to research, she and her fellow scholars were French history. involved in exclusive seminars led by scholars The Gilder Lehrman Institute fully fund“I will be conductin the field of early American history. They ed the awards of Rebentisch and Brignac. ing primary research gained access to private tours of the vast arThe Gilder Lehrman Institute of American at various archive chival collections in the city. History is a nonprofit organization supportsites and putting “I conducted primary research at variing the study and love of American histogether a project on ous archive sites and put together a project tory through programs and resources for the Civil War.” on the Civil War,” Rebentisch said. “Every students, teachers, scholars, and history enyear the institute selects a general topic and thusiasts throughout the nation. The Institute then everyone puts together a project relevant to creates and works closely with history-focused that topic. This year is the 150th anniversary of the schools; organizes summer seminars and developbeginning of the Civil War, so that is why it was the theme of ment programs for teachers; produces print and digital publicathis year’s summer program.” tions and traveling exhibitions; hosts lectures by eminent histoA senior from Houston, Texas, Rebentisch is majoring in rians; administers a History Teacher of the Year Award in every history and political science. After graduation from Millsaps, state and U.S. territory; and offers book prizes and fellowships she plans to attend graduate school to study medical history. for scholars. Kelly Brignac spent a week in New York City in an intensive

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

FACULTY AND STAFF

Accolades Millsaps faculty members spend time in the classroom, but that’s nowhere near all that they do. They find time for research and/or creative endeavors, and they participate in professional activities that expand their knowledge and enhance their teaching. Our staff members stay busy, too. Here are some of their recent professional activities. William Bares, associate professor of computer science, presented at the 2011 Crossroads Film Festival in Madison. Dr. Bares, with Millsaps physics students Alex Olinger and Lihuang (Michael) Zhu, computer science student Nick Buckner, and local electrical engineer Tyler Smith, demonstrated several home-built controller devices for moving and aiming a simulated movie camera in a virtual 3D world. Connie Campbell, professor of mathematics, received the 2011 Distinguished Teaching Award for the Louisiana/Mississippi Section of the Mathematical Association of America. Cengage Learning published her textbook, Introduction to Advanced Mathematics: A Guide to Understanding Proofs, in January. Damon Campbell, assistant professor of management information systems, published three papers this academic year: “Understanding the Effect on Interface Characteristics on Perceptions of Online Advertising” in Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application, “The Effect of Perceived Novelty on the Adoption of Information Technology Innovations: A Risk/Reward Perspective” in Decision Sciences, and “Mapping the Need for Mobile Collaboration Technologies: A Fit Perspective” in International Journal of e-Collaboration. Michael Galaty, professor of sociology, published his article “World-Systems Analysis and Anthropology: A New Détente?” in the journal Reviews in Anthropology. He is chair of the Program for the Annual Meeting Committee of

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the Archaeological Institute of America. The PAMC vets papers for and organizes the AIA’s annual meeting, which several thousand archaeologists from across the globe attend. Darby Ray, professor of religious studies and director of the Faith and Work Initiative, had a book published by Fortress Press as part of its Living series. Her book, Working, was inspired and informed by ten years of teaching the course, The Meaning of Work, at Millsaps. She was also one of six scholars chosen to participate in the Undergraduate Collaboratory sponsored by Imagining America: Scholars and Artists in Public Life. Shadow Robinson, associate professor of physics, has published three research publications—“Comparison of Shell Model Results for Some Properties of the Even-Even Ge Isotopes,” “Ratio of Isoscalar to Isovector Core Polarization for Magnetic Moments,” and “The g factors of the low lying states in 106Pd, or how vibrational is 106Pd?”—since December 2010. Ryan Roy, public service librarian, wrote and produced the short ﬁlm “Murderabilia,” which has won four awards in the past year. The movie won the Audience Choice Award at the 2010 Mississippi International Film Festival, Best Mississippi Narrative at the 2011 Oxford Film Festival, Programmer’s Choice Award at the 2011 Crossroads Film Festival, and Best Short Film at the 2011 Orlando Freak Show Film Festival.

Elise Smith, professor of art history, had a book published by Cambridge University Press in March 2011. Entitled Women, Literature, and the Domesticated Landscape: England’s Disciples of Flora, 1780-1870, it was co-authored with Judy Page (formerly at Millsaps, now at the University of Florida). Smith’s article “Engaging the Visitor: Architectural Rhetoric and the Inclusive Art Museum,” was published in The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum. Steven Smith, professor of philosophy and religious studies, published “Staging Shared Action: The Museum as Historical Mobilizer” in International Journal of the Inclusive Museum. Marlys Vaughn, professor of education, published “Thinking Otherwise; Transitioning K-12 Best Practices for Cognitive Rehabilitation” in the International Journal of Learning. Patti P. Wade, director of the Ofﬁce of Communications, was elected president of the Public Relations Association of Mississippi Central Chapter for 2011. PRAM consists of approximately 600 public relations professionals across the state. The organization supports a code of ethics in the practice of the public relations profession and encourages professional accreditation through testing and peer review panels. David Yates, assistant professor of classical studies, published “The Role of Cato the Younger in Caesar’s Bellum Civile” in Classical World.

FACULTY AND STAFF

Millsaps College welcomes new senior vice president and dean of the College New dean is a teacher-scholar and administrator with a background in chemistry. BY KARA G. PAULK

r. S. Keith Dunn is the new senior vice president for academic affairs and dean of the College. Dunn joins Millsaps from Centre College in Danville, Ky. where he was a professor of chemistry and associate dean for academic affairs. “Dr. Dunn will bring tremendous value as an accomplished professor, researcher and administrator to the college, and we are pleased to appoint him to this vital role,” said Dr. Robert W. Pearigen, president of Millsaps College. At Centre, Dunn is credited for his leadership in facilitating the design and completion of a $20 million addition and

renovation project to a campus facility dedicated to instruction and research in the sciences. Dunn was also lead investigator for a $1,080,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Dunn earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Erskine College in 1988, where he graduated cum laude. He then earned a doctorate in 1993 in physical chemistry from Indiana University, where he held a postdoctoral fellowship and a research assistantship and also received a DuPont Teaching Award. Dunn began his work at Centre in 1990 as a visiting instructor and joined the faculty on a full-time basis in 1993. He earned tenure in 1998 and was promoted to full professor in 2008. Dunn will be joined at Millsaps by his wife of 20 years, Beth, and their two sons, Alex, age 12, and Drew, age 9.

Originality and vividness deﬁne Writers Series

BY LUCY MOLINARO

he Millsaps Visiting Writers Series, curated by Assistant Professor of English Dr. Steve Kistulentz, brings to campus outstanding writers from a broad spectrum of experience and talent. Each visit features a craft talk or lecture, followed by a public reading. Kistulentz has shaped the Visiting Writers Series so that the writers and writing presented defy categorization. “The most interesting and vivid writing today is done by people who are engaged with the culture across a multitude of levels,” Kistulentz said. Mark Winegardner, who opened the series in 2009, began his career writing about Elvis impersonators and baseball before becoming a highly-regarded novelist. His most recent work, The Godfather Returns, is an acclaimed continuation of the story of the Corleones, the mafia family made famous in Mario Puzo’s novels. Introductions to writers can be galvanizing for students, Kistulentz said. He recalls seeing and hearing published writers in his undergraduate years at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. “It was a hugely formative experience for me, and in a way it demystified the process of writing. Writing becomes more of a vocation than some sort of magical event, and it allowed me to visualize my own future as a writer.” The series brought to campus Steve Almond in March 2010, Richard Bausch in September 2010, Jennifer Vanderbes in October 2010, Erika Meitner and Mary Biddinger in November 2010, Tom McAllister in January, David Philip Mullins in February, Richard Tillinghast in March, and Mary Helen Stefaniak in April. An award-winning writer himself, Kistulentz published his first book of poems, The Luckless Age, in early 2011 with Red Hen Press. Kistulentz’s career spans a wide variety of experiences, including 15 years of work as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., and work as a professional rock musician. The Luckless Age has been lauded by his peers and received the 2010 Benjamin Saltman Award. Kistulentz is currently at work on several projects, including a book about television, a novel, and a second poetry collection. The energy and inspiration found in both the Writers Series and Kistulentz’s own work embody his advice for aspiring creators: “Even if you don’t write, find the time to read a story, look at a painting, and record what strikes you as weird, odd, amusing, strange, touching. And then get back to work.”

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

FACULTY AND STAFF

Welty scholar produces book about friendship between writer and editor Book receives positive reviews. BY KARA G. PAULK

udora Welty once wrote in The Norton Book of Friendship: “All letters, old and new, are the still-existing parts of a life. To read them now is to be present when some discovery of truth – or perhaps untruth, some ﬂash of light – is just oc-

had with her,” Marrs said. In one letter, Welty describes getting together with friends for the Harmonic Convergence, referring to the alignment of the planets in 1987, and Marrs was part of that event. Marrs, who is the author of Eudora Welty: A Biography and One Writer’s Imagination: The Fiction of Eudora Welty, also learned a few things she didn’t know about Welty and was glad to see a New Yorker interofﬁce opinion sheet in which Maxwell ardently, if futilely, argued that the magazine should publish Welty’s “The Whole World Knows.” The story ultimately appeared in Harper’s Bazaar. “The letters reveal the deep love William Maxwell had for his family,” said Marrs, referring to Maxwell’s wife, Emmy, and daughters, Kate and Brookie. “They also reveal the love of the entire Maxwell family for Eudora.” “When Eudora and Bill faced the death of a parent or friend, they were able to support each other through letters. Their friend-

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curring.” In her new book, What There Is to Say We Have Said, Dr. Suzanne Marrs, professor of English and Welty Foundation Scholar-in-Residence at Millsaps College, chronicles the friendship of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell through their letters that span nearly 50 years. What began as a professional relationship blossomed into a long friendship between two highly esteemed fiction writers of twentieth-century America. The book began two years ago and involved Marrs reading and transcribing nearly 500 letters between Eudora Welty and Maxwell, Welty’s editor at The New Yorker. In today’s times of e-mail commuThe letters reveal the deep love William Maxnication, a book like this might not be well had for his family...They also reveal the nearly as easy in the future. “We’ve love of the entire Maxwell family for Eudora. lost a lot of the letter writing talents that people once had. Letters are of the ship sustained them both,” Marrs said. “Their moment and catch the spirit of the moconnection, Maxwell believed, began before ment,” Marrs said. they ever met. Their childhoods were so similar, he wrote In the beginning, the letters are adto Eudora, that it was as if 'we grew up on a tandem bicycle.'” dressed more formally with “Dear Miss Welty” and “Dear Mr. Marrs was also impressed with their working relationship Maxwell” but soon become more personal. In the letters Welty as writer and editor. and Maxwell discuss their families, books, and travels. “You see “He would suggest but never impose changes,” Marrs said. their friendship develop until they are close enough to confide Katie Hamm, a 2009 Millsaps graduate who works as spetheir deepest worries and joy to each other,” Marrs said. cial projects coordinator at the Eudora Welty House, provided Marrs worked with Maxwell’s daughter Kate in annotating assistance with proofing the manuscript. the letters. Kate helped to identify Maxwell family friends, and In 2003, Millsaps students inventoried letters sent to Welty the book includes 50 letters that Kate found last year at her by various writers, including novelists Reynolds Price and Elizaparents’ house. As Welty’s friend and biographer, Marrs enjoyed beth Bowen. The students’ descriptions of the letters were put hearing Welty’s voice again in letters about her close family ties, into a database at the Eudora Welty House. The information her excitement when encountering new books, plays, and placfound in those letters in 2003— and in Welty’s letters to Maxes, and her wide circle of friends. “Her tone of voice reminded me of many conversations I well—continue to shed light on a wonderful woman’s work, and give the world a greater insight into her life and writing.

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FACULTY AND STAFF

Assistant professor of Spanish receives Outstanding Young Faculty Award Professor introduces innovative classes about Hispanic culture and women. BY KARA G. PAULK

r. Sarah W. Bares, assistant professor of Spanish and director of the Language Resource Center, is the most recent recipient of the Outstanding Young Faculty Award at Millsaps College. The award is given each year to recognize a untenured faculty member for her or his contributions to the life of the College and to give time for the individual to develop teaching, scholarship, or artistic accomplishments. Bares receives a one-semester release from teaching and $1,000 to support her research activities. Bares earned a Bachelor of Arts with high honors in English and Spanish from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. in Spanish from New York University. She has been a full-time assistant professor at Millsaps since 2006. “Sarah has shown herself to be a dedicated and challenging teacher, well-liked by her students and well-respected by her colleagues across the College,” said Dr. David C. Davis, while acting as interim vice president and dean of the College. “Her service to the College has been impressive, particularly her directorship of the Language Resource Center and her leadership in establishing the ﬁrst Millsaps Spanish language program in Yucatán in 2008.”

As a member of the Department of Modern Languages, Bares has advocated curricular changes and introduced innovative classes on contemporary Hispanic culture and women in Spanish-American literature. Her work on instructional technology has benefited all her colleagues, and she is a leader in creative and innovative use of film and video editing in language classes. While at Millsaps, Bares has published peer-reviewed articles in the Latin Americanist, and has been commended in teaching and service for the last three years. She plans to use her release time to complete a scholarly/student edition of the colonial Latin American text, Infortunios que Alonso Ramirez, first published in 1690. This text would be used in colonial Latin American literature courses and will highlight, publicize and compliment the Millsaps programs in Yucatán. All full-time, untenured faculty members in their third, fourth, or fifth year at Millsaps are eligible for consideration. A recipient must show evidence of noteworthy teaching, exceptional promise for scholarly or artistic accomplishments, and serious attention to the duties and responsibilities of a faculty member.

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

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Millsaps

Tradi t i

o n

BY BRIT KATZ

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

FEATURE

“T

radition, tradition, tradition!” sings Tevye the milkman in “Fiddler On the Roof.” In that classic Broadway musical, Tevye’s entire family quickly chants the same words. Like an incantation, the group repeats “tradition” until the number receives rapturous applause from an appreciative audience. Similarly, most of us value our traditions, whether they are our holidays, our regular family reunions, our religious liturgies, or our football weekends. Edward Shils, in his book Tradition (1981), describes our traditions as anything we transmit or hand down from the past to the present. Traditions might be material objects, beliefs, images, practices—even institutions—one generation passes them to the next. But, for this “handing down” to succeed, a certain persistence or recurrence must occur; otherwise, a tradition isn’t embraced by its multiple generations, but resembles a ﬂeeting fashion statement. As examples, George and Martha Washington are embraced as symbols of American tradition. In contrast, “Brangelina (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie)” could be remembered as temporal fashionistas. To further explain the difference, Shils provides a criterion for a tradition: at least three generations must celebrate and pass down the event or symbols. Since its founding in 1890, Millsaps students, faculty, and staff have long valued, celebrated, and internalized seminal moments and memories of their shared experiences.

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Colleges especially value the impact of traditions for connecting members to their alma mater, for enhancing the quality of campus life, and for developing the myths of folklore that magically elevate an institution’s reputation. In Campus Life: In Search of Community (1990), author Ernest Boyer claims that “The goal should be to build alliances between the classroom and campus life, to ﬁnd group activities, traditions, and common values to be shared.” Since its earliest days as an undergraduate college, Millsaps has sought to involve its entire community in its most important institutional values, thereby creating solidarity and animating these principles for future generations. As an example of this spirit, Major Reuben Webster Millsaps, our founder, loved the College so much that he was laid to rest amid the epicenter of the grounds and people important to him. It’s not unusual to see a wreath placed by anonymous students on the entrance, in homage to the patron Major and his wife, Mary, entombed alongside him. By the time the Classes of 1926 -1928 graduated, student leaders in these three cohorts wanted a gathering place between their classes. Learning of a famous bench at the University of Chicago, the Classes of 1926, 1927, and 1928 funded the “M Bench” that is adjacent to the Tomb of the Major. The current tradition associated with our bench is that the ﬁrst person a Millsaps student kisses on the bench will be the person that he or she will marry. Thus, numerous realtime marriage proposals are extended at this site, a pledge and promise of love enhanced by the surrounding, fragrant Nichol-

Bygone Traditions Dr. Alexander Farrar Watkins, president of Millsaps College from 1912-1923, and his wife, Lula Gaulding Watkins, initiated Spring Cleaning Day to keep students busy and to discourage pranks on April Fool’s Day. Male freshman students had their heads shaved of hair by upper classmen in the 1950s. Freshmen wore beanies. For several years in the 1950s, the faculty produced a play, or skit, for the students. “Three Wise Fools” is one such production. Freshmen Day in the 1950s meant freshmen wore pajamas to class and carried books to class in a pillow case. Males had to carry a rag with which to dust chairs and clean upperclassmen’s shoes, climb stairs backwards, and sit on the floor of the cafeteria and eat meals only with a knife. Women were not allowed to wear any makeup or comb their hair. Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

Modern Traditions First-year students sign the Honor Code. The fall semester includes a formal convocation with faculty decked out in academic regalia. First-year students celebrate Fourth Night on their fourth day of being a college student. Each first-year student writes a letter to himself or herself, listing goals for the next four years, and then receives the letter four years later after commencement practice. Juniors celebrate the Eve of the Seventh Season, which signifies the beginning of their senior year. Before receiving a bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree, a student must pass a satisfactory comprehensive exam in the major field of study. Galloway Memorial United Methodist Church in downtown Jackson is the site of the baccalaureate service, scheduled the evening before commencement. Graduating seniors and their families have one last party during the Last Hurrah the evening before commencement. The commencement ceremony, weather permitting, is outside in the Bowl. The Founders Medal goes to the graduating senior with the highest grade point average and receiving an excellent on comprehensive examinations. The recipient must have taken all of his or her classes at Millsaps. The Frank and Rachel Anne Laney Award goes to the graduating senior who has written the finest essay reflecting the value of a Millsaps liberal arts education. The alumni association president leads graduates in tossing their mortar boards. Homecoming is the traditional weekend in the fall for alumni and friends to return to campus and reconnect with the College, enjoy a football game, and meet and greet fellow alums and professors. Students avoid stepping on the college seal that is in the middle of the Bowl. Rumor has it that if you step on the seal, you will not graduate. The Purple & White publishes an April Foolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edition. 30

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FEATURE

Billy Hargis (opposite page) reads by candle light. Laura Sorey, Madeleine Porter, and Elizabeth Meyer celebrate the Eve of the Seventh Season.

son Garden. upperclassmen. From their involvement, new students staked From an historical point of view, some now-defunct tradi- their claims of ownership for the campus culture, the symbolic tions affirmed members of different groups as full participants actions focused upon upperclass students, and the College itin the campus community’s life. According to older Major Facts self. Now these expectations are expressed in a more contemstudent handbooks, all freshmen males were once reporary culture that focuses upon unity. quired to suffer a “freshmen haircut” and to don an Millsaps prizes student ownership of its traidentifying “beanie” for the first two weeks of ditions. As a college that traditionally seeks school. Additionally, freshmen were required student participation in all areas of learning, “We must cherish to wear costumes for specific occasions, and Millsaps fits a description of an “involving our yesterdays, but on “Freshman Day,” all first-year students college” as outlined by George Kuh (Innever carry them were subject to the orders and rules esvolving Colleges, 1991). Kuh lists several tablished by upperclassmen. Among those factors in an institution’s claim to being an as a burden into rules for all students were: (1) carrying their “involving college,” including a campus culthe future..” books in pillow cases, (2) carrying rags to ture that values student involvement, and wipe upperclassmen’s seats, (3) avoiding walkthe acknowledgement of learning outside the ing on sidewalks, (4) backing in and out of doors classroom as a contributor to the institution’s and down stairs, (5) being ready to sing the alma maeducational purposes. ter at any time, (6) sitting on the cafeteria floor for all meals For Millsaps, depending upon the generation in which and only eating with a knife, and (7) being prepared as a fresh- they graduated, students and alumni lay claim to their own man class to gather and scrub down the Major’s Tomb with a favorite experiences. toothbrush. And the rules were gender specific, too. Boys were Fraternities and sororities are as aged as the College itself, required to wear pajamas and to curtsy to all upperclassmen. with the first of the service-social organizations chartered in The girls were required to wear no makeup and to bow to the the 1890s. Twelve fraternities and sororities are recognized to-

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

FEATURE

Mignon and Gabby Sicard, sisters and 2011 graduates, read after commencement practice the letters they wrote to themselves as freshmen.

day. The spirit of athletics was begun by Professor Hanner in 1897 at the first athletic field day, then followed by the state championship baseball team of 1915, the now-disbanded Dixie Conference championship basketball teams of the 1930-1940s, and the first nighttime football game in state history, against the Mississippi State University Maroons in 1931. Women’s varsity competitions came alive in the 1980s, and nine varsity women’s sports compete for Major Pride now. For many, the Millsaps Players theater troupe represents traditions of talent, creativity, and personal expression. The Singers, Chamber Singers, and Major Melodies continue to provide vocal outlets for students to harmonize their classical pieces, Broadway melodies, or contemporary stanzas; they remain a constant hub for fanfare, fun, and flair. Alumni groups meet to reflect upon their faculty, festivals, and friendships on the various stages. At the center of attraction is the unique social interaction that constructs lasting communities. Homecoming weekends have long attracted families and friends of Millsaps to stroll campus grounds, witness the crowning of Homecoming Court royalty, and rotate to the many cocktail parties that close that Saturday night. Students still demand

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their “Major Madness,” the springtime explosion of concerts, crawfish boils, movie nights, and comedians. Our Senior Year Experience culminates in the “Senior Leadership Class Party,” and “The Last Hurrah” in the days preceding commencement exercises. A consistent point of pride in tradition lies in our history of support for egalitarianism. During the turbulent times of the 1950s and 1960s, the faculty, students, alumni, and Methodist Bishops stood steadfastly on the side of civil rights progress, on the side of women and men of color, on the side of equal opportunity. Opening our doors, literally and figuratively, to all persons with a love of rigorous academic standards created a wealth of individual and collective stories of determination and sacrifice that shape Millsaps’ self-awareness today. One resulting tradition in 2011 is the announcement each year of the Rev. Ed King Leader of Values and Ethics Award. King, Class of 1958, is a Mississippi civil rights lion, an embodiment of unselfish devotion to the civil rights movement. Each spring the College bestows the King Award to a student who expresses principled leadership for a moral cause that may encounter public opposition but over time proves to be true.

FEATURE

Graduating seniors Brittany Tourelle, Evan Parker, and Ben McNair share the thoughts they wrote to themselves during their first days as freshmen.

Some traditions socialize students to how the College expects people to behave. Fourth Night is the introduction of new students to the campus community, staged on the fourth night of their arrival to Millsaps, culminating with the public recitation of the Major’s Creed and its binding pledge to abide by the Student Code of Conduct. Academic Convocation is always held in the ﬁrst week of classes, displaying faculty members in their academic regalia to witness new students signing the College Honor Code. The Hall of Fame is the highest honor bestowed by the student body upon a graduating senior, and the revelation of the four recipients is a highlight of the year. A product of this formal installation of Hall of Fame members is to set them as role models for underclassmen, with formal permanent portraiture of the honorees in the College Center as a visible reminder to be the best one can be. The Faith and Work academic initiative elicits a passion from students to match their inner aspirations with the vocational and avocational choices of their futures. Since the inception of Faith and Work in 2000, numerous alumni claim its programs and community connections are among their fondest memories that lure them back to Millsaps.

In recent years, new traditions afﬁrm the participation of our citizens in the life of the College and campus. Juniors gather for their Eve of the Seventh Season, a happy conclusion of their junior year (or the sixth of eight semesters) and the onset of their senior season (hence, the seventh season or semester of their career). During the April ritual, the juniors walk together to each historical monument—from the West gates of the college, to the Major’s Tomb, the M Bench, the Bowl, the cannon, the Blymer Bell, and the East Gates—until each student receives her/his golden lapel pin. The pin is meant to be worn throughout the senior year. It is likely that the future will lead to new traditions, the reshaping of current Millsaps celebrations, and the discontinuation of some practices. As Andis Whitman writes, “We must cherish our yesterdays, but never carry them as a burden into the future. Each generation must take nourishment from the other and give knowledge to the one that comes after.”

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

FEATURE

The End of an Era Emeritus professor of biology figures he has taught 7,000 students, many of whom became physicians. BY NELL LUTER FLOYD

fter 49 years at Millsaps College, Dr. Jim McKeown has packed up his white lab coat. Not just one lab coat, but the four that members of various classes he has taught have designed and presented to him. The back of one features a hand-embroidered skeleton. Another shows an embryo screen printed in red. McKeown’s nickname, Big Mac, appears on another, and the words “Evolution at its finest” grace another. McKeown figures all total he has spent more than 200,000 hours lecturing, given 2,450 tests, and answered innumerable home and cell phone calls from students with questions. “I have high expectations and if I’m going to do that, I have to be able to help them at any time,” he said. “I tell them, ‘Just don’t call after 10:30.’ ” The classes he taught were academically challenging, and for that reason he accepted phone calls at home or wherever he might be—even the golf course on a pretty Sunday afternoon —until 10:30 p.m. seven days a week. McKeown, who has a bachelor’s from The University of the South, a master’s from the University of Mississippi, and a doctorate from Mississippi State University, taught his first class at Millsaps in the summer of 1962. “The first two weeks I was here, I got up every morning and threw up,” he said. “I loved it, but I was nervous about stepping in front of a class and being the authority.” Nina McLemore, among students in McKeown’s zoology class in 1962, has vivid memories of the time. “It was summer school, there was no air conditioning, and it was very hot,” she said. “There was so much camaraderie, and he made it interesting. I can still see us dissecting the brain of a dogfish shark. I loved the class and think about it often.” McLemore, who graduated from Louisiana State University, founded Liz Claiborne Accessories and the private investment firm Regent Capital Partners. She received an M.B.A. from Columbia University, established her own women’s clothing company in 2003, and has since dressed the likes of Hillary Clinton, but still thinks back to the zoology class that McKeown taught. “I read the science section of The New York Times every Thursday,” said McLemore, a former Millsaps College trustee, crediting McKeown for her continued interest in science. Dr. Gene Barrett, 1970, a Jackson orthopedic surgeon, remembers one of his first encounters with McKeown. “I had

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transferred from a junior college and had a 3.9 average, and he said, ‘You’re going to fail my course,’” Barrett said. Barrett proved McKeown wrong. “He intimidated me so much that we’d study every Saturday night in the lab,” said Barrett, recalling the comparative vertebrate morphology class. “About half the people in the class became doctors.” Dr. Ruth Fredericks, B.S. 1980, said McKeown “makes you a better student than you had ever envisioned.” “He was always prepared for class, always kept his door open, and was always available any time of night to answer questions,” said Fredericks, a neuro-oncologist who practices in the metro Jackson area. “He inspired his students to reach above their prior goals. This is the quality that separates a teacher from a true professor. He certainly impacted my life decisions.” McKeown taught Fredericks’ son, Andrew, B.S. 2010, who is a medical student at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine. McKeown was an academically demanding professor, but always kept a sense of humor, said Dr. Marion Wofford, B.S. 1978, professor of medicine at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine and a hypertension specialist. McKeown chaired Wofford’s committee for oral comprehensive exams. “One question he asked was, ‘Why don’t we see any penguins in the Arctic?’” she recalled. “The answer is that penguins live in Antarctica. It wasn’t a challenging question, but one that showed his sense of humor.” Wofford said McKeown encouraged students to broaden their view of the world. “One of the highlights of my college career was ecology field experiences he suggested as chairman of the Biology Department. I spent two summers going on field expeditions. One was to Alaska. There were 12 people and a dog in a van, and we drove to Alaska and back, camping out all the way,” she said. Leah Alford, B.S. 2007, a teacher at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Ridgeland, has known McKeown all her life. He taught her father, Dr. Tim Alford, B.S. 1978. “When I was young, he was the funny man who colored with me on the floor after coming in from a quail hunt with my dad,” she said. “But my perception of him changed in college when, 15 years later, the very same man clambered up on my desk during day one in zoology class, waved his tie in my face,

“ It’s exciting to see who accepts the idea, ‘I can be more than I think I can be.’ ... ”

and shouted, ‘I don’t know’ is not an acceptable answer. I’m not moving until you come up with something better than that, Alford.’ My ﬁrst class with McKeown was not the last time I shed tears over his classes. Looking back, I am all the better for it. “Dr. McKeown was an incredible teacher, mentor, and advisor to countless Millsaps grads. He scared and inspired and urged us towards our best selves. Millsaps will not be the same without him.” McKeown is a professor who will stand out in your mind years after you’ve left his classroom, said Stacey Douglas, B.S. 2005, a medical student at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine. She and her three brothers all majored in biology at Millsaps and donated the aquarium in Olin Hall of Science. “He is intimidating in his expectations of his students, beyond reproach in his knowledge of subject, and yet the very deﬁnition of approachable,” she said. “His lectures were somewhat legendary: You would hear the whistling coming down the hall, he’d swing into the room with his tiny coffee cup, pick up his colored chalk, and give the entire thing with no notes, no textbooks. He would pepper the information with jokes, sometimes song and dance. His classes were as fun and entertaining as they were challenging. “That’s the beautiful thing about the really great teachers, their teaching and their lives become intertwined and indistinguishable. Dr. McKeown has 49 years worth of students who

feel this way about him, who carry such fond memories of him, who are just so grateful they got to be part of his legacy.” McKeown has taught everything from cell biology to molecular biology, herpetology to entomology, cell physiology to biology, ichthyology to histology, and embryology to morphology. He ﬁgures he’s taught about 7,000 students, and about 600 to 700 of those have attended medical school. He chaired the Department of Biology for 17 years and served as associate dean of the Division of Sciences for eight years. He has played a role in the College instituting a formal convocation in the early 1970s, adopting an Honor Code, and establishing a Pre-Medical Advisory Committee. Dr. Tim Alford, a family physician in Kosciusko, said McKeown understands the maturation phases of a college student. “He gets great joy from seeing students realize their full potential, but does not hesitate to challenge a languishing student,” Alford said. McKeown said a highlight of his career has been watching students accept the challenge of his class. “It’s exciting to see who accepts the idea, ‘I can be more than I think I can be.’ They ﬁnd out over the year that they can. It’s a thrill to watch a student who might start off slow, but all of a sudden understands some of the concepts, and then begins working in camaraderie with the class.”

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

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Teaching students how to teach reading Emerita associate professor of education plans to continue work with literacy. BY RUTH CUMMINS, FREELANCE WRITER

sk Millsaps College Emerita Associate Professor of Education Connie Schimmel to name a favorite class she taught, and you’ll likely get the answer: Field Research in Reading. It wrapped together many of her passions: Excited, engaged students seeking licensure in Millsaps’ Department of Education; the joy and wonder of unlocking the secrets to reading, both in children and adults; and contributions her students will make to the teaching profession. “Field Research in Reading is one of my favorite classes, but I really like them all,” said Schimmel, who retired in 2011 after a career at Millsaps spanning 24 years. She would take her students to Green and Pecan Park elementary schools in the Jackson public school district, where

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each student was responsible for the reading remediation of four or ﬁve children. “The children improve on average three to four grade levels,” Schimmel said. Schimmel’s students also reaped beneﬁts. “Student teaching is such a wakeup call, and can be very stressful. So, when our students go into schools and are responsible for student progress before they student teach, they are ready and prepared for the classroom.” Much of Schimmel’s career has been devoted to reading, with a special emphasis on adults with low literacy skills and youth who are deaf or hearing-impaired. She is the founder of reading initiatives used locally and nationally, including training educators to use her Fairway Learning program. “I work with teachers and school systems across the coun-

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“What’s always been appealing about Millsaps is the sense try to implement my program to teach reading to deaf and hardof-hearing students, and I also direct a literacy project in the of community among the faculty,” Schimmel said. “Everyone has such expertise in their different disciplines. That hasn’t Mississippi Delta for adults,” Schimmel said. The programs have common goals, she said, of “high expec- changed; if anything, it continues to be one of the strongest aspects of the College.” tations in reading on grade level and above.” And, she said, her students were “a joy to teach. I’m alAnd, she partnered with Sandra Edwards, superintendent of the Mississippi School for the Deaf and an adjunct profes- ways laughing and telling them how polite they are. The issor in Millsaps’ Department of Education, to develop a class in sues change, but the students seem just as engaged as always. So many of them go on to make real differences in the world American Sign Language and Deaf Culture. Her class offerings gave students the most up-to-date tools through their teaching or graduate careers.” Bob Nevins, an associate professor of biology whose tenure to teach students at risk for academic failure at Millsaps spans more than 40 years, said Schimmel “ator students with other special-needs. tracts a lot of students. I’ve always looked forward to her “I visit her class every semester engaging personality.” and spend a couple of hours with “What’s always been He gives Schimmel credit for ensuring the Departher students, telling them about appealing about ment of Education maintains its state and national working with the disabled popuaccreditation. “They’ve always been receptive to our lation,” said Christy Dunaway, Millsaps is the sense of (biology) students coming through and picking up B.A. 1985, executive director of community among the the Jackson-based Living Indepeneducation requirements on the ﬂy,” he said of Schimfaculty.” dence for Everyone. mel’s department. “It’s amazing that a professor is In retirement, Schimmel said, she won’t give up her forward-thinking enough to talk about reading programs and work with the disabled population. the fact that they will be working with kids “I’m really looking forward to being outside and working on who have disabilities,” said Dunaway, who herself has a physi- my golf game,” she laughed. “I’d like to travel a bit more with cal disability and who received her bachelor’s degree in sociol- my husband John.” ogy from Millsaps. “She brings it to life for them. She shows Dunaway said the Millsaps community won’t be the same students real-life examples.” without Schimmel. “There will be a little hole there when she’s But some aspects of Schimmel’s Millsaps teaching experi- gone. Her students really love her.” ence haven’t changed, even though technology and curriculum expectations have.

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

FEATURE

Life is full for fascinating alumnus The first person ever diagnosed with autism is a Millsaps graduate. BY NELL LUTER FLOYD

Donald and Oliver Triplett are brothers and Millsaps College graduates. Both were members of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity at the College.

he October 2010 edition of The Atlantic magazine told the fascinating story of Donald Gray Triplett, a 1958 Millsaps graduate from Forest, who made medical history as a child as the first person diagnosed with autism. “Donald’s life has turned out to be an enviable life,” said John Donvan, a correspondent for ABC’s Nightline, speaking on a video produced in conjunction with the magazine article. “He’s in his late 70s. He’s healthy. He’s independent. He’s happy. And to this day, Donald is quirky. His speech is not at all fluid. His interests can go…all over the place. “We saw him in society with people who totally get that, a group of men who since the late ’60s have had coffee for half an hour every morning. Donald does the cryptogram from the newspaper and rarely looks up, but every now and then without looking up, he injects his point of view. They don’t find it odd any more. If they do, they know it’s odd, but they don’t care. They roll with it. Donald is such a hopeful exception, such an inspirational exception. Something went right there.” Oliver Beaman Triplett III, B.A.1960, Donald’s only sibling and also a resident of Forest, said his brother’s story as told in The Atlantic has been well received. “A lot of people appreciate

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the fact it gives some hope,” he said. Born in 1933 to Mary McCravey Triplett and Oliver Triplett Jr., Donald was something of a puzzle to his parents, but they refused to institutionalize him for life. Instead, they sought top medical help. His father wrote a 33-page letter to Dr. Leon Kanner, a Johns Hopkins professor and top child psychiatrist, and secured a consultation. The letter outlined Donald’s withdrawal into himself, his unresponsive behavior when his name was called, and how he rarely cried to be with his mother. It also included his interest in spinning blocks and his fascination with numbers, musical notes, and letters of the alphabet, which he enjoyed reciting in reverse order. At age 2, Donald could recite by heart Psalm 23 and 25, plus questions and answers from the Presbyterian catechism. Donald and his parents made three trips to Baltimore to meet with Kanner when Donald was 5, 7, and then 9, and Kanner visited Forest when Donald was 11. Kanner identiﬁed Donald as “Case 1…Donald T” in a 1943 medical article that proclaimed the discovery of the condition now called Autism Spectrum Disorder. At that time, it was rare and limited to Donald and 10 other children. Autism Speaks, North America’s largest autism science and

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advocacy organization, defines autism as a complex neurobiological disorder that affects a person’s ability to communicate and develop social relationships, and is often accompanied by behavioral challenges. Donvan, who with Caren Zucker, a television producer and mother of a teenager with autism, wrote the story about Donald Triplett, credits Donald’s hometown with accepting him. “In Forest, it appears, Donald was showered with acceptance, starting with the mother who defied experts to bring him back home, and continuing on to classmates from his childhood and golfing partners today. Donald’s neighbors not only shrug off his oddities, but openly admire his strengths—while taking a protective stance with any outsider whose intentions toward Donald may not have been sufficiently spelled out,” the article reads. Donald graduated from high school in Forest and attended two years at East Mississippi Central Junior College before matriculating to Millsaps. Along the way, he developed a habit of assigning a number to anyone he met. At Millsaps, Donald majored in French, joined the Millsaps Singers, and used his perfect pitch to provide the pitch for the choir. He was a member of the German Club, Westminster Fellowship, and Lambda Chi Alpha. “He enjoyed Millsaps so much that my father allowed him to go a third year. He didn’t need it,” said Oliver Triplett, who said his brother doesn’t hold long conversations but holds fondness for his years at Millsaps. “One thing that really benefited him was that he instantly hit it off with the Lambda Chi’s, and they asked him to be a member. That did a world of good for his sense of self-esteem.” Few people knew anything about autism back then, said Dr. Billy Walker, B.A. 1959 and M.B.A. 1992, president of Lamba Chi Alpha at Millsaps in 1957 and now a Jackson physician. “We realized he was kind of different, but it didn’t provoke a sense of looking down on him or excluding him. We loved him and thought he was a good guy to have around,” he said. Walker still remembers some of the feats Donald performed.“We would have him stand with his back to the piano, and we’d take two guys and have them play 20 notes. He could tell you the notes they played. He could name the square root of any number. You could stick it in a calculator and it would be correct.” Al Elmore, B.A. 1962, grew up in Forest and knew the

Triplett family well. “The story I remember best about Donald Gray concerns a mathematical puzzle I posed to his whole family when visiting in the Triplett home one day. The puzzle goes like this. A farmer who grew oranges had to go through three toll gates. At every gate, the formula for the toll was the same: half the oranges on his wagon, plus half an orange. After passing through the third gate, the farmer had exactly one orange remaining on his wagon. How many did he have when he started through the first gate? As a puzzle lover, I had posed this problem to hundreds, maybe thousands of students and friends. A few got it right, by doing what I did: working backwards and figuring out that the farmer had three oranges before the third gate, seven before the second, and fifteen before the third. Donald Gray is the only person I have ever known who provided the answer by setting up and sharing with the rest of us an algebraic formula.” Donald Triplett worked as a teller and a bookkeeper at the Bank of Forest, which was founded by his maternal grandfather, for about 30 years. Nowadays, he has coffee with friends, works puzzles, watches television, and plays golf. He lives in the house where his mother and father once resided, using funds from a trust set up by his parents. He is an avid traveler, having visited 36 foreign countries and 28 states. He’s been on an African safari, numerous cruises, and he has attended many professional golf tournaments. Dr. Melissa Lea, assistant professor of psychology and director of Neuroscience and Cognitive Studies at Millsaps, said students in her Introduction to Neuroscience class read the article when the class discussed Autism Spectrum Disorder. “I believe the article is most helpful because it provides a historical background about autism research and illustrates some of the aspects/behaviors of autism. The bonus to the article is that the main character is from Mississippi and a graduate of Millsaps – which our students can certainly relate to,” she said. Lea said her husband, an ASD researcher at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, showed her the article. “I took away these three things: One, ASD is not a life sentence of doom and gloom. Many people, such as Donald, can lead a healthy happy life with the disease. Two, Millsaps is part of the history of autism research. Something that might be personal to me (because of my husband), but still pretty cool nonetheless. And, three, I learned how autism was first discovered and tested. I had no idea how the research began.”

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

FEATURE

Millsaps alumnus and trustee Hal Malchow and his son, Alex, are authors of the book, The Sword of Darrow. It is an inspiring fictional story about a princess who can’t read and a prince who has never been more than 10 miles from his birthplace.

Political consultant shifts career toward writing and advocacy with teenage son Millsaps alumnus and his son share their ideas in a story. BY PATTI P. WADE

illsaps College trustee, Hal Malchow, B.S., 1973, of Arlington, Va., found a brilliant way to blend work and family. He used his considerable knowledge of direct marketing to promote a ﬁctional adventure story he penned with his son, Alex, now age 16. In the process, he navigated a career change and became a voice for individuals with learning disabilities. Recognized as a pioneer and authority in the employment of statistical modeling and data mining techniques in the political arena, Malchow was featured in an October 2010 issue of

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The New York Times on the subject of testing motivational messages in political mailings. His client list has included Senators Chris Dodd, Ted Kennedy, and Hillary Clinton, and both the International Direct Marketing Association and the American Association of Political Consultants have recognized his work. Even with an A-list clientele and national acknowledgment of his expertise, Malchow counts the creation of The Sword of Darrow with his son as “one of the great projects of my life.” The story began when Alex was age 4 as they shared reading aloud great novels as well as telling original stories. Malchow refers to the told stories as “me-you” stories, where Alex

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would create characters and a situation, and father and son would take turns telling the story. “At ﬁrst, he would listen to me tell the story. At age 6 or 7, he would tell the story and I could hardly get a word in edgewise,” Malchow said. “These stories would become an obsession…we would tell stories all weekend.” Telling stories was a creative outlet for Alex, who did not read until age 9 due to dyslexia, the most common of learning disabilities. “People who have dyslexia don’t read much for recreation,” Malchow explained. After having Alex tested, Malchow and his wife, Astrid M. Weigert, Ph.D., enrolled Alex in The Lab School in Washington, D.C., where he advanced to reading at grade level within one year. “His parents offered Alex so much support—emphasizing his creativity, building and expanding his love of stories, and reading aloud to Alex. It doesn’t get any better than that,” commented Millsaps College Emerita Associate Professor of Education Connie Schimmel, who specializes in instruction in reading intervention and instruction for students with special needs. “Alex’s experience is a true success story.” Once, after listening to his father read aloud J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Alex said, “Papa, let’s not tell any more me-you stories. Let’s write a book,” Malchow related. From that point, they outlined the chapters for the story of a princess who can’t read, a small princely guy who had never been 10 miles from his birthplace, but who inspired everyone around him, and a scorpion man. To aid Prince Darrow, who is too weak to wield a sword, the princess makes a sword light as a feather using magic wrought of positive thoughts and forgiveness. The whole process, including securing a publisher, BenBella Books, took about eight years. But beyond the joy of writing a book with his son, Malchow’s experience shone in the book’s

distribution and marketing. Malchow used direct marketing to ask parents to enlist their children ages 8 to 11 to review the unpublished book. Response was overwhelming: 8,000 students received a book to review, and more than 2,000 completed a review. As an incentive, reviewers’ names would appear printed in the back of the book. The marketing of The Sword of Darrow produced a following of readers who shared their personal experiences through Facebook and email. Malchow said that interaction with families who experience daily the challenges of learning disabilities and terminal illnesses has shaped “one of the truly richest experiences I have ever had.” Two additional features make the book unique: all proceeds are going to learning disabilities organizations, and the book has a second edition with phrase-based formatting and a speciﬁc type face and spacing that those individuals with dyslexia ﬁnd easier to read. “These type of compensatory strategies combined with quality instructional techniques provide students access to print and methods to become successful readers,” Schimmel said. Hal and Alex Malchow have signed books on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and in Jackson, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Seattle, and Detroit, all locations where reviewers live. Now retired from direct marketing, Malchow plans to pursue writing as his second career. In the midst of his subsequent novel, though, he longs for the “me-you” times with Alex, who has shifted focus to high school football at St. John’s College High School in Washington. “It is a little harder doing it on my own,” he admits. “I want to go rent an 8-year old.” For more on The Sword of Darrow and the authors’ adventures, check out their website at www.swordofdarrow.com.

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

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MAJOR SPORTS

Lacrosse teams make history with first conference-affiliated games in state Fast-paced game is similar to stickball played by the Choctaw Indians. BY NELL LUTER FLOYD

he face masks went on and the lacrosse sticks saw action earlier this year as Millsaps College became the first college or university in Mississippi to play women’s and men’s conference-affiliated intercollegiate lacrosse games. The inaugural season was one of ups and downs, but Tracy Cepnio, women’s lacrosse coach at Millsaps, said she was pleased by the team’s progress, considering that half of the team had never played lacrosse. “The thing about the first game that surprised me was how composed the team was and how much the team members had learned in preseason play, how ready they were to play and hang in there against the opponent,” she said. Cepnio said she taught basics of the sport by relating it to sports familiar to team members. “You take it one step at a time. You relate it to soccer for the ones who have played soccer. We had one member of the Millsaps volleyball team, two members of the Millsaps soccer team, and some students who had played sports in high school join the team.” Just how do you teach someone to play with the sticks? “You teach them to throw and catch by thinking of the ball as a baseball—only you throw and catch with a stick. You want to consider the stick as an extension of your arm when you’re throwing,” Cepnio said. The inaugural season of the Millsaps women’s lacrosse team saw three players named to the Second Team All-SCAC. The Majors got two defenders on the list in senior Leah Bright and sophomore Victoria Wheeler. Bright had 28 ground balls and 15 draw controls on the season. She also managed a goal in defense. Wheeler added 18 grounders in her 14 starts on a Major defense that spent much of its season fighting off aggressive, more experienced, offenses. Freshman midfielder Haleigh Williams led the Majors’ offense this season with 31 goals after playing and starting in all 14 games. The Houston native posted a .596 shooting percent-

age, had 43 shots on-goal (.827 percentage) and had the gamewinning goal in overtime against Agnes Scott. The 14-member team has 10 returning players and will have freshmen players from Maryland, Connecticut, Georgia, Colorado, Alabama, and Louisiana. Members of the 2011 team who were experienced players were from Colorado, Texas, and North Carolina. The first men’s lacrosse match as a conference-affiliated intercollegiate sport marked the beginning of the sport at Millsaps, said Luke Beam, men’s lacrosse coach at Millsaps. The women at Millsaps had had a lacrosse club team, but the men’s club team never evolved beyond a discussion, he said. “Our first season was obviously tough in the win-loss column (0-12),” he said, “but it was great to be a part of a group of guys who wanted to build something and create tradition. We had guys on the team who were excited about the College and what lacrosse means.” The men’s team was composed of about 17 players, most of whom had played lacrosse. The team lost only two seniors, who graduated. Men’s lacrosse is not the same as women’s lacrosse, Beam said. Helmets are required for all the players on a men’s team, whereas only the goalies on a women’s team wear helmets. “In a men’s game that ball is coming at you 80 or 90 miles an hour, and it’s not a soft ball. The guys get hit a lot,” Beam said. Lacrosse is a fast-paced, high-intensity sport, Beam said. “It’s the oldest sport in American history dating back to the Native Americans. The old version of the sport has been in our backyard forever; the Choctaws call it stickball. What a great sport to bring home to Mississippi.”

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SCAC Co-Coach of the Year Honors go to Winkleman Team has eleven-game turnaround in coach’s first year.

illsaps women’s basketball coach Chuck Winkelman is the SCAC Co-Coach of the Year for 2011. Head Coach Chuck Winkelman took over a Millsaps program that had won just one game a year ago (against 24 losses) and, in his first year in Jackson, finished with a 12-13 overall mark (8-8 in the SCAC)—an 11-game turnaround. No stranger to winning in the SCAC, Winkelman posted an overall record of 168-66 (.718 winning percentage) in nine seasons at Hendrix College. He won or shared three conference titles and was the SCAC Coach of the Year in 1995-96. Winkelman became the sixth-fastest coach in Division III to reach 100 career victories while at Hendrix. Coach Winkelman shares the honor with DePauw’s Kris Huffman. Each received five votes to share Coach of the Year honors. Trinity University head coach Amie Bradley and Centre College head coach Wendie Austin-Robinson received one vote each. Also in basketball, Drew Giudice and Elizabeth Sigafoose of Millsaps College were selected to the third annual SCAC men’s and women’s basketball All-Sportsmanship teams for the 2010-11 season. The Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference places a special emphasis on sportsmanship every year, asking all fans of the conference to exhibit good sportsmanship at all conference functions. Each head coach was asked to elect one member from his or her team who displayed good sportsmanship throughout the season.

Chef Dave Woodward and his grandson, Dylan Woodward, visited with former New Orleans Saints player Michael Lewis when Lewis came to campus during the Saints’ last full week as reigning Super Bowl champions. The Saints brought the Vince Lombardi Trophy back to campus for a second visit, and Lewis signed copies of the Saints’ behind-the-scenes illustrated book, World Champs. The Saints planted the seeds of their championship season when they trained at Millsaps in the summers of 2006-2008.

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All-SCAC Team The Millsaps baseball team had four players make the All-SCAC Team for the 2011 season. Senior third baseman Will Hawkins hit .368 on the season after playing, and starting, in all 42 games for the Majors. The Nettleton native led the team with eight homeruns and 49 RBI. His .602 slugging percentage led the team. He also led the Majors in hits (63), runs scored (45), doubles (14), stolen bases (19) and total bases (103). Senior pitcher Aaron Williams finished the season with six wins to lead the Major squad. The Covington, La., native posted a 3.96 ERA in 14 appearances, all starts. He also led the team in complete games with four. Williams threw 72.2 innings, 11 innings more than any other hurler on the Major staff. Senior pitcher Jason Riggins posted the second best ERA on the staff this season with 3.23 in 16 appearances. The Dallas native collected five wins in 61.1 innings pitched. He led the Majors with three saves. He also led the team in strikeouts with 58. Second baseman Kevin Wall finished the season with a .324 batting average and a .974 fielding percentage. The Birmingham student, who was a freshman, started in all 38 games he played, he was third on the team in hits with 44, second in doubles with 12, and had 13 stolen bases. Stephen Gates, Jake Mills, and Jules Roussel were named honorable mentions for their efforts this season.

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Cook achieves Millsaps’ first track and field All-American honor She leaves the College as the most successful athlete in track and field.

raining and dedication paid off for Erica Cook who earned All-American honors in the 100-meter dash at the Division III National Track and Field Championships at Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio. Cook is the first track & field athlete in the College’s history to achieve this designation. Cook, a 2011 senior who majored in psychology, chose to remain on campus after commencement in May to dedicate herself to mentally and physically prepare for the race of her life at the championships. Cook, captain of the Millsaps Women’s Track and Field Team, raced her way though the preliminary heats to be one of the eight runners in a stacked field to race in the finals. She finished in a strong sixth place position, less than one second separated first through sixth place. “I can’t begin to describe how proud I am of Erica and how great it is for Millsaps to achieve our first track and field All-American. It’s an amazing accomplishment, especially when you consider that this was only Erica’s second season to run track,” said Millsaps Track and Field Head Coach Andy Till. “Her rate of improvement in such a short amount of time is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my 17 years of coaching. In one year she’s taken more than a half a second off her 100-meter time. That’s incredible.” “My experience running for Millsaps over the past two years has been unbelievable, and running in Nationals was something I'll never forget,” Cook said. “I’ve immensely enjoyed helping to develop the track and field program and look forward to watching them transform into a force to be reckoned with in the near future.” “Erica continually set a high standard for her younger teammates, helping to create the foundation of our program,” Till said. “Her leadership and work ethic have been an inspiration for her teammates and we’ll certainly miss her next year.” After the championships, Cook returned to her native Florida to pursue a graduate degree in psychology at the University of Central Florida.

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2011 Accomplishments • NCAA 100-meter All- American • SCAC Female Track Athlete of the Year • 100-meter Champion at the SCAC Championships • 200-meter Champion at the SCAC Championships • Set a new record in the 100 meters at the SCAC Championships – 12.13 • Millsaps School Record Holder in the 100 meters – 11.95 • Millsaps School Record Holder in the 200 meters – 25.15

ALUMNI

Jeffrey Gardner, 2006 Food Network reality cooking show hones skills of Millsaps graduate Spanish, writing, and business classes contribute to success of alumnus. BY NELL LUTER FLOYD

illsaps graduate Jeffrey Gardner considers his appearance on The Food Network’s realitybased series “Chopped” validation of his skill as a chef. No, he didn’t take home the top $10,000 prize, but the experience provided an opportunity for Gardner, sous chef at Atlanta’s South City Kitchen Midtown, to see how he stacked up against three other chefs. Aaron Sanchez, a New York City chef, restaurateur, and one of the show’s judges, told him: “Seeing a young chef carry yourself the way you do reminded me of why I became a chef.” Another judge, Scott Conant, chef, restaurateur, cookbook au-

thor, and host of The Food Network show “24 Hour Restaurant Battle,” had these kind words: “Don’t worry about where you stack up. You’re already there.” The show pits four chefs against each other, competing in three rounds: appetizer, entrée, and dessert. For each round, each chef receives a basket that contains three to five ingredients, and each chef must prepare a dish with all the ingredients. The ingredients are items not usually prepared together. “My first course was catfish, rutabaga, tomatillos, and marshmallows,” Gardner said. “My concern was, ’How am I going to cook rutabaga in 20 minutes?’ I cut it in small pieces. It usually takes 30 minutes to cook.”

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N.C. He then worked at Gardner said he was Henry’s Louisiana Grill most successful during in Acworth, Ga., and his round in creating then moved on to South an entrée. “My entrée City Kitchen Midtown, was pork country ribs, where he has been emdandelion greens, sun ployed since November chokes, and fresh gar2007. banzo beans. It was all Gardner manages real food. That was my 22 employees. His decibest dish,” he said. sion to obtain a degree During the desin Spanish at Millsaps sert round, Gardner proved useful. “I’ve got found himself working some guys working with with plum tomatoes, me who don’t speak a jalapenos, crema (Mexiword of English, but can sour cream), and only speak Spanish,” he malanga coco (a big taro said. root). Gardner made Dr. Robert Kahn, marmalade out of the Millsaps College graduate Jeffrey Gardner selects proassociate professor of tomatoes and jalapenos, duce for a cooking demonstration. A Spanish major at romance languages at combined honey, mint Millsaps, Gardner uses what he learned in his major, as well as in management and writing classes, each day as Millsaps, said he always and wine with the crea restaurant manager. tells his students that ma, and created another whatever profession sauce from the malanga they enter, knowing coco and crema. He Spanish will help them. served the marmalade and two other sauces with cinnamon toast made from brioche, “Jeff listened to me and now, not only is he an excellent chef, which he found in the show’s pantry. “Each component was de- but he is using his Spanish every day. Although he always told licious, but there was nothing inherently dessert-like,” he said. me when he was an undergraduate at Millsaps that he wanted Gardner ended up on the show after the owner of South to be a chef, I convinced him to participate in our study abroad City Kitchen Midtown sent out an email that “Chopped” was program in Costa Rica. I knew that if he would perfect his oral looking for chefs for the show. He answered a list of questions skills in Spanish there, it would help him someday in his profesand produced a 15-minute video, and received notiﬁcation he sion. I am delighted that it has made such an impact on his life.” Gardner said he’s found Millsaps’ emphasis on writing usehad been selected for the show. Gardner began cooking for fun as a student at Millsaps ful, too. “It makes you a good communicator. You get a lot of when he lived in Goodman residence hall. “I wanted to ﬁnd people in this industry that can barely spell, don’t know grama way to turn a hobby into a career, so I e-mailed Jeff Good mar, and write in abbreviated thoughts.” Gardner said the business classes he took, such as Introduc(B.B.A. 1986), owner of BRAVO! Italian Restaurant & Bar in Jackson, and got a job there making salads and desserts my se- tion to Management and Human Resources Management, have been helpful. “Becoming an effective manager has helped me nior year,” he said. After graduating from Millsaps in 2006, Gardner completed get ahead,” he said. a one-year course at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte,

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ALUMNI

Charlotte Seals, 1988 Graduate builds life focus on education and service to community She led the National Association of Junior Auxiliaries in 2010-2011. BY RUTH CUMMINS, FREELANCE WRITER

uring her undergraduate years at Millsaps College, Charlotte Seals excelled at life lessons that set into motion a career in education and community service. “In the 80s, it was all about self and making tons of money,” remembered Seals, a Madison resident who received her bachelor’s degree in biology and secondary education in 1988. “But with the smallness of this campus, I was able to connect with faculty and realize that there’s more to life than status.” Going to a college with faculty and students from different faiths, races, and backgrounds also gave Seals the tools she

would need in the workplace. “I deﬁnitely think the diversity at Millsaps empowered me to get along with everyone,” she said. “The education I received here helped me to become a well-rounded person. I had almost a minor in classical studies. That background gave me exposure and conﬁdence to go out and interact with anyone, at any level.” Today, Seals does just that. A 20-year education veteran with the Madison County school district, Seals is assistant superintendent for instructional services and formerly served as both a teacher and principal. “I oversee curriculum and personnel. I love it. We have over

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Company. 20 schools, and a lot of times, How does she do it all? I am putting out fires,” Seals “You have to have strong said. “That’s what I do: I faith,” said Seals, who moved problem-solve.” from Forest to Vicksburg at an When she’s not on the early age and graduated from job, the married mom of two Vicksburg High. “I’m blessed is almost certainly wearing Millsaps College graduate Charlotte Seals of Madison to have a terrific family that one of her volunteer hats. speaks to students at the Canton Boys and Girls Club as supports me, and I have one One is actually a five-pointpart of her service with the Junior Auxiliary of Madisonof the best jobs in the world. ed crown, a symbol of the Ridgeland. Seals was 2010-2011 president of the Na“And, technology helps. I Greenville, Miss.-based National Association of Junior Auxiliaries. can take an urgent phone call. tional Association of Junior I can text. I can do emails at Auxiliaries. night.” Seals this year served as Her parents, Herman and Daisy Harness, live just minutes president of nonprofit NAJA, a community service and leadership organization with 101 chapters in eight states. She was away in Madison. And although she told herself she’d nevleader to NAJA’s 3,260 active, 1,420 associate and 9,730 life er major in education, Seals followed in the footsteps of her mother and father. members. “My dad was principal at Vicksburg High. Mom taught NAJA chapters perform hands-on, year-round community service impacting children and families, with a special empha- biology,” Seals remembered. “I didn’t have her as a teacher, sis on children. Seals joined the Junior Auxiliary of Madison- thank goodness. She was tough. You did not cross her.” Seals’ success comes as no surprise to Madison retiree Dr. Ridgeland in 2000, was elected chapter president by her peers, then became a national officer and was elected vice president, Herman McKenzie, one of Seals’ favorite teachers at Millsaps. The two enjoy renewing ties when they see each other at Madthen president. “JA is all about making a difference in the community ison County district football games. “Charlotte was one of my best students. She had such a while getting to work with ladies of all different backgrounds. positive attitude,” said McKenzie, Seals’ math instructor in her That’s what attracted me,” Seals said. “Volunteer work helps me to become a better person. I en- freshman year. “She was an ideal student. And when she sets joy giving back. What my work brings to JA is the educational her mind to something, she’s going to work at it.” McKenzie “was known for giving some tough exams. He background. We both focus on children.” Madison resident Laura Leslie Stewart has worked side by could be a little cranky, but I loved him,” Seals said. Her first test in his class was a doozy—and she still made side with Seals, both as a Junior Auxiliary member and as an an A. “I thought, ’I can make it!’” Seals said. educator with the Madison County district. Seals left Millsaps not just with her degree and fond memo“She is so organized. Everything is always together,” Stewart, who joined Junior Auxiliary in 2000, said of Seals. “She ries, but with a life partner—her college sweetheart. “We met when I was a freshman,” Seals said of husband is such a lady, and she is so concerned about others and their Calvin Seals, who received his degree from Millsaps in 1986. feelings. That just comes across with her.” The couple wed in August 1988. Their daughter Ashley, Seals finds time for other volunteer endeavors that include the Millsaps College Principals Institute Advisory Board, Ju- 20, is a student at Louisiana State University. Son Austin, 14, nior League of Jackson, Stewpot Ministries, Habitat for Hu- is a student at Madison Middle School. “I tell my friends that when we met the very first time, I manity, and her church, Holy Family Catholic Church. She is a former board member of the Mississippi Metropolitan Ballet said that night that I was going to marry him,” Seals said.

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ALUMNI

Parke Pepper, 1991 Graduate leads Methodist-affiliated Baddour Center in Senatobia He helps residents discover and maximize their talents. BY RUTH CUMMINS, FREELANCE WRITER

arke Pepper earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature in 1991 from Millsaps College. His undergraduate years, however, gave him much more than an appreciation for Shakespeare and Dickens. Pepper’s lessons helped him become the caring, compassionate thinker that today exempliﬁes his leadership of a model residential community for adults with intellectual disabilities. He is executive director of The Baddour Center near Senatobia which, like Millsaps, is afﬁliated with the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church. Pepper, 42, has led Baddour for seven years, but he’s worked with the intellectu-

ally disabled population for almost two decades. The Baddour Center serves 170 adults in a residential setting and about 15 in day programs “from 25 states, all across the country,” Pepper said. “We are privately funded. We receive no government funding for our services.” Families of residents typically are responsible for about half their tuition. And, Pepper said, Baddour residents discover and maximize their talents—and earn money—through vocational jobs at Baddour’s packaging center. “What is truly amazing is that with companies such as Federal Express, we win their business over others that do not have a disabled base of employees,” Pepper said.

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Parke Pepper interacts with a resident at the Baddour Center in Senatobia.

“Our residents have talents to focus and do things that you and I might not,” Pepper explained. “For someone with autism, the wheels click in their mind in detail that would drive you and I nuts, but it’s perfect for their aptitudes.” One of his Millsaps professors, Dr. Ted Ammon, helped him to see such things from different perspectives, Pepper said. “I walked into his class, and he began to challenge me to think in ways I’d never imagined,” Pepper said of Ammon, an associate professor of philosophy who also directs Millsaps’ Heritage Program. “I was a rules guy. I’d explore the box, but I’d stay inside it. Dr. Ammon made it clear that the box had no rules.” Ammon said the class was called “The Ways of Knowing,” centering on different ways that people acquire knowledge. “He was intrigued. He was cautious,” Ammon remembered about Pepper. “He didn’t know quite what to make of the course. But he let his guard down and was a full-fledged participant in the course, and was much better for it. “After all these years, he (Pepper) remembers that experience, which I find absolutely thrilling.” Pepper played football and baseball and was president and rush chairman of his fraternity, Kappa Sigma. Not bad for a kid whose freshman experience wasn’t an academic triumph, but instead close to failure. “My first semester, I made Ds. I’d never made a D on anything. I was pledge class president, and I was the last one to get initiated because I had the lowest GPA,” he said. “I don’t know if it was a lack of intellect or a lack of effort, but my parents took my car. My parents took my money and said, ’Look. You’ve got until this fall to get this going.’” Pepper got his act together, using his time and talents to obtain the best education and experience he could. “I remember making it a challenge to walk from the freshman dormitory to the main campus, and to know everyone’s name that I passed,” he said.

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He found mentors in his baseball coach, Jim Page, B.S. 1986, and football coach, Harper Davis. “I spent most of the time in his doghouse,” Pepper said of Davis, now retired. “He really cared. He remembers me as being 10 notches better than I was.” But before Pepper arrived at Millsaps, those who helped shaped the College shaped him in his youth. “It’s pretty simple,” Pepper said. “You only have to look as far as the Bell Tower.” Pepper grew up in the United Methodist Church in Magee. “One of the families that was inﬂuential in my life was Mr. and Mrs. H.F. McCarty. They were Millsaps folks,” Pepper said of the family whose business, McCarty Farms Inc., provided the gift for construction of the Millsaps Bell Tower in 1987. Tupelo resident Polly Bailey, who received a Bachelor of Music Education from Millsaps in 1968, said it’s clear to her that Pepper’s Millsaps experience helped mold him into an exemplary advocate for the disabled. “The atmosphere at Millsaps teaches you to be compassionate and caring, and to want to help people. That’s part of Parke’s job,” said Bailey, who served on The Baddour Center’s board of directors early in Pepper’s tenure. “He is so committed to The Baddour Center, and he loves the residents and gets so involved in their lives. He’s done so much to help The Baddour Center grow and be vital.” Pepper is married to the former Betsy Riney, a 1992 Millsaps College graduate. “She had a serious boyfriend at Millsaps, and we didn’t start dating until after graduation,” Pepper said. Today, they are parents to daughter Reagan, 17; and sons Yates, 14, and Ash, 8. Time will tell if they become the college student that, in their father’s words, “took advantage of everything." “I look back, and I see that Millsaps was a small enough school for me to do all of those things,” Pepper said. “There was a respect at Millsaps for you being involved in all things.”

ALUMNI

Sabira Ebaady, 2011 College’s first student from Afghanistan graduates and becomes researcher She hopes to eventually become a physician. BY JASON BRONSON

t’s been nearly four years since Sabira Ebaady left her native Afghanistan for Mississippi. She arrived in late summer 2007, just in time for the beginning of the fall semester at Millsaps College in Jackson. She graduated from Millsaps in May with a major in biology and a minor in psychology. Ebaady's graduation is just one step toward her goal of going to medical school and becoming a physician. But it is a signiﬁcant step, if a short one…right down the street, in fact. “My short-term plan for the year after graduation is doing an internship at the University of Mississippi Medical Center across the road from Millsaps,” Ebaady said. “It is going to be a

huge experience working as a research assistant with Dr. John Hall, chair and associate vice chancellor for research at the physiology department.” While the internship is a promising development for her future aspirations, Ebaady still faces challenges—including getting into and paying for medical school. “For now, there is a question of whether or not I will be able to attend medical school here and actually become a physician in the future,” Sabira says. Because she is in this country on a visa, Ebaady said, “I am not eligible to apply to state medical schools, but of course there are private and osteopathic medical schools that do not require residency. Unfortunately, they are ﬁnancially im-

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Sabira Ebaady, the first student from Afghanistan to attend Millsaps, converses with Dr. Michael Reinhard, assistant professor of political science. He led the effort to secure funding for her tuition.

practical for me.” Ebaady, who presented the College a framed copy of the College crest created in needlework by her mother, remains confident and assured in her plans to become a physician. Her ultimate goal is to return to Afghanistan and assist her nation’s impoverished people by providing quality health care, but she is more than happy to spend more time in the U.S. “I feel so much in debt to what this country and its people have offered me, and is going to give me in the future,” Ebaady said. “I always think of a way to give back. “The beautiful weather of Mississippi alone is enough to tempt me to decide to stay here. Yet, there is this feeling of a bigger responsibility and obligation toward going back to Afghanistan and working among people who need me more, which was the very reason that drew me all the way to Mississippi in the first place.” Ebaady credits Millsaps and its community of scholars with providing the tools for her success. “I discovered myself and my capacities better here, and now I am ready for whatever is coming next at further stages of life,” she said. While Ebaady lists working as a teacher’s assistant in biology labs and her work-study duties in the library as some of her favorite activities, she said it’s the people who have really made a difference for her. "They made me feel at home while I was away from home.” She also cites Millsaps’ robust liberal arts curriculum as an outstanding academic experience that has helped her gain a broader understanding of the world, as well as boosted her confidence in her own academic strengths. “Students here have the opportunity to gain a broader range of perspectives by being able to do double majors, major in one area and minor in the other, or even create a self-designed major,” Ebaady said. “So, as a pre-med student majoring in biology, I had the chance to take classes that are not science at all. I took classes as various as piano, sociology, political science, and psychology.

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“I think every single class I took with any professor at Millsaps—including science and humanities—had one thing in common: they would challenge me and require me to think more. They would work as an automatic, self-stimulating system…where I would not base everything on the class, but would have to go out and base my knowledge on self investigations, and work hard and be critical. That is how I learned to be independent and build self-confidence in my abilities,” Ebaady said. Dr. Michael Reinhard, assistant professor of political science at Millsaps, was instrumental in bringing Ebaady to Millsaps, and spearheaded the effort to secure funding for her tuition. Reinhard is trying to bring more of the best and the brightest from Afghanistan—and other regions where it is difficult for Western college recruiters to reach students—to Millsaps. Reinhard said this about the barriers: “Because of the threat of terrorism, students in Afghanistan do not get the help that students in other, similarly poor countries would get from the U.S. embassy and from American universities and foundations. Our officials can’t easily meet with students. They have trouble getting information because they don’t have web access, or if they do, they don’t have electricity.” In Afghanistan, the problem is particularly acute. “A big problem is that [Afghan students] cannot even carry information with them, because if the Taliban find them with documents showing that they are applying to an American school, or even just with documents written in English, they will almost certainly be killed.” Reinhard encourages Millsaps alumni and other members of the greater Millsaps community to contribute to efforts to bring promising foreign students to Millsaps. Indeed, a generous family in Jackson helped make possible Ebaady's experience at Millsaps. The family also enjoyed her company on several occasions, though she was unaware of their support until the night before graduation.

ALUMNI

The Rev. Ed King , 1958 Alumnus recalls of Millsaps: 'It was all right to differ, and all right to question' Graduate is known for his role in the civil rights movement. BY RUTH CUMMINS, FREELANCE WRITER

ome of Ed King’s favorite teachers at Millsaps College were the ones he never had. King, a 1958 graduate, majored in sociology. Even so, geology professor Richard Priddy had a profound effect on his days as a student. “I didn’t take geology, but Dr. Priddy in my freshman year organized visits for Millsaps students to Tougaloo College,” said King, 74, of Jackson. The private, historically black Tougaloo College had social science forums that students attended. Then there was Nellie Hederi, a professor of Spanish. King never sat in her classroom, but “she helped deepen my appreciation for classical music. From a 50-year perspective, I consider

her one of my favorite teachers.” And, he fondly remembers Dr. Ross Moore. “I always imagined taking his English history course, but I never did. Certainly, he was one of the teachers who made me who I am. At a big university, you don’t get that.” They are among educators who prepared King, Millsaps’ 2011 Alumnus of the Year, for a lifetime of achievement in racial reconciliation. King, often called the most signiﬁcant white leader in Mississippi’s march toward racial equality, was chosen for the honor established by the College in 1950 and bestowed on an individual in recognition of outstanding contributions to his or her profession, church, and/or community, as well as to

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

ALUMNI

The Rev. Ed King receives congratulations from Dean Brit Katz after being named Alumnus of the Year for 2011.

Millsaps College. A retired United Methodist minister, the Vicksburg native served as chaplain and dean of students at Tougaloo from 196368. He held an adjunct faculty position at Millsaps in sociology and religion from 1974-2004. King has been an associate professor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center since 1974. His honors include the John F. Kennedy Freedom Award and the United Methodist Church of Mississippi Conference Award for 35 years of work in racial reconciliation. He has been recognized by the Catholic Council of Civil Liberties and Harvard University and received the Mississippi Religious Leadership Conference Founders Award. The foundation for his life’s work, King said, grew from his Millsaps experiences. “We quickly understood as the rest of Mississippi shut down, and when people weren’t supposed to have ideas, that it was all right to differ, and it was all right to question. And that an educated person does ask questions, and that you don’t reject people who have a different answer from yours.” When he began a master’s program in divinity at Boston University, he befriended people who knew Dr. Martin Luther

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King Jr. “By December 1958, I was with a group of seminarians in the South being hosted for dinner at Dr. King’s home,” Ed King remembered. “Had Millsaps not made me ready when the invitation came, I would have wrestled with it for a year or two, and I would have missed it.” Because of his work and that of many others, by 1969, 66.5 percent of black Mississippians were registered to vote. In 2010, the Leaders of Values and Ethics (LOVE) award was renamed The Rev. Ed King Leader of Values and Ethics Award to recognize King’s service and leadership. “I never expected this,” he said of the Millsaps Alumnus of the Year honor. In November, King and other icons of the movement will be honored with Freedom Awards presented by the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. Past recipients include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama. Although last fall King was named Alumnus of the Year for Boston University’s School of Theology, his alumni award from Millsaps especially touches his heart. “It’s wonderful,” he said, “to be honored at home.”

ALUMNI

Livesay Awards honor service of alumni Award honors spirit of Jim Livesay, alumnus, College administrator, and volunteer.

Recipients of alumni awards are from left, the Rev. Ed King, David Loper, Luran Buchanan, Catherine Welles, and Sparky Welles.

illsaps’ Livesay Award honors the spirit of commitment in which Jim Livesay (March 31, 1920-November, 9 2001) served as an alumnus, a member of the College administration, and a volunteer. The 2011 honorees are Luran Buchanan, B.A. 1963; David Loper, B.A. 1986; and Catherine and John “Sparky” Welles. Luran Buchanan is a Prentiss native, who served as special events coordinator for the Ofﬁce of Institutional Advancement for 17 years, and was executive director of the Millsaps Arts and Lecture Series. She has been a board member of the series since 1973 and also served as its president. Buchanan was named Jackson Realtor-Associate of the Year in 1987. She is married to John T. “Buddy” Buchanan, a member of the Class of 1962.

Loper is a senior attorney at Protective Life Corp. in Birmingham. Loper is a 1991 graduate of Tulane Law School and was a partner/shareholder at a Birmingham law ﬁrm. He serves on the board for The Exceptional Foundation for Birmingham’s disabled community and also Birmingham AIDS Outreach. He is a 2008 graduate of Leadership Birmingham. Sparky and Catherine Welles established The Ned Welles Memorial Scholarship in memory of their son Ned Welles, Class of 2004. Their efforts also include partnering on scholarships at Ponchatoula High and Southeastern Louisiana University. Sparky Welles is president of Jackson-Vaughan Agency, Inc. and Ponchatoula Beach Development Corp., vice president of GADD Corp., and treasurer of Northlake Insurance Group Ltd. Catherine Welles is a horticulturalist, naturalist, and a graduate of the University of New Orleans.

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

ALUMNI

Millsaps Political Science Alumni Book Club

our or five times a year, political science alumni in the Washington, D.C. area meet and discuss books they’ve recently read. “About ten or so years ago I began to count the number of political science alumni who lived in the Washington area,” said Dr. John Quincy Adams, who retired in 1994 after teaching political science for 29 years at Millsaps and then moved to Washington. “I discussed with my late departmental colleague Howard Bavender (1920-2008), who also lived in the area, the possibility of getting our former students together as a book club. There have been about a dozen or so political alums here over this period, and while they all did not know each other, although some did, Bavender and I certainly knew them quite well.” The group meets four or five times a year—never during the summer—always on a Sunday evening. “We generally don’t call our club by a formal name, but it is really The Millsaps Political Science Alumni Book Club,” Adams said. The group first operated as a traditional book club and

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everyone read the same book. The format now calls for each person to report on a book whether ﬁction, history, biography, or current events that he or she has read. “I go online and get reviews and email them to everyone just before the meeting, and that format works wonderfully well,” he said. A few years ago it became apparent that it would be easier for everyone to meet at a central place, given the long distances Virginia alums and Maryland alums would have to travel to each others’ destination, so Adams' home on Capitol Hill became the base. Occasionally, political science alums from far away manage to take part when they are in town for business. Spouses also occasionally attend, and even alums who only took political science courses and were not a major. “We once had a very distinguished member of Congress attend—we were all reading John Lewis’ memoir —but ordinarily the group is just former political science students and spouses and now, since Professor Bavender’s death, just me, their former professor,” Adams said. Photo of Dr. John Quincy Adams

A Millsaps Homecoming Saturday, October 29, 2011 Mark your calendar for a fun-filled weekend that will include an alumni welcome reception, Tasting at the Tents, a football game, and opportunities to visit with alumni and friends. All reunion parties will be under one roof, including an all-alumni party. Reunion Classes: 1961, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2006 WebExtra

For more information, visit www.millsaps.edu/alumni

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ALUMNI

Millsaps, how do I love thee? Alumni couples had the opportunity to express their answers to the question, “Millsaps, how do I love thee?” during the first Millsaps Alumni Couples Dinner. Presented by the Student Council for College Advancement, the event drew alumni with a special connection to the College: Millsaps is where romance blossomed for them. The occasion offered the opportunity for photographs on the “M” Bench. Among the couples were Mary Virginia Welker, 1950, and Conrad Welker, 1950 ; David Marsh, B.A. 1973, and Patricia Marsh, B.A. 1976; and Scott Staines, B.A. 2004,and Lane Staines, B.B.A. 2005. WebExtra

60 www.millsaps.edu www.millsaps.edu

For more information, visit www.millsaps.edu/alumni

ALUMNI

Bobashelas from 1905 to 2011 and other College publications now online Millsaps-Wilson Library receives grant to help fund project. BY DEBRA MCINTOSH, COLLEGE ARCHIVIST

he Millsaps-Wilson Library recently digitized several College publications and offers them online. The materials are part of a digital collection that exhibits the history of the College through student and alumni publications and course catalogs. Publications include the student yearbook Bobashela (19052010), College catalogs (1895-present), the alumni news magazine Major Notes (1955-1970), and the student news monthly Millsaps Collegian (1898-1909). These exhibits are freely available to students, alumni, and friends of the College. To view the collection, visit Millsaps College Digital Archive or www.archive.org/details/millsapscollege. The searchable online exhibit is hosted on Internet Archive and is also linked from the library's College Archives Campus Publications web page. All items were scanned from cover to cover and in full col-

or. You can choose from a variety of formats, page through a book choosing the “read online” option, download the PDF, or search the full text version. The publications are available online in a collaborative project partially funded by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to LYRASIS, our regional library cooperative, and by support from alumni and friends of the College. The LYRASIS partnership with Internet Archives has made digitization easy and affordable for libraries and cultural institutions across the country. All materials are from the College Archives and reﬂect the time of their creation. We hope to add the Purple and White and Millsaps College Bulletin in the future. To provide support for this project, contact the Ofﬁce of Institutional Advancement at 601-974-1028 or 1-866-455-7277 or the library at 601-974-1073. Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

ALUMNI

Alumnus James Graves confirmed to 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge and champion of education continues life of service.

illsaps graduate James Graves will continue his career of public service with his appointment to the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The court handles cases from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Graves, 57, a Mississippi Supreme Court justice since 2001, described his new job in an Associated Press story. “It’s a very important job. It’s public service. The awesomeness of the task is probably the weight that I feel. There’s a self-imposed pressure to do a good job,” Graves said. “It makes you feel like you want to live up to people’s beliefs and expectations in your capacity to do a job.” The U.S. Senate unanimously conﬁrmed his appointment. Graves will be the ﬁrst black judge from Mississippi to serve on the 5th Circuit. Graves graduated from Millsaps in 1975 with a B.A. in sociology and went on to earn his law degree as well as a master’s degree in public administration at Syracuse University. He returned to Mississippi and served as a circuit court judge for 10 years before being appointed to the Supreme Court by thenGovernor Ronnie Musgrove. He won election to the same position in 2004. Graves began his legal career as a staff attorney at Central Mississippi Legal Services in 1980. He has served as legal coun-

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sel for both the Health Law Division and the Human Services Division of the Mississippi Attorney General’s Ofﬁce. He also worked as a special assistant attorney general for the State of Mississippi and served as director of the Division of Child Support Enforcement in the Mississippi Department of Human Services. A champion of education, Graves has taught trial advocacy at Harvard Law School and media law and civil rights law at Jackson State University. In the spring semester of 2005, he taught the class, Law and Society, to Millsaps undergraduates. Graves has been honored with awards from the Hinds County Bar Association, the National Bar Association, and the National Conference of Black Lawyers. In 1993, he was named Alumnus of the Year by the Millsaps College Black Student Association. Graves was the keynote speaker during the 2002 commencement ceremonies at Millsaps, and along with the Rev. Will Campbell, activist and author; Phillip Martin, then chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians; and Cassandra Wilson, Millsaps alumna jazz singer, was awarded an honorary degree from the College. Graves met his wife, Bettye Ramsey Graves at Millsaps. She received a B.A. from Millsaps in 1974. They have three sons; their son James received a B.S. from Millsaps in 2003.

CLASS NOTES

Millsaps Class Notes Millsaps Magazine prints only information sent in specifically for Class 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 items, whether big or small, personal or professional, to Nell Luter Floyd, Office of Communications, Millsaps College, 1701 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39210-0001. Fax : 601-974-1456. Phone: 601-974-1033 or 1-86-MILLSAPS (1-866 - 455-7277). Email: communications@ millsaps.edu. 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 are not receiving the magazine, please send us their names and addresses.

Any submission for Class Notes received after April 18, 2011 will appear in the next issue of Millsaps Magazine.

1949 John Garrard Jr., B.A. 1949, of Atmore, Ala., was selected in September 2010 to attend the South Alabama World War II Veterans flight to Washington, D.C. The flight was sponsored by American Legion Post 90, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Disabled American Veterans. “What a great welcoming home at the Mobile airport on our return and big welcome in Washington,” he wrote in information he submitted for Class Notes. The Atmore Chamber of Commerce presented Garrard a Lifetime Achievement Award for his 62 years of service to Atmore and the surrounding area. He is a former president and chief executive officer of First National Bank & Trust, a former Atmore City Council member, and an Atmore Rotary Club member.

1952 Robert V. Haynes, B.A. 1952, received the 2011 McLemore Prize for his book, The Mississippi Territory and the Southwest Frontier, 1795-1817. The Mississippi Historical Society awards the prize to the best book on Mississippi history or

biography published in the previous year. Haynes is a retired professor of history at Western Kentucky University and also the author of A Night of Violence: The Houston Riot of 1917.

1956 Bill Lampton, B.A. 1956, of Gainesville, Ga., is president of Championship Communcation. He hosts an hour-long radio interview program, “The Communication Corner,” for WBCX-FM. He provides keynote speeches, seminars, and speech coaching for major corporations.

1957 David D. Franks, B.A. 1957, of Richmond, Va., retired in 1999 as professor emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University. During his retirement, he has worked on developing the new ﬁeld of neurosociology. He has written two books during his retirement: Sociology and the Real World (with Stephen Lyng) published by Rowman and Littleﬁeld in 2002 and Neurosociology: The Nexus Between Neuroscience and Social Psychology published by Springer Press in 2010. David is currently editing The Handbook of Neurosociology with Springer Press that will be published in 2012. His wife, Audrey Jennings Franks,

B.S. 1954, retired as a judge with the Richmond, Va. Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in 2001. She still sits on the court as a substitute judge.

1962 Nancy Grisham Anderson, B.A. 1962, of Montgomery, Ala., received the 20102011 Excellence in Outreach Award and a $4,200 grant for her work as director of the Actions Build Community program at Auburn University at Montgomery. The program sponsors reading and writing initiatives for children living in a lowincome housing community. She also teaches English at AUM and received the Samuel and Lizette Mitchell Award for Service from the Association of College English Teachers of Alabama.

1966 Norma Watkins, B.A. 1966, of Fort Bragg, Calif., is a professor of creative writing at College of the Redwoods. She is also professor emerita from MiamiDade College in Miami, Fla. Her memoir, The Last Resort: Taking the Mississippi Cure, was published by the University of Mississippi Press in June.

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

CLASS NOTES NOTES

Class Notes Photos:

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1. David Anderson, B.B.A. 1976 2. William R. Lancaster, B.S. 1979 3. Perry Chesney, B.B.A. 1981 4-5. Children of Jeff Reynolds, B.S. 1982 6. Priscilla Childress Tillner, B.S. 1986 7. Bernard Booth IV, B.S. 1995 8. Child of Cassie Strawn, B.A. 1999 9. Paige Biglane, B.S. 2005 10. Andrew McDowell, B.A. 2008 11. Jessica Sanford Tackett, B.A., B.B.A. 2007 and M.B.A. 2008 12. Meredith Harris, B.B.A. 2010 13. Lee Klein, B.B.A. 2010

CLASS NOTES

1967 Graham Lewis, B.A. 1967, of Ashland, Ore., was named staff photographer and volunteer coordinator of the Ashland, Oregon Chamber of Commerce. He also owns Graham Lewis Fine Photography, where he shoots freelance work. His work may be viewed at www.photograham.wordpress.com

1968 Kay Pritchett, B.A. 1968, of Fayetteville, Ark., is a professor of Spanish at the University of Arkansas. Bucknell University Press published her book In Pursuit of Poem Shadows: Pureza Canelo’s Second Poetics in April 2011.

1970 Dr. Clinton Cavett, 1970, of Indianapolis, Ind., is medical director of pediatric surgery at Community Health Network in Indianapolis, Ind. His wife, Connie, B.A. 1970, is a Millsaps graduate.

1974 Cindy Hewitt, 1974, of Sarasota, Fla., writes education and childcare stories for the online newspaper, The Examiner.

1976 David Anderson, B.B.A. 1976, of Drexel Hill, Pa., joined Citrin Cooperman, one of the top 35 accounting ﬁrms in the nation, as the director of the ﬁrm’s Valuation and Forensic Services Department in November 2010. In February 2011, he

presented a forensic accounting seminar to members of the Northeast Chapter of Certiﬁed Forensic Interviewers.

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1977

Blanche Williams, B.A. 1977, of Apex, N.C., is a clinical psychologist and enneagram guide. An enneagram is a system of personality types that can be used to understand relationships, cultural differences, and personal growth.

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Millsaps College 1979 William R. Lancaster, B.S. 1979, is now a partner in Armbrecht Jackson LLP. He earned his J.D. from The University of Mississippi in 1982. He is admitted to the Mississippi Bar, Alabama Bar, state Bar of Texas, and the Tennessee Bar. Lancaster’s practice areas include employment litigation and workers’ compensation, medical malpractice and long-term care defense, mediation, and arbitration. Lancaster was named an Alabama “Super Lawyer” in Employment Defense in 2008. During his career, he has tried more than 100 jury and non-jury cases to judgment.

1981 Perry Chesney, B.B.A. 1981, of Richmond, Va., was named the senior managing director of Wealthcare Capital Management’s global client group and a member of its executive committee. He has more than 25 years of experience in wealth management and was named one of the best ﬁnancial advisors in the country by Worth Magazine.

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CLASS NOTES

1982 Jeff Reynolds, B.S. 1982, of Jackson, and Rebecca Taylor Reynolds, welcome Parker Marie and Katherine Cory, born on March 23. They join their sister, Emily Jane, born on June 5, 2009.

1983 Amy Lyles Wilson, B.A. 1983, of Nashville, is co-author of Bless Your Heart: Saving the World One Covered Dish at a Time (Thomas Nelson, 2010). The sequel, You Be Sweet, will be published in 2012. She earned her master’s degree in journalism from Ole Miss in 1986 and her master’s degree in theological studies from Vanderbilt University Divinity School in 2007. Amy is also a columnist and blogger for Her magazine.

1984 Lisa Catledge, B.A. 1984, of Brandon, recently moved back to Mississippi from Ann Arbor, Mich. She is a licensed clinical social worker and works as a mental health professional at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.

1986 Priscilla Childress Tillner, B.S. 1986, of Ridgeland, joined the staff of the Ofﬁce of Alumni Relations at Millsaps College in November 2010. She previously worked as the information technology manager for Kappa Delta National Headquarters in Memphis. She is the mother of current Millsaps College student Lane Tillner, 20, and Ruth Ann Tillner, 17,

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who will attend Union University in the fall of 2011.

of twins, Benjamin Nevins and Daniel Powers, on Oct. 20, 2010.

1987

1995

Michael Breazeale, B.B.A. 1987, of New Albany, Ind., completed his Ph.D. in marketing at Mississippi State University in May 2010. His dissertation developed and tested a new theory of consumer behavior related to the emotional bonds that consumers form with retailers. While at Mississippi State, Mike was awarded the 2010 Donald Zacharias Doctoral Student Teaching Award at the university level, the MSU College of Business Doctoral Student Teaching Award, and the MSU College of Business Doctoral Research Award. Mike is now assistant professor of marketing at Indiana University Southeast and is editing the book, Consumer-Brand Relationships: Insights for Theory and Practice (Routledge Publishing).

Winston Barham, B.A. 1995, of Charlottesville, Va., presented a poster session, “Preserving Virginia’s Recorded Concerts,” at the 2011 annual meeting of the Music Library Association in Philadelphia, Penn. He is the library assistant for outreach and public services at the University of Virginia Music Library.

1990 Kevin Crothers, B.S. 1990, of Ridgeland, is chief information ofﬁcer for First Choice Medical Supply in Richland. He has worked as systems manager for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, LDDS/WorldCom, and Health Management Associates. He and his wife, Kim, have two sons, Quinn and Quest, and a daughter, Kacy.

1994 Jennifer Nevins Henson, M.B.A. 1994, of Hampton, Tenn., and her husband Wayne Henson, announce the birth

Bernard Booth IV, B.S. 1995, of Jackson, was named a partner of Adams and Reese LLP on Jan. 1. He joined Adams and Reese in 2007 and centers his practice on energy and natural resources and mass tort litigation. Before joining Adams and Reese, he was an attorney in the U.S. Navy and served as a legal advisor to the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Joe Donovan, M.B.A. 1995, joined the Else School of Management as director of entrepreneurial development and the Small Business Development Center. He will assist the Else School Entrepreneurial Task Force with identiﬁcation of entrepreneurial opportunities and development of strategic relationships for the purpose of advancing entrepreneurship in Mississippi. Gretchen Steen, B.A. 1995, of Austin, Texas, works in the Texas House of Representatives for Speaker of the House Joe Straus. She previously worked for George W. Bush, both while he was governor of Texas and president of the United States.

CLASS NOTES

1996

2002

Jenny Irons, B.A. 1996, of Clinton, N.Y., is an associate professor of sociology at Hamilton College. Vanderbilt University Press published her book Reconstituting Whiteness: The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission in May 2010.

Kenneth Taylor Beasley, B.B.A 2002 and MAcc 2003, and his wife, Laura Kettig Beasley, of Germantown, Tenn. announce the birth of their second son, John Kettig, on Sept. 20, 2010. They also have a son, William Taylor, age 2.

1998

2004

Andy Beauchamp, B.A. 1998, and his wife Sharon M. Garner, of Houston, Texas, announce the birth of their son, Wallace Adrian “Beau,” on Nov. 29, 2010.

Joshua Wittie, B.A. 2004, and his wife Kelly Sellers Wittie, B.A. 2004, of Hammond, La., welcomed their second child, Caroline Atticus, on Feb. 8. Caroline, who goes by the name Atti, joins big brother Daniel Aaron, age 4.

1999 Cassie Strawn, B.A. 1999, of Atlanta, and her husband Brad Strawn announce the birth of their son, Jack Eugene, on Nov. 20, 2009.

2000 Marin Dawson-Caswell, B.S. 2000, and her husband Kyle Caswell, of Metairie, La. announce the birth of their son, Liam Michael, on June 18, 2010. Liam joins 3-year-old sister Kaylin.

2001 John Matthew Janicek, B.B.A. 2001, of Houston, Texas, is regional operations manager for BG Group. He and his wife, Amanda, welcomed their ﬁrst child, Hayden Holland, on July 31, 2010.

2005 Paige Biglane, B.S. 2005, of Ripley, Tenn., received an award from Mississippi College School of Law during its 2011 Law Day ceremony. Biglane was the recipient of the MLI/Lenore Prather Scholarship, given in honor of Lenore Prather, former chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court. Kristen Kinsella, B.S. 2005, and her husband, Joe Kinsella, of Lake Forest, Ill., welcomed their fourth child, Greyson, on June 2, 2010. Greyson joins 11-yearold Aiden, 8-year-old Caeli and 4-yearold Zoe. Kristen stays at home with her children and works for Game On! Sports Camps for Girls. Joe was the Millsaps head softball coach from 2000-2006 and is in his ﬁfth year as the head softball coach at Lake Forest College.

ExtraCredit Millsaps alumni enjoy reading, and we’d like to know: Do you prefer to read a book the old-fashioned way, i.e., print, or have you joined the legions of those who opt for an e-reader such as a Nook or Kindle? Shoot us an email at www.communications@millsaps.edu with your answer. You’re welcome to elaborate about what works for you, and you might even pass along the title of a favorite book . We will share your responses in the next magazine.

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

CLASS NOTES

2007 Gary Michael Gleason Jr., B.A. 2007, of Petal, received an award from Mississippi College School of Law during its 2011 Law Day ceremony. Gleason was the recipient of the MLI/Lenore Prather Award, given in honor of Lenore Prather, former chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court. Jessica Sanford Tackett, B.A. and B.B.A. 2007 and M.B.A. 2008, of Jackson, married Paul Tackett on Aug. 28, 2010 at Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis. Jessica works at Harper, Rains, Knight & Co., a CPA ﬁrm in Ridgeland. Paul is a medical student at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

2008 Katelin Koon, B.A. 2008, of Rockport, Texas, joined the staff of the Texas Maritime Museum in December 2010 as their education director. After graduating from Millsaps, she earned her master’s degree in maritime archaeology from the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom.

Holly Harmon, B.A. 2008, of Detroit, began working at the Detroit Institute of the Arts in February. She is the interpretive specialist in the Learning and Interpretation Department, where she develops educational materials to accompany the exhibits, both permanent and traveling, in the Institute.

2010

Wes Hill, B.B.A. 2008, of Birmingham, is a student at the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University. Hill and his teammate placed ﬁrst out of 95 teams at the 2011 Law Student Tax Challenge, hosted by the Section of Taxation of the American Bar Association. The ﬁnal rounds were judged by tax professionals and the chief judge of the U.S. Tax Court.

Lee Klein, B.B.A. 2010, of Ridgeland was hired as an intern at the Ridgeland ofﬁce of Horne LLP, one of the top 50 accounting and business advisory ﬁrms in the country. Klein’s internship is in assurance services.

Andrew McDowell, B.A. 2008, of Miramar Beach, Fla., received an award from Mississippi College School of Law during its 2011 Law Day ceremony. McDowell was the recipient of the Herman and Martha Hines Award, given to a student who demonstrates civic leadership.

Meredith Harris, B.B.A. 2010, of Ridgeland was hired as an intern at the Ridgeland ofﬁce of Horne LLP, one of the top 50 accounting and business advisory ﬁrms in the country. Harris’ internship is in health care accounting services.

2011 Brandi Michelle Buckler, B.A. 2011, will pursue a doctorate in classics in the fall at the University of Texas-Austin, which has one of the top graduate programs in classics in the country. As a Millsaps senior, she presented in April a research paper as part of a student symposium hosted by the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C.

Mark Your Calendar The Else School of Management plans to celebrate its 25th anniversary during Homecoming 2011 with a luncheon on Oct. 26 at noon in the Leggett Special Events Center. Members of the Charles and Eloise Else family, for whom the school is named, will be among special guests. All Else School alumni and former faculty members are invited. Cost of the luncheon is $15 per person. For more information, phone 601-974-1254.

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Anniversary

IN MEMORIAM

In Memoriam Any submissions for In Memoriam received after April 18, 2011 will appear in the next issue of Millsaps Magazine.

Martha Belle Marshall Crawford, B.A. 1926, of Tucson, Ariz., died Jan. 17, 2011. She was a teacher in the Jackson public schools for 30 years. During retirement, she was a member of several education-focused organizations in Jackson. Mary Eleanor Myers Dickson, B.A. 1940, of Columbia, died Oct. 30, 2010. She was a homemaker and for 60 years served as a minister’s wife in Atlanta and in Mississippi in Copiah County, Pachuta, Meridian, Union, Laurel, Columbia, Yazoo City, Hattiesburg, Vicksburg, Jackson, and McComb. Clifton Duckworth Jones, 1940, of Jackson, died Nov. 7, 2010. He served in the United States Navy during World War II. He worked for 38 years for the U.S. Corps of Engineers at Waterways Experiment Station. He received a basketball scholarship to Millsaps College where he was an All-Dixie Conference selection as a member of the 1940 and 1941 Dixie Conference Championship Teams, and led the team in scoring in 1941. He was inducted into the Millsaps Sports Hall of Fame in 1998. An avid sports enthusiast, he refereed junior high, high school, college, and semi-pro basketball and baseball games for more than 25 years, and helped start Little League Baseball in Jackson. William Bryant Ridgway, 1940, of Jackson, died Dec. 13, 2010. In October 1941, Bryant joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was an instructor for advanced pilot training for two years, and then served as a B-24 Liberator pilot attached to the 467th Bomb Group with the 8th

Air Force in Rackheath, England. He ﬂew 14 combat missions before the war in Europe ended. He was honorably discharged from active duty in the Air Force in October 1945, but continued service in the U.S. Air Force Reserves until October 1968, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel. After returning to civilian life, he earned a law degree at Jackson School of Law and passed the bar exam. He was a real estate broker, principal in Ridgway Management, Inc., and active in the oil and gas, real estate, and timber businesses. He served one term in the Mississippi House of Representatives as a representative for Hinds and Yazoo Counties.

William O. "Billy" Carter Jr., B.A. 1948, of Jackson, died Jan. 30, 2011. His attendance at Millsaps College was interrupted by service in the U. S. Navy in the Pacific Theater during World War II. After the war, he returned to Millsaps to graduate, earned a law degree at the University of Mississippi School of Law and joined the Jackson law firm of Ricketts & Wise, which eventually became Wise Carter Child & Caraway. He served as president and chairman of the board of the firm for several years before his retirement. He received in 2004 the Jim Livesay Service Award for his commitment to and support of Millsaps College.

Marjorie E. Miller, 1941, of Hammond, La., died April 28, 2010. She worked as a librarian at Southeastern Louisiana University until 1977, after which she worked at Herring Insurance Company.

Walter E. Stokes III, 1948, of Greenville, died Dec. 12, 2010. Upon graduation from high school in Greenville, he entered Millsaps College on June 25, 1943 after being selected for the Navy V-12 unit, a program during World War II for male students seeking academic preparation prior to being commissioned in the U.S. Navy. As part of the V-12 program, Walter attended Princeton University and graduated from Midshipman School at Columbia University. He was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy and began active service on the U.S.S. Admiralty Islands where he served in the Paciﬁc theater during WWII. He was employed for more than 30 years by the U.S. Gypsum Company in Greenville where he managed the customer service and production control departments.

Margaret Hulen Robinson, 1942, of Jackson, died Dec. 29, 2010. After Millsaps, she graduated from the American Academy of Art in Chicago, Ill. She had a career as an artist in Chicago, Chattanooga, Tenn. and Jackson. During World War II she served as a member of the US Navy WAVES Division. Maury Ross, 1947, of Lawrenceville, Ga., died Jan. 10, 2011. He served with distinction in the US Army’s 102nd Division during World War II earning a Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and other notable military accommodations. He had a successful career of more than 30 years with Coca-Cola USA.

Marvin Ross White, B.S. 1948, of Clinton, died Dec. 24, 2010. Upon graduation from Pearl River Junior College in 1942, he enlisted in the infantry division

Millsaps Magazine | Summer 2011

IN MEMORIAM

of the United States Army and became a paratrooper. He was a member of the 13th Airborne Division, and he served in France for nine months during World War II. He went on to earn a master’s degree in education from the University of Mississippi and a doctorate in education from the University of Southern Mississippi. He served as registrar, academic dean, and president of Pearl River Junior College. In 1986, he ended his 33-year career at the college, having served the longest term of any president. Nadine McKinnon Leverette, B.A. 1949, of Jackson died Feb. 6, 2011. She had worked as a receptionist and an executive secretary and was a homemaker. James Charles”Jim” McDonald, O.B. 1950, of Jackson, died Jan. 5, 2011. He was a veteran of World War II, having served in the U.S. Navy in the Paciﬁc.He was a professional engineer, employed by the Mississippi State Health Department for 40 years before his retirement. Dr. Fred William McEwen Jr., 1950, of Jackson, died March 27, 2011. He developed osteomyelitis of the spine while in junior high school, and spent three years in bed in a cast and three more years wearing a brace, while catching up two of the three years of school he had missed. He graduated from the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy and earned his master’s and doctorate in pharmacology. He began his working career at Morris Pharmacy in Jackson, later worked for Walgreens in Jackson and set up and managed the pharmacy at University Hospital in Jackson.

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Emily Costigan Flowers, B.S. 1954, of Greenwood, died April 14, 2011. She earned a master’s degree from Delta State University. She taught in the Greenwood Public Schools for more than 20 years and was selected as STAR Teacher several times in the Student-Teacher Achievement Recognition Program of the Mississippi Economic Council and its M.B. Swayze Educational Foundation. Lois Boackle Jones, B.S. 1954, of Jackson, died April 14, 2011. She went on to receive a law degree from Jackson School of Law. She was a medical technologist who spent most of her professional career at University of Mississippi Health Center. Tommy B. Taylor, B.A. 1955, of Carrollton, died Jan. 3, 2011. He was a retired county agent who worked with Mississippi State Cooperative Extension Service for 32 years. He was one of the founders of the catfish industry in Mississippi and was referred to as the “Catfish Doctor.” He spoke across the United States promoting the catfish industry and was a founder of the World Catfish Festival in Humphreys County. Dr. Jerry Jones Long, 1956, of Hazlehurst, died April 11, 2011. Long went on to graduate from the University of Tennessee School of Dentistry in 1958 and did a tour of duty in the US Navy as a dentist. He was a general dentist in Jackson for six years before he received a Master of Science in dentistry orthodontics from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1968. Long practiced orthodontics in Jackson before moving his office to Ha-

zlehurst in 2002. He retired in July 2010 after 52 years as a dentist. Lt. Gen. (Retired) Wafford H Merrell Jr., 1957, of Jackson, died Oct. 29, 2010. He graduated from Tulane Medical School and did a residency at the University of Mississippi Medical School. He was a founder of Mississippi Urology Clinic and later practiced with the Urology Care Center. As a full time practicing physician, he held numerous medical staff positions at St. Dominic’s/Jackson Memorial Hospital. He retired from the Mississippi National Guard after 35 years of service. He held the position of special assistant to the Surgeon General of the Army for the National Guard from1988 through 1991. The Rev. Summer Lewis Walters Jr., B.A. 1957, of Franklin, Ind., died October 21, 2010. He served as a pastor for 40 years for the United Methodist Church in Mississippi and Indiana. Walters and his wife, Betty, 1955, have been donors to the Millsaps College Archives during the last 10 years, creating a collection of 88 books and manuscripts related to his ministerial experiences in Mississippi 1961-1963, a time period that is frequently researched by students and visiting scholars. The manuscript papers contain correspondence, clippings, sermons concerning racial issues and policies of Methodist churches in Mississippi; Millsaps College student papers, print material; graduate school and license to preach papers; list of book collection donated to Millsaps College Archives; materials related to Jefferson Street, Galloway Memorial, and other Methodist churches; Born of Conviction ﬁles; and other

IN MEMORIAM

personal papers donated to archives over the period 2001-2010. Lucinda "Cindy" Anne Faulkenberry Youngs, 1957, of Beaumont, Texas, died Feb. 26, 2011. She retired as a librarian with Bingman Elementary in Beaumont. Frances Holland Andrews, 1959, of Carlsbad, Calif., died Oct. 16, 2010. She received a bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University and earned a master’s in business administration from San Diego State University. For many years she was director of ﬁnance at GA Technologies in San Diego. In that capacity, she was a member of the team instrumental in securing the contract to execute the RQ-1 Predator UAV program for the U.S. Air Force’s weaponry arsenal. The Rev. James Dabbs, 1959, of Hattiesburg, died Jan. 2, 2011. He was a retired Methodist minister who most recently served at Main Street Methodist Church in Hattiesburg. He also served at Porter’s Chapel Methodist in Vicksburg, Taylorsville United Methodist Church, Poplar Springs Drive United Methodist Church in Meridian, First United Methodist Church in Picayune, Central Methodist in Meridian, Level Woods United Methodist Church in Jackson, Mount Zion United Methodist Church in Atlanta, Capitol St. United Methodist Church in Jackson and First United Methodist Church in Canton. Miriam O’Ferrall McAlilly, 1959, of Pearl, died Feb.15, 2011. She worked for many years as a secretary at the OB-GYN Clinic at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

Dr. William “Bill” Pennington Jr., B.A. 1959, of Cleveland, died Nov. 29, 2010. He was a retired professor at Delta State University. Malese Smith Brunson, B.A. 1960, of Biloxi, died Dec. 1, 2010. She sold real estate along the Mississippi Gulf Coast for many years. Sally King Jackson, B.A. 1961, of Hattiesburg, died Dec. 21, 2010. She was an accomplished artist and lifelong community volunteer. She served on the Hattiesburg Public School District Board for ﬁve years and played a key role in Parent Teacher Associations at several schools in Hattiesburg. Patsy Mayo, B.A. 1962, of Raymond, died Nov. 19, 2010. After graduating from Millsaps in three years, she earned a masters degree at the University of Mississippi. She taught in cities in Texas, Tennessee, and Mississippi, and was a principal with Hinds County Schools. She also worked as an administrator with Starkville City Schools. She retired as the Workforce Development coordinator of Hinds Community College . Cora Minor Jordan, 1963, of Oxford, died Jan.10, 2011. She was a lawyer and author and helped to found the ﬁrst Quaker meeting in Mississippi. Bob Rutledge, B.S. 1964, of Mobile, Ala., died April 14, 2011. He went on to receive a master’s degree in education from Florida State. He was head football coach and athletic director at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Ridgeland,

and then worked at St. Paul’s Episcopal School in Mobile where he coached, taught, and served as headmaster. After he retired, he served as interim headmaster at St. Andrew’s. He was inducted into the Millsaps Sports Hall of Fame in 1977. William G. Tabb III, 1965, of Mandeville, La., died Oct. 8, 2010. He was a counselor at law and a graduate of Tulane University. Robert Edwin Cunningham III, 1970, of Greenville, died Feb. 14, 2011. He and his wife, Searcy, operated Robert Cunningham Realty in Greenville, which he founded in the late 1970s. William D. Potter, B.A. 1973, of Wilmington, N.C., died Dec. 6, 2010, at his home. He was a jeweler for many years. Patty Owen Love, 1974, of Yazoo City, died April 2, 2011. She was employed by the American Cancer Society and was a former teacher at Manchester Academy in Yazoo City. Elizabeth Lyons Howkins Tarkington Gordon, B.A. 1975, of Metairie, La., died March 12, 2011. After holding several chemistry-related positions, including one at the Tulane Primate Center in Covington, La., she became editorial assistant for the Neuroscience Center at the Louisiana State University Health Science Center in 1993. She held editorial positions within the same institution in the departments of orthopedics, pediatrics and ophthalmology. In 2008, she became grants administrator at the University of New Orleans in the Ofﬁce of Research and Sponsored Programs.

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IN MEMORIAM 72

Alice Carol Parker Batton, B.L.S. 1996, of Brandon, died March 5, 2011. She attended Hinds Community College in Raymond, and later in life returned to school to graduate cum laude from Millsaps College with a major in elementary education.

David B. White, B.A. 1988, of Jackson, died Jan. 21, 2011. He majored in art at Millsaps and went on to earn a master’s degree in studio art from Mississippi College. He was a campus safety sergeant and was employed at Millsaps for the last 10 years.

Faculty-Staff

Friends

Dr. Russell Wilford Levanway, of Brandon, died on Jan. 16, 2011. He was the ﬁrst professor of psychology at Millsaps. He taught psychology at Millsaps for more than 30 years, and authored the textbook, Advanced General Psychology, that was published during his tenure at the College. He was also a founder of the Contact Crisis Line, and gave generously of his time over the years training the volunteers who manned the Contact telephone lines.

John Pinkney Henderson, of Jackson, died Feb. 7, 2011. He received a bachelor’s degree from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Upon honorable discharge from the Navy on July 1, 1945, he served 44 years with Humble Oil and Reﬁning, which later became known as Exxon-Mobil. He and his wife Alice, B.A. 1955, endowed the John Pickney Henderson and Wanda Alice McKee Henderson Scholarship.

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Alma Williamson Moreton, of Fort Worth, Texas, died June 16, 2010. She graduated from the Juilliard School of Music, and then moved to Temple, Texas, where she taught violin and viola. It was while in Temple that Alma was introduced to a young doctor, Robert D. Moreton, whom she married about a year later. The Moretons moved to Fort Worth where he and Dr. Tom Bond founded the Radiation Center, now MD Anderson Moncrief Cancer Center. She played in the viola section of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and later became second chair in the ﬁrst violin section. Moreton and her late husband endowed the Robert and Alma Moreton Science Lectureship and the Robert D. and Alma Moreton Endowed Scholarship Fund for science majors.

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