ALUMNI AWARD WINNERS

MILLSAPS YOUNG ALUMNA OF THE YEAR IS AN ADVOCATE FOR PUBLIC HEALTH

BY ANDY KANENGISER

Lamees Samir El-sadek is a proven public health servant advancing her career as a Harvard doctoral candidate. At the same time, she’s a tireless voice seeking to break down barriers across faith communities.

A 2011 Millsaps College graduate and Lilly Fellow, the Mississippi native stays committed to making the universe a better place. The Millsaps Outstanding Young Alumna Award recipient in 2021, El-sadek is reaching her goals despite challenges.

The Millsaps Alumni Association annually recognizes grads showing promise in their professions, prioritizing community service achievements and strongly supporting their alma mater.

The 31-year-old credits Millsaps College for development of her critical thinking and communication skills along with the institution’s remarkable sense of community. As an undergraduate, she thrived as a double major — biology combined with international health and economics.

“Millsaps enabled and academically empowered me with the intellectual resources to explore how different disciplines intersect,” El-sadek said.

Beginning in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the education of students at thousands of institutions worldwide. The health emergency brought the 2011 Millsaps grad back home to central Mississippi. Spending time in metro Jackson this summer, El-sadek plays a leading role with a National Institutes of Health research project. She expects to receive her doctorate at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2022.

A Gates Millennium Scholar, and recent recipient of the Rabbi Nussbaum Civil Justice Award, El-sadek earned her master’s in public health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, in May 2013. Her certification is in health disparities and health inequality.

Her experience with the global health crisis became all too personal. Her parents, both immigrants from North Africa, were hospitalized several days after becoming infected with the coronavirus. Her mother, Rawia Rashad El-sadek, serves as a Crystal Springs Middle School teacher. Her father, Samir, is a chemical engineer. Her sister and brother also became ill with COVID-19. The Millsaps alumna helped her family recover, but eluded the virus as she had already received the vaccine.

An alumna of the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science in Columbus, El-sadek almost became a first-year student at Duke University. But Millsaps College won her heart after she visited the Jackson campus for the first time as a Presidential Scholarship candidate. Receiving this generous scholarship and living nearby Mississippi family members led to her decision to become a Millsaps Major. Excellent professors, including James Bowley, Patrick Hopkins, Deborah Mann and Harvey Fiser, inspired her from day one.

As a Muslim, El-sadek shared her religion with Millsaps classmates and students at metro Jackson high schools. The Mississippian built bridges with Jews, Christians and anybody willing to listen.

A Millsaps education, she said, changed her global outlook. As a study abroad student, El-sadek traveled to Albania, South Africa, Turkey, Spain and Switzerland. “What a blessing — to have such distinct reference points to observe the world as a young student.”

Growing up in Crystal Springs, El-sadek discovered her hometown didn’t offer many activities. So, the Mississippi woman broadened her understanding of religion by attending Wednesday night Bible studies at a local church. She soaked up more knowledge at an area mosque. “I went through a lot of questioning, but faith and religion never stopped being important to me.”

Lamees Samir El-sadek is proud to be among the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims. “It’s a beautiful religion and gives guidance for a very equitable and peaceful way of living.”

Her skill set as a public health professional is a perfect match. “Being a public health servant allows me the opportunity to be a lifelong student.”

EDWARD SCHRADER HONORED AS DISTINGUISHED MILLSAPS GRADUATE

BY ANDY KANENGISER

Dr. Ed Schrader earned multiple accolades during his splendid career as the president of two Georgia universities. As a geologist, Millsaps College professor and administrator, he earned acclaim as well.

A 1973 Millsaps cum laude geology graduate, Schrader is being saluted as his alma mater’s 2021 distinguished alumni award recipient. The annual award recognizes alumni for their contributions to society, professional achievements and strong support of Millsaps.

President Emeritus at Brenau University in Georgia, Schrader reflected on a lengthy list of shining Millsaps moments dating back more than a half-century. The Long Beach High graduate departed his Mississippi Gulf Coast home in fall 1969 to join the Millsaps College family. Connections to the college blossomed as a geology professor starting in 1988. He later served as associate dean of sciences at Millsaps through 2000.

“Coming home to teach at Millsaps was both a tremendously rewarding and sometimes awkward experience. I was working shoulder to shoulder with professors whom I revered and sat under their tutelage only 15 years before. What a wonderful experience,’’ he added. “I transitioned from a career in geoscience to academia.’’

A former chief geologist with the J.M. Huber Corporation, Schrader discovered his niche in Mississippi’s capital city. “Millsaps filled the empty spot in my conscience. I had the opportunity to serve far more people and support the coming generation. I can never forget those exciting and rewarding times in class and in the field.’’

Developing his leadership skills at Millsaps opened doors for Schrader to serve as president for five years at Shorter University in Rome, Georgia. Then came 16 years of dedicated service as Brenau University’s president. Schrader transformed the Gainesville, Georgia, campus into a premier health sciences institution, helped raise over $100 million and made Brenau a model of diversity.

But the heart of the Gainesville, Georgia, resident is rooted at Millsaps. “Although I attended six universities, including Duke for my Ph.D., Millsaps is always my alma mater and academic home.’’

Schrader mentored Millsaps Associate Dean of Sciences Stan Galicki. Whether leading faculty and students on research assignments at Yellowstone National Park to study mining contamination or unearthing Mayan history, Dr. Schrader “left his mark wherever he has worked,’’ Galicki said. “He is a visionary and lifelong learner.’’

Anthropology professor George Bey III poured on the praise. “Ed was crucial in the development of our Yucatán Program and the development of the Kaxil Kiuic Biocultural Reserve,’’ said the associate dean of international education. Schrader convinced then President George Harmon and Millsaps trustees to visit the site and pressed for donations of what’s become a 4,500-acre property for research.

“Without the vision and support of Ed Schrader, it is safe to say our now internationally recognized program of research, learning and amazing facilities would never have happened,’’ Dr. Bey said. As Brenau University president, Schrader brought students from the Georgia school to attend Millsaps classes in Mexico. The Millsaps graduate also supplied gifts to benefit the Kaxil Kiuic reserve.

At Millsaps, Schrader served as a founding member of the Mississippi Alpha chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. He and his wife, Myra, passed on their commitment to lifelong learning to their children.

Their daughter, Melanie Schrader Schwartz, received her bachelor’s in biology and the Founders Medal from Millsaps in 2000. Melanie graduated from Wake Forest University Medical School and is a practicing OB/GYN in Princeton, New Jersey. Their son, Edward, received his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Wake Forest University and his D.D.S. from the University of Alabama Birmingham. He is a practicing dentist in Mobile, Alabama.

DOING THE JOB NO ONE HAD EVER DONE BEFORE

BY JOHN SEWELL

Image: MTV's first broadcast

THE ORIGINAL FIVE MTV VJS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP): MARK GOODMAN, J.J. JACKSON, MARTHA QUINN, ALAN HUNTER AND NINA BLACKWOOD.

The shift from bartender in New York to a cultural icon wasn’t all that glamorous.

“One night, I’m mixing a daquiri at a cabaret show and a guy sitting there starts wagging his finger at me,” Alan Hunter recalls. The customer recognized Hunter from a new cable channel that played music videos, and it was at that moment that Hunter realized that he could step away from bartending and focus full time on his new job with MTV.

Hunter, a 1979 graduate of Millsaps College, had only recently started working as one of the five original “VJs” on MTV. He had no idea he would be on the cutting edge of a global shift in music and entertainment. The journey to this point, however, didn’t start in the middle of Manhattan but rather on the Millsaps campus in Jackson, Mississippi, several years earlier.

Hunter came to Millsaps after one visit on a weekend trip with his high school girlfriend and her sister. It was one of seven colleges to which he had been accepted, and the only one he visited. As a student, Hunter was active in theater and as a member of the Millsaps Singers and the Troubadours, a song and dance ensemble. As a senior, he made his professional acting debut with three lines as a wounded soldier in a Civil War film titled “Love’s Savage Fury,” which aired as an ABC Movie of the Week.

Good friends and good memories were also made around campus. Hunter fondly recalled afternoons when he and his friends would hang out by the observatory, with big speakers in their car trunks blasting the latest hits.

ALAN HUNTER PLAYS THE LUTE, 1978

Over the years, Hunter has remained close to Ward Emling ’76, who Hunter remembers as “his big brother.”

“In those first August days of my senior year, pretty much everyone I ran into said they had seen my brother on campus,” said Emling. “Now, I knew most of them didn’t know my brother, and I also knew my brother wasn’t on campus. Then, at the first rush party, someone said, ‘There is this guy here and I swear he’s…’ and then he pointed out Alan Hunter. From that moment on, we were brothers.”

It was a bond that was quickly cemented, Emling remembers.

“I suppose we did look and sound more like each other than we did our own actual brothers. We had the same interests: sports (though he had far better football hands), music (though he was far more interested in jazz…Spyro Gyra comes to mind), films. We liked the same people (though he was far more outgoing). And he instantly engaged life at Millsaps: Troubadours, The Players, intramurals. We found ourselves in the same place at the same time with the same people a lot, always hearing, ‘Are you guys brothers?’”

After marrying his college girlfriend, Jan Dickson ’77, during his senior year, Hunter returned to Birmingham where they both briefly acted in the Birmingham Children’s Theatre. The bright lights of Broadway were calling, however, and the next move was to New York City, where Hunter worked a number of jobs when he wasn’t attending auditions. A visit to the Mississippi Picnic in Central Park in the summer of 1981, however, was where his life started to take a different direction.

Mingling with the crowd in the Sheep’s Meadow on the Upper East Side of the park, Hunter was introduced to Bob Pittman, whose father was a Methodist minister in Mississippi and a friend of Jan Dickson Hunter’s father, Rev. N.A. Dickson ’43, who was also a Methodist minister. Coincidentally, Pittman had attended Millsaps for one year prior to Hunter’s time there, received an honorary degree in 1997 and went on to serve as an honorary member of the board of trustees. He also established a substantial endowment in his parents’ name, the Warren and Lanita Pittman Servant Leadership Scholarship, that is awarded on an annual basis to a student committed to community service. Today, Pittman is chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, Inc., which is the leading commercial publisher of podcasts and producer of the iHeart Radio Music Festival.

“I told him I was a struggling bartender/actor, and he said he was putting together some cable channel that was going to show videos,” Hunter said. Hunter had just acted in a music video for the David Bowie song “Fashion” (for which he was paid $50 a day and got to meet Bowie), so he knew a little about music videos. A day or two later, Pittman’s executive producer called to invite Hunter to audition for the new channel.

That new channel, created by Pittman, was MTV. Hunter auditioned early in the summer of 1981, reading

ALAN HUNTER AS WILL IN A 1978 PRODUCTION OF “A CRY OF PLAYERS”

TROUBADOURS, 1978

ALAN HUNTER AS HANK GUDGER IN A 1977 PRODUCTION OF “DARK OF THE MOON” ALAN HUNTER AS BOB MCCAFFREY IN A 1978 PRODUCTION OF “SOUTH PACIFIC”

teleprompters and talking off the cuff about music. After three auditions, he got the call that he had the job – three weeks before the channel began broadcasting on August 1. In his first meeting with the executive producer, Hunter remembers being handed $500 cash and told to go buy new clothes.

“As it turned out, Bob Pittman went to bat for me,” he said. “I owe my career to Bob Pittman. Bob and his team had been trying to cast the last VJ for months and months, looking at radio personalities, actors and musicians. Bob showed my first audition video to another producer, and said ‘this is your final VJ right here.’”

The first broadcast of MTV aired late at night in select markets on Saturday, August 1. While unplanned, Hunter was the first VJ to appear on the screen, soon joined by the other original four VJs – Martha Quinn, J.J. Jackson, Nina Blackwood and Mark Goodman.

As MTV rapidly grew into the leading place for music videos, the channel’s content also developed to include celebrity interviews. Hunter conducted the first MTV interviews with rising acts like Madonna, Duran Duran and U2. He also enjoyed the recognition from known celebrities as a result of his work on MTV.

“Robert Plant (lead singer from Led Zeppelin) was being interviewed at MTV,” Hunter remembered, “and when I met him, I knelt before him and said, ‘Sir Robert.’ He laughed and said, ‘arise, Sir Alan.’”

Over the next few years, Hunter had the opportunity to sit down with the greatest musicians and actors of the decade. He cites Billy Joel as his most satisfying interview, and Hunter traveled with Joel to Russia for a concert in the late 1980s.

“Billy Joel was a great cap for me to that time,” Hunter said. “I had a long interview with him in Moscow toward the end of his trip there, and it was really satisfying. I knew his whole catalog, and they were the backdrop for my college career at Millsaps, to be honest.”

Hunter also noted an interview with the late Robin Williams as especially memorable. “To interview him during one of the more manic periods in his life was amazing. And for him to know who I was, that was the other satisfying part.” His time today is spent hosting an 80s-themed show on Sirius XM and managing a production company he owns with his brother. Hunter lives north of San Francisco, where his wife, Elizabeth, is an assistant professor of play development and dramaturgy at San Francisco State University.

Hunter stays close to his Southern roots, however, says his “brother.”

“Over the years, at Millsaps, in New York, Los Angeles, Birmingham; at dinner or a concert, on a stage or a ball field, and now mostly over the phone or email, it’s always familiar and easy,” Emling said, “and I’m glad my brother Alan Hunter and I ended up in the same place at the same time.”

CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF MTV AT THE GRAMMY® MUSEUM MISSISSIPPI ARE ROB PEARIGEN, FORMER MTV VJ MARTHA QUINN, MTV FOUNDER BOB PITTMAN AND FORMER MTV VJ ALAN HUNTER.

40 YEARS OF MAKING MUSIC HISTORY

When Alan Hunter first went on the air as an MTV VJ in 1981, chances are he wouldn’t have imagined that a GRAMMY Museum® located in the Mississippi Delta would be celebrating that moment 40 years later — or that his alma mater would be a sponsor for it.

“MTV Turns Forty: I Still Want My MTV” is a special exhibit currently open at GRAMMY Museum® Mississippi, marking the start of a cultural revolution in music that is still going strong today. The exhibit is the first to be curated by the staff at GRAMMY Museum® Mississippi and will be on display through the summer of 2022. It features artifacts and interviews from the four living MTV VJs — Hunter, Martha Quinn, Mark Goodman and Nina Blackwood.

For more information about the exhibit, visit grammymuseumms.org.