ALUMNUS Spring 2021 - Mississippi State University

STREET CRED MSU alumni-led company launches partnership with Sesame Workshop p. 52

I N S I D E Spring 2021

Small Houses, Big Lessons p. 02 | Lost in Translation p. 12 | Life's a Beach p. 44 | Living as a Legend p. 48

Table of CONTENTS

70 FEATURES

22 The Bride Wore Maroon and White

Mississippi State alumni help brides find their fit, while creating jobs in the wedding industry

28 Thinking Small

MSU centers help small businesses and towns in big ways

34 History at the Hump

ABOVE: Legendary MSU

Baseball Coach Ron Polk studies a commemorative bat from the collection that lines the entryway of his home. Each bat represents a team he has coached and is etched with the year and team members’ names.

Photo by Beth Wynn

Mississippi State rallies campus resources for safe and effective in-person classes during the pandemic

Mississippi State University is an equal opportunity institution. Discrimination in university employment, programs or activities based on race, color, ethnicity, sex, pregnancy, religion, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation, genetic information, status as a U.S. veteran, or any other status protected by applicable law is prohibited. Questions about equal opportunity programs or compliance should be directed to the Office of Compliance and Integrity, 56 Morgan Avenue, P.O. 6044, Mississippi State, MS 39762, (662) 325-5839.

SPRING 2021 | VOL. 98 | NO. 1 PRESIDENT Mark E. Keenum, ’83, ’84, ’88 VICE PRESIDENT FOR DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI John P. Rush, ’94, ’02

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ALUMNI ASSOCIATION EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Jeff Davis CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER Sid Salter, ’88 EDITORS Susan Lassetter, ’07 Harriet Laird

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WRITERS Amy Cagle James Carskadon, ’12 Bonnie Coblentz, ’96, ’00 Nell Luter Floyd Leah Gibson Susan Lassetter, ’07 Addie Mayfield David Murray, ’80 Sasha Steinberg, ’14 Erica Way DESIGNER Heather Rowe

64 DEPARTMENTS 02 Campus News 10 Discoveries 20 State Snapshot 42 Profiles 62 Alumni News 68 Giving Back 82 Class Notes 84 Forever Maroon 87 Back Story

PHOTOGRAPHERS Megan Bean Hunter Hart Beth Wynn

COVER

MSU alumni Anna Barker and Hagan Walker display their company’s newest Glo Pal characters—Sesame Street’s Elmo and Julia. Originally created as an extension of the company’s flagship Glo Cubes, the light-up, sensory toys have become popular among parents of children with sensory processing disorders.

Photo by Hunter Hart

6ft

EDITORIAL OFFICE P.O. Box 5325 Mississippi State, MS 39762 662.325.0630 slassetter@opa.msstate.edu ADVERTISING Jeff Davis 662.325.3444 jdavis@alumni.msstate.edu Mississippi State University’s Alumnus magazine is published three times a year by the Office of Public Affairs and the Mississippi State University Alumni Association. Send address changes to Alumni Director, P.O. Box AA, Mississippi State, MS 39762-5526. Call 662.325.7000, or email cturner@advservices. msstate.edu.

ALL PHOTOS SINCE MID-MARCH 2020 WERE TAKEN IN ADHERENCE WITH COVID-19 PROTOCOLS.

Campus NEWS

Small Houses

BIG LESSONS

Studio class project gives freshmen two-semester foundation for success

By Sasha Steinberg, Photos by Megan Bean

W

ith any construction project, there are a lot of moving parts to juggle at one time. In Mississippi State’s Building Construction Science program, the goal is to bring students together and teach them how to keep all the balls in the air.

Sophomore Ciera Presley understands this well as one of 40 students in the program’s Collaborative Studio, a combined class of BCS and architecture students who worked during the global pandemic to complete two modular tiny houses. The houses were designed and started during the fall 2019 semester by the then incoming freshman class. The initial project, which teaches students the fundamentals of constructing a building from the ground up, was part of the BCS freshman and sophomore studio courses.

“Learning textbook material is very different from going out and applying it because everything may seem perfect on paper, but it isn’t as perfect when you actually start building out on the job site,” the Batesville native explained. “Working on this tiny house project taught us that. Everybody had to work together and problem solve to make things run smoothly.”

MSU architecture alumnus Lee Carson leads the studio as an assistant clinical professor, along with Richard Chenoweth, a visiting assistant professor. He said this modular, tiny house project provides the ideal applied learning experience. As part of the design process, the freshmen produce schematic designs, construction documents and shop drawings before any construction begins. Students had to consider various size and design parameters throughout the design and fabrication process.

Carson said some of the challenges of the design are small spaces, use of efficient materials, small modular pieces and transportation. Each of the buildings, he said, is designed and constructed of several “modules” or sections to allow flexibility in the design and fabrication, and easier transportation. Students also research materials and fabrication methods, and perform construction in two teams—each with a project manager, superintendent, foreman and crew members. During the construction

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process, the students are able to apply the knowledge they have gained while managing and collaborating with team members.

The International Residential Code, which outlines minimum requirements for one- and two-family dwellings, defines “tiny houses” as being 400 square feet or less in floor area. Carson said this definition and a code for such structures were added in 2018 due to the growing popularity of the style.

The student-designed “tiny houses” are two stories.

The first-floor area of just under 300 square feet includes kitchen, living, dining, bathroom and laundry spaces. The second floor has sleeping, storage and balcony spaces.

“Learning textbook material is very different from going out and applying it because everything may seem perfect on paper, but it isn’t as perfect when you actually start building out on the job site.” ~ Ciera Presley

Carson said the current freshman studio is working on two more modular tiny houses, each consisting of a 160-200 square foot first floor with living, kitchen and dining spaces, and a 125-160 square foot second floor with sleeping, bathroom, laundry and exterior balcony spaces, as well as additional loft spaces.

“We had a very successful fall semester in freshman Studio-A and plan to have the new buildings finished this spring at the completion of freshman Studio-B,” Carson said, noting that in addition to constructing the buildings, students must also create a comprehensive document detailing the design and construction process and give presentations on the challenges they faced.

“We are thankful we have been able to complete these structures during this difficult time,” Carson said of guiding students through a global pandemic.

Mississippi State’s Building Construction Science program teaches freshmen the fundamentals of constructing a building from the ground up through a two-semester tiny house project. Students hone their research, design, communication, problem solving and team management skills through this applied learning experience.

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Campus NEWS “This project not only taught our students about materials and construction methods, but also equipped them with communication, organization and team management skills essential for their future education and work in the construction industry.”

George Ford, a professor and director of the building construction science program, credits support from the College of Architecture, Art and Design, as well as the BCS advisory board, with helping make the studio project possible.

Companies with representatives on the board generously donate supplies to help students complete the tiny house project. Among others, these supporters include Glass Inc. in Meridian, Grant Roofing in West Point, F.L. Crane and Sons in Fulton, and Brasfield and Gorrie in Birmingham, Alabama. The BCS program also auctions off the student-produced houses each year, raising funds to provide future design-build experiences.

Michael McGraw, a 1988 MSU business administration graduate from Brandon, has purchased five modular houses from the studio in previous semesters. He said he plans to use them for a housing development he’s working on in Clayton Village, just up the road from MSU’s Starkville campus. He envisions offering the completed homes as more affordable, private alternatives to traditional game day condominiums or apartments.

“The students are creating really neat architectural designs for these houses,” McGraw said. “My favorite is a cypress building, one of the earliest ones they built. It looks like a church because it’s got the big, vaulted ceiling. It has a porch on the front with a metal roof, and there’s a skylight going down the middle. They did a good job with it.”

McGraw, who comes from a family of Bulldog graduates, said he hopes to continue supporting student success through future tiny house purchases. Such support is crucial in ensuring that students like Presley have more opportunities to gain hands-on construction experience.

“I’ve been enjoying myself in the BCS program at State because the professors are really nice and easy to talk to. They are always ready to listen and be inclusive,” Presley said. “If you have a passion to do construction work, you should go for it. Be ready to face challenges and let them build you up.

If you have a strong will, you can do it.” n 4

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Throughout the design process, students consider various size and design parameters including small spaces, use of efficient materials, small modular pieces and transportation.

They use this knowledge to produce schematic designs, construction documents and shop drawings before any construction begins.

Each of the buildings is designed and constructed of several “modules” or sections to allow flexibility in the design and fabrication, and easier transportation. Students also research materials and fabrication methods, and perform construction in two teams. The BCS program auctions off the studentproduced houses each year, raising funds for future design-build experiences.

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 5

Campus NEWS

DAWG TECH CONNECT Student volunteers provide on-site support to keep classes on track

By Susan Lassetter, Photos by Megan Bean

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n the weeks leading up to the 2020 fall semester, Mississippi State University invested heavily in new classroom technology to bring safe, quality and familiar educational experiences to its nearly 23,000 students.

Ordering, installing and testing the new equipment in the midst of a global pandemic took a Herculean effort from the university’s Information Technology Services staff. For the task of supporting the university family as it learned to navigate that new technology, ITS called in reinforcements—student volunteers from across campus.

Desktop services manager Ronald Gatewood said faculty already had a lot to manage in making their classes accessible both for in-person and virtual students, so the goal of ITS was to make tech support the least of their worries.

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“A lot of faculty had never used this technology, so we anticipated the need for additional support and brainstormed ways to supply it,” explained Gatewood, a three-time MSU alumnus with a doctorate in instructional systems and workforce development.

“We have full-time staff and a team of student workers, but that was not enough to cover all of the classrooms in those first few weeks when faculty were learning the equipment and we were working kinks out of the system,” he continued. “That’s when we turned to student volunteers.”

Called Dawg Tech Connect, the new volunteer program trained information technology services majors from the College of Education, as well as students from the College of Arts and Sciences and members of the Alumni Delegate, Foundation

Ambassador and Orientation Leader student groups, in how to troubleshoot common problems that arise with classroom technology. They also were given an online forum and immediate access to ITS staff when more advanced support was needed.

During the first two weeks of the fall semester, the students were assigned specific classrooms or buildings, which they would monitor for any sign of technical difficulty.

Gatewood called it a win-win situation for all involved.

“The student groups were in need of volunteer hours, since most of their opportunities had dried up due to COVID-19, and the ITS majors got great hands-on experience dealing one-on-one with clients,” Gatewood explained. “Having the students monitoring the classroom situations also freed up our staff to handle

To help faculty adapt to new classroom technology, MSU’s Information Technology Services trained student volunteers from campus organizations to provide on-site support. ITS desktop services manager Ronald Gatewood (front right) said it was a win-win situation that kept classes on track and provided valuable customer-service experience to students like Taylor Ball (front left), an information technology services major whose success turned his volunteer position into a paid, part-time position.

the more technical problems that came up with our new on-campus technology and increased demand for online education and remote working capabilities.”

The volunteers were especially helpful in the nontraditional classrooms that were established in campus performance spaces and athletic venues to accommodate physical distancing, according to Brian Rude, a professor in animal and dairy science who taught last fall in the Newell-Grissom Building, the home of MSU volleyball. He said the on-site support helped ease the “what if ” worries that came from teaching in a sports arena using unfamiliar technology.

“It was a tremendously humbling experience for me,” Rude said. “Those students were ready to jump in the moment there seemed to be a problem, so the lecture wasn’t impacted at all. Between them and the cleaning crew that came in between classes, there were six to 10 people every day doing things just so I could teach face-to-face. It made me feel like I needed to do a great job so their efforts would not be in vain.”

Volunteer Taylor Ball, now a graduate student after earning a bachelor’s in information technology services in December, said he felt that Dawg Tech Connect was a great opportunity to serve the university and showcase his skills.

“We have full-time staff and a team of student workers, but that was not enough to cover all of the classrooms in those first few weeks when faculty were learning the equipment and we were working kinks out of the system. That’s when we turned to student volunteers.” ~ Ronald Gatewood “I was happy to help and took it as an opportunity to learn new things and get more experience in the field,” the Louisville native said.

Though he was assigned to Allen Hall and Old Main Academic Center, Ball often took on extra shifts to help when he knew areas were shorthanded.

“If everything was fine in my assigned area and I saw an issue come across the message board, I’d excuse myself to go see if I could help,” Ball said. “Why not take the initiative and go that extra step if there’s a way to help others?”

Ball’s dedication did not go unnoticed by his supervisors. He was offered a paid ITS student worker position when the volunteer program wrapped for the semester. In addition to his classes, he already worked full time on second shift with nearby manufacturer PACCAR, but he said he felt lucky and grateful for the additional work within his field of study.

“I’ve been pretty busy, but I wouldn’t take anything away,” Ball said. “I’m always excited to learn about technology and that’s why I love it—it’s never stagnant. You’re learning something every day and I know in this field I will never get bored because there’s always something new.” n ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 7

Campus NEWS Raja Reddy, a research professor in MSU’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, was named a Fellow of the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society. The council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS, also recognized as publisher of the Science family of scholarly journals, placed Reddy in a prestigious class of only 21 fellows across the nation being honored in the organization’s section on agriculture, food and renewable resources.

The Mississippi Migrant Education Service Center at Mississippi State University has named Starsha Jamerson as director. An MSU alumna and employee since 2016, Jamerson began her career as a statewide migrant advocate and later joined the center as educational services coordinator before assuming her new leadership role.

Hannah G. Chapman of Madison, a senior Mississippi State graphic design student, received a silver award in the 2020 National AAF Student ADDY Competition for her restaurant rebranding project, “Mashine Speakeasy.”

Senior Extension Associate Marcus Measells is one of only 17 honorees nationwide recently named a Fellow of the Society of American Foresters.

One of the organization’s highest accolades, fellows are honored for their extensive and long-standing dedication to the advancement of the forestry industry at local, state and national levels.

The Society of American Foresters has named Samantha “Sam” Seamon of Prattville, Alabama, the winner of the 2020 Student Leadership Award. The honor is given for embodying leadership and positive growth within both the forestry industry and the organization. The spring summa cum laude forestry graduate is continuing her studies as a Master of Business Administration student in MSU’s College of Business. She joined SAF when she first enrolled at MSU. 8

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One faculty member in Mississippi State’s Department of Geosciences and two employees in the Center for Distance Education are being honored by the University Professional and Continuing Education Association. Athena Owen Nagel earned UPCEA South Region Professional, Continuing and Online Educator Award. This award is given to instructors who have distinguished scholarship and notable applied research through outstanding programs and teaching. Kiley Forsythe is the recipient of the UPCEA South Region Emerging Professional, Continuing and Online Education Leader Award, recognizing her as a “rising star” who has made a significant impact on the quality of MSU online instruction. Mark Jimerson, CDE coordinator for MSU College of Business programs, is one of only 13 selected nationally to participate in the inaugural Bethaida “Bea” González Diversity in Leadership Scholars cohort.

Three Mississippi State students each are receiving a four-year, $140,000 Mississippi Rural Dentists Scholarship to the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s School of Dentistry. Each MRDSP scholar is receiving $35,000 per year to attend dental school.

MSU’s recipients include Dylan T. Tran of Gulfport, a senior biochemistry/pre-dental major; Micah V. Morgan, of Philadelphia, a senior biochemistry/pre-dental major; and Alyssa M. Ware, of Tupelo, a junior biomedical engineering major.

Six current Mississippi State students will receive $30,000 per year to attend medical school as part of the prestigious Mississippi Rural Physicians Scholarship Program. Scholars selected from MSU include Tyus Wilson of Bay Springs, a senior food science, nutrition and health promotion/food and nutrition major; Caleb S. McCreary of Brookhaven, a junior biological engineering/biomedical engineering major; Kayla L. Williams of Greenville, a junior biological sciences/pre-medicine major; Donovan K. Gordon of Olive Branch, a senior biochemistry/pre-medicine major; Makenzie L. Downs of Puckett, a senior biochemistry/pre-medicine major; Layne M. Boykin of Waynesboro, a junior biochemistry/pre-medicine major.

Mississippi State broke ground on a $7 million, two-mile corridor that will improve campus traffic once the new Bulldog Way is completed along the eastern perimeter of campus. It will connect between Blackjack Road and the intersection of East Lee Boulevard and Bailey Howell Drive. The northsouth, multimodal passage incorporates sidewalks, bike lanes, transit shelters, traffic signal improvements and street lighting. Enhancements will be ADA compliant.

Don Buffum, executive director of Mississippi State’s Department of Procurement and Contracts, is among the inaugural class of leaders earning the distinguished Certified Procurement Professional credential from the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing: The Institute for Public Procurement.

Marita Gootee, a professor who also serves as the Department of Art’s photography concentration coordinator, received “winner” status from Creative Quarterly in the Professional Photography category for her image titled "Six Feet From Grandma.” The photograph was featured on the organization’s website as well as published in the January 2021 edition of the CQ Journal.

Ra’Sheda Boddie Forbes was named to the new university role of vice president for access, diversity and inclusion, a position designed to further advance the 142-year-old land grant’s work of inclusive excellence on campus. Formerly MSU’s assistant vice president for multicultural affairs, she becomes a new member of MSU’s senior leadership team and continues her participation on the university’s Executive Council and President’s Cabinet.

P. Edward “Eddie” French, professor and head of Mississippi State’s Department of Political Science and Public Administration, joined a prestigious group of academics and high-ranking government officials as part of the National Academy of Public Administration’s 2020 Class of Academy Fellows. French’s new distinction places him among only four Mississippians with the title, including former Gov. William Winter.

Mississippi State University is being recognized by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities as a national finalist in the 2020 APLU Innovation and Economic Prosperity Universities Awards in the “Place” category, which recognizes exemplary initiatives resulting in social, cultural or community development.

Mississippi State’s T.K. Martin Center for Technology and Disability is receiving a grant from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation that will allow the center to further help clients with paralysis. The $17,733 grant is a part of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation’s Quality of Life Grants program, which supports nonprofits that empower individuals living with paralysis. The latest grants are made possible through a cooperative agreement with the Administration for Community Living, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

For the fifth year in a row, Mississippi State University is being recognized as a “Great College to Work For” by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Only 54 applicants representing four-year institutions achieved this status in the 2020 survey results.

The American Psychological Association is recognizing Mississippi State’s Student Counseling Services internship with “accredited, on contingency” status as the only university-directed program for doctoral students in the state. One of only five such internships at any institution or agency in the Magnolia State, MSU’s program is regarded by the APA’s Commission on Accreditation as being in “substantial compliance” with the organization’s accreditation standards. Contingency status means the young program must provide outcome data for program trainees and graduates moving forward.

Mississippi State is home to the nation’s No. 1 online Master of Business Administration program for 2020, according to recently released rankings by Best Value Schools. Accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, MSU’s 30-hour online MBA program offers affordable, flexible courses in accounting, management, marketing and finance.

MSU is one of 19 universities joining the third Aspire: The National Alliance for Inclusive & Diverse STEM Faculty cohort. The initiative is led by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and is funded by the National Science Foundation. Aimed at ensuring all STEM faculty use inclusive teaching practices and that institutions increase the diversity of their STEM professoriate, participating universities begin their work with a selfassessment of current practices and assets. The institutions will then develop and implement campus action plans to drive change and scale such efforts across all their STEM programs.

Mississippi State’s chapter of Phi Kappa Phi has achieved the highest level of recognition with a “platinum designation” Circle of Excellence Award by the nation’s oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines. The 20202021 honor marks the first time the university has achieved platinum designation as part of the national awards program, which recognizes chapters for their work in promoting excellence at their institutions and engaging the community of scholars. The award criteria include information about yearly initiation efforts and other chapter activities. For the past two years, MSU achieved the silver designation.

Mississippi State and Alabama A&M leaders met to formally strengthen research and academic ties between the two universities. MSU President Mark E. Keenum and AAMU President Andrew Hugine Jr. signed a memorandum of understanding to develop competitive research programs that are beneficial to both universities. MSU and AAMU are both land-grant institutions with historical strengths in agriculture and engineering.

Mississippi State’s Center for Cyber Education was recognized as one of 127 organizations nationwide dedicated to making a difference in advancing computer science education. The honor was formally presented during CSforALL’s 2020 Commitments Showcase held virtually last month. CSforALL is a national initiative to implement computer science education in K-12 schools and support student pathways to college and career success.

Mississippi State officials commemorated the completion of the university’s new Poultry Science Building with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The 27,300-square-foot building and its 4,700-square-foot connector building adjoins the 34,500-square-foot Animal and Dairy Sciences Building, which opened last fall. The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences threebuilding complex at the corner of Blackjack Road and Hail State Boulevard also includes the 15,000-square-foot Meat Science and Muscle Biology Laboratory completed in fall 2018.

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Discoveries

MSU RESEARCHER FINDS BABY SHARKS FEED ON GULF’S FREQUENT FLIERS

By Bonnie Coblentz

W

hen a baby shark in the Gulf of Mexico threw up, an unlikely team of scientists came together to see what they could learn from the nasty mess.

What they found sounds impossible: baby tiger sharks eat songbirds that live on land.

Marcus Drymon, an assistant professor with the Mississippi State University Extension Service and a marine fisheries specialist with Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, described it as “a unique relationship between a marine predator and a terrestrial consumer.”

The young shark that started the mystery in 2009 was not sick. Drymon had caught, tagged and released the shark as part of a routine survey to determine the population size and species of marine life in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

But this particular shark lost its lunch when brought on board for the brief scientific procedure. When “lunch” was a pile of feathers, in true scientific fashion, Drymon bagged it up, stuck it in the freezer and pulled it out later for examination.

It turned out that feathers no longer attached to a bird were much harder to identify than Drymon imagined, so he turned to a colleague in Chicago who was able to extract their DNA. The geneticist made an interesting discovery.

“None of the birds were seagulls or pelicans or any type of marine bird. They were all land birds,” Drymon said.

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Sharks are known to barf in high-stress situations, and they sometimes hurl simply to clear their stomachs of the detritus of their voracious appetites. After the first incident with the shark tossing its cookies, that is, feathers, Drymon decided to see what other sharks had been eating.

He devised a method to deprive captured sharks of their most recent meal with no long-term ill effects. He gathered data on the stomach contents of numerous sharks over the next few years.

“When we finally started to look at the data, we had 100 tiger sharks, and basically four in 10 had bird remains in their stomachs,” Drymon said.

These feathered shark snacks included barn swallow, eastern kingbird, house wren, common yellowthroat, marsh wren, eastern meadowlark, swamp sparrow, brown thrasher, white-winged dove and the yellow-bellied sapsucker. There was one American coot, a water-dwelling bird, among the mix.

Ever the researcher, this discovery left Drymon with a list of questions: How does a shark catch a bird? Can you identify a bird from just partially digested feathers?

How does a land-dwelling bird end life as a shark meal in the Gulf of Mexico?

The shark vomit even became a lunch-time topic in Biloxi at the MSU Coastal Research and Extension Center, and answering these questions became a cross-disciplinary effort between a fisheries ecologist, a geneticist and a bird ecologist.

As Drymon put it, “a shark guy, a genetics guy and a bird girl” put together the puzzle they could not have completed alone.

“The majority of these sharks were very young tiger sharks, and the story ended up being about the propensity of baby tiger sharks to eat land dwelling birds,” Drymon said. “It was very surprising and very puzzling. Forty percent of these sharks are eating birds that don’t live over the water.”

Auriel Fournier, now director of the Forbes Biological Station in Havana,

Illinois, was then a post-doctoral researcher working in Biloxi with Extension. She studies bird migration and soon became involved in these conversations.

“What I wanted to figure out was if these were just kind of one-off events, things that didn’t happen with any kind of pattern, or if the sharks were eating the birds during the peak of migration, when the most birds were passing through the area,” Fournier said.

“If we found that it was around the time of those peaks, it would then imply that there was more to this story than just a few one-off events,” she said.

Knowing she needed specific bird migration data, Fournier turned to eBird.org, a community science database where anyone who observes

plentiful food supply at their breeding grounds are enough to justify the costs.”

Fournier put her bird migration data together with Drymon’s sharkvomit data, and they found an interesting pattern.

“We saw peaks in the relative abundance of these birds around the time we would see those birds in the tiger shark stomachs,” Drymon said.

“We think inclement weather patterns would come up, disrupt the birds’ migration patterns and they would get disoriented and fall into the water.”

Since billions of birds migrate across the Gulf of Mexico twice a year, if even a fraction of a percentage of them are lost at sea, that still provides a significant food source for foraging baby sharks.

“The majority of these sharks were very young tiger sharks, and the story ended up being about the propensity of baby tiger sharks to eat land dwelling birds. It was very surprising and very puzzling. Forty percent of these sharks are eating birds that don’t live over the water.” ~ Marcus Drymon birds can submit their observations.

By accessing this data compiled from millions of observations from around the world, she was able to determine when migration for each bird species peaked in the area.

“Crowd-sourced community science data is perfect for these kinds of questions where we want to understand what is happening with bird migration at large, spatial scales, like counties or the coastline of Mississippi and Alabama,” she said.

There was still the question of how the birds ended up in the water when their goal was to fly across the entire Gulf of Mexico in 12 or more hours to reach the Yucatan Peninsula and continue to points farther south.

“Migration is one of the most hazardous things that birds do, and I’m not surprised that so many don’t make it,” Fournier said. “Most of these birds are smaller than a softball. Birds migrate twice a year because the advantages of

What started out as a quest to satisfy simple curiosity has some interesting implications.

“We better understand the foraging inclinations of tiger sharks,” Drymon said. “Sharks in general are slowgrowing and late to mature, which makes them over-susceptible to harvest.

Knowing where they are at certain times of the year is important to protecting them.”

Another finding is that the northern Gulf of Mexico—the area off the coast of Mississippi and nearby states—is a significant pupping ground, or nursery area, for baby sharks.

Fournier is curious about the proportion of birds that fail to complete their migration each year, and whether sharks seek out birds in the water as a preferred food source or are simply opportunistic in their dining.

“Those questions would be fun to try and answer with a future project,” Fournier said. n

BIODIVERSITY IN THE GULF REGION SUPPORTS ECOSYSTEM, ECONOMIES Not only is the Gulf of Mexico a significant pupping ground for tiger sharks, the area has tremendous biodiversity in both the water and air.

In the skies, the states bordering the northern Gulf of Mexico are very important habitat for birds ranging from the tiny hummingbird to large raptors.

Gulls are among the most frequent marine bird species living on the Gulf, but Auriel Fournier, a former post-doctoral researcher with MSU Extension, said this group is difficult to observe and study as many rarely come near shore.

“Marine birds are a group of birds we know the least about in the Gulf of Mexico,” she said.

Of the 400 or so land species of birds that migrate across the Gulf, the red-winged blackbird is probably the most plentiful. The smallest is the ruby-throated hummingbird which, at 0.11 ounces, makes the trek across the Gulf twice a year from its native range across North America to Central America.

“The Gulf has really high avian biodiversity compared to other large water bodies, and most of the migratory birds in North America east of the Rocky Mountains either pass over or around the Gulf of Mexico during migration,” Fournier said. “That means the habitats on the coast and the open water habitat are really important for those birds twice a year.”

The Gulf of Mexico has substantially higher biodiversity than any other marine region of the United States, including 1,541 different fish species. Marcus Drymon, an assistant Extension professor at MSU’s Coastal Research and Extension Center, said this includes fish classified in 45 orders, 237 families and 736 genera.

There are about 45-50 shark species known to live in the Gulf, and another 40 or so skates and rays. Dolphins and manatees also call the Gulf home.

“The incredible biodiversity in the Gulf of Mexico supports healthy ecosystems and thriving economies,” he said.

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Discoveries

Alex Forbes, a senior geoscience major with a concentration in professional meterology, practices in front of a green screen.

LOST IN T R A N S L A T I O N Capstone project identifies problem in public’s weather understanding

C

ome fair weather or foul, meteorologists work to let the public know what to expect when they step outside their doors.

Today’s weather forecasters can more accurately and earlier than ever before predict when a weather event is coming, who it will affect and how strong it will be. Using industry-standard terminology, meteorologists inform the public so individuals can make the best decisions to protect life and property.

But what happens if the terms used to describe a situation are not fully understood by those they’re meant to protect? That’s an issue broadcast meteorologists have grappled with for years as they work to communicate scientific knowledge to the general public.

And it’s an issue Mississippi State’s Alex Forbes decided to tackle head-on.

A senior geoscience major with a concentration in professional meteorology, Forbes used his capstone project to validate an idea widely accepted in the field: The public does not accurately understand the terminology used by the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center.

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By Leah Gibson, Photo by Beth Wynn

“I took a belief that was widely accepted by broadcast meteorologists—that the scale used by the prediction center didn’t work— and essentially put numbers behind it,” the Georgia native said. “With that premise validated, people can begin working to address it.”

The project was completed as part of a course taught by Sarah Lalk, an assistant clinical professor. Mike Brown, an MSU professor and state climatologist for Mississippi, serves as Forbes’ adviser. He said he believes Forbes’ research complements the overall mission of the field.

“We’re always trying to improve our abilities to forecast the weather and our abilities to issue warnings to save lives, but one thing that’s been neglected in meteorological research is making sure that the public understands what we’re telling them,” Brown said.

“If we’re using a language that is not easily understood by the public, then we’re doing a disservice,” Brown continued, noting that future research should be directed toward understanding how people perceive warnings.

The NWS Storm Prediction Center

currently issues maps that measure threats on a five-point scale that includes ratings of marginal, slight, enhanced, moderate and high. This range was adopted in 2015 as a more accurate system than its previous threepoint scale—slight, moderate and high.

“Everybody in meteorology switched to the five-point scale because the SPC is the official government source,” Forbes said. “But broadcasters realized very quickly that the public does not accurately perceive the hierarchy of the words that the Storm Prediction Center uses.”

To quantify the issue, Forbes surveyed nearly 4,000 individuals across the Southeast.

He asked participants to rank the five terms according to what they felt was the least to most severe. While he expected to find that participants confused the terms “moderate” and “enhanced,” he was surprised to learn that many also misplaced “slight” and “moderate.”

Overall, respondents placed four of the five categories in the wrong order.

Forbes said these findings align with what television meteorologists have noted when interacting with their audiences on social media.

“Meteorologists have found that when broadcasting through Facebook Live or talking to people in the community, they get more questions about severe thunderstorm graphics than the forecast,” Forbes said. “People wonder why ‘slightly’ is less of a risk than ‘marginal,’ and ask, ‘What’s the difference between green and yellow on the map?’”

Social media has been an important avenue to directly connect meteorologists— particularly those in television—with the public, giving them a greater insight into the disconnect between what’s said versus what’s understood. Forbes explained this is why broadcast meteorologists are often leaders in effectively translating science into terms the general public can understand.

One way to help: Drop the confusing category terms. Forbes suggests that broadcast meteorologists and news outlets instead convey risks with a numbered scale, similar to what is used to indicate the strength of hurricanes.

“I’ve never had a person ask me if a Category 5 is worse than a Category 1,” Forbes explained to The Washington Post this spring when the publication wrote about his work. “It’s straightforward; the higher the number, the higher the threat.”

Forbes said he was excited to see his research pique the interest of the D.C.-based Washington Post, noting that it seemed a good fit for the publication, which has a large weather department.

“I was told they pursued this story to highlight the fact that the federal Storm Prediction Center offers an extremely accurate forecast that is not communicated in a way the public understands,” Forbes said. “And by having this study in The Washington Post, you get people on Capitol Hill reading it along with everybody who gets the publication.”

Forbes said that level of exposure makes him hopeful for the future of the public’s understanding of and trust in meteorology.

“I’ve spoken with people from the National Weather Service, and their main objective is to get the predictions right,” Forbes explained. “But they plan to do a lot more in-depth analysis on the threatcommunication issue and other Storm Prediction Center products. I think their end goal is to figure out what works best for the most people." n

LIV IN G WEATHER-READY Alex Forbes first became interested in meteorology when his life was affected by a severe weather event. His childhood home was struck by a tornado in 2006 and would be hit by lightning twice in the years that followed.

These events didn’t just shape Forbes’ career plans but specifically spurred his desire to help people be prepared for whatever Mother Nature may throw their way. He offers the following National Weather Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency-backed advice for living “weather-ready.”

BE INFORMED

Severe weather changes can happen fast. Have multiple ways to access up-to-date information. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather radios are considered the most reliable sources. There are also many weather-related apps and TV meteorologists often use social media to stream their broadcasts during severe weather events. Additionally, free services like CodeRED Emergency Alerts can send notifications about your location directly to your mobile device.

KNOW WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

Anytime the word “warning” is used, take action to protect against that hazard—whether it’s a tornado or hurricane, lightning, strong wind, heat or winter weather.

HAVE A PLAN

Know where to go when a warning is issued. If a basement or specially constructed storm shelter is not available, this pre-determined “safe space” should be on the lowest floor and most interior area of the structure. Avoid rooms with windows.

PREPARE A SAFE SPACE

Safe spaces should be equipped with the necessities to keep people safe and comfortable. This can mean ensuring all occupants have socks and closed-toed shoes in case the structure is damaged; mattresses, cushions and helmets to protect against bodily harm; food and water; and, in the case of children, a toy or object to help them feel safe and keep them occupied.

FEMA recommends people keep emergency bags ready for any severe weather emergency and suggest stocking it with: • one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days, • at least a three-day supply of nonperishable food, • a battery-powered or hand-crank radio and flashlight with extra batteries, • and a first aid kit, including any prescription medications safe-space occupants might need.

When your location is at risk of a severe weather threat, it is also recommended that you keep all mobile devices charged in case of an eventual power outage. External power banks capable of recharging devices can be useful in these situations.

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 13

Discoveries

Rani Sullivan (left), a professor of aerospace engineering, stands in the Advanced Composite Institute with its director Christoper Bounds.

14 SPRING 2021

MSU RESEARCH CENTER PAVES THE WAY FOR NEXT GENERATION OF COMPOSITE MATERIALS, AEROSPACE

By James Carskadon, Photo by Beth Wynn

I

n the early 1990s, a Mississippi State team designed and fabricated the world’s first business jet made entirely of composite materials. These composites allow planes to safely fly at a much lighter weight, reducing fuel costs and increasing cargo capabilities.

Composites are two or more distinct materials combined to make a stronger and more resilient material. As they have become more commonplace in aerospace and other industries, an MSU research center is advancing the next generation of composite technology. MSU’s Advanced Composites Institute, which celebrated its grand opening in 2019, is home to the Marvin B. Dow Stitched Composites Development Center, which is pioneering a new production process for composites that improves durability and further reduces the weight of the materials.

“IF COMPANIES HAVE A PROBLEM THAT INVOLVES ADVANCED COMPOSITES, WE CAN SOLVE IT. WE’LL COME UP WITH A PROPOSAL THEN FABRICATE AND EXECUTE IT.” ~ CHRISTOPHER BOUNDS ACI and the Stitched Composites Development Center were established after MSU was selected

by The Boeing Company to create a new lab to advance composite structures technology.

Christopher Bounds joined MSU in the summer of 2020 to serve as director of ACI. With faculty from several academic departments conducting fundamental research to advance the field and a staff of scientists and engineers available to conduct applied research for clients, Bounds said ACI serves as a valuable connection between academia and industry. It also gives students the opportunity to solve engineering challenges for clients, giving them project management experience as they begin their careers.

Bounds noted the potential for the new generation of composites will continue to go grow as fundamental and applied research validating the materials takes shape.

“If companies have a problem that involves advanced composites, we can solve it,” Bounds said.

"We’ll come up with a proposal then fabricate and execute it. We can even provide the evaluation and ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 15

Discoveries testing. So, if our partners bring us a problem, we’ll provide a validated solution before they leave.”

ACI is housed at MSU’s Raspet Flight Research Laboratory, building on the university’s legacy of innovation in aerospace research and development. ACI’s capabilities can bolster Raspet’s research on both manned and unmanned aircraft.

“Today, nothing is more important to the advancement of aircraft design, manned or unmanned, than strong, lightweight construction materials that result in improved overall flight performance,” said Tom Brooks, Raspet's interim director.

“Through its leadership in advanced material design and manufacture, ACI continues Raspet’s long standing tradition of improving aviation safety through applied research.”

In addition to aerospace applications, ACI can facilitate research for any area that could benefit from advanced composites, such as automotive manufacturing, marine structures, ballistics and renewable energy.

“For example, if more people move from internal combustion engines to electric cars, those batteries are very heavy,” Bounds said. “As you add weight in one area, you need to take weight away from something else to maintain performance. That’s what composites do for you. Metal is strong, but metal is really heavy. Composites are also strong, but they are much lighter.”

Rani Sullivan, a professor and the Richard H. Johnson Endowed Chair in Aerospace Engineering, said she has has shifted some of her research to stitched composites to take advantage of ACI’s capabilities. Sullivan was part of the engineering team at Raspet that worked on the first all-composite jet. She later pursued her master’s degree and doctorate at MSU before becoming a faculty member in 2005.

A current research project of Sullivan’s uses optical fibers embedded within the stitched composites to monitor structural health, allowing researchers to see damage to the material before it is visible externally.

“My research group is trying to answer fundamental questions regarding stitched composites,” Sullivan said. “For example, how do these structures behave under different types of loadings and different environmental conditions? How do cracks grow in these structures? How do we increase the durability of these structures? By embedding optical fibers, we are able to map how internal cracks grow. You don’t want cracks on something going to outer space.”

Bounds said he wants to ensure ACI complements the capabilities of MSU’s existing research centers, as well as other universities in the state. He also sees economic development potential as ACI can help Mississippi companies in multiple sectors develop new manufacturing capabilities.

“If Mississippi grows, MSU grows,” Bounds said. “Places like this institute and the technology we have provide a global audience for promoting Mississippi and all of the assets and capabilities we can bring together. When we all work together, the sky is the limit.” n 16 SPRING 2021

MSU again leads Mississippi’s research universities, remains in nation’s top 100 in latest NSF survey The latest survey from the National Science Foundation again affirms Mississippi State’s status as the state’s leading research university.

Among all institutions in the NSF’s recently released Higher Education Research and Development Survey, MSU moved six spots up the rankings to No. 92 nationally with more than $264.5 million in research and development expenditures for fiscal year 2019, an increase of $20 million from the previous year. An NSF top 100 research university for nearly two decades, MSU boasts 30 disciplines and subdisciplines ranked in the top 100 in the latest report. The university has reported an increase in research and development expenditures for six consecutive years, capping a decade that saw MSU report $2.3 billion in research expenditures from FY10-FY19.

With a diverse research portfolio, MSU ranks in the top 15 nationally in both agricultural sciences (12) and social sciences (15). The university has been in the top 5% of all universities for agriculture research for approximately two decades. For the eighth consecutive year, MSU leads all Southeastern Conference universities in social sciences research funding. MSU leads the state with 4,044 research personnel, including 605 principal investigators.

“It is exciting to see continued growth in our research funding, especially in an increasingly competitive environment,” said MSU President Mark E. Keenum. “Our world-class faculty and staff are advancing their fields, moving our state forward and providing opportunities for students to participate in cutting-edge research.

Our dynamic R&D capabilities are an economic development asset for Mississippi as we work to develop, attract and support industries in key sectors of our state’s economy such as agriculture, manufacturing and aerospace. I’m very proud of the significant impact that our more than a quarter of a billion dollars in expenditures has in our state, nation and world.”

IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN GREAT INVESTMENTS, LOOK TO THE UNIVERSITY THAT’S LEADING THE WAY IT’S MORE THAN FACTS AND FIGURES. WITH A PRESENCE IN EACH OF MISSISSIPPI’S 82 COUNTIES, MISSISSIPPI S TATE UNIVERSIT Y IS CREATIN G OPPORTUNITIES N OT ONLY FOR S TUDENTS TO SUCCEED BUT ALSO FOR EVERY REGION TO GROW AND PROSPER.

Per a recent economic impact study, MSU annually contributes $1.8 billion in added income to the Mississippi economy, supports 29,016 jobs and generates $245.3 million in added income via our support of the state’s top industry – agriculture.

For every dollar invested in MSU, our state receives $2.30 in added value in return. In fact, students who study at MSU and enter the workforce represent a net impact of $935.8 million in added income for the state that benefits all Mississippians.

And as our state’s leading research university, MSU nurtures an environment where ideas and innovation thrive, preparing Mississippi for a new generation of economic opportunity.

For more than 140 years, MSU has powered our state’s economic growth while preparing the workforce of tomorrow. It’s a legacy in which all Mississippians can take pride . . . and the best is yet to come.

WWW.MSSTATE.EDU

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 17

Discoveries Mississippi State University’s Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems-Extension is launching a new healthcare initiative in the Mississippi Delta with $803,058 in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development. The funding will be used to establish the Delta BroadReach Healthcare project, which will train healthcare professionals, telehealth providers and entry-level emergency medical technicians in the Delta. MSU’s partners on the project include CopiahLincoln Community College, Hinds Community College and North Central Planning and Development District.

Mississippi State University’s Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, in partnership with the Gulf Coast Community Foundation is one of 12 recipients of the 2020 Data Across Sectors for Health CIC-Start Award. DASH is a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The project is part of the GCCDS-led Gulf Coast Healthy Communities Collaborative, and the funding allowed for a 3-hour workshop that took place in June. An audience of over 60 learned about the connection between the built environment and health—and the social determinants of health, which are factors like housing, neighborhoods, education and workforce training that impact health and life expectancy.

A new initiative from Mississippi State and the Mississippi Small Business Development Center is providing cybersecurity resources and support to the state’s business owners. The MSU Small Business Development Center Cybersecurity project brings together the resources of the university’s Small Business Development Center and MSU’s Center for Cyber Innovation to give business owners the information they need to make costeffective cybersecurity decisions.

A new water management system installed at Mississippi State’s R.R. Foil Plant Science Research Center is elevating the university’s research capabilities as scientists develop solutions for farmers in Mississippi and across the Midsouth. Advanced Drainage Systems, a leading manufacturer in drainage and irrigation, selected MSU as a Midsouth research site for the state-ofthe-art water management system, which the company recently installed in a 10-acre field at the center, commonly referred to as North Farm. The system allows for field drainage and subsurface irrigation through a process known as pattern drain tile.

18 SPRING 2021

Like Li, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and also affiliated with the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems at Mississippi State is part of a nationwide team that was awarded a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy through the Solar Energy Technologies Office Fiscal Year 2019 funding program.

Ying Wang, assistant professor in MSU’s Department of Biological Sciences, is the principal investigator of the three-year $410,855 grant to explore virus amplification and replication in plants, studying a specific group of organisms called viroids.

Paul F. Mickle, a marine scientist with extensive research and leadership experience, is now co-director of the Northern Gulf Institute, a NOAA Cooperative Institute, led by Mississippi State. He will also serve as an associate director of the university’s Geosystems Research Institute.

Julie Jordan has been named Mississippi State’s vice president for research and economic development. Jordan has served in the role on an interim basis since July 2019, providing leadership for the Office of Research and Economic Development, strategic vision for the university research enterprise, and administrative oversight of research centers and institutes.

Chuji Wang, a professor of physics and astronomy, received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study

fusion energy science—specifically magnetized dust plasma—widely considered by the scientific community to be one of nature’s most complex subjects. The 24-month, $214,000 grant, is one of four DOE-funded programs currently in progress.

Three Mississippi State faculty members will carry out research and teaching projects abroad with their Fulbright U.S. Scholar Awards.

MSU’s faculty Fulbright scholars for the 2020-21 award cycle are Rinat Gabitov, an associate professor of geosciences, who will conduct research in the United Kingdom; Bryan Jones, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering who will help Moroccan academia and industry partners develop a capstone engineering design course; and Margaret Khaitsa, DVM, a professor of epidemiology who will travel to Kenya to teach veterinary epidemiology and assist with leadership development programs for women.

The National Research & Training Center on Blindness & Low Vision announced the receipt of another competitive national grant.

Sponsored by the Rehabilitation Services Administration under the U.S. Department of Education, the Independent Living Services for Older Individuals Who Are Blind Training and Technical Assistance five-year grant provides approximately $3 million in funding.

Mississippi State is now home to one of the nation’s largest wood collections, making the university a prime training ground for research on rare and exotic species. MSU’s Department of Sustainable Bioproducts in the College of Forest Resources has acquired the 32,000-specimen David A. Kribs wood collection, the fourth largest in the U.S. according to the International Association of Wood Anatomists. This acquisition also makes MSU home to the premier reference wood collection in the South.

A $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy will benefit Mississippi State researchers in the university’s Forest and Wildlife Research Center studying the economic and ecological benefits of growing trees for biofuel production.

The DOE funding will help MSU scientists study how to produce better, hardier hybrid poplars and eastern cottonwoods harvested for biomass energy. The team also will quantify the ecosystem services these fast-growing trees provide.

Mississippi State’s poultry science department is now equipped with a new laboratory for conducting biosecurity level 2 research.

The department’s Animal BioSafety Level (ABSL)-2 facility provides a distinctive setting for investigating and conducting research on pathogenic bacteria that affects the poultry industry.

Mississippi State’s Raja Reddy, a world-renowned crop expert, was honored with the premier, international award for cotton science. Named Researcher of the Year by the International Cotton Advisory Committee, Reddy’s award spotlights the professor’s important work in improvements to the quality of crops that feed, clothe and fuel the world. Specifically, he focuses on climate change impact on cotton and other crop physiology, growth and development.

A new grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service will facilitate scientific exchanges between Mississippi State University and key partners in Africa to support food, plant and animal safety programs. The $974,000 grant focuses on establishing and harmonizing regulations put forth by the African Union’s Continental Sanitary and Phytosanitary Committee by developing knowledge, support and leadership in stakeholders. As part of the grant, MSU will work with African Union administrators, technical experts, as well as representatives from each of Africa’s eight Regional Economic Communities.

Mississippi State’s ongoing commitment to the Africatown, Alabama community continues to bring honors for the Department of Landscape Architecture in MSU’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The Society of Outdoor Recreation Professionals is honoring the Africatown Connections Blueway planning team with a Project Excellence Award, with part of the project being a proposed MSUdesigned kayak launch site in Africatown. The accolade is presented annually to collaborating agencies and organizations across the nation for exemplary outdoor recreation development.

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 19

State SNAPSHOT

20 SPRING 2021

SNOW DAY: Winter weather made for a picturesque campus on the first day of the spring semester.

Here, elementary education freshman Joy Magee of Columbia snaps a picture of Tessa McBeth, a junior in human development and family science from Clinton, Louisiana, in front of Lee Hall.

Photo by Megan Bean

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 21

Chapel of Memories

22 SPRING 2021

Senior Fanambinana “Lydia" Rajaoberison models a gown from The Bridal Path.

The Bride Wore MAROON & WHITE MSU alumni help brides find their fit

By Nell Luter Floyd, Photos By Megan Bean

A

wedding may be large or small, but when the day comes, all eyes focus on the bride and her choice of attire.

That’s true whether the bride selects something long or short, sleek or voluminous, traditional or avant-garde.

Fashions for attendants of all ages play an important role, too, in setting the stage for the Big Day. They can complement a bride’s style, carry out a chosen color scheme or just add a pop of personality.

With that kind of importance resting on a wedding party’s choice of apparel, Mississippi State’s Charles Freeman, an associate professor of fashion design and merchandising, said it takes a certain kind of person to work in the bridal industry.

“It takes a detail oriented, patient, empathetic and understanding person, someone who can keep a calm, cool demeanor while dealing with brides and wedding parties,” Freeman said. “When students say that they want to do bridal, I do my best to discourage them.”

Why? “The smallest detail can derail a bride. So, you want to be able to communicate, ‘I can do this better than anyone,’” Freeman said of those who work in the wedding industry.

“It’s very high stakes.”

Still, the estimated $300 billion global business is alluring for many, including graduates of Mississippi State’s fashion design and merchandising program who now own full-service bridal salons that can outfit all the female members of a wedding party plus the mother of the bride.

“We’re producing business owners who contribute to the local workforce and economy,” Freeman said of the program that is ranked among the nation’s top 50 by fashion-schools.org.

Housed in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and offering two undergraduate concentrations—design and product development, and merchandising— the fashion design and merchandising program prepares students to enter the workforce or open their own shops by providing a foundation of classes, projects, internships and study abroad opportunities that build an understanding of the fashion and textile industries, consumer behavior, product development, business principles and technology applications.

As a 2018 graduate, Audrey Jarvis McCarty uses the knowledge and experience she gained at MSU as owner of The Bridal Path, a longtime Jackson establishment she purchased just two days after her college graduation.

Her education, combined with a sunny personality, have given her the ability to deal with any distressed bride, demanding mother or overbearing bridal party, plus the challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

“I know I’m where I am supposed to be,” said McCarty, who works alongside her mother, Janie Jarvis, also a graduate of MSU. “I think it was a God thing that everything fell into place. I never thought I’d own a business when I was 22.”

McCarty said she was well versed in the operation of The Bridal Path

before she became the owner because she worked there most summer and winter breaks while a student at MSU, as did her sister, Amelia Jarvis, now a senior elementary education major at Mississippi State.

“We got to see it as employees to know what we could do differently,” McCarty said.

McCarty admits that yes, some days may be easier than others, but that’s OK. “I’d rather be stressed at The Bridal Path than anywhere else,” she said.

“Every day is a new experience with new people to meet. It never gets old.

You never have the same day twice.”

The Bridal Path has been in operation for 50 years, with its first 44 under the ownership of motherdaughter team and fellow Mississippi State alumni Rosemary Castle Guest, who earned a bachelor’s in education in 1956, and Luanne Douglass Mashburn, a 1983 accounting graduate. McCarty said she was glad to keep the shop in Bulldog hands, having used her time at State to prepare for the career.

At MSU, McCarty completed a research project through the Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach about perceptions brides had about retail, she also studied abroad with her professors in France and Italy and attended a meeting of the National Retail Federation Student Association in New York.

“I had so many cool experiences at Mississippi State, got to know my professors and worked on so many group projects that helped me to learn to interact with people,” she said. “All ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 23

Panetta envisioned a boutique where a bride and her entourage could relax with the complete attention of a stylist and that’s the business model she adopted when she opened Elle James Bridal.

Kristin Panetta Elle James Bridal

“Every day is a new experience with new people to meet. It never gets old. You never have the same day twice.”

Audrey McCarty The Bridal Path

24 SPRING 2021

of those things have helped me succeed.”

Freeman said being passionate about one’s work in the bridal industry isn’t enough for success.

As McCarty has demonstrated, it also takes a knowledge of the market, trends in design, fabrics and how to buy apparel that fits a particular market—and it is a large and diverse market.

In 2019, the Magnolia State accounted for 16,355 of the total 2.1 million weddings in the U.S. The average cost of a wedding in Mississippi amounted to $23,800 compared to a $33,900 national average, according to The Knot 2019 Real Weddings Study.

Once released, the 2020 numbers will likely look very different due to COVID-19 precautions and restrictions.

McCarty said The Bridal Path, like many other retailers, shut its doors for several weeks as part of efforts to quell the spread of the virus.

“We had a lot of people rescheduling in the beginning of the virus,” McCarty said. “We were open by necessity for the brides who were still having their weddings and needed to pick up their dresses or have them altered.

We did not take a new bride for about six to eight weeks.”

Still, this year McCarty worked to keep her shop current and ready to serve Mississippi brides, thanks in part to summer help from MSU senior Taylor Anne Trusty, The Bridal Path’s first intern from the fashion design and merchandising program.

“My internship with The Bridal Path helped me realize that working in the bridal industry is where I want to begin my career after graduation,” Trusty said, noting that she spent her workdays preparing new inventory, updating displays, maintaining the store’s social media presence and assisting

in planning the store’s annual photo shoot.

“I updated The Bridal Path Pinterest board and designed and posted various bridesmaids’ mood boards for the company’s Instagram page,” Trusty explained. “I also established an information sheet with various contacts and information so that the stylists can quickly answer questions over the phone.”

McCarty noted that while the pandemic has changed the scale of many weddings, it hasn’t stopped brides from looking for the perfect dress for their big days and possibly generations to come.

“What we’ve found is that a bride may be having a smaller wedding and may be unsure about how many guests to invite, but she still wants an awesome dress,” McCarty said.

When the media wanted to localize a story about how the coronavirus could slow production of wedding gowns, many of which are sewn or made from materials produced in China, McCarty called fellow MSU alumna and bridal shop owner Kristin Miller Panetta to discuss it.

“That has affected our industry, but the manufacturers have done a good job getting things back on track,” she said.

“Kristin and I call each other and help each other out when we can.

It may be that we send a bride to her shop who wants a specific gown or she sends someone to us.”

A 2012 communication graduate who minored in fashion design and merchandising, Panetta opened Ridgeland-based Elle James Bridal in 2016. She said she began planning the store after noticing friends were choosing to travel out of state to boutiques that specialized in wedding gowns and offered oneon-one service.

Panetta said she envisioned

a boutique where a bride and her entourage could relax with the complete attention of a stylist who would help her find the perfect dress. And that’s the business model she adopted when she opened Elle James Bridal, which specializes in handpicked, couture wedding gowns.

She derived the name of the boutique from her “thoughtful, inspiring and extremely beautiful” grandmother, Elle, and “amazing” father, James, who embodied the qualities she hopes to display through Elle James Bridal.

Panetta said Elle James allows her to be her own boss and incorporate the skills she learned from an internship in New York City with the Veronica Beard brand. She has also paid-itforward by employing interns from Mississippi State, including Elizabeth Costa, a 2019 fashion design and merchandising graduate who interned at Elle James Bridal before joining Panetta as a full-time employee.

“Her knowledge caught my attention,” Panetta said.

“She caught on so fast and she understands fabric and how gowns are sewn, which is important in this business.”

Freeman said internships are an important part of the fashion design and merchandising program, giving students handson, real-world experience.

Most often, those in the design and product development concentration intern with couture designers or in non-retail settings.

Merchandising internships often include marketing, store management, buying, sourcing, sales, merchandising, media and special events, fashion journalism or consumer relations experiences.

Internships in theatrical costuming or in museums with historical costume or textile collections are also possible.

Old Main Academic Center Freshman Camille Smith models a gown from Elle James Bridal.

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 25

Hunter Henry Center

Freshman Elaina Heilman, senior Jazzmin Butler and sophomore Abby Amos model gowns from Bella Bridesmaids.

26 SPRING 2021

Graduates of the fashion design and merchandising program pursue jobs as fashion consultants, stylists, costume or accessory designers, manufacturer representatives, product developers, visual merchandisers, textile scientists and fashion journalists.

Two internships are required to help students pin down their interest, Freeman said, noting that there are a variety of opportunities available across the country that cover all aspects of the field.

Alexa England spent the summer of 2019 as a bridal consultant intern at Kleinfeld Bridal in Manhattan, where TLC’s reality television series “Say Yes to the Dress” is filmed.

“I worked with 22 different consultants, selected over 2,500 gowns to style brides, assisted with over 200 appointments, and handled contracts and paperwork,” England said.

“My greatest challenge was when filming for ‘Say Yes to the Dress America.’”

Madison Ratledge, a 2020 MSU graduate with a double major in fashion design and merchandising and business, also

interned at Kleinfeld Bridal. After working as an inventory analyst for Belk in Charlotte, North Carolina, she is now pursuing a master’s in fashion design and merchandising at Mississippi State.

Sidney Mitchell, a 2016 fashion design and merchandising graduate, interned at a store in her hometown of Senatobia. While in college, she also worked at a women’s boutique in Starkville and studied abroad in Italy. She knew, however, that she wanted to do more than sell clothes.

“I always wanted to own my own store,” Mitchell said. “That’s what a lot of us at MSU aimed for.

It sounds exciting and awesome.”

She got that opportunity in 2019 when she and her mother, Allyson Mitchell, purchased the Bella Bridesmaids franchise in Memphis from fellow MSU alumna Kelsey Jones, who wanted to pursue other retail opportunities.

Mitchell said owning a franchise that had many business details already worked out was appealing.

“Knowing that I have the franchise to support me and

cheer me on is good,” Mitchell said of the Chicago-based Bella Bridesmaids enterprise that has more than 55 showrooms across the U.S. Mitchell said Bella Bridesmaids is unique among bridal shops in that it doesn’t carry wedding gowns—only dresses for the attendants. This, she said, creates a low stress environment for the bride who can “sit back and relax while making her vision of her big day come to life.”

Though she’s now found a niche business that she enjoys, Mitchell said it wasn’t necessarily something she always planned on doing. She explained that she didn’t know about Mississippi State’s fashion design and merchandising program until she arrived on campus.

“When I found out about it, I knew it was ‘so me,’” she said.

“The professors in the fashion design and merchandising program are devoted to what they do and set the bar high,” she continued. “They eat and breathe fashion design and merchandising.

They put everything in it. They really care about the program.” n

“I always wanted to own my own store.

That’s what a lot of us at MSU aimed for.

It sounds exciting and awesome.”

Sidney Mitchell Bella Bridesmaids

Weddings Wrapped in Maroon & White

While Bulldog alumni from a variety of fields are available to help brides and grooms plan their trips to the altar, Mississippi State University itself offers a host of venues and services for those who want a little Maroon spirit with their bridal white.

The Chapel of Memories, with its iconic stained-glass details and intimate atmosphere, is a perennial favorite for oncampus weddings.

“I’ve seen lots of brides come through and plan weddings there,” said Vanessa Collier, coordinator of campus events at MSU. Collier noted that weddings may be booked up to a year in advance, with May, June and July among the most popular months.

Other campus spaces that are popular for ceremonies or receptions include the Foster

Ballroom in the Colvard Student Union, the Gridiron Club at Davis Wade Stadium, the Leo Seal Jr. Football Complex, the Griffis Boardroom in the Palmeiro Center and the Hunter Henry Center, which features both indoor and outdoor garden spaces that are popular for events.

The University Florist, located on Lee Boulevard, offers a variety of services for weddings including bridal registries in its gift shop and personal consultations for planning wedding flowers. With a student staff under the direction of faculty from the floral management program, the florist provides the design and setup for everything from large-scale arbors, altarpieces and ceremony décor to personal flowers, reception pieces and cake décor.

Collier said the university also has food vendors who can cater a reception and will again offer on-campus guest accommodations when the Butler Guest House resumes operations in the summer of 2021.

Anyone wishing to host an event at Mississippi State University can contact MSU Event Services at 662.325.3228 or visit www.union.msstate.edu/plan-anevent. For information about reserving the Hunter Henry Center, contact Jenna Shook at jshook@devalumni.msstate.edu, and visit MSUBulldogClub.com for details on renting athletic facilities for events.

For additional information about services offered by the University Florist, visit https://www.florist.msstate.edu or call 662.325.3585.

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 27

T H I N K I N G S M A L L T O M A K E A

Big Difference MSU CENTERS HELP SMALL BUSINESSES, T O W N S L I G H T U P I N B I G W AY S

By Sasha Steinberg, Photos by Megan Bean & Submitted

28 SPRING 2021

W

hile the COVID-19 pandemic has presented its fair share of challenges to small business owners and entrepreneurs nationwide, many in the Magnolia State have been able to continue serving as the heart and soul of their communities with assistance from Mississippi State’s Fred E. Carl Jr. Small Town Center and Small Business Development Center. Taking care of people is the Mississippi way, and it’s exactly what these centers have each been doing for more than four decades.

As MSU’s statewide community design outreach program, the Fred E. Carl Jr. Small Town Center provides research, planning and design services to generate creative solutions for small towns.

Director Leah Kemp explained that the center—endowed in 2004 by MSU benefactor Fred E. Carl Jr. of Greenwood—works with community leaders to develop plans that can help improve local economies and quality of life for residents, creating thriving communities across the state.

“Along with beautifying projects, we’re here to help communities with their needs and we do that through our architecture and design toolkit,” Kemp said. “With COVID-19, communities’ No. 1 need is surviving this economically challenging time, and we have been able to help and want to continue to do that with different small-scale projects.”

Kemp said the restaurant industry has been one of the hardest hit during the pandemic, and the innovative concept of turning public parking spaces into public areas called streateries is becoming popular across the nation. She explained that streateries are temporary or permanent open spaces constructed in two or more public parking spaces, and they are designed to serve as outdoor seating and gathering venues for patrons of local businesses.

Streateries can be public or semi-public, allowing adjoining restaurants to use the space during designated hours or allow the space to be open to the public during other hours.

Inspired by this growing streatery trend, the center has developed a Small Town Streatery toolkit to provide economic benefit for communities across Mississippi. Kemp said small town representatives and Mississippi small business owners can visit the center's website

for free access to the streatery toolkit, which received an honor citation from the Mississippi chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

“Streateries can be a great solution for small towns during the pandemic and after because they can be easily and quickly constructed on limited budgets and with locally available materials and volunteer labor,” she explained.

“A downtown streatery can catch people’s attention so they say, ‘Hey, there’s something cool down here. Let’s go check it out.’”

Kemp said attracting people to downtown Starkville has been a goal throughout the pandemic. She and Fran Pharis, a center architect, designed “Lights on Lafayette,” a light canopy project, to help in that effort. The center collaborated with the City of Starkville, Starkville Utilities and the Greater Starkville Development Partnership to install strings of

Leah Kemp, director of Mississippi State’s Fred E. Carl Jr. Small Town Center, (left), and Mike Tagert CEO of the Greater Starkville Development Partnership stand near “Lights on Lafayette,” a light canopy project their organizations spearheaded with help from the City of Starkville and Starkville Utilities.

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 29

“This project was about more than hanging a few lights. There were building

and structural concerns, light placement considerations, and the legality of a utility

easement. Starkville and Mississippi State University represent one big family.

The Fred E. Carl Jr. Small Town Center

was focused, creative, knowledgeable and helpful in all aspects of the project,

and we are grateful for their assistance.” ~ MIKE TAGERT

LED lights above Lafayette Street between where it connects Main and Lampkin streets.

Kemp said in November 2020, the Mississippi chapter of the American Planning Association presented its Great Street Award to the Fred E. Carl Jr. Small Town Center for its work on “Lights on Lafayette.”

“We put up the lights just in time for the first ‘Dawg Talk,’ the MSU football coach’s program, that was held at the Partnership.

That building has big windows, so people could stand outside under the lights and watch the show. It was kind of like our version of being in Rockefeller Plaza on the ‘Today Show,’” Kemp said with a laugh. “People have gotten really excited and have been going down there to check it out and take pictures under the lights. We look forward to seeing the positive economic benefits this public event space can bring to the city.”

Mike Tagert, CEO of the Greater Starkville Development Partnership, said he is optimistic that “Lights on Lafayette” will continue to provide a vibrant atmosphere for “Dawg Talk” and other events in the city’s downtown district during and after the pandemic. Tagert, a two-time MSU graduate also serving as associate director for the university’s corporate and economic partnerships, said the GSDP was proud to help bring “Lights on Lafayette” to life.

“This project was about more than hanging a few lights. There were building and structural 30 SPRING 2021

concerns, light placement considerations, and the legality of a utility easement,” he explained.

“Starkville and Mississippi State University represent one big family. The Fred E. Carl Jr. Small Town Center was focused, creative, knowledgeable and helpful in all aspects of the project, and we are grateful for their assistance.”

Paige Watson, GSDP special events and projects coordinator, said her organization also appreciates the MSU Small Business Development Center’s support throughout the pandemic.

“The center supplied a multitude of resources to help businesses with the economic recovery process,” said Watson, an MSU communication alumna. “We were glad to be able to distribute those to our membership, as well as host two webinars with the SBDC.” Funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration and with offices at both MSU’s Starkville and Meridian campuses, the SBDC provides free, one-on-one business counseling to clients across Choctaw, Clay, Kemper, Lauderdale, Lowndes, Monroe, Montgomery, Noxubee, Oktibbeha and Webster counties.

Anna Caroline Toms is one of the SBDC’s biggest fans. The Columbus native said she first learned of the center while pursuing a business administration degree in MSU’s College of Business. When it was time to put together a business plan for the L.A. Green Nashville retail establishment she opened in November 2019, Toms said she knew just where to go for help.

“I had been shopping at L.A. Green in Starkville since it opened in 2011, and I loved it so much that I wanted to open a franchise in Nashville,” she explained. “The owner of the Starkville store, Lauren Ann Cooper, had worked with the SBDC before, so she encouraged me to set up a meeting with the center’s director Chip Templeton.”

Cooper, a Kilmichael native, graduated from MSU in 2008 with an apparel, textiles and merchandising degree.

Toms said she met multiple times with Templeton, a 1977 MSU marketing graduate, to discuss her entrepreneurial goals. As a first-time business owner, Toms said it was empowering to receive one-on-one consultation from Templeton as he shared

For more than four decades, MSU’s Small Business Development Center has provided free, one-on-one business counseling to clients in 10 Mississippi counties, including Oktibbeha County.

MSU School of Human Sciences alumna Lauren Ann Cooper of Starkville-based retailer L.A. Green, (left), has benefitted from the SBDC’s support and continues to refer other store owners, including Anna Caroline Toms (pictured below), for counseling from center director Chip Templeton, an MSU marketing graduate (right).

Anna Caroline Toms, an MSU College of Business graduate and owner of the L.A. Green franchise in Nashville, is one of the MSU Small Business Development Center’s biggest fans.

At the encouragement of L.A. Green Starkville owner Lauren Ann Cooper, Toms met with SBDC director Chip Templeton to write a business plan for her retail establishment.

The center’s support, she said, has been invaluable while navigating the pandemic and other challenges throughout her first year of business.

(Photo submitted)

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 31

insight from his experience in the business industry. Templeton grew up assisting with his family’s hotel operation before spending nearly three decades as president of the Templeton CadillacChrysler-Dodge-Jeep dealership, among other local commercial endeavors. His family has three generations of MSU College of Business graduates.

“I felt so comfortable talking with Chip. He made me feel more confident voicing my opinions and goals,” Toms said. “He gave me forms to fill out to help me put my thoughts on paper, he helped me with my forecasting numbers, and he gave me a template to go off of to get started with writing my business plan.”

Toms said her first year of business in the Music City has been challenging, particularly last March when the Nashville area was dealing with tornado damage and the onset of the pandemic.

“Between the tornado and COVID lockdowns, it has definitely been interesting,” said Toms, who was L.A. Green Nashville’s sole employee at the start of the pandemic. “Several places in our area closed for good due to lack of

“Along with beautifying projects, we’re here to help communities with their needs and we do that through our architecture and design toolkit. With COVID-19, communities’ No. 1 need is surviving

this

economically

challenging time, and we have been able to help and want to continue to do that with different small-scale projects.” ~ LEAH KEMP 32 SPRING 2021

foot traffic. When we had to close for safety reasons, it slowed our progress, but I just worked longer and harder, doing a lot of online sales from 6 a.m. to midnight. Focusing a lot on social media and continuing to build relationships with our customers is what really got us through.”

Toms said the pandemic was a blessing in that it reminded people about the importance of supporting small businesses. She said her goal was to be a light for her customers, many of whom were trying to do the same for others.

“It was so important for us to have our social media because people felt comfortable sending me messages to ask if we had something they were looking for.

Having customers trust me to virtually shop for them has been really cool,” she said. “I’ve also been wrapping a lot of gifts, from candles to devotionals, that customers have been getting for friends.

During the quarantine period, I would deliver pre-wrapped gift sets, so our customers didn’t have to worry about getting out, but as people have been able to get back out in the area, it’s been exciting.”

Toms said in addition to her loyal customers, she is grateful for the Small Business Development Center and the Small Business Administration. Their support made her feel that “if we can make it through this, we can make it through anything.”

“I didn’t qualify for the Paycheck Protection Program loan because I didn’t have any employees. The SBA paid about six months of my loan payments, which was awesome and that helped me out so much,” she said. “It has also helped to have Chip as a resource at the SBDC because he always answers every call, text and email. To this day, he reaches out to make sure that I’m doing ok.”

She advises others, “If you want to open a small business and have access to the Small Business Development Center, I 110% encourage you to call.” n

Leaders from Mississippi State and the City of Starkville share an unwavering commitment to enhance quality of life for students and residents and provide a welcoming atmosphere for visitors.

Collaboration and creativity play a key role in these efforts.

MIDDLE TOP LEFT, L-R: Dean Sharon Oswald, Charles Freeman, Eric Hill, Landon Casey, Jeffrey Rupp, and incoming SMSA Chair Hagan Walker receieve the MMSA’s Outstanding Entrepreneurial Endeavor Award.

MIDDLE BOTTOM RIGHT, L-R: CVB Chair Robin Fant, Kylie Forrester and John Dickerson of MSU, and incoming SMSA Chair Hagan Walker receive the MMSA's Outstanding Economic Impact Award.

The Idea Shop includes the MSU Retail Product Accelerator that helps entrepreneurs test market products in a retail environment.

Starkville and MSU community members also have access to an assortment of design workstations and tools in the Turner A. Wingo Maker Studio, named for the 1967 MSU business administration graduate and 2016 National Alumnus of the Year.

Town and gown collaboration earns Impact award Mississippi State University and the City of Starkville accepted two 2020 Mississippi Main Street Association Awards, proving that great things can happen when great organizations work together.

MSU’s Office of Admissions and Scholarships and its Office of Orientation and Events, along with the Starkville Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Starkville Main Street Association, received the MMSA’s Outstanding Economic Impact Award for “Orientation Dine Around Downtown.” The project was developed and implemented in 2018 to provide incoming MSU freshmen and transfer students and their families with a “first taste” of Starkville restaurants. The 2018 and 2019 events helped the town see a 40% increase in tax revenue.

John Dickerson, MSU assistant vice president for enrollment, said the Office of Orientation and Events, under the direction of Kylie Forrester, collaborated with staff at the Greater Starkville Development Partnership and the City of Starkville to make this economically beneficial event a success.

The MSU Idea Shop received MMSA’s Outstanding Entrepreneurial Endeavor Award. The 2,000-square-foot makerspace and retail storefront has been opening its downtown Starkville doors to local creatives since March 2019. Operated by MSU’s College of Business and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ School of Human Sciences, the shop hosts workshops and other fun events to create what GSDP’s Paige Watson describes as an “everlasting entrepreneurial spirit in Starkville.”

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 33

Associate Professor Jim Giesen prepares to slingshot a “Making History in the Hump” T-shirt into the stands during his modern U.S. history class. The history department provided the shirts to both commemorate the unusual circumstances of the semester and help engage students during lectures.

HISTORY HISTORY AT AT THE THE

HUMP

Mississippi State rallies campus resources for safe, effective in-person classes during pandemic

A

By Susan Lassetter, Photos by Megan Bean & Beth Wynn

s students filed into Humphrey Coliseum one October day last fall, they passed familiar murals of Bulldog basketball greats while making their way into the arena to the rhythm of music pumping through its sound system.

The day’s soundtrack? “Everyday People”

by Sly and the Family Stone, Bob Dylan’s “Oxford Town” and James Brown’s “Say it Loud.”

34 SPRING 2021

Much like the modern hip-hop favorites that rev up crowds during the Bulldogs’ home games, Jim Giesen said he’d chosen the day’s tunes to pep up his audience.

“I like to kind of wake the students up,” explained Giesen, who that day tred the court in two-toned Nike sneakers paired with dark denim and a gray blazer. “It gets them kind of engaged, especially when they’ve trudged over from some other building.”

These songs were picked specifically for their connection to what Giesen planned to discuss that day. As the jumbotron proclaimed, he was there for history at The Hump—HI 1073: Modern U.S. History.

An associate professor, Giesen is in his 15th year at Mississippi State, and while he’s visited the coliseum for countless games, graduations and other campus events over the years, this was his first time taking charge at mid-court.

“I usually teach this class in one of the very large lecture halls, where I can walk up and down the aisles and make eye contact with people, so teaching in The Hump has been an adjustment,” Giesen said. “But when they called in late spring 2020 to see if I’d like to give it a try, it was easy to be like ‘sure, that sounds great’ if that was what it would take to get us back to face-to-face classes for the fall.”

Rating as one of the university’s largest courses, with a maximum enrollment approaching 800, Giesen’s modern U.S. history course posed a unique challenge when MSU administrators made the decision to have as many in-person classes as was safely possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. But through a combination of ingenuity, resourcefulness, flexibility and collaboration, the campus community was able to return to its home in August 2020.

Things looked different and campus felt different, but the Bulldog family came together to maintain its high academic standards and fulfill its land-grant mission.

Beyond that, MSU Vice President for Student Affairs Regina Hyatt said the university cannot trace any COVID-19 infections from the fall of 2020 to any classroom experiences on campus.

“Thanks to the diligence of our students and employees, classrooms have proven to be safe for in-person instruction,” Hyatt said. “All of the mitigation efforts we put in place—physical distancing, mask wearing and sanitizing regularly—all worked to ensure that classroom spaces were as safe as possible.

“Our faculty also have been creative in adjusting their in-person class experiences to ensure the optimal, safe learning environment,” she continued.

Giesen said he was humbled when he

thought about all of the planning and daily work that went into making it possible for him to not only safely teach face-to-face during the pandemic but also deliver online instruction for those kept away by COVID concerns.

“The fact is, when we went home for all-online classes in the spring, there were hundreds of staff who were still on campus working to make sure we were able to do that and planning for how to get us back to face-to-face as quickly and safely as possible,” Giesen said. “They are the unsung heroes.

"It was all of these people working behind the scenes across the university who made it possible for me to be standing in The Hump teaching U.S. history to 750 students during a global pandemic.” ~ Jim Giesen “It was the Office of the Registrar rearranging the entire class schedule, it was ITS rewiring every classroom, it’s the janitorial staff that’s coming in before and after every class to sanitize everything,” he continued. “It was all of these people working behind the scenes across the university who made it possible for me to be standing in The Hump teaching U.S. history to 750 students during a global pandemic.”

LOCATION

Provost David Shaw said even as the university moved to remote instruction in March 2020, administrators were beginning to plan for the eventual safe return to campus.

“Our faculty did a terrific job making the switch to online, but we are the type of institution that thrives on the personal touch,” he said. “Some form of face-to-face instruction

is a vitally important element of the experience that makes us a Bulldog family.

“We knew we wanted to maximize the number of in-person classes we could offer in the fall, but at the same time, we knew we needed to be scrupulous in taking care to follow all of the health protocols,” he continued. “To make that happen, we had to quickly evaluate all available space on campus to see what our options were.”

Among the safety protocols recommended to prevent the spread of COVID-19, physical distancing in classroom situations proved to be the most complex for the university. Shaw said a cross-university team was assembled to see if Mississippi State could feasibly accommodate its student body safely. This included considering many out-of-the-box ideas like setting up tents or even utilizing Old Main’s parking garage for instructional space.

“We considered every open space— indoors or out,” Shaw said. “Of course, we also had to consider what would be realistic in terms of technology, accessibility and even comfort. For example, having outdoor classes during a Mississippi August just wouldn’t work.”

Ultimately, the team identified a combination of athletic, recreation and performance venues that had the accessibility, space and technological possibilities necessary for a classroom. In addition to Humphrey Coliseum, other venues tapped as nontraditional classroom spaces for fall 2020 included the Newell Grissom Building, the M-Club at Davis Wade Stadium, Griffis Boardroom at the Palmeiro Center, gymnasiums and studio space at the Sanderson Center, the Colvard Student Union's Foster Ballroom and Bettersworth Auditorium in Lee Hall, as well as spaces in the Bost Extension Center, McComas Hall, Memorial Hall and the Mitchell Memorial Library.

Jay Logan, MSU’s executive senior associate athletic director for internal and game operations, said the search was exhaustive and included locations both on campus and off.

“We started with a list of facilities and really just went through each space with academic and ITS officials to see if it met the needs of a classroom,” Logan explained.

“Some might have the necessary space, but ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 35

not have available parking or be able to support technology.

Logan said the athletic venues were a natural fit as they are designed for hosting events and programs.

“That’s what we do,” Logan said. “We were happy to welcome the students for class much like we’d welcome fans for events. We wanted to make sure the student experience wouldn’t be disrupted any more than it had to be. Making this happen really has been a campus collaboration with the provost office, the registrar, event services, facilities management, ITS and athletics—-a family taking care of each other to make this a good experience for everyone.”

Shaw said that the creation of these nontraditional classrooms allowed approximately 70% of the university’s classes to have at least some face-to-face element—the highest percentage of any college or university in Mississippi. He said the feat likely also contributed to the university’s sixth consecutive year of enrollment growth.

“When we announced that we were going to have face-to-face classes in the fall, we immediately saw a jump in enrollment,” Shaw explained.

Across the country, the pandemic is blamed for a decline in enrollment at many universities. In the Magnolia State, MSU was one of only two institutions to see enrollment growth in 2020. A total fall enrollment of 22,986 rates a 3.4% increase over 2019.

MSU President Mark E. Keenum said there are several reasons for MSU’s continued growth, with the most important being the response from faculty, staff and administrators to innovate, adapt and collaborate for the good of the student body.

“Since the inception of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have had a deep commitment to the health and safety of our students while ensuring we continue our highquality academic offerings that lead to student success,” he said. “Our growth is a testament to the dedication and hard work of our faculty and staff and the courage and fortitude of our students and their families.

The Bulldog family has never been stronger.”

John Dickerson, assistant vice president for enrollment and university registrar, agreed.

“Not only is enrollment up but retention 36 SPRING 2021

is up, which means more who were enrolled last year came back to us,” Dickerson said. “I think a big contributing factor to that is all of the work that was done by so many people to give our students as much of a normal experience as possible, and as many options as possible, during such extraordinary times.”

“Thanks to the diligence of our students and employees, classrooms have proven to be safe for in-person instruction. All of the mitigation efforts we put in place—physical distancing, mask wearing and sanitizing regularly—all worked to ensure that classroom spaces were as safe as possible." ~ Regina Hyatt

CONNECTION

Among the options that Dickerson said likely influenced enrollment was the ability for students to pick the learning model they felt safest and most comfortable with— whether traditional face-to-face instruction, online only or a hybrid of the two. Of course, with mere months to adapt each delivery method to the changing demands of a pandemic, providing these options was not an easy task.

Much of the success of Mississippi State’s ability to continue to meet the needs of the Bulldog family came down to its digital infrastructure and the know-how of MSU’s Information Technology Services.

“Ultimately, we wanted to protect the student experience, help the faculty and support the administrative duties of the university,” explained Steve Parrott, the university’s chief information officer and director of ITS. Parrott said that in March, his unit worked with MSU’s Center for Distance Education, Center for Teaching and Learning, and University Libraries to

provide “crash courses” for faculty in how to use Canvas—the university’s learning management system—and Cisco’s Webex video conferencing software, which helped faculty transition their courses online.

While that helped address the immediate needs of continuing to provide instruction during pandemic lockdown, Parrott joined with other university leaders in looking ahead. His main concern: cameras, laptops and other technology that would help facilitate hybrid or distance learning as the pandemic wore on.

“You have to remember that everyone in the academic world was in need of the same things. We had to act fast,” Parrott said. “At the time, in late spring, we didn’t even know when we’d be back face-to-face, but we had initial discussions with Dr. Shaw about how to have the biggest impact for the fall. We decided that cameras and the associated technology would give us the biggest bang for our buck.

“Getting video in those classrooms would prepare us for whichever way things went,” he continued.

Still, even with orders placed by late May, kinks in the supply chain led to shortages and delays across the board.

“Last summer, you could not buy cameras online,” Parrott recalled. “Laptops, everything was backordered because demand was so high. But we had to keep planning and building the infrastructure to make everything work once it arrived.”

While waiting for equipment to ship, ITS moved forward with running nearly 29,000 feet of network cable into approximately 170 classrooms to support new equipment.

The unit also began designing the technology that would drive the non-traditional classroom spaces.

“These spaces had never been used for teaching, it wasn’t their intended purpose, but we had to equip them to give students and faculty a reliable classroom experience from a technology perspective,” Parrott explained.

The solution was custom-built technology PODs—portable cases that contained a computer, wireless microphone receiver and beltpack, camera, and sometimes speakers, projectors, document cameras and other items depending on the needs of the location or instructor.

As one of the university’s largest courses, with a maximum enrollment approaching 800, modern U.S. history posed a unique challenge for pandemic protocols like physical distancing. Employing a non-traditional venue like Humphrey Coliseum as a classroom space helped MSU provide in-person instruction while protecting the health and safety of the Bulldog family.

MSU President Mark E. Keenum addresses Whit Waide’s American government class as it meets in The Hump to accommodate class size and COVID-19 safety needs.

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 37

In addition to Humphrey Coliseum, other venues tapped as non-traditional classroom spaces for fall 2020 included the Newell Grissom Building, the M-Club at Davis Wade Stadium, Griffis Boardroom at the Palmeiro Center, gymnasiums and studio space at the Sanderson Center, the Colvard Student Union's Foster Ballroom and Bettersworth Auditorium in Lee Hall, as well as spaces in the Bost Extension Center, McComas Hall, Memorial Hall and the Mitchell Memorial Library.

MSU administrators identified many large performance or sporting venues across campus that could be adapted for classroom needs during the pandemic. Here, students engage in face-to-face instruction for an introductory animal and dairy science course in MSU’s volleyball gymnasium, Newell Grissom (top); a Professor Dongmao Zhang-led chemistry course in McCarthy Gymnasium (bottom); and a calculus class with instructor Abigail Good in a Sanderson Center gym (right.)

“You can’t buy these PODs online,” Parrott said. “These were designed and put together by the ITS team to meet Mississippi State’s specific needs. They could be deployed to any location and, from the user’s perspective, would work very similarly to the networked, ITS-supported lecterns we have in traditional classrooms.”

For faculty teaching in the nontraditional classrooms, it was as simple as booting up the equipment and beginning a presentation much like they would in regular classrooms. However, the addition of a camera allowed the lectures to be recorded or streamed for students attending remotely.

Parrott said the ITS team used a room in Allen Hall as the staging area to build the PODs. They tested the gear in Allen classrooms as the necessary parts arrived, which it did just in the nick of time. With classes scheduled to begin Monday, August 38 SPRING 2021

17, the cameras and projectors—-which had been ordered in May—arrived the afternoon of August 13. The critical equipment that converts camera signal into something readable by a computer arrived August 14.

“Shipments weren’t arriving in boxes, they were coming on pallets,” Parrott said. “Our audio/video team, as well as many other ITS personnel, spent the entire weekend before classes putting together and testing pods and getting cameras into classrooms.”

All told, ITS ordered more than 200 cameras, 50 laptops, materials for 30 pods and more than $15,000 worth of batteries, among other purchases necessary to make pandemic learning possible.

“The money MSU has put into campus technology over the last nine months is phenomenal,” Parrott said. “I’ve spoken to other Southeastern Conference schools and we beat them hands down. Our faculty

now have amazing teaching technology at their fingertips.

“And it’s important to know, these weren’t panicked purchases to just get us through the pandemic,” he continued. “These were deliberate, thoughtful choices that will not only get us through this but set us up for success down the line.”

FUNCTION

In addition to equipping both nontraditional and traditional classrooms with the hardware necessary for virtual and in-person learning, ITS also had to create software and user interfaces to help serve the university community, such as a GPA calculator for those considering pass/fail instead of traditional letter grades and a system for students to apply for COVID-relief funds and spring fee reimbursement.

ITS also created computerized models to

help administrators coordinate fall semester classes to incorporate new class locations and times while causing the least disruption to students’ already-planned schedules. This monumental task of essentially replanning all of the university’s 5,445 fall courses fell to the Office of the Registrar.

“Planning the master class schedule for a fall semester is usually a four-month process,” explained Dickerson, who leads the registrar’s office. “By the time we knew what the rules would be for COVID, we had a little over a month to redo the entire fall plan.

“We also had to deal with the fact that students were already enrolled, with their schedules in place,” he continued. “So, I can’t overemphasize how big of a task this was and how well our scheduling team and partners across the university rose to the challenge.”

Not only did the new schedule have to account for changes in venue as lectures moved to larger spaces, but it also had to help facilitate lower hallway congestion during class change, intensive sanitization of classrooms

between classes, and increased travel times due to the use of non-traditional classrooms located on the fringes of campus.

To accommodate those needs, Dickerson said the university decided to increase the time between classes to 20 minutes which, while necessary for coronavirus precautions, also created scheduling conflicts.

“We ran models to identify conflicts in scheduling and worked those through so the number got smaller and smaller until we were able to work with departments and individual students to find solutions,” Dickerson said.

“It’s all a big puzzle.”

Dickerson said the 20 minutes between classes was a sweet spot. It provided enough time for one group to leave, janitorial crews to complete sanitization, and the next group to arrive and settle in for class.

Les Potts, associate vice president for administration, said it was amazing how efficiently teams worked to turn rooms over between class sessions. He explained that a financial analyst created a class-schedule

spreadsheet to understand the complexities of the changeovers.

“We identified nearly 600 spaces that would need to be addressed on a daily basis, some more than once,” Potts explained. “Our custodial teams were able to do that with a staff of about 115 full-time employees. They had to really have a handle on the building usage schedules and the tasks that needed to be accomplished.”

To facilitate quick but thorough sanitization, the university purchased hydrostatic backpack sprayers which can be used to quickly apply a peroxide-based virucide to all classroom surfaces in between uses. These are also used in communal spaces—-such as Mitchell Memorial Library, Perry Cafeteria, and the Colvard Student Union food court and study areas— throughout the day. Sanitizing wipes, gels and sprays were also distributed around campus, and are regularly refilled, for use by individuals who wish to clean surfaces before use.

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 39

Students exit “The Hump” after a morning class. The Division of Athletics partnered with the Office of the Provost, Information Technology Services and other university units to make MSU’s largest indoor venue compatible for face-to-face teaching.

Potts explained that the university moved quickly to purchase personal protective equipment and sanitizing agents—hundreds of thousands of items to enhance the safety of faculty, staff and students. MSU also constructed more than 1,500 plexiglass shields for high-traffic offices and reception areas; provided new outdoor seating to help space out diners and study groups; and installed more than 200 feet of temporary sidewalk to encourage safe, distanced travel between buildings—none of which was planned for in the university’s operating budget when the fiscal year started.

Federal funding from the coronavirus relief bill, administered by the state of Mississippi and the Department of Education, helped cover the expenditures in certain areas. This, combined with prudent financial decisions at the university-level, allowed Mississippi State officials to do what was necessary without affecting the long term outlook of the institution.

Potts, whose unit is under the Division of Finance and Administration, said the fact that MSU could move quickly to make the necessary purchases and cover the unforeseen expenditures is not only a result of CARES Act funding but a testament to the leadership of President Keenum and MSU’s Chief Financial Officer Don Zant.

“Having a president with more than a 40 SPRING 2021

decade of experience on the job has been invaluable in a situation like this,” Potts said. “Not only does he have the trust of the faculty, staff and the university community as a whole, but for more than 10 years, he and Don have been making conservative financial decisions. They could not have predicted this exact scenario, but that conservative approach to spending has put us in a good financial position to weather this storm and the turmoil it has brought.

“Never has this administration spent money just because it was there,” he continued. “There is a culture of making deliberate decisions so as to be good stewards of all of our financial resources.”

Still, while being fiscally responsible is paramount to all university officials, Raymond Brooks said there has never been any doubt that the administration fully supported, “whatever we need to do to get students back on campus safely.”

“I cannot say enough positive things about the people I’ve had the opportunity to work with all the way to the president’s office,” Brooks said. “It’s been amazing to watch the university come together and see the amount of coordination that has gone into all of this. It’s things most people never see, but that’s what we call the Disney effect: if they don’t see what we’re doing, if they don’t see how the magic happens, then

it means we’re doing our jobs well.”

As associate dean of students, which includes oversight of the Colvard Student Union and MSU Event Services, Brooks and his staff not only helped host classes in innovative spaces but also provided audio equipment, tables, chairs and other necessities to establish other non-traditional classrooms across campus. His unit also houses some of the university’s busiest campus-dining options and serves as a hub for many students needing a place to study or log-in to an online class while on campus.

Though he admits he, like most people, experiences a certain amount of “pandemic fatigue,” he said all of the work, stress and worry has been worth it to give students the campus experience that is such an integral part to university learning.

“The student experience is so much more than academic learning,” he said. “It’s learning to work with others, being social and knowing that when you leave here you’ll be able to work with whoever is in the office next door.

“When you work here every day, you understand the importance of being immersed in a global culture and exposed to new things, and I can’t think of a better place than a college campus to get those kinds of experiences.” n

IN NUMBERS FALL 2020 ENROLLMENT

FRESHMAN TO SOPHOMORE

A 3.4% INCREASE

TO 85%

22,986

70%

RETENTION CLASSES RATE ROSE RESUMED

WITH AT LEAST SOME FACE-TO-FACE COMPONENT

14 PHYSICALLY DISTANCED,

NON-TRADITIONAL CLASSROOMS ESTABLISHED

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES INVESTMENT SUPPORTING MORE THAN 150 TECHNOLOGY-ENABLED CLASSROOMS

AND TEACHING LABORATORIES

DESIGNED AND BUILT 15 CLASSROOM PODS TO POWER NON-TRADITIONAL CLASSROOMS INSTALLED 28,933 FEET OF NETWORK CABLE TO SUPPORT NEW TECHNOLOGY

122 CAMERAS AND ASSOCIATED TECHNOLOGY INSTALLED 1,719 WEEKEND MAN HOURS TO BRING CLASSROOMS ONLINE FOR SEMESTER START

FACILITIES INVESTMENT INSTALLED MORE THAN 200 FEET OF TEMPORARY SIDEWALKS CONSTRUCTED AND INSTALLED 1,500 PLEXIGLASS SHIELDS FOR OFFICES AND CLASSROOMS CONSTRUCTED AND DELIVERED 800 STANDS FOR SANITIZING WIPES DEPLOYED APPROXIMATELY 4,000 SIGNS BUILT 300 LAP DESKS FOR STUDENTS' USE IN AREAS WHERE TRADITIONAL DESK SET-UPS WERE UNAVAILABLE SANITIZED TRADITIONAL AND NON-TRADITIONAL TEACHING SPACES APPROXIMATELY 2,800 TIMES PER WEEK APPROXIMATELY 115 FULL TIME AND 50 TEMPORARY CUSTODIAL STAFF FOR CAMPUS OVER $1 MILLION INVESTED IN EMERGENCY SUPPLIES, INCLUDING PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT, THROUGHOUT

THE SEMESTER

APPROXIMATELY $1 MILLION ALLOCATED FOR UV LIGHTING AND BIPOLAR IONIZATION AIR-QUALITY TECHNOLOGY FOR THE HVAC SYSTEMS IN MORE THAN 60 DENSELY USED CAMPUS BUILDINGS. ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 41

PROFILES

Alumni leave mark on state symbol

By Sasha Steinberg, Photos submitted

F

“We needed something that represents the true Mississippi.

I wanted to design something that is simple, looks sharp and represents all of us. Working on the new magnolia flag has been an honor.” ~ Rocky Vaughan 42 SPRING 2021

or many people, for many reasons, 2020 was a life-changing year.

Sue Anna Joe, Dominique Pugh and Rocky Vaughan remember it as a time when they got to be a part of history.

Mississippi history, that is.

The three Mississippi State alumni are among those credited with designing Mississippi’s newly adopted state flag.

“I was very proud to see Gov. Reeves sign House Bill 1796 because I felt like it could be a step toward healing for our state,” said Joe of the bill that established the nine-member Commission to Redesign the Mississippi State Flag.

The commission received more than 3,000 design submissions and ultimately selected the “In God We Trust Flag” to appear on the November 2020 ballot.

Sherri Carr Bevis, the MSU Alumni Association’s 2019-21 national president, served on the state flag redesign commission at the invitation of Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann.

“Mississippi has always been very gifted with a lot of talent—writers, musicians, athletes, artists—and I think the new flag says a lot about the richness of the culture and talent in our state,” the 1986 communication graduate said.

“Our new flag has really brought our state together in such a positive way. We all have different beliefs and opinions, but we now have a symbol that can unite all Mississippians and make us proud.”

Ackerman native Vaughan, who studied graphic design and illustration at MSU in the late 1990s, is the creative mind behind the new flag’s overall layout.

He said each of the design’s three primary colors has a specific meaning. The blue background echoes the blue of the American flag. The bands of red represent hardiness and valor, and the gold lines and stamen of the magnolia blossom are a nod to the state’s rich cultural history, specifically the arts.

“The old flag was a bad black eye, and Mississippi doesn’t deserve that,” Vaughan said. “We needed something that represents the true Mississippi. I wanted to design something that is simple, looks sharp and represents all of us. Working on the new magnolia flag has been an honor.”

A native of Greenwood, Joe is credited with the magnolia blossom at the flag’s center. She explained that the state flower symbolizes longevity and perseverance, two characteristics she feels are common among Mississippians.

“Our state has been through a lot over the decades, and it has always bounced back because Mississippians are the kind of people who dig their heels in when they want to get something done and they see it through,” the 1998 communication graduate said. “My hope is that when Mississippians see the magnolia, they’ll think of home and say, ‘This is our flag.’”

Joe, who has lived in San Francisco for eight years, said she was grateful for the chance to use her artistic talents to give back to her home state.

“Working on the new Mississippi flag design was one of the few things I enjoyed in 2020,” she said with a chuckle.

“I saw the flag on Twitter the morning after election day,” Joe recalled. “Starkville

Mayor Lynn Spruill had retweeted a video showing the flag going up on Mississippi State’s campus, and I saw photos and videos of other universities doing the same. To see people reacting enthusiastically was like Christmas morning. It was a good feeling.”

“A good feeling” is exactly how Pugh described her experience assisting with the new state flag design as well.

As a freelance graphic designer for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, the 2008 MSU art graduate made any design adjustments the flag commission requested as it narrowed down the design submissions.

“One of the elements that stands out the most to me is the golden star that represents the indigenous Native American tribes,” Pugh said, adding that the flag also features 20 white stars symbolizing Mississippi’s status as the 20th state in the union. “One of the commission members, Tribal Chief Cyrus Ben, is Native American, and he had the cool idea to incorporate that golden star.”

The West Point native said she also enjoyed learning from flag expert Clay Moss, who MDAH brought on to advise the flag commission. As required by House Bill 1796, the new flag had to include the words “In God We Trust.”

The commission wanted to ensure the design also included three colors and meaningful symbolism, in accordance with proper flag design etiquette outlined by the North American Vexillological Association.

“I had no idea there are a lot of rules when it comes to designing a state flag, so it was pretty cool to have Clay to teach us and explain why certain elements needed to be included,” Pugh said. “It was a ‘wow’ moment for me when I went to vote and saw the new flag on the screen. I hope other states will look at Mississippi differently now and see that we’re making a change and moving in a better direction.” n

Sherri Carr Bevis

Sue Anna Joe

Dominique Pugh

Rocky Vaughan ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 43

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LIFE’S A BEACH Surf forecasters up their game through MSU’s geosciences distance program

By Susan Lassetter, Photos Submitted

44 SPRING 2021

B

efore heading to the shore for an afternoon in the sun, most surfers want to know that the waves are good that day. But in order to tell if the “surf ’s up,” one must first learn what is up with the surf.

That’s what avid surfer Kevin Wallis came to understand in the late 1990s as an undergraduate at California’s Claremont McKenna College, located about an hour’s drive from the nearest surf spot.

“I got to a point where if I was going to go surf, I wanted to know that it was going to be decently good,” Wallis recalled. “That really sparked

“It was distance learning which just seemed to fit my lifestyle. I traveled a lot to go to surf events and to get waves myself, so the fact that I could be in this program and still continue to travel a lot fit perfectly into my life." ~ Kevin Wallis my interest in figuring out where waves came from and how good they might be that day, and that turned me on to the company I work for now, Surfline.”

Started in 1985 as a hotline for West Coast surfers looking to find the best waves, Surfline has become a leader in the niche industry of surf forecasting—a specialty that combines oceanography and meteorology to predict how waves will form and behave as they approach the coastline. The company now operates as a subscription-based website ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 45

PROFILES

TOP: Kevin Wallis, BOTTOM: Schaler Perry

“We’re trying to distill something that’s pretty complex into something that’s simple and easy to understand for our users. We want to give them something that’s actionable so they can go out and get the best waves they possibly can.” ~ Schaler Perry

46 SPRING 2021

and provides surf predictions for popular spots around the world.

Wallis joined Surfline in 2000 after completing a bachelor’s in psychology.

Since that time, he has worked his way through the ranks and is now director of forecasting.

“When I got hired by Surfline, I considered it a dream job,” Wallis said.

“There was a lot of on-the-job training in those first few years, and I gained a lot of practical knowledge, but learning a lot led me to realize that I did not know a lot and that’s when I became aware of the meteorology program at Mississippi State.”

Looking to build a more formal meteorological background, Wallis enrolled in MSU’s geosciences distance program after learning about it from a colleague.

“It was distance learning which just seemed to fit my lifestyle,” Wallis explained. “I traveled a lot to go to surf events and to get waves myself, so the fact that I could be in this program and still continue to travel a lot fit perfectly into my life.

“It gave me a better understanding of the process of wave development,” he continued. “With surf, we’re largely interested in what’s going on at the surface

of the Earth because that’s what’s driving the waves, but what’s happening in the upper atmosphere drives what’s happening on the surface, so it’s all connected.”

Wallis earned a broadcast meteorology certificate from State in 2009. He was also instrumental in pointing fellow Surfline forecaster Schaler Perry to Mississippi State’s geosciences department.

A native of central Florida who grew up taking every opportunity to hit favorite surf spots on the state’s eastern shore, Perry earned a bachelor’s in environmental studies at Florida State. He recalls telling his parents upon choosing his major that “it’d be really cool to get a job at some place like Surfline, but that’s not going to happen.

“I think those were my exact words,” he said with a laugh, “but now here we are.”

Perry said he headed to California after graduation to be closer to more consistent, surfable waves—he’d figure the rest out when he got there. Six months later, he was hired part time at Surfline. When, like Wallis, he later decided he wanted to strengthen his foundation in meteorology, he enrolled at Mississippi State and earned a geosciences master’s degree with a concentration in applied meteorology.

THE LOW DOWN ON SURFING Both Kevin Wallis and Schaler Perry have been surfing since their teens. As natives of California and Florida, respectively, they had plenty of exposure to the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts where the sport is popular. But they say it’s never too late to learn, and many reliable, mellow waves are within reasonable driving distance for much of the Southeast.

Perry is now West Coast operations manager for Surfline, coordinating forecast for the Pacific Coast of the U.S., Hawaii, and parts of Central and South America. He also assists Wallis in producing forecasts for professional surfing competitions like the Big Wave Tour and other World Surf League events.

With 11 full-time meteorologists on staff, Wallis said Surfline produces daily forecasts for thousands of surf spots around the world. For the most popular regions, he said they offer subscribers a human-produced forecast that helps surfers read between the lines of the computer models to get a better understanding of predicted swell timing and surf size.

“We’re trying to distill something that’s pretty complex into something that’s simple and easy to understand for our users,” Wallis explained. “We want to give them something that’s actionable so they can go out and get the best waves they possibly can.”

He said it is very similar to the weather forecast people get on their phones, but instead of temperature and precipitation, their predictions are the timing, size and quality of waves.

Perry said given that the company serves premium subscribers, the pressure to make correct calls is intense.

“You don’t always sleep well the night before a day you’ve predicted will see 10-12-foot swells, especially in your hometown where it’s generally not above 4-6 foot,” Perry said. “You get butterflies because you’re potentially going to get really good surf but you also want to have made the correct call.”

But Perry said that’s also one of his favorite parts of the job: knowing where and when to go surfing and getting to live out a passion for forecasting. Wallis echoed that sentiment, saying that traveling the world and tracking XXL swells—the largest, most extreme waves, surfable only by the sport’s most elite athletes—are some of the highlights of his job.

“For the past decade I’ve been working with surfers who are chasing those really big waves and working with photographers to get them in the right place at the right time,” Wallis said. “Fiji, Portugal, Tahiti, Indonesia—I’ve seen some really beautiful places and met a lot of great people. And when the forecast is done, I can get some waves myself.” n

On the Gulf Coast, Perry recommends the shoreline of Texas and Orange Beach, Alabama, east through the Florida Panhandle as great spots for beginners in the region. He said the Carolinas are also a good option for those hitting the East Coast.

Both of the meteorologists suggest that anyone looking to try the sport find a surf school. There, Wallis said you can learn not just the physical part of surfing—like how to “pop up” and paddle out— but also the mental side—like reading waves—and the etiquette that comes with sharing the water with other surfers.

WA L L I S O F F E R S T H E FOLLOWING ADVICE: •

Be patient with yourself – Surfing isn’t necessarily intuitive.

It takes time to learn the balance and movements it requires.

•

Be mindful – Stay aware of your surroundings when you paddle out. Not all waves are conducive to learning.

•

Don’t be scared – Everyone is going to wipeout sometime; just go with it and try again.

Hesitation at popping up or panic upon falling can be dangerous and lead to injury.

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 47

PROFILES

Living as a Legend

MSU alumna seizes opportunities to lead by example

J

By Nell Luter Floyd, Photos by Megan Bean

udy Alsobrooks Meredith has led a remarkable life as a classical pianist, television anchor and professor. She also happens to be married to Mississippi legend James Meredith, but that’s not the beginning or end of her story.

Born in 1949 to an unmarried, biracial couple from Iowa, Judy was adopted by an Indiana family when she was 3 years old. While national attitudes at the time undoubtedly led to her being put up for adoption, she says she grew-up largely insulated from the turmoil of the civil rights era.

“My parents were very protective, and our Black community had its own bubble,” Judy recalled. “We had our own businesses and grocery store. Really the only time we saw white people was if we went downtown or to a department store.

You never talked about race, but you did hear about it in passing.

“I guess that was my first perspective of race in America,” she continued.

“My parents would just turn on the TV news and that’s how I saw the news of the day. And that’s how I learned about James Meredith.”

James gained national attention when 48 SPRING 2021

he became the first African American to enroll at the University of Mississippi, which sparked riots that resulted in two deaths. Judy said she can recall watching news coverage of the events from her Indiana home when her father would turn on the television and say, “Well, let’s see if James Meredith survived another day.”

Still, she said it wasn’t until she enrolled at Lincoln University, a historically Black university in Jefferson City, Missouri—-outside of the “protective bubble” created by her parents—that the civil rights movement became more personal to her.

Raised by a piano teacher, and a gifted musician in her own right, Judy could read music by the time she entered kindergarten. As a fourth grader, she played the pipe organ at her Catholic school in Gary, Indiana, despite the fact that her feet didn’t reach the pedals. She later served as accompanist for three choirs at the Methodist church around the corner from her home.

This love of music led her to earn a bachelor’s in the field from Lincoln in 1972. She soon began teaching music at a school in Maywood, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago about an hour’s drive from her hometown. During that time, she often

“My parents were very protective, and our Black community had its own bubble. We had our own businesses and grocery store.

Really the only time we saw white people was if we went downtown or to a department store. You never talked about race, but you did hear about it in passing.” ~ Judy Meredith

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 49

PROFILES heard of the Merediths—James, a native of Kosciusko, and June, his wife who was also from Gary.

“My friend used to tell me, ‘I really want you to meet June Meredith. You guys remind me of each other,’” Judy recalled. “June actually went to the same high school as me but she was older, so I never knew her and actually never ended up meeting her because, unfortunately, she later died of a massive heart attack.

“Several years later, I was in my friend Carrie’s kitchen when her husband Tommy went to answer the door,” she continued.

“I heard him say, ‘James Meredith.

I’ve got a single woman in here I want you to meet.’”

James had driven to Indiana from Jackson to attend a funeral with his good friend Tommy. It was just a fluke that Judy was there when he arrived.

“He told me years later that when they walked into the funeral, he looked at the casket and said, ‘I can’t do anything for this man here. Take me back to that woman at your house before she leaves,’” Judy said with a laugh.

A passionate long-distance relationship followed, and two and a half months later, in February of 1982, they were married in the house where they met. It was then that Judy first stepped foot into Mississippi— something she didn’t think she would ever do.

“I had never been to Mississippi in my life and had never thought I would simply because it had such a terrible reputation,” Judy admitted. “I can tell you I was quite impressed when I arrived. If you’re not from here and all you know is its history, you don’t expect to see the good. But I saw Black people with beautiful homes and Black-owned businesses. And the people— Black and white—were so courteous.”

Having grown tired of teaching, Judy decided to use the change in circumstances to further her education. She was torn about whether to study music or mass communication, so she registered for classes in both at Jackson State University.

“I said, ‘I’ll go with the one that I do my best in,’” she said. “It turned out I got A’s in both.”

50 SPRING 2021

Her love of the news—born all those years earlier in her parents’ living room—won out.

She earned a master’s degree in English with a concentration in mass communication and soon began to make a name for herself on the air as Judy Alsobrooks.

She completed an internship at Jackson’s CBS affiliate WJTV and then moved to the city’s ABC-networked WAPT. She later continued to build her broadcast career with Ohio’s WLWT while James continued to build his legacy as a visiting professor at the University of Cincinnati.

“It was a very compatible situation.

He supported me and I supported him,” Judy said. “My parents always taught me to follow my dreams and to only rely on my skills and my talents to do it. So, it was never a question of his dreams or mine. It was supporting each other in doing what we needed to do.”

Later, that support involved sustaining a long-distance marriage as different ambitions took the Merediths to opposite coasts. James moved to Washington D.C. to work as a domestic adviser to Sen. Jessie Helms of North Carolina, while Judy moved to San Diego in search of her biological family and to produce a manuscript about the journey. But after two years of bicoastal living, the couple returned to Jackson to make it their permeant home.

Judy worked at Mississippi News Tonight and later returned to WAPT, but after eight years on the air, she was recruited by her alma mater, Jackson State, to develop and manage its campus TV station. While there, she was named a Fulbright Scholar, which provided her the opportunity to travel to Germany to study mass communication. She later served on the National Fulbright Association board of directors and the association’s Diversity Task Force.

During that time, she also decided to pursue a doctorate and turned her attention to the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Mississippi State University.

“I guess it seems I have always gone from one thing to another,” Judy said, jokingly.

“But it’s almost natural for a journalist to have a political science background; it makes you

more knowledgeable. And Mississippi State sparked my interest because that program especially had opened its doors to Black students. That diversity was appealing to me because at my age, I didn’t feel like fighting battles anymore.

“And I absolutely loved Mississippi State,” she continued. “As far as I’m concerned, I’m a Bulldog and when James is out in his Ole Miss hat, I’m right there in my Mississippi State one.”

“I already knew her wonderful husband, but I got to know Judy separately,” Ladd said. “She is funny, loves life and people, is exuberant and brilliant, and cares deeply about good journalism, which is what we most have in common. She’s now on the board of directors of the new nonprofit Mississippi Free Press, which I lead, and I couldn’t be more proud to be working with her in this venture.”

Retired from JSU, Judy is now using all of her skills to document the life of James.

“I did a short documentary on James,” Judy said. “When he would go somewhere, I would pull out my phone and start recording. I did the music, narrated and wrote the documentary.”

She said she finds it interesting to watch history being made, knowing that James played a role in changing America.

“He’s always lived ahead of his time,” she said of her husband. “I tell people it’s an adventure being married to him.

You meet a lot of people. You go a lot of places. He’s so low key.

“It’s been an interesting life,” she continued. “He can be funny, and he knows how to dance.”

Still, as Ladd noted, Judy’s life isn’t about being James’ wife. She’s proud of his legacy and hopes to see it grow through her and her husband’s continued work, as well as the work of others.

“She’s fully her own woman, which is really saying something considering that she is married to a literal legend.” Ladd said.

“That struck me as soon as I met her. She and her husband have a truly equal relationship.

Neither shrinks in the other’s giant shadow and strong beliefs. I picture her at once extremely outspoken and, at the same time, always laughing, which she nearly always is.”

Ladd said she respects Judy for how she has remade herself throughout her life, taking hold of the next opportunity, and serving as a role model for all women in Mississippi.

“Like me, she loves Mississippi, but knows that we must face our history and criticize the place we love as needed to make it the best place it can be,” Ladd said. “A glorious Mississippi is still ahead of us, and she is a vital part of making that happen, alongside her also very funny husband.” n

“And I absolutely loved Mississippi State. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a Bulldog and when James is out in his Ole Miss hat, I’m right there in my Mississippi State one.” ~ Judy Meredith Marty Wiseman, emeritus professor of political science and emeritus director of MSU’s John C. Stennis Institute of Government and Community Development, said Judy was “a superstar of the news media” that he welcomed in the two seminar classes he taught while she was getting her doctorate.

“She’s a delightful person,” he said. “She’s someone you would want in your class because of the conversations you would have.

She probably could have taught the class.”

Judy completed her doctoral degree in 2007, and then did go on to teach as an assistant professor at JSU, where she specialized in broadcast writing and urban affairs reporting.

A shared passion for journalism led Judy to cross paths with Donna Ladd, a 1983 MSU graduate who was a member of an advisory committee for JSU’s mass communication program.

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 51

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SHINING BRIGHT MSU alumni-led company launches partnership with Sesame Workshop

By Sasha Steinberg Photos by Hunter Hart, Beth Wynn and Submitted

52 SPRING 2021

F

Anna Barker (Glo vice president) and Hagan Walker (Glo CEO) hold their company's newest Glo Pals characters, Elmo and Julia of "Sesame Street"

or more than four years, Starkvillebased Glo has been making a splash in the world of entrepreneurship with its innovative bath toys known as Glo Pals. Now, through a partnership with Sesame Workshop, the company’s newest Pals will resemble residents of a popular street.

Sporting bendable arms and colorful personalities, Glo Pals are liquid-activated, light-up sensory toys intended for children ages 3 and up. Beginning in April, the line will include “Sesame Street” favorites Elmo and Julia.

MSU alumna and Glo vice president Anna Barker, who runs the business with fellow Bulldog and Glo CEO Hagan Walker, said the company is excited to work with the longrunning children’s program.

“Sesame Street has been very careful in selecting who they partner with because Julia represents something special as the first Muppet with autism,” explained Barker, a marketing and foreign language graduate from Monticello.

“Because of the backstory on the creation of Glo Pals, we were granted a license to use Julia as our first toy released in partnership with Sesame Street, along with a Glo Pal for Sesame Street’s Elmo character.”

Walker said it was the mother of a child with autism who inspired the development of Glo Pals.

“She got the idea to put one of our Glo cubes in the bathtub at home,” said Walker, an electrical engineering graduate from Columbus.

“She reached out and told us when she did that, it was the first time in months that her son had gotten in the tub without crying.”

At hearing this boy’s story, Barker got an idea of how Glo could help children facing similar challenges.

“Hagan and I started doing research online, and we found out that bath time struggles are pretty common for children on the autism spectrum or with a sensory processing disorder,” Barker explained. “We thought designing a toy with fun lights and colors that children could play with in the water would give them something positive to associate with bath time, which could help them better process the experience.”

Glo Pals feature the same extensively tested technology as the company’s popular Glo cubes

that have been lighting up drinks at restaurants, parties and other special events since 2015.

“Our Glo cubes have always been designed to be safe, so to make them into Glo Pal toys for children, we designed characters and put their faces on the cubes,” Walker said. “Anna created the whole brand behind Glo Pals, which is now our bestselling item.”

Barker said children at MSU’s Child Development and Family Studies Center were the first to test out Glo Pals in an organized setting after the product was introduced in 2018. In October 2019, Barker and Walker befriended a licensing manager for Sesame Street while showcasing Glo Pals at the Dallas Toy Fair.

“When we told her the story behind why we created Glo Pals, she thought we would be a great fit for a partnership with Sesame Street,” Barker said.

Barker and Walker later went up to New York and met with the team at Sesame Workshop—the nonprofit behind Sesame Street—to discuss the possibility of working together to create a new Glo Pal of Julia, a yellow Muppet with a purple dress who helps raise awareness of autism.

Barker explained that Julia is part of “Sesame Street and Autism: See Amazing in All Children,” a nationwide initiative to provide resources and support for families of children with autism ages 2 to 5. One in 54 children in the U.S. is diagnosed on the autism spectrum, according to the initiative’s website.

“There are so many wonderful brands in the toy industry, but when I think of one that aligns with our values of education and inclusion, who could be better than Sesame Street?” Barker said. “The people there have been so kind, and they have never treated us like we’re a small company. We’re proud to work with a show that has been a real pillar for children for more than 50 years.”

To develop Glo Pal prototypes for the Elmo and Julia characters, Barker and Walker said they had to do their Sesame Street homework. Both watched episodes and read books from the beloved children’s show to fuel their creative spirits.

“Hagan and I both watched Sesame Street as kids and to have the opportunity to work with a brand of this scope is special,” ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 53

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MSU alumni Hagan Walker and Anna Barker of Starkville-based company Glo showcase "Sesame Street" characters Elmo and Julia, who in April joined the company's line of Glo Pals sensory toys for children.

Barker said. “During one of the episodes we watched, Elmo was introducing Julia to the other characters. Some of them become a little startled or don’t understand why Julia is doing what she does, but the show does a great job of explaining why she reacts differently in a way that kids can understand and identify with.”

Barker and Walker said neither have a personal connection to autism, but they are continually moved by correspondence from customers who do. Walker said the Glo team enjoys receiving notes from parents whose children have benefitted from using Glo Pals at home, as well as teachers who have found success in using the light-up toy for sensory activities in their classrooms. He said the company donates a portion of proceeds from each Glo Pal product sold to Blair E. Batson’s Children Hospital, the only children’s hospital in Mississippi. Glo also offers a Glo Pals character named Blair.

“One of the first big personal notes we got was from a foster mom who had two children, one with special needs and another being treated for a terminal illness at Batson’s,” 54 SPRING 2021

Barker recalled. “She said, ‘Literally from every angle, this product is special to me.’

That was incredibly moving and humbling.”

Reflecting on the continued success of Glo Pals, Barker and Walker said they have many people to thank, including friends across the Mississippi State campus.

“We tell people all of the time—we wouldn’t be here without the E-Center,” Walker said of the university’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach. “The first samples of our Glo cubes were developed in a walk-in closet before we went to the E-Center. We got funding through the E-Center back in 2015, and they helped us purchase a 3D printer to make prototypes.

They’ve been involved every step of the way.”

Barker said she and Walker are especially grateful for Jeffrey Rupp, Eric Hill and Sharon Oswald. Rupp serves as the MSU Division of Business Research’s outreach director; Hill, director of the entrepreneurship center; and Oswald, dean of MSU’s nationally recognized College of Business.

“We can’t say enough good stuff about

MSU. Eric has been a soundboard for us, even on weekends and evenings,” Barker said.

“He helped connect us to the wide-ranging alumni network and university facilities, including the Idea Shop on Main Street in Starkville where we created and printed the first 3D model of Julia.”

Barker said she and Walker both had job offers when they graduated, but they wanted to stay in Starkville and keep the Glo startup going because of the community cheering them on year after year.

“We have Mississippi State to thank for that,” Barker said. “The people at the E-Center and the College of Business told us, ‘Whatever you want to do, start learning right here and we’ll help you get there.’”

Walker agreed that his decision to attend MSU and remain in Mississippi following graduation has been worthwhile.

“I knew from a young age that I wanted to do engineering and as the top engineering school in the state, MSU seemed like a good fit. I didn’t think I would stay so close to home, but I’m glad I made that choice,” he said. “It’s cool to see how far we’ve come.” n

MANGUM TAKING A BIGGER SWING AT THE BIG LEAGUES

By David Murray, Photos Submitted

Former Diamond Dawg Jake Mangum now wears No. 8 as an outfielder for the Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor league affiliate of the New York Mets. e’d have accepted the draft-call from any major league club and gone about business. But Jake Mangum has found another sort of bonus with New York’s Metropolitans.

It is the black jersey among the various game-day gear packages.

“The Mets actually do have a black shirt. It’s one of their most iconic uniforms,” Mangum said.

The man most responsible for adding black to Mississippi State’s own ensemble is quite the Diamond Dawg icon himself. All-American, All-SEC, All-Freshman, all everything; record holder and Rebel rouser; heart of a team and face of the program. That’s Jake Mangum, No. 15 in the program and first rank among Bulldog baseball greats.

And the still-new professional ballplayer did not let 2020’s unimaginable baseball setback slow him down.

“It’s very weird, but it’s good,” said Mangum of the strange spring and summer. “I actually enjoyed it. I’ve gotten better in areas of baseball I needed to, and in life in

H

general. It’s been a very good year, to be honest with you.”

Now that is the real Jake Mangum. Never mind his first full minor league season faded to black before first pitch. Mangum stayed the course both in and out of the batter’s box, working out in south Florida or Mississippi as available and hoping for a fall mini season. Beyond that, the focus was preparing for February 2021 and true training camp.

This was simply making the most of unexpected opportunity.

“Life is what you make it,” Mangum said.

“I could have pouted. Instead, I told my Dad this is going to be the most beneficial year of my life. I’m going to put on some weight and do some things I’ve never been able to get to. The areas in baseball that I lacked I’ve been able to get to.”

Wearing the Maroon and White, as well as Sunday blacks, there wasn’t much lacking to Mangum’s game.

A consensus senior All-American outfielder, he was a semifinalist for the Golden Spikes Award and Howser ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 55

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“I GREW UP IN MISSISSIPPI, I UNDERSTAND THE RIVALRY. I’M THE FIRST MANGUM TO GO TO MISSISSIPPI STATE. WAS IT PERSONAL? YEAH! IT WAS A RIVALRY GAME. I KNEW HOW MUCH THE FANS CARED, AND I LIVED IT GROWING UP.” - JAKE MANGUM

Trophy as best college ballplayer in the land. This was after a junior year American Baseball Coaches Association Gold Glove season. Mangum was already an All-American as a 2016 freshman and league-leading batter on the Southeastern Conference championship club.

Speaking of the SEC, Mangum is the first and only four-time All-Conference Diamond Dawg, thrice a first-teamer. He achieved this while playing for four separate coaches, no less. And, if any happen to have forgotten, he left as the all-time SEC base hits champion and fourth-best in the NCAA annals. As for more Mississippi State history, Mangum’s name tops five season and career records lists.

Yet Mangum said he happily would still swap all the standards and marks and honors to fill one aching blank line in the resume.

“Never winning a national championship is about the only thing I can take away,” Mangum rued. “As a team we went to four Super Regionals under four coaches, that will never happen again.”

Not to mention consecutive College World Series trips in 2018 and ’19.

“People ask, ‘Is the hit record the coolest thing you did?’ It was cool, yeah, but if we don’t make it to post-season all four years I don’t get those at-bats and hits. I’m thankful for the four years. It was awesome.”

As was Mangum, though a certain opposing team might use another word.

56 SPRING 2021

Mangum may well be the ultimate Rebel rouser, boasting a four-season record of 14-2.

His teams won every series, every Governor’s Cup, almost every game. Fittingly Mangum ended his own reign of Rebel terror with a sweep in Oxford.

“I grew up in Mississippi, I understand the rivalry,” Mangum said. “I’m the first Mangum to go to Mississippi State. Was it personal? Yeah! It was a rivalry game. I knew how much the fans cared, and I lived it growing up.”

So, he said, did most Diamond Dawg peers.

“We always had a Mississippi-dominant roster. A lot of guys understood what it meant,” he recalled.

Just how deeply did this first-generation Bulldog grasp the rivalry?

“I remember my first-ever Ole Miss game. I got to the field probably six hours early, just giddy. An upperclassman walked in and said, ‘Hey, man it’s just another game.’

I said, ‘No, it’s not just another game.’ And that was my first home run that day! It was pretty cool.”

Mangum is working to develop even more punch at the plate. In a short postcollege season with A-ball Brooklyn he had 45 hits in 53 games, and a team-best 17 steals. Last February, invited to the Mets’ Major League camp, he notched his first base hit off a big-league pitcher.

But a healthy career means also getting stronger by getting bigger. Like, 10 pounds bigger in honest baseball muscle added to his 6-foot, 1-inch frame.

“I’m very, very happy about that. I’m almost 200 pounds for the first time in my life,” Mangum bragged. As to more technical aspects, “I changed my swing, tweaked it I’d say, to something more impactful.

Earlier in the count I’m looking to do more damage now.”

This from the top-of-order terror who hacked at any first offering near enough the zone? An early swinger who’d have gone after warm-up pitches if allowed?

“I was looking to put the ball in play and run. Which worked,” Mangum noted, correctly. At least it did in college against anxious starters who knew this Bulldog was coming after them.

“But there comes a point in time I need to adapt, not lose what I’m good at, and pick up things I was lacking. That’s what I’ve done,” Mangum said.

That work goes on into 2021 when baseball life returns to normal with a stronger, sharper swinger ready for that first full professional season.

“I think when I look back on my baseball career this will be one of the most beneficial years I’ve ever had,” Mangum said.

He even used the downtime to develop another game of sorts. He crossed the foul

line to join the media mob. “The Jake Mangum Show” podcast was an instant hit. He also cut advertisements for statewide airwaves.

“Just doing things I might want to do after baseball to see how it goes. I might do broadcasting one day,” he said.

If broadcasting or commentary doesn’t suit his post-career tastes Mangum said he absolutely can see himself coaching college baseball.

“That’s what I want to do, but we’ll see," he said. “Ron Polk has talked to me about that as many times as he can. I love that man. He’s the best.”

Quite a few folks regard Mangum as the best ever to patrol center field and bat leadoff in a Bulldog uniform. By the way, how did he settle on his No. 15?

“Destiny,” he said with a shrug. “Just a number assigned to me.”

More famed than the every-game number was the once-a-week uniforms Mangum and club made their trademark. The Sunday “NickelBlacks” weren’t intended to be special.

It just worked out that way.

“On Sundays Coach Cohen preached energy,” Mangum explained. “Noah Hughes’ way was to blare Nickelback on Sunday mornings, we jammed to it and got energy pregame. My junior year we said we have to start wearing these black uniforms, it’s nasty. NickelBlack just kind of hit.

You can say what you want, there was something about them. We didn’t lose a game.”

That’s a fact. In 2018 and 2019 regular season Sundays—or Saturdays if the series started early— the Bulldogs went undefeated. Even the most devout Maroon and White loyalist came around with time and with wins to accept the nontraditional outfits.

“And our last home game was in blacks,” Mangum recalled of the Super Regional rout of Stanford to earn a second-straight Omaha ticket. “I don’t know, all we had to do was win the national championship and you couldn’t have scripted it any better.”

Even if his Mississippi State script went unfinished, Mangum’s legend is complete and permanent. Now he is swinging away in a bigger league with greater ambitions. Though the early innings were interrupted, it is a longer game Mangum is playing.

“I’m a guy that believes everything happens for a reason.” n

#15

A MAGIC MISSISSIPPI STATE NUMBER

By David Murray

In the 2010s one number set the pace. No. 15 was No. 1 in Bulldog hearts as it was shared by a trio of Mississippi State stars.

Dak Prescott, Jake Mangum, and Teaira McCowan were the faces of their teams, of Bulldog athletics and even an entire university. On fields and courts across conference and country, all wore No. 15 and all in historic style.

Prescott (2011-15) set the tone and, for Bulldog football, a record pace. His name still stands first for game, season and career records in: touchdowns-responsible, total yards, passes completed, passing percentages and interceptions rate.

Prescott led his 2014 Bulldogs to the program’s first-ever No. 1 ranking.

And, for the only “statistic” that counts for a true quarterback, his four varsity falls notched 34 wins, matching the most successful such span in Mississippi State history.

And in perhaps the ultimate attribute of a legend, he is ever and instantly known everywhere as just Dak. If Dak directed State to top of the rankings, McCowan (2016-19) powered consecutive teams to within a win of consecutive national championships— or within one shot in the heart-wrenching 2019 case, a shot Big T with 271 blocks could only watch.

A slow starter, McCowan blossomed into a two-season all-star. She stands fourth in career scoring and first for rebounding, holding the SEC’s singleseason standard for board-work. Her 70 double-doubles will never be matched at MSU. The career ended with consensus All-America honors.

Mangum’s own 2016-19 feats complete the all-star triangle and seal the status of No. 15 as a magical Maroon and White number of the past decade.

There is another, less-digital, symbolism though. Louisianan Prescott, Texas lady McCowan, and home-state man Mangum reminded that whatever their native addresses these Mississippi State greats made themselves at home in Bulldog Country.

FOREVER. ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 57

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Dawgs in

In a city that’s known for the Blues, Mississippi State alumni are keeping Maroon and White top of mind. With nearly 6,000 alumni in the area, Bulldogs are leaving a mark in Memphis, Tennessee.

TRAINING DAYS When Michael Powell came to Mississippi State University, the Southaven native wanted something more than classes to fill his time.

Looking around there were opportunities for Greek life, student government, even an array of niche student groups, but he said nothing seemed to pique his interest—except sports.

A lifelong Bulldog fan who grew up attending a variety of sporting events in Starkville, Powell soon found an opportunity to follow in his sister’s footsteps and become a student athletic trainer for the sports medicine unit in MSU’s athletic department.

“I wanted to work, and I wanted to be involved, but none of the typical activities were really for me,” Powell recalled. “I love sports and I realized it would be a good job—a way to meet people, earn some 58 SPRING 2021

scholarship money and have a pretty unique student experience.”

He started with the football team, joining the gridiron Dawgs for their trip to the Gator Bowl in 2010. The next year, Powell worked with men’s basketball before returning to football and then finishing his college career as a student trainer for the Diamond Dawgs.

As a business administration major, Powell stood out from his student trainer peers, most of whom had aspirations of careers in medical or sports-related fields.

But while he wasn’t there for the practical experience in physical training, he said the job did train him in other ways.

“I think that job helped me learn to work, and to work with a variety of people with different personalities from different backgrounds," Powell explained. "In sports, you have a wide cross section of people to work with,” Powell explained.

A 2014 graduate, Powell is now a financial adviser with Shoemaker Financial in Memphis. He is also president of the area’s Mississippi State alumni chapter, known as the Memphis Maroon Club. He said his experience as a student athletic trainer has been beneficial in both roles.

“It’s all about people,” he said. “And that’s what student training helped teach me.”

SINCERELY The global coronavirus pandemic has changed much of the education landscape, and student recruiting is no exception.

Historically, university alumni and recruiters have visited high schools or hosted events to entice college-bound students to consider their institutions. But now, with COVID-19 restrictions in place to limit face-to-face interaction, groups have had to find new ways to connect with prospective students.

“It’s been difficult,” explained Jessica Dougan, who leads student recruiting efforts for the Memphis Maroon Club.

Many might think the answer lies in high-tech solutions, but Dougan said Memphis-area Bulldogs have found a delightfully old-fashioned technique to reach the next generation—letter writing.

“With COVID, our traditional watch parties and social gatherings have been taken away from us, but we could focus on student recruiting,” Dougan said. “We could get everyone on a Zoom and discuss writing our letters and make a plan.”

Dougan, who is a program coordinator at the West Cancer Center and Research Institute, said the alumni group works with official recruiters from MSU to get the names of potential students from the Memphis area and beyond. She noted that the Memphis Maroon Club also sends baskets of MSU-branded giveaways to local high schools.

“We want to help them make a connection with MSU,” Dougan said.

A 2013 elementary education graduate, Dougan said her own decision to become a Bulldog was spurred by a visit to campus for a football game.

“I had a scholarship offer to play softball at another school, but as soon as we hit Highway 12 and I saw the back of the Davis Wade scoreboard, I knew I wanted the Southeastern Conference experience,” the Germantown, Tennessee, native recalled. “I wasn’t sure how to break it to my parents, but they went on a tour a couple of months later and fell in love with it.”

She said having alumni write to prospective students and share their personal MSU experiences can help these students see themselves as future Bulldogs.

“The lists we get from recruiters have students from lots of different backgrounds and lots of different areas of interest,” Dougan said. “It’s kind of neat getting to reach out to them and help them see what Mississippi State has to offer.”

Dougan said letter writing is also beneficial for alumni as it allows them to give however much time they feel they can spare.

“We get the lists, and we’ll ask our members, ‘OK, how many do you think you can write?’

They might say 10-20 or just one or two, which is fine,” Dougan said. “That’s one or two students who might not have gotten a personal touch without that person volunteering their time.”

HANDWRITTEN NOTES

Dougan offers the following tips for alumni who want to craft compelling and engaging letters for prospective students.

• Be personable • Focus on encouraging a student to visit or apply to MSU • Include contact information such as an email address and social media handles She noted that having an active chapterlevel email address and social media presence is important so prospective students can reach out or learn more about their local Dawgs.

The MSU Alumni Recruiting Network has a Maroon Mail Writers group for anyone interested in joining the letter-writing effort. Find more information about it and other alumni-involvement opportunities at www.alumni.msstate.edu.

“The lists we get from recruiters have students from lots of different backgrounds and lots of different areas of interest. It’s kind of neat getting to reach out to them and help them see what Mississippi State has to offer.” ~ Jessica Dougan

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 59

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THE STREAK One hundred and fifty-eight. That’s how many consecutive Bulldog football games Stephen Woo has attended. Home, away and neutral, good, bad and ugly he has been there to cheer for Mississippi State at every snap since October 2008.

It’s one of the longest known attendance streaks among the Bulldog faithful, matched only by his mother, Ying, who joins him at games come rain or shine.

“It just kind of happened,” Woo said of the impressive feat. He even negotiated the necessary time off when he joined his current company, Mid-America Apartment Communities Inc. where he is SVP Tax. “They already knew when I met with them that being able to take off to travel to games would be a requirement,” the Lexington native explained. “Al Campbell, the chief financial officer, is a fellow Bulldog so he understands.”

Having earned bachelor’s and a master’s degrees in professional accountancy from MSU in 1994 and 1995, respectively, Woo moved to Memphis in the fall of 1995 to accept a job with Coopers & Lybrand.

He soon began attending games as an alumnus—making it to 312 of 317 games since his graduation. When his parents 60 SPRING 2021

retired in the mid-2000s, they joined the fun.

“A friend sold me her season tickets when she decided she wasn’t going to use them,” Woo said. “I figured since I had the tickets, I would see if my parents wanted to go. They did and when the season was over, my mom wondered how much season tickets would be the next year. Later they started going with me to some of the away games, too.

“She said, ‘You know I don’t have anything to do. I’m just going to tag along,’” Woo recalled. “Now she’s on her 158th game in a row.”

Though Woo’s father Gordon, who attended MSU in the late 1950s, passed away in 2009, Stephen and his mom have continued to make games a family affair, inviting his siblings and extended family along to cheer on the Dawgs. And it’s not just football. The Woos also support the Diamond Dawgs, men’s and women’s basketball, and other Bulldog sports—though not with the same attendance streak.

Woo is also an active supporter of MSU’s Spirit Groups, likely the only folks who can rival his game-day commitment.

“People don’t realize how much time

they’re putting in with practices and games, and for only a little scholarship money, so I try to help when they need new uniforms, a new Bully costume or things like that,” Woo said, noting that a conversation with a former squad adviser was his first introduction to the group’s needs.

Now in his second term on the Alumni Association’s national board of directors, and with a 20-year history of supporting the Memphis Maroon Club, Woo said all Bulldogs can help support the university whether it’s by attending games, volunteering or financial support.

“I know it’s a cliche, but it really is a family,” said Woo, who also serves on the advisory board for the Adkerson School of Accountancy. “This is my university—my family—and it is a big part of me, so I think supporting the university, and supporting our teams—even in rough years—is important.”

He encourages all Bulldogs to reach out to their area alumni chapters as a way of staying connected and offering support.

“I think it really starts with the local chapters,” Woo said. “They’re great at getting our local alumni involved and being a link to MSU.” n

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ALUMNI RECRUITMENT NETWORK

VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHTS

Through the Mississippi State Alumni Recruitment Network, any Bulldog can make an impact on future generations by sharing their MSU experiences and passion with prospective students, like these impactful volunteers have.

them to our Bulldog family and inform them about the upcoming Send-Off Party. Of course, I keep communicating with them about the Send-Off Party, and this year I had three students who communicated back to me, so I got their mailing addresses. I try to send them a note or a card every few weeks. Especially this year, I wanted them to know they are supported by their alumni chapter.”

Memorable Recruitment Story: Several years ago, there were twins attending Baylor School in Chattanooga. While we learned of them fairly late in the recruiting process, in February, we contacted them, got them on campus, and both decided to attend Mississippi State.

Both graduated in May 2020 and were successful in finding employment.

Their parents have remained “active friends” of our chapter.

PATSY L. FOWLKES B.S. biochemistry, 1974 Retired pharmaceutical sales professional MSU Alumni Recruitment Network Participation: Maroon Mail Writers “I volunteer because I believe it is important that students from the Greater Chattanooga area know that there are local alumni who care about their choice of schools. My first letter is really “generic.” I welcome them to join our Bulldog family, and encourage them to visit campus and to enjoy their senior year in high school.

My second letter is specific to their major and college of interest.

“My third letter comes after they have committed and enrolled. I welcome 62 SPRING 2021

TYLER ELLIS B.S. history, 2012 Attorney, U.S. Department of Agriculture MSU Alumni Recruitment Network Participation: Student Recruiter for the Washington, D.C. Alumni Chapter “Volunteering allows me to connect with other Bulldogs in the nation’s capital who love MSU as much as I do. I’m able to meet incoming freshmen and their families at the Send-Off party, which really is the best event of the year.”

Memorable Recruitment Story: It was actually unofficial. I was eating at a Thai restaurant downtown and a woman at the table next to me was talking to her friend about her daughter who wanted to major in history and recently visited MSU. I politely interrupted and we went on to have a great conversation about Starkville, MSU, the history department and its amazing faculty. You’re never off the clock when it comes to recruiting for Mississippi State.

BLAIRE WILSON B. S. mathematics, 2012; MPPA, 2013 Associate Director, Honor Council and Deputy Title IX Coordinator for Emory College, Emory University MSU Alumni Recruitment Network Participation: Maroon Mail Writers and Student Recruiting Chair for the Atlanta, GA Alumni Chapter “Writing letters is a great way to promote your chapter and support your university at the same time. I often tell people to imagine being a prospective student and getting actual mail, addressed to you, and inside a handwritten note from a Bulldog saying, “We want you!” You can’t convince me that it doesn’t have a positive impact on that student.

As a professional in higher education,

I recognize the importance of showing prospective students that when they choose Mississippi State they aren’t just a number, they are family and as a member of that family, I can’t wait to congratulate them on their admission.

“Throughout the last few years, I have organized Sip & Scribe events for the Atlanta Chapter. This year, I coordinated a team of 10 amazing volunteers to assist with letter writing season, nearly 600 letters sent to students! To respect social distancing, I have produced letter writing care packages for volunteers and arranged contactless deliveries and pickups across the Atlanta area.”

Memorable Recruitment Story: This year, I dropped a batch of cards in the mail. A week later an email came in from a prospective student just beaming about how they just had their campus visit and how they were blown away by their experience. They wrote, “It immediately felt like home.” I knew exactly the feeling they were describing, and I can’t wait to hopefully meet this student at our 2021 Send-Off Party.

DANIELLE WHELAN GAUDÉ B.S. office administration, 1991 Administrative Assistant for the Department of Music, Mississippi State University MSU Alumni Recruitment Network Participation: Maroon Mail Writers

“I’m a third generation Bulldog and my son just graduated in November as the fourth. My husband, a 1989 graduate, and I moved to Starkville in January 2020 and I wanted to do something to influence future students to come to MSU. I searched on the Alumni Association website for a way to volunteer. There are several different opportunities through fairs and events, but with my schedule they were not feasible. Then I saw Maroon Mail Writers. I loved the idea of sending personal, handwritten notes to prospective students. I hope that receiving an actual letter demonstrates the personal touch that another email, text or social media post cannot.”

Memorable Recruitment Story: I include my name and personal email address in all the letters I send.

I haven’t heard back from anyone directly, but if I’ve influenced just one of the many students I’ve written to come to MSU then I’m happy!

the best decision for their futures. As a former enrollment professional, I know the value alumni experiences have on the pivotal decision that high school and transfer students make when choosing a college. Not only do students want to know they’ll have a positive college experience, more importantly they want to have the best chance to secure their intended career. When students hear from successful alumni, it gives them the confidence that Mississippi State will be instrumental in providing a clear path to a successful career.”

Memorable Recruitment Story: I had the privilege to represent MSU at a local awards ceremony, and one of the students receiving a scholarship found me at the conclusion of the ceremony to thank Mississippi State for providing this scholarship so that college would be made a reality. This first-generation college student had dreamed of going to MSU but knew it would be a financial struggle for her family to make that happen. With tears in both her and her parents’ eyes, they expressed their gratitude and asked if I would take a picture with them so they could freeze that memory forever.

JAKE DONALD B.S. psychology, 2006 Major Gifts Officer, Office of Development, University of MS Medical Center MSU Alumni Recruitment Network Participation: Maroon Mail Writers “It’s important for future Bulldogs to hear the impact that MSU had on alumni so they are able to make

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT BECOMING A BULLDOG VOLUNTEER, VISIT

WWW. ALUMNI.MSSTATE.EDU

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ALUMNI News

CHRISTOPHER CHARLES PEYTON RECEIVES FREE TUITION The MSU Alumni Association and MSU Alumni Delegates raised over $17,180 through ticket sales for the Alumni Delegates Tuition Drawing. Christopher Charles Peyton of Moss Point was awarded a free semester of tuition for this spring. Peyton is a junior in the College of Education majoring in information technology services. Initiated in 2013 by the association’s Alumni Delegates student organization, the drawing is open each fall and spring semester to any student enrolled full time at MSU. The award provides funding for 12 academic credit hours-$4,455 or the equivalent of a typical semester’s in-state tuition. Funds raised beyond the cost of tuition benefit scholarships and priority programs within the association.

Pictured, from left, are Alumni Delegates Parker Cunningham, Kylie Watts (vice president of public relations), tuition winner Christopher Charles Peyton, Josh Stanford (president), and Sarah Singley.

(Photo by Jordan Ramsey

Alumni Delegate Officers

MSU Alumni Delegate officers for this year include, from left, Bailey Dean of Spring Grove, Illinois, vice president of public relations; Dylan McDonald of Frisco, Texas, president; Rohan Fisher of Colorado Springs, Colorado, vice president of member education; and Daniel Bond of Hattiesburg, secretary. To learn more about MSU Alumni Delegates and see a complete list of current members, visit www.alumni.msstate.edu/ delegates. (Photo submitted) 64 SPRING 2021

The MSU Alumni Association announced four new leaders of its student organization known as the Alumni Delegates. Alumni Delegates are liaisons between the MSU Alumni Association and MSU students. The 45-member group helps the association maintain strong ties with the university’s nearly 150,000 living graduates.

Alumni Delegate officers for 2021 include: • President Dylan McDonald of Frisco, Texas, a senior industrial engineering major; • Rohan Fisher of Colorado Springs, Colorado, a junior mathematics major, serving as vice president of member education; • Bailey Dean of Spring Grove, Illinois, a senior majoring in kinesiology, serving as vice president of public relations; and • Daniel Bond of Hattiesburg, a junior mathematics major, serving as secretary.

Alumni

CLASS RING CEREMONY The MSU Alumni Association hosts The Ring at MSU, a commemorative ceremony for the presentation of official MSU class rings purchased during ring days, prior to each spring and fall commencement. In fall 2020, the MSU Alumni Association was committed to hosting an in-person, socially distanced ceremony at the Hunter Henry Center. In November, over 50 Bulldogs received rings presented by John Rush, vice president of the Division of Development and Alumni.

A special part of the ceremony recognized Col. Robert Barnes as the association’s fall ring honoree.

Barnes is a 1972 graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology. He was also the first African American MSU ROTC cadet to be commissioned at MSU. A resident of Byrum, Barnes served for 31 years in the military. He then had a successful career in logistics management, working for companies including Pepsi, General Electric and retiring from Walmart Stores, Inc. Barnes is a steadfast supporter of Mississippi State and has served on many boards and committees including serving as chair of the Black Alumni Advisory Council. For more information on official MSU class rings, visit alumni.msstate.edu/classring.

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 65

ALUMNI News

MSU Alumni Association Legacy Program continues to grow The Mississippi State University Alumni Association is proud of the growth and success of its inaugural MSU Legacy Program.

The free program, which started in 2017, is designed to help active Alumni Association members “wrap their kids and grandkids in Maroon and White” to instill an affinity to MSU from an early age.

The program is an opportunity for both alumni parents and grandparents to share their love of MSU with their legacies through a birthday gift mailed to the child each year, celebrating the MSU tradition of family.

Upon enrollment in the program, children will receive a yearly birthday card and ageappropriate gift from the Alumni Association in the month of their birthday. For MSU alumni and active members of the Alumni Association, this is an opportunity to consistently share Mississippi State with their children or grandchilden and encourage them to become a part of the Bulldog family!

The MSU Legacy Program has grown from 750 participants in its first year, to over

66 SPRING 2021

1,950. Additionally, the program now offers annual birthday gifts for each active child, increasing from a gift mailed every other year.

“It is the spirit of family and connection that we want this program to foster in our alumni family,” said Jeff Davis, executive director for the Alumni Association.

The gifts begin at the age the child is first enrolled in the program, and all gifts bear official MSU insignias. The child will receive a birthday gift each year based on their age (see list to the right).

Along with connecting its enrollees to MSU as they grow older, the Legacy Program brings together a nationwide family of young Bulldogs connected by the love their parents and grandparents hold for MSU and wish to pass along to them.

Registration for the Legacy Program may be completed online at our website, www.alumni.msstate.edu/legacyprogram.

Children may be enrolled at any age through age 17.

BIRTHDAY GIFTS BY YEAR 1 year: Baby bib 2 year: Small cowbell 3 year: Paw print tattoos 4 year: Activity book 5 year: MSU shoelaces 6 year: School kit 7 year: Pennant 8 year: Stress release and

reusable straw 9 year: Flashlight 10 year: Sunglasses 11 year: Pop socket 12 year: Wireless earbud case and

phone wallet 13 year: Carabiner 14 year: Visor 15 year: Tech stickers 16 year: Car decal and phone holder 17 year: Cowbell flash drive and

Bluetooth speaker

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MOSSYOAKGOLF.COM | 662.524.1000 ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 67

GIVING Back

FOUNDATION NAMES Incoming Board Members

M

ississippi State University is fortunate to have dedicated alumni and friends with a willingness to help guide its fundraising arm through the MSU Foundation board of directors. Three incoming members joined seven previously serving members in beginning new threeyear terms in January.

Incoming officers making their first appearance on the board are:

BOYCE E. ADAMS SR. OF COLUMBUS

A 1980 MSU marketing graduate, Adams is a special adviser for BankTEL, the company he co-founded and where he served as president and CEO for many years.

He is a member of the College of Business Advisory Board, the MSU Entrepreneurship 68 SPRING 2021

Center Advisory Board and the MSU Bulldog Club Board.

WALTER D. “DAVID” PURVIS OF NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

A 1983 MSU chemical engineering graduate, Purvis is a retired vice president of engineering for BHP Billiton and owner of Purvis Consultants LLC. He currently serves as a member of the Petroleum Engineering Departmental Advisory Board in the MSU Bagley College of Engineering’s Dave C. Swalm School of Chemical Engineering.

CHARLES R. “CHARLIE” STEPHENSON OF TULSA, OKLAHOMA A 1981 MSU petroleum engineering graduate, Stephenson is CEO and a director

of Bravo Natural Resources. He presently serves as vice president with the MSU Bulldog Club Board.

Also rejoining the board in new threeyear terms are:

THOMAS G. “TOM” HIXON SR. OF RIDGELAND

A 1967 MSU accounting graduate, Hixon is chairman of Phoenix Development Company LLC. He presently serves as a member of the MSU Bulldog Club Board.

HERBERT V. "HERB" JOHNSON OF HOUSTON, TEXAS

Johnson received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from MSU in 1978 and 1981, respectively, and is

president of HVJ Associates Inc. He has served as a member of the advisory board for the Bagley College of Engineering.

LINDA F. PARKER OF BOLTON

Parker is a longtime friend of MSU and the retired secretary of Sunbelt Wholesale Supply.

RICHARD H. PUCKETT SR. OF MADISON

Bevis Adams

A 1977 MSU business graduate, Puckett is chairman and CEO of Puckett Machinery. He has served as a member of the MSU Bulldog Club Board and the College of Business Advisory Board.

Parker

GREGORY C. “GREGG” RADER OF COLUMBUS A 1984 MSU petroleum engineering graduate, Rader is executive chairman of Columbus Recycling Corporation. He serves as a member of the MSU Bulldog Club Board.

Abney Purvis

RICHARD A. RULA OF RIDGELAND

Puckett

A 1970 MSU civil engineering graduate, Rula is president of Hemphill Construction Company Inc. He is a current member of the MSU Bulldog Club Board and the Bagley College of Engineering dean’s advisory council.

MICHAEL W. “MIKE” SANDERS OF CLEVELAND

A 1964 MSU physical education graduate, Sanders is the retired president and CEO of Jimmy Sanders Inc. He has served as a member of the MSU Bulldog Club Board.

Also joining the board as members, by virtue of position, for 2021 are Sherri Carr Bevis of Gulfport, president of the MSU National Alumni Association board of directors, and David Abney of Atlanta, Georgia, president of the MSU Bulldog Club Board.

Bevis earned a 1986 communication degree from MSU and currently works as community relations liaison for Singing River Health System. Abney, a friend of the university, is the retired CEO and executive chairman of the United Parcel Service (UPS) board of directors.

In addition to board members, the MSU Foundation reelected the 2020 officers to another one-year term. All MSU alumni, they are: D. Hines Brannan of Atlanta, Georgia, as board chair; Anthony L. Wilson of Gulfport as vice-chair; and Mike M. McDaniel of Houston, Texas, as treasurer. They were initially elected to their posts in 2019.

For more information on the work of the MSU Foundation, individuals should visit www.msufoundation.com or access twitter @MSU_Foundation.

Brannan Stephenson Rader

Wilson Hixon

Rula

McDaniel Johnson

Sanders ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 69

GIVING Back

‘STORY OF A LIFETIME’ TO BENEFIT MSU

By Addie Mayfield, Photos by Beth Wynn

rom the outside, nothing seems unusual about the sprawling brick and stone house. The arched windows and large double doors framed by a wellmanicured yard appear commonplace among the other homes scattered throughout the neighborhood. But walking through the front door, it becomes clear this is no ordinary home.

The specially designed, gallery-style entryway, like nearly every other room in the house, is filled with photos and memorabilia that transport visitors to places they’ve never been, familiarizes them with childhood heroes, and recalls the struggles and victories of seasons gone by. As the walls of what seemed to be an ordinary house begin to tell the story of a lifetime, an old adage comes to mind—“you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

Fittingly, the saying is also true of the home’s owner—Ron Polk.

The renowned Mississippi State baseball coach has compiled one of the most successful winning records in Southeastern Conference history and is known to many as the “Godfather of SEC Baseball.” Even those less familiar with MSU baseball have

F

70 SPRING 2021

likely heard the legends surrounding his name—most of which are true and require no exaggeration. Polk’s accomplishments and contributions to the game of college baseball throughout his 54-year career are unparalleled and continue to impact players and teams across the nation.

The renowned Mississippi State baseball coach has compiled one of the most successful winning records in Southeastern Conference history and is known to many as the “Godfather of SEC Baseball.”

Polk was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but his family relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, where he spent his childhood. Following his father’s footsteps, Polk showed a love for the game from an early age. Many would assume there was a specific moment or realization that inspired him to not only pursue but to dedicate more than half a century to the

game, but Polk said he can’t recall anything in particular.

“My dad was a minor league player, so he played with me and my brothers all the time.

It just happened.” he said.

Polk took a swing at collegiate-level baseball at then-Grand Canyon College in Phoenix, while pursuing his undergraduate degree. After his graduation in 1965, he began a coaching career as a graduate assistant coach at the University of Arizona, where he earned a master’s degree, and later at the University of New Mexico, where he pursued a doctoral degree.

From there he headed to the southeastern corner of the country, where he would assume his first job outside of graduate school as an assistant coach at Miami Dade-South Community College. Although Polk was little known at the time, a new era was dawning—one that would cement his name as legend in college baseball across the nation.

A two-time National Coach of the Year and five-time SEC Coach of the Year, Polk led his teams to eight College World Series appearances and five SEC Championships.

He is one of only three coaches in college

Left: Former MSU baseball coach Ron Polk recounts the players and teams he led, all of which are enshrined along the walls and shelves of his Starkville home.

Above: Easily recognized with his trademark cigar, Polk built his house to serve as a museum displaying his collection of memorabilia, which spans his career and dedication to America’s favorite pastime. baseball history to take three different programs to Omaha. The winningest coach in all sports in SEC history, Polk was the first in any sport in the conference to reach over 1,000 victories.

He is a member of six amateur baseball halls of fame including the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA), Mississippi Sports, and College Baseball Halls of Fame.

Named an SEC Legend in 2017, Polk has also earned the esteemed Lefty Gomez Award from the ABCA and the Rube Award from Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame for his tireless service to others during his career.

In his 35 years as a head baseball coach, 29 of which were with the Maroon and White, Polk produced 35 All-Americans, 76 All-SEC selections, and 187 professional draft picks. At MSU, Polk recruited and coached some of the game’s all-time greats including major league standouts Jeff Brantley, Will Clark, Rafael Palmeiro, Bobby Thigpen and Jonathan Papelbon.

But when it comes to “Polk’s folks,” the coach doesn’t pick favorites. He recognizes all of his former players, managers and staff members with handwritten letters every

year—every single one of them. Each week, Polk sits at his desk in his home office and prepares a stack of personalized cards for the mail. From birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, he never misses an occasion to acknowledge his teams, no matter how much time has passed.

“I do it because it’s the right thing to do,” Polk said. “No one else does it, but they were a part of my life, so why wouldn’t I take the time to do that?”

Just beyond the batch of freshly composed correspondences on his desk are Polk’s meticulously curated chronicles—a tribute to his teams. In addition to binders of box scores for every season since 1972 and every practice schedule he’s ever made, the bookshelves in Polk’s home office are brimming with alphabetized folders for all of his former players containing everything from press releases and magazine features from their baseball careers, to personal correspondences and wedding announcements.

An enormous shelf in his dining room holds every NCAA manual since 1970 and years of high school directories from every high school in America. Another room

contains detailed scrapbooks Polk compiled for each year he coached. Ironically, all of the photos among his collections were taken by someone else.

“I never think to take any photos. I figure, why would I need them if I’m able to see it for myself right as it’s happening,” he said.

Polk’s efforts to preserve even the most minute details of his career may seem surprising to the crowds of people who have watched him coach in any given game. A true Bulldog in every aspect, Polk is notorious for unleashing his opinion, often in the form of fury, on umpires, NCAA leadership and the like. But with a surprising sentimental side that rivals his trademark ferocity, it’s clear that Polk’s determined advocacy for the game and his players served as another way to preserve collegiate baseball as we know it today.

Similarly, Polk’s Starkville home also serves a larger purpose. He built it to not only house his belongings, but also to exist as a personal museum for his former players to visit.

Today, visitors are greeted by a welcome mat that looks like home plate as they step into the coach’s well-curated, ever-growing gallery. The two walls on either side of the ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 71

GIVING Back entry are lined with baseball bats etched with the year and names of every player from each year he coached. An artistic impression of Polk and Lou Gehrig, a snapshot of Polk with former U.S. President George W. Bush, and images of Dudy Noble Field at Polk-Dement Stadium line the walls, alongside every poster schedule for MSU baseball since they began being printed in the early 1980s.

Trinkets and flags from around the world tell of the seven tours Polk completed as a member of the coaching staff for Team USA, twice serving as head coach. Every piece has a story. And Polk loves to tell them all.

The amount of baseball memorabilia exhibited is impressive, even for the man who wrote the book on America’s favorite pastime—literally. In 1978, Polk authored “The Baseball Playbook,” which remains the nation’s leading textbook for the sport. It has been used by more than 450 universities and colleges, all of which are marked on a huge map framed in the home.

Thanks to a generous commitment from the legendary coach, the impressive museum contents will forever be a part of MSU history. Polk earlier informed the MSU Foundation of his intent to support the university through a bequest. Last year, he revised his will and outlined his intention for the designation of his bequest, which includes his home and the surrounding property, to benefit MSU. The proceeds will be used to procure a space to enshrine Polk’s vast collections near the baseball facilities at MSU. The creation of such a space on campus will serve as a lasting tribute to Polk’s powerful legacy at Mississippi State and throughout the game of baseball.

Additional proceeds from the bequest will be used to establish the Coach Ron Polk Excellence Endowment in Baseball. This fund will provide vital support on an annual basis, to benefit the baseball program in perpetuity. From general improvements and equipment procurement, to enhanced travel funds, the endowment will provide a margin of excellence that would otherwise not be available, further impacting the future of one of the greatest collegiate baseball programs in the country.

“Mississippi State is a special place, and this is home for me,” Polk said. “I wanted to make this gift because it’s the right thing to do. I’ve always preached that concept to my players. My hope is that this gift will help stir interest for others to do the same because when we give, everybody benefits.” n Top: An Olympic flag with pins given to Polk by competitors and teams from around the world sits in Polk’s entryway as a reminder of tours he completed on the Team USA coaching staff. Center Left: “The Baseball Playbook,” written by Polk, is the nation’s leading textbook for the sport. Bottom: A fan favorite among Polk’s keepsake bat collection features MSU’s 1985 baseball team, which produced four Major League All-Stars including Will Clark and Rafael Palmeiro, better known as “Thunder and Lightning.”

72 SPRING 2021

Molpus Woodlands Group encourages future workforce diversity through MSU scholarships

By Addie Mayfield

O

Avery

Bowman-Carroll

ne way of drawing talented, diverse students into higher education fields of study, where they are underrepresented, is by establishing and awarding scholarships. For a number of years, the Jackson-based Molpus Woodlands Group has impacted students across the Magnolia state in this manner.

Last summer, the timberland investment management firm decided to expand its efforts to help educate and bring a more prepared, more diverse workforce to the forestry profession through the creation of the Molpus Woodlands Group Annual Scholarship awards at Mississippi State University.

“Molpus has always been committed to education and, through a new partnership with MSU and four other universities, we have expanded our scholarships as we target students in underrepresented populations within certain majors,” said Michael R. Cooper, Molpus’ senior director of client relations and business development. “We believe the Molpus Woodlands Group Annual Scholarship will help bring further diversity to the forestry management profession and encourage recipients to become good lifelong stewards of forestry and the environment.”

The Molpus Woodlands Group Annual Scholarship awards benefit full-time students at MSU who are majoring in forestry through the College of Forest Resources or geosciences with a concentration in geographic information systems in the College of Arts and Sciences. Candidates are females or members of underrepresented ethnicities in their respective programs, who are rising juniors and have earned a minimum 3.0 GPA. Preference for the awards will be given to students demonstrating financial need or to those who are interested in pursuing a career in forestry following graduation.

The inaugural recipients of the scholarship for the 2020-21 academic year are Samantha Avery, a forestry major from Foley, Alabama, and Dominic Bowman-Carroll, a geosciences major from Honolulu, Hawaii. Each student is receiving $2,500 for their senior year of study.

“These scholarships are designed to help build

diversity in the next generation of professionals within our firm and the entire forestry sector,” said Bob Lyle, Molpus president. “Molpus has a vertically integrated business structure, with most activities handled by in-house team members in fields including business, forestry, geographic information systems and legal, and these academic disciplines are reflective of the rich diversity of the professionals in our company.”

Over time, Molpus has impacted the lives of a growing number of students, driven in part by the motivation of its founder and chairman, Dick Molpus, who has been an advocate for education in the state of Mississippi throughout his career.

Accordingly, the former three-term Mississippi Secretary of State personally established the Dick Molpus Foundation in 2008 as a private charitable organization to further support his efforts.

Since 2013, the Dick Molpus Foundation has supported minority annual scholarships at Mississippi State to particularly encourage interests in forestry. The Dick Molpus Foundation Annual Scholarship within the College of Forest Resources fosters the recruitment and retention of minority students and encourages involvement with the Molpus summer internship program. It also encourages participation in the Society of American Foresters and requires recipients to maintain at least a 2.5 GPA in their majors of study.

“Mississippi State is grateful for the support of Molpus Woodlands Group, Dick Molpus and The Dick Molpus Foundation. Scholarships from them are truly enabling students to seriously consider careers in fields they might not have considered otherwise,” said Jeff Little, the university’s senior director of development for CFR and the Bulldog Forest.

One of the oldest timber-related companies in the United States, with a heritage that dates back to 1905, Molpus was founded in 1996 as a timber investment management organization.

Today, Molpus is an SEC registered investment adviser that acquires, manages and sells timberland as an investment vehicle for pension funds, college endowments, foundations, insurance companies and high net worth individual investors. It currently manages approximately 1.9 million acres of timberland investments in 17 states. n ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 73

GIVING Back

Alumnus enhances support for fellow Bulldogs

By Addie Mayfield

Over much of the past year, like many others in his profession, Dr. Fred G. Corley Jr. has been hard at work treating individuals amid the COVID-19 pandemic. With nearly 50 years of experience, the Mississippi State University alumnus continues to have a positive outlook when welcoming new concepts and solutions—the most recent being the adjustment to telemedicine.

Corley of San Antonio, Texas, is an orthopaedic surgeon with expertise in surgeries of the upper extremities. He has been a faculty member of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio for more than 40 years, teaching resident surgeons and focusing on upper extremity fractures and surgical patient care.

The Yazoo City native graduated from MSU in 1968 with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry. As a student, he was very involved on campus as a student athlete with Bulldog football, a student association officer and a member of the Kappa Alpha Order, the Blue Key Society and Omicron Delta Kappa.

“Mississippi State University provided me the academic tools and experiences I needed to be accepted into and thrive in medical school,” Corley said. “These included disciplines, time management, and lots of encouragement from my professors to have a stimulated and inquisitive mind.”

Upon graduation from MSU, Corley earned a medical degree from the University of Mississippi School of Medicine and completed an internship at Parkland Hospital and UT Southwestern in Dallas. He then served on active duty with the U.S. Air Force, including a tour of duty in Da Nang during the Vietnam War. Corley completed his orthopedic residency at UT Health Science Center San Antonio in 1978 and followed with postgraduate fellowships in hand surgery and sports medicine at the Princess Margaret Rose Orthopaedic Hospital in Edinburgh, United 74 SPRING 2021

Dean's Executive Advisory Board for the College of Arts and Sciences Kingdom, and at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Named on the “Best Doctors” list, Corley is a member of the American Orthopaedic Association, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the American Society for Surgery of the Hand and the Texas Orthopaedic Association, for which he served as president from 2001-2002.

He is also a member of Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and the Arnold Gold Humanism in Medicine Society, as well as the recipient of many clinical and teaching awards.

Throughout his successful career, Corley has contributed much of his success to his parents, church, patients and the great mentors he has had the opportunity to work with over the years.

“The friends I made and the many long relationships I gained while at MSU continue to fulfill my life,” said Corley, who was honored by MSU as an Alumnus of the Year for the College of Arts and Sciences in 1997 and was again honored as the college’s 2013 Alumni Fellow.

Demonstrating his commitment to his alma mater, Corley has remained a loyal and engaged alumnus over the years. As a longtime board member on the College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Executive Advisory Board, he continues to play an active role in assisting the needs of the college and gives of his time and resources to promote growth and development within the college and university. He was also an MSU Foundation board member and has been financially

supporting the university since 1981.

The primary focus of his giving has benefited the College of Arts and Sciences through valuable academic scholarships to promote educational success for current and future students within the college. Corley is driven to assist students in their educational pursuits. His generosity to his alma mater has given numerous students scholarship opportunities to equip them with the tools they need to be successful throughout their academic careers at Mississippi State.

Last year, Corley decided to modify and increase his scholarship to assist even more students within the College of Arts and Sciences. The Fred Corley Endowed Scholarship, which was named to honor the memory of and carry on the MSU legacy of his father, benefits full-time students who have declared a major within the college. To date, more than 50 students have been assisted since the scholarship’s inception.

Corley’s longtime support has played a vital role in preparing Bulldog students who are eagerly following in his footsteps through the College of Arts and Sciences and will continue to serve as a meaningful source of encouragement and assistance for future generations.

In the uncertain times of today’s everchanging world, the dedication of the Bulldog family is a great source of hope. The visionary leadership of individuals like Corley, who are making a positive difference in their careers and the lives of others behind them, is a strong reminder that investments in others are always a gratifying and sure remedy. n

New Affinity Programs Offer Additional Ways for Bulldog Alumni and Friends to Support MSU Exciting news! The MSU Alumni Association has entered a partnership with Commerce Bank® to offer alumni and supporters the official MSU Visa Signature® Card.

“Our Bulldog Family always asks how they can support MSU, and this program is another great opportunity to do so,” said Jeff Davis, MSU Alumni Association executive director. “We are especially excited about the MSU Visa Signature® Card program, as alumni and friends can loyally participate in the program and support MSU at no cost to them.”

The partnership with Commerce Bank enables the Alumni Association to specifically offer the MSU Visa Signature® Card to the Bulldog family. It will give cardholders the opportunity to show their pride by carrying the MSU-branded card, while supporting MSU, benefiting the Alumni Association and earning Cash Back1 rewards with each purchase.

For more information on the MSU Visa Signature® Card, visit commercebank.com/MSUAA.

1. A Cash Back redemption is applied as a statement credit. The statement credit will reduce your balance, but you are still required to make at least your minimum payment. Values for non-cash back redemption items, such as merchandise, gift cards and travel may vary. See commercebank.com/rewardsterms for full details.

The New IMPACT by Ironwood Program The MSU Alumni Association and the Bulldog Club recently partnered with Ironwood to offer the MSU IMPACT program that can benefit Bulldogs and friends who own their own businesses.

Whether a retail store front, e-commerce business, wholesaler, or a regional or community bank, the IMPACT

by Ironwood program can be of benefit. Ironwood is known as an industry leader in merchant solutions.

The way IMPACT works is simple. Every time a participating business accepts a credit or debit card payment, IMPACT gives a portion of its processing revenue to support MSU. By simply running a debit or credit card payment through IMPACT, alumni and friends are supporting MSU without costs to the business.

For more information on the MSU Impact Program by Ironwood visit impactmsstate.com.

Ironwood is a registered ISO/MSP with Fifth Third Bank, N.A., Cincinnati, OH, Merrick Bank, South Jordan, UT, and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Concord, CA.

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 75

GIVING Back

PURVISES IMPACT MSU students, faculty

I

By Addie Mayfield, Photo by Megan Bean

t’s been nearly four decades since W. David Purvis was learning in a Mississippi State University classroom. This spring, he reentered the classroom to take a turn voluntarily teaching students in the James Worth Bagley College of Engineering.

Purvis is truly giving of his time at his alma mater, where he graduated in 1983 with a chemical engineering degree. A licensed professional petroleum engineer, he brings expertise and knowledge of the engineering industry to students in the Dave C. Swalm School of Chemical Engineering, where he co-directs the senior design teams for the department’s petroleum engineering capstone course with Mohammad Heshmati, an assistant professor.

“This is my third year in the class, and I truly love it. The intent is to help the petroleum engineering seniors develop a sense of judgment and assessment to go along with their technical knowledge from

76 SPRING 2021

prior classes,” Purvis said. “It is a blast to work with the students and help make them ready to enter the working world.”

The opportunity for the teaching assignment came from his involvement with the Swalm School’s Petroleum Engineering Departmental Advisory Board.

“We are pleased to have an executive and engineer of David’s caliber serving on our advisory board and impacting our student academic experience," said Bill Elmore, director of the Swalm School and holder of the Earnest W. Deavenport Endowed Chair in Chemical Engineering. "His commitment to helping students apply their skills to better understand petroleum engineering principles on real-world examples is an invaluable opportunity.”

Purvis retired from BHP Petroleum as vice president of engineering in 2019. He earlier spent 28 years in progressive roles with Shell. For his

achievements and contributions to the engineering profession, Purvis has been recognized by MSU as a member of Swalm School’s Hall of Fame and among the Bagley College’s Distinguished Engineering Fellows.

He also serves as an incoming member of the MSU Foundation board of directors and the Dean’s Advisory Council for the Bagley College.

“Overall, I think my degree from MSU helped me establish myself as a practical engineer who could think through problems and deliver a sensible and workable solution that was technically grounded,” Purvis said. “This served me well and led to roles with greater responsibilities and then to leadership and executive roles.”

In addition to his service and leadership roles, Purvis, along with his wife Susanne, has also been an avid financial supporter of MSU. He was fortunate to work for two companies that matched gifts to universities, which the couple used to grow their giving over time.

“Susanne and I leveraged those matches to multiply the impact of our gifts to MSU," Purvis said. “In the early years, this allowed us to fund annual scholarships and then, as time passed, to take advantage of naming opportunities across campus.”

Over the years, the Purvises have extended their support to athletics, the Bagley College’s McCain Hall renovation and Diversity Suite, the Swalm Scholars program, the costume and textiles collection, and the MSU American Institute of Chemical Engineers Support Fund. They also honored Susanne’s parents, the late Leroy H. and Catherine R. Boyd of Starkville, for their numerous accomplishments and longtime service as MSU faculty with the naming of an Old Main Academic Center classroom and support of the Dr. Leroy H. Boyd Endowed Scholarship.

Most recently, the Purvises increased their level of support for the W. David and Susanne B. Purvis Endowed Scholarship they previously created for students seeking an engineering degree at MSU. “Scholarships were very important to me as they helped me pay my own way through Mississippi State and I was so grateful

for that assistance,” said Purvis, who also served as a research assistant and freshman chemistry lab instructor as a student. “When combined with on-campus work, they helped me graduate with a low level of student debt.

We wanted to be able to provide a similar opportunity for other students.”

As someone who is committed to making meaningful and lasting investments to assist future engineers and fellow members of the Bulldog family, Purvis found the perpetual support generated through an endowed gift particularly appealing.

“We established the endowed

“Susanne and I leveraged those matches to multiply the impact of our gifts to MSU. In the early years, this allowed us to fund annual scholarships and then, as time passed, to take advantage of naming opportunities across campus.” ~ David Purvis scholarship so that we could continue to fund scholarships even after the matching funds were no longer available," Purvis said. “Increasing the endowed scholarship is a way to help even more students to be able to afford the education, training and opportunities that an engineering degree from MSU can provide.”

Along with the scholarship, the Purvises wanted to impact the university in another area of need–helping to attract and retain the best candidates for instruction and research.

The couple began considering various giving methods and decided a planned gift would be most efficient for their goals. As a result, they recently established the W. David and Susanne B. Purvis Distinguished Professorship in Engineering and the W. David and Susanne B. Purvis Eminent

Professorship in Engineering, both of which will honor faculty members who demonstrate excellence in teaching, research and service.

“We decided that designating a portion of our IRA would be an efficient means of providing future gifts for MSU," Purvis said.

"It was a matter of executing the proper paperwork to name MSU as a beneficiary and we feel we have made the most of our gift planning for us and MSU.” Mississippi State holds special meaning for the Purvises, who married at the historic Chapel of Memories. Susanne is from Starkville, while David is from the Meridian area. The two met at an MSU chemical engineering picnic at McKee Park some 38 years ago and have been inseparable since.

After graduation and marriage, David began his career as a reservoir engineer for Shell Oil in New Orleans. It was at MSU and through internships that David found his passion for petroleum engineering as a reservoir engineer.

While the couple was living in Louisiana, Susanne earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of New Orleans. She then worked for many years as an environmental manager. She took “early retirement” as David’s career led them on several moves between New Orleans and Houston, Texas, and southeast Asia in the early 2000s.

The couple have two children: Rebecca, a licensed professional engineer who holds a doctoral degree from North Carolina State University and is a consultant in water resource management in Raleigh; and Timothy, an environmental engineering graduate student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

In the future, the family will use their home base of Louisiana to continue supporting others in their community and former career fields, as well as aspiring fellow Bulldog engineers.

“We have been truly blessed over the years and it is humbling and an honor to be able to give back to the university to give others a chance to have the same opportunities we had," Purvis said. “We love being able to help others grow, develop and succeed.” n ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 77

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78 SPRING 2021

Your savings, your legacy You have worked hard and saved for retirement. Now use your savings to create your legacy by making an IRA charitable rollover gift to the Mississippi State University Foundation. If you are 70½ or older, you can:

• • • • •

avoid taxes on IRA transfers up to $100,000; may satisfy some or all of your required minimum distribution for the year; reduce your taxable income, even if you don’t itemize deductions; make a gift that is not subject to charitable contribution deduction limits; and use your rollover to make payments on an existing pledge to MSU.

For more information on IRA charitable rollover giving, contact the MSU Foundation Office of Gift Planning.

Wes Gordon, Director of Gift Planning (662) 325-3707 | wgordon@foundation.msstate.edu MSU is an AA/EEO university.

SUPPORT ALUMNI-OWNED BUSINESSES. The MSU Alumni Association is highlighting MSU alumni-owned businesses that could benefit from online and local support. Check our business directory before you shop for goods and services!

Our list is growing! Add your business to the list and sign up as a savings partner on our mobile app, and we’ll send you a sticker to display on your door or company website.

Support your Bulldogs today! alumni.msstate.edu/businessdirectory

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 79

The MSU Alumni Association annually sponsors trips across the globe through the Traveling Bulldogs program. Itineraries are booked through 2022.

Explore our website for more information at alumni.msstate.edu/travel or contact the Alumni Association at (662) 325-7000.

80 SPRING 2021

Support Mississippi State University every time your business accepts a credit or debit card payment.

IMPACT by Ironwood is proud to partner with the Mississippi State University Alumni Association and the Bulldog Club.

If you accept debit and credit cards, you can support Mississippi State University by processing your payments through IMPACT by Ironwood.

Every time a customer pays with a debit or credit card, IMPACT gives a portion of its processing revenue to support Mississippi State University.

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CLASS Notes

1950s

John W. Sones Jr. (B.S., M.S. agricultural education, ’55, ’58) taught agriculture at East Central Junior College for three years.

He then worked for Shell Oil Co. for a decade and was included in its international magazine as an exceptional employee. He then began a 30-year career with the USDA where he was recommended for a superior service award three times. He retired in 1989 and has since enjoyed traveling, hunting and fishing, for which he grew his own bait and published a book on growing catalpa worms.

1970s

Jennifer Jackson Whittier (B.S. English, foreign language, ’72) was nominated by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, and confirmed by the Mississippi Legislature as a member of the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board.

1980s

Charlotte N. Corley (BBA banking and finance, ’84) joined the board of directors of Tupelo-based BancorpSouth Bank. She most recently served as State Banking Commissioner under Gov. Phil Bryant. BancorpSouth has over 300 branches and operates in nine states with approximately $24 billion in assets.

Maj. Gen. John M. Rhodes (B.S. business education, ‘87) took command of the Fort Belvoir-based 29th Infantry Division in Virginia. He previously served as the unit’s deputy commander for operations. Rhodes was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1987 through the ROTC at Mississippi State.

1990s

Alben D. Roland (B.S. electrical engineering, ’90) has been named director of 82 SPRING 2021

engineering with Winchester Interconnect at its Rayville, Connecticut facility.

Former Bulldog football standout Al Williams (B.S. electrical engineering, ’90 ) was named vice president of corporate affairs at Chevron. In this role, he will oversee government affairs, public affairs, and social investment and performance.

Previously, he was managing director of Chevron Australia and head of the Australasia business unit. Williams joined Chevron in 1991, working on several major construction projects in New Orleans. He then held various leadership positions of increasing responsibility in Thailand, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and in the United States.

Georgetta Carr (B.S. mechanical engineering, ’92) was named vice president, global supplier quality of Medtronic, the world’s leading medical technology company. She is a certified Lean Sigma Master Black Belt and, in addition to her MSU degree, holds an MBA from the University of Memphis. She is a Leadership Memphis Executive Program alumna and a Life Member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. Denton Farr (B.A. communication, ’93; M.S. pre-health records administration, ‘96) was named the Meridian Star Readers’ Choice Man of the Year.

He is vice president of operations at Anderson Regional Health System. In addition to his MSU degree, he holds an MBA and a master’s of health administration from the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

Elliott W.H. Johnson, (B.S. chemical engineering, ’93) was named vice president, EHS&S for Chevron Phillips Chemical Company in The Woodlands, Texas. He has more than

22 years of experience in various positions with the company across multiple manufacturing facilities.

Ron Berry (Ph.D. business administration, ’95) has been named the ninth president of the University of LouisianaMonroe, where he earned a bachelor’s in accounting and an MBA. He has worked for ULM for 25 years, most recently serving as dean of the College of Business and Social Sciences.

Aretha Green-Rupert (M.S. horticulture, ‘95) was named program director for the Carlson Family Foundation, a Minnesota-based philanthropic foundation for uplifting youth through leadership. In her new role, Green-Rupert will direct strategic grantmaking. She previously spent 11 years with Otto Bremer Trust, most recently as regional director overseeing grantmaking, evaluation and philanthropic investments.

In addition to her MSU degree, she holds a bachelor’s in biology from Tougaloo College.

Matthew Mitchell (BBA marketing, ‘95) has retired from coaching as the winningest head coach in women’s basketball history at the University of Kentucky. A native of Louisville, Mississippi he retired with more than 300 wins.

Lt. Col. Anthony Q. Sanders (B.S. poultry science, ’97) graduated from the U.S. Army War College with a master’s degree in strategic studies, earning the Distinguished Graduate Recognition, an achievement bestowed only upon the top 10% of the class. A native of Carthage, his next assignment is deputy director of military support for the Arkansas Army National Guard in North Little Rock.

Girish Panicker (Ph.D. horticulture, ‘99) earned the 2020 Organic Achievement Award from the American Society of Agronomy.

The award recognizes leadership and accomplishments in education and research

that advance and contribute to the organic agricultural community.

A professor and director of Conservation Research at Alcorn State University, Panicker has more than 45 years of professional experience that spans three continents.

2000s

Ben Hart (B.A. communication, ‘01) was promoted to president and general manager of WJCL-TV, a Hearst Television ABC affiliate serving Savannah, Georgia. Since 2017, he had served as news director for WISN-TV, the company’s ABC affiliate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He joined Hearst in 2002 as part of the company’s Jackson station and began moving to progressively larger markets across the country.

He began his broadcast career with Cumulus Media and Urban Radio, then WCBI-TV in Columbus.

KYVAN Foods, founded by former Bulldog and NFL standout Reggie Kelly (B.S. industrial technology, ‘03) was selected for Qurate Retail Group’s Small Business Spotlight. This partnership will help promote KYVAN Food across Qurate Retail Group’s outlets and platforms, which include QVC, HSN and Zulily.

Ross Dellenger (B.A. communication, ‘06) was named the 2020 Steve Ellis Beat Writer of the Year by the Football Writers Association of America. A national college football writer for Sports Illustrated, he previously reported for The Advocate in Louisiana, The Columbia Daily Tribune in Missouri, Jackson’s The Clarion-Ledger, The Decatur Daily in Alabama and Mississippi State’s student newspaper, The Reflector.

2010s

Lt. Col. Wes Spurlock (MBA, ‘11) was selected as a 2020-21 White House Fellow to serve as part of the United States International Development Finance Corporation. He most recently served as Squadron Commander

of the 344th Air Refueling Squadron at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas. Prior to that, he was the military aide to President Obama and President Trump, where he was responsible for the Presidential Emergency Satchel, often called the “football.”

A new book from Brian A. Pugh (Ph.D. public administration, ‘14) is now available from the University Press of Mississippi. “Chaos and Compromise: The Evolution of the Mississippi Budgeting Process” provides a historical perspective on the decisions and actions of legislators and governors going back more than a century.

2020s Damion Hardy (B. Arch, ’20) was named to the first class of foundation fellows for the National Organization of Minority Architects.

The fellowship placed 30 recipients into eight-week, paid internships at prominent firms across the country. Hardy was placed with Wight & Company in Chicago.

Birth Announcement

Rich Martin Harris was born July 25, 2020 to Nicholas Martin "Nick" Harris (’12) and Brea Rich Harris of Olive Branch.

Rocketing Systems, a start-up founded by three Mississippi State students through MSU’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach, was selected from among 400 applicants as one of the top technology companies in the Southeast and asked to present at Venture Atlanta 2020, a venture capital conference. It is the first Mississippi company selected for the conference. The company, now valued at more than seven figures, was founded by Calvin Waddy (BBA business administration, ‘19) Shelby Baldwin (BBA marketing, ‘19) and Brandon Johns (BBA management, ‘21).

The company’s flagship product, Buzzbassador, serves more than 1,000 merchants worldwide.

Maggie Thomas (B.A. communication, ’19) is wrapping up a one-year commitment as an Oscar Mayer “Hotdogger,” driving the iconic Weinermobile across the country.

A native of Tupelo who is known as “Mustard Mags” on the road, she earned one of 12 coveted “hotdogger” positions from among more than 3,000 applicants.

HAVE A BABY BULLDOG IN YOUR LIFE?

Wrap them in Maroon and White early with a Future Bulldog Certificate from the Alumni Association

msstate.edu/alumni/ future-bulldog-certificate Know a Bulldog who has news or a recent promotion? Send an email to alumnus@msstate.edu.

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 83

Forever MAROON

Bobby P. Martin: A life of philanthropy and service 2/13/1933 – 11/4/20

Mississippi State University remembers alumnus Bobby P. Martin for his significant impact at his alma mater and in his home state of Mississippi. He was a successful Northeast Mississippi banker, innovative economic development leader and generous higher education supporter who died Nov. 4, 2020 at age 87.

A Walnut native, Martin earned an agronomy degree from Mississippi State in 1956 and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Business Administration by the institution in 2002. He was also an alumnus of the Graduate School of Banking at Louisiana State University.

Martin and his wife of 64 years, Barbara Moore Martin, have been longtime Ripley residents. As the beloved patriarch of a loyal Bulldog family, he felt overwhelming pride when two more generations of his family followed his path to MSU. Daughter Mary Martin Childs (’80) and grandson Bob Glover (’05) worked alongside him in the banking industry, becoming leaders at The Peoples Bank in Ripley, where Martin served as CEO and president from 1970-2012 and concluded his career as chairman of the board. In all, Martin enjoyed over 59 years of public service. He believed in giving back to the industry that had given him so much as evidenced by his service as chairman of

the Mississippi Bankers Association and the Mississippi Board of Banking Review.

Just as Martin guided his family, he also passionately mentored and inspired numerous MSU students. He and his wife were longtime supporters of scholarships and faculty awards at the university. In particular, the Bobby P. and Barbara M. Martin Presidential Endowed Scholarship honors them. They were among the inaugural donors for the four-year endowed scholarships that are the most prestigious at Mississippi State. The Martins also supported the Bobby P. and Barbara M. Martin Endowed Faculty Fellowship, with endowment earnings ensuring development opportunities for dedicated faculty members. Along with academics, Martin also was an enthusiastic supporter of Bulldog athletics and was a former president of the Bulldog Club.

For some 35 years, Martin served the MSU Foundation board of directors, including leading the board as chairman from 19961998 and through invaluable involvement in various capital campaigns. A lifelong advocate for education, he was chairman of the Blue Mountain College board of trustees and was on the board of trustees for Northeast Mississippi Community College. He was also chairman of the CREATE Foundation, the North Mississippi Medical Center and the Yocona Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Martin will be remembered for his forever Maroon and White spirit and service as an alumnus. For a time, he was a national board member for the MSU Alumni Association.

Martin also was an officer for the Tippah County Alumni Chapter and was instrumental in the success of the chapter’s scholarship program. In 1992, Martin was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the MSU Alumni Association, followed by College of Agriculture Alumnus of the Year in 1998 and MSU National Alumnus of the Year in 1999.

Over his lifetime, Martin touched the lives of thousands of Mississippians through his work in banking and economic development, combined with a long and exemplary record of leadership and service in civic and educational affairs. His legacy at Mississippi State will continue through the endowments he established.

John William “Bill” Adams (B.S. management, ’51) 91, Charlotte, North Carolina – As a student at Mississippi State, he served as student commander of the ROTC battalion. His active military service included two tours of duty with the U.S. Army’s 11th Airborne Division and the U.S. Air Force Security Service. A banker by profession, he retired in 1993 as president of United Carolina Bank. He remained chairman of the UCB board of directors during the bank’s acquisition by BB&T. He retired as director of BB&T’s bank board in 1999. During that time, he also earned graduate degrees from UNC-Chapel Hill and Rutgers University.

A member of numerous state and national professional organizations, he was also a civic leader in numerous religious, community and charitable activities including being a 32nd degree Mason. He was a founding member of Monroe Regional Airport and served on the board of the Charlotte Douglas International Airport, as well as the board of the Carolinas

Partnership. An avid golfer, he twice qualified for the U.S. Senior Amateur Open and captained the North Carolina Senior Amateur Team. — Nov. 9, 2020 Fred H. Bayley III (B.S. civil engineering, ’53) 88, Woodstock, Georgia – A native of Vicksburg, he spent over 40 years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, retiring as director of engineering for the Lower Mississippi Valley/ Mississippi River Commissions in 1993. He received the Presidential Rank Award for service from George H. W. Bush in 1991 and was recognized as one of 130 Distinguished Engineering Fellows during the MSU Engineering Centennial Celebration. He was named an MSU Alumni Fellow in 1995 and was recognized in 2000 for his service to the MSU Civil Engineering Advisory Board, where he focused on leadership and management skills to complement engineering technical skills. He also served on the board of the Vicksburg YMCA. — Aug. 14, 2020

Harry Peters Howell (B.S. microbiology, ’75) 66, Pascagoula – He was a member of Kappa Sigma Fraternity while at State. He was co-owner and lab director of MicroMethods Laboratory Inc. in Ocean Springs for over 40 years. Howell was a board member for the Singing River Yacht Club and the Mardi Gras Krewe of Do Dah. An Eagle Scout, he was also active in Local USTA Tennis Leagues and advanced to the nationals in 1998 where his team came in second. — Feb. 28, 2020 Joel Scott Kennedy (B.S. fitness management, ’93) 50, Tupelo – After graduating from Mississippi State, he earned a master’s from the United States Sports Academy and devoted his life to athletic training. Early in his career, he was an athletic trainer for the Philadelphia Phillies professional baseball team. He later joined North Mississippi Medical Center Sports Medicine and was assigned to the Tupelo Public Schools. — July 16, 2020

84 SPRING 2021

Know someone who should be remembered in Forever Maroon? Send an email to alumnus@msstate.edu.

Fred M. Lamon Jr. (B.S. Accounting, ’52) 89, Fayetteville, Tennessee – A baseball player for Mississippi State, he served in the U.S. Army as a 2nd lieutenant. He was a practicing Certified Public Accountant for 66 years. — Nov. 14, 2020 David Carl Lewis (B.S. chemical engineering, ’72; M.S. civil engineering, ’79) 72, Austin, Texas – With a lifelong affinity for the sea, Lewis spent his career working to provide and conserve clean, fresh water.

He worked with the Mississippi Bureau of Pollution Control and the Environmental Protection Agency to review plans and help secure funding for water and wastewater treatment facilities throughout the state.

He later joined Michael Baker Engineering before moving to CH2M Hill Engineering in Dallas, Texas in 1985. With CH2M Hill, he worked on water projects around the world, including one in New Zealand and later India. — Oct. 23, 2020 Allie Dorothy Lanier Oberst Mullins (retired employee) 98, Panama City, Florida – A native of Starkville, she attended Mississippi State and later worked at the university in the nuclear engineering department until her retirement in 1975. She was a member of the Pilot Club and the Women’s Professional Club of Starkville. — Sept. 20, 2020

William Charles Peel Jr. (B.S. business management, ’60) 82, Greenwood – A member of Sigma Chi while at State, he was an Eagle Scout and had served as chairman of the Eagle Scout board of review. Following his graduation from State, he began a career in the funeral industry with Wilson and Knight funeral home in Greenwood. He retired in 2014. Peel also served in the Mississippi National Guard for eight years. He was a former member of the Mississippi and National funeral directors associations. He was also a member of the Greenwood-Leflore Chamber of Commerce and a member and two-time past president of the Greenwood Lions Club. He served on the board of the Greenwood Municipal Separate School District, on the advisory board of the Deposit Guaranty Bank of Greenwood and on the board of directors of First Federal Savings and Loan Association.

— Feb. 18, 2020 William Harrison Phillips (B.S. animal science, ’60; former Extension agent) 83, Starkville – Following his graduation, he joined the Mississippi State Extension Service where he continued his childhood passion for the 4-H Club as an agent in Quitman, Tallahatchie and Tunica counties. An eightyear Army veteran, he later worked for

Mississippi Farm Bureau, serving 42 years as agency manager of Grenada County.

— Oct. 16, 2020 Elwood Franklin Ratliff (B.S. agricultural engineering, ’53) 89, Clinton – A member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, he completed Air Force ROTC while at Mississippi State. After serving two years on active duty, including being stationed in Japan, he served as a reservist and returned to MSU to work in agricultural engineering.

He later returned to his family farm, earning Young Farmer of the Year honors in the 1960s. In the 1980s, he worked at the Flora Gin as the bookkeeper until his retirement in the late 1990s. In retirement, he volunteered at Mississippi Methodist Rehabilitation Center and served on the Hinds County Water Board. — Aug. 19, 2020 William D. Stephens (B.S. education, ’76; former employee) 66, Prentiss – He began his career at Mississippi State in the Division of Student Affairs as an admission counselor and adviser for Kappa Sigma Fraternity. He was also leader of the Miss MSU pageant and director of summer orientation programs. He was instrumental in the pageant preparation of Cheryl Prewitt Salem, Miss America 1980. He was a talented pianist and vocalist and served as minister of music at Faith Baptist Church.

A LEGACY BUILT THROUGH A LIFETIME OF SERVICE

capstone Fifth-Year program in Jackson and provided guidance as a member of the school’s advisory board for more than two decades.

The continuing dedication of Harrison and his wife, Freda, to Mississippi State extends from leadership into financial support. In addition to gifts for scholarships and facilities in both architecture and landscape architecture, including the Robert and Freda Harrison Auditorium in the College of Architecture, Art and Design, the couple also established the Robert and Freda Harrison Endowed Visiting Lecture Series. In 2013, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from MSU. Born in Maryland, Harrison grew up in Oxford, where he met Freda Wallace, his wife of 64 years. He said he knew from the age of 13 that he wanted to be an architect, ultimately finishing a Bachelor of Architecture at Tulane University in 1959, at a time when there was no architecture school in the Magnolia State.

He began his architecture career in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1960 before moving to Jackson in 1962. In 1965, working with two partners, he formed Jernigan, Hawkins and Harrison Architects and Engineer, now known as JH&H Architects, Planners, Interiors, PA. Three years later, he helped

create a corporation to build healthcare facilities. It grew to be the eighth largest in the country, designing 50 facilities across the South.

Harrison completed a Master of Architecture at the University of Florida and later earned an MBA from Tulane.

During his career, he served the American Institute of Architects as state president, regional director and member of the national board of directors, earning the AIA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013. A founding member of the Mississippi chapter of the Construction Specification Institute, he later served as its president and was awarded the J. Norma Hunter Memorial Award for contributions to education.

With more than 40 years as a licensed architect, he served on the State Board of Architecture, the National Council of Architecture Registration Boards and the National Architectural Accrediting Board, which set criteria for accrediting all schools of architecture.

But among his largest impacts on the field of architecture are the hundreds of Mississippi State-trained architects who have and will continue to benefit from his leadership, vision and generosity.

Remembering Robert V.M. Harrison

Robert V.M. “Bob” Harrison, a noted architect and longtime supporter of Mississippi State University, died Dec. 29, 2020 at the age of 85.

A Fellow of both the American Institute of Architects and the Construction Specifications Institute, Harrison was instrumental in establishing the School of Architecture at Mississippi State in 1973. He served on its faculty for 13 years, helped establish its

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 85

Forever MAROON He finished his career as a senior account manager and staff development director with Special Education Programs of the Southeast. — Aug. 9, 2020 Charles Calvin Tomlinson (B.S. electrical engineering, ’48) 95, Baltimore, Maryland – He served in the U.S. Army before beginning a career at Westinghouse where he retired as an engineering manager after 35 years with the company. He was instrumental in the founding of Faith Baptist Church. — July 28, 2020 Allan Holder Tucker Jr. (B.S. dairy science, ’59) 86, Starkville – A native of Starkville, he was active in 4-H and owned his own dairy cows in high school and college. He studied dairy science at MSU and later worked for the Extension Service.

He was a member of the Mississippi National Guard. He spent 42 years in farm mortgage, farm management and real estate divisions of Prudential Insurance Company, working in Arkansas, Tennessee and Indiana. He was a member

of the Kiwanis Club and director of Crowley Ridge Girl Scout Council. After returning to Starkville, he volunteered for Habitat for Humanity and served on the organization’s board. He was also a member of the Starkville Rotary Club and the Quarterback Club. — Oct. 16, 2020 Karen Hurt Wing (B.A. art, ’76) 66, Madison – Originally from Mobile, Alabama, Wing was a member of the Famous Maroon Band and served as head majorette. She was a member of the clarinet choir and Alpha Chi Omega while at MSU. She spent most of her career as art director for Mississippi Public Broadcasting in Jackson, where she contributed to education television for children. Through her set and puppet designs, graphics and animation, Wing brought learning to life for generations of children and families. She won multiple national EMMY awards for her work on “Ticktock Minutes,” “Between the Lions” and other programs. — Sept. 6, 2019

Samuel Bryce Griffis (friend) 90, Starkville – A generous and longtime supporter of MSU, Griffis was an outstanding proponent of higher education throughout his life. The Starkville businessman was a member of the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning for 16 years, serving two terms as board president in 1986-87 and 2003-04. He was an active member and former president of the MSU Foundation board of directors, and was also a former director of the Bulldog Club. He was active in the timber business for 63 years as president of Sturgis Lumber Company and Sturgis Timber

Company. For 28 years, he was director of Security State Bank and chairman of the advisory board of the Deposit Guaranty Bank/ AM South Bank in Starkville. He was also a longtime member of the Starkville Rotary Club. A graduate of Delta State University, he served on the university’s Foundation board of directors and as president of the Athletic Alumni Association. Delta State Awarded him an Honorary Doctoral Degree in 2010.

— Dec. 9, 2020

REMEMBERING DAN CAMP Dan Camp, who is credited with driving the creation of Starkville's Cotton District, died Oct. 26, 2020. He was 79.

Camp earned from Mississippi State a bachelor’s degree in industrial arts education in 1962 and a master’s in school administration in 1965 before completing additional graduate studies at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. It was there that he was inspired by the compact design of a historic building—inspiration he would bring back to Starkville as the basis of his vision for an off-campus student community.

While teaching in the industrial education department, Camp began to explore the possibilities of the area between Starkville’s downtown and Mississippi State’s campus. Once home to a thriving mill, the area had become rundown as mill-supported buildings deteriorated.

86 SPRING 2021

In memory of Charles Slade “Pap” McElroy (B.S. marketing, ’56) 86, Saltillo – A native of Starkville, McElroy graduated from Starkville High School in 1952 where he was Mr. Starkville High. While attending Mississippi State, he belonged to a number of honorary groups including ODK, Scabbard and Blade, the Arnold Air Society and Delta Sigma Pi. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma social fraternity.

After graduation, McElroy entered the U.S. Air Force as a commissioned officer and served as a fighter pilot in the Air Defense Command. A member of the 444th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Charleston, South Carolina, he flew the F101B Voodoo and the F86L and served as the squadron public relations officer.

His civilian career began as the assistant director of the North East Mississippi Industrial Development Association. He graduated from the Industrial Development Institute at the University of Oklahoma. A banking career followed along with graduation from the School of Banking of the South at Louisiana State University. He ended his career as a principal of the Reynolds Insurance and Real Estate Agency in Starkville.

McElroy served three terms on the MSU Alumni Association national board of directors, serving as National Alumni President in 1983.

He received the Alpha Kappa Psi Alumni Award for Service to the College of Business. He was a founding member of the MSU Bulldog Club serving as the first treasurer.

Beyond the university, he was a founding member and president of the Starkville Quarterback Club, president of the Starkville Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the Starkville Housing Authority, a founding officer in the Starkville Country Club and a former chairman of the board of the Palmer Home for Children. — Sept. 2, 2020

In 1969, Camp began purchasing property in the area and created an eclectic collection of tightly packed housing and businesses.

It has drawn admiration from urban planners ever since and the Cotton District is now one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Starkville, particularly for students who enjoy its pedestrian-friendly, architecturally varied neighborhood that contains cottages, duplexes, apartments, shops, courtyards and fountains.

A graduate of Tupelo High School, Camp served as Starkville’s mayor from 2005 to 2009, bringing his unique vision beyond the Cotton District and into the town as a whole.

Portions of this tribute were informed by Camp’s obituary that appeared as part of the New York Times’ “Those We’ve Lost” coronavirus pandemic coverage.

Back STORY WITH KARYN BROWN Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, I never imagined I would have spent the past 28 years in a small southern town where people frequently say “y’all” and wave to me as I drive down the street.

I had my entire life planned out, or so I thought. I planned to finish college, live and work in a high-rise in downtown Chicago, and be one of the millions of people who walked the city streets.

Then, in 1992, at Western Illinois University I met the man I would marry, Michael Brown. He was studying meteorology and I was a graduate student in broadcasting and public communication. As we were preparing to marry in May 1993, Michael heard about a nationally known program at Mississippi State University that offered a master’s degree in broadcast meteorology and asked what I thought about moving south. I said, “Starkville? MISSISSIPPI?” One afternoon in March, I made a cold call to the MSU Department of Communication and spoke to department head Sid Hill. I told him I would be moving to Starkville that summer and wondered if he needed someone to teach public speaking.

He said, “As a matter of fact we do,” but I needed to provide references quickly because they were about to close the search. My advisers were at a communication conference, and as luck would have it, it was one of the few times the Midwest and Southeast divisions had a joint conference. Several MSU professors also were attending. This was before cell phones and email, so it took serious logistics for Dr. Hill and me to arrange a meeting of these professors to see if I was a good fit.

The meeting went well because one month after we married, Michael and I packed all of our belongings into a U-Haul and moved into our first apartment together on North Montgomery Street. I was 26 years old beginning my first job as a full-time instructor. I taught my first class in McComas Hall on a very hot August

day at 9 a.m. After class, I tried to go back to my office and couldn’t find it! I had to sheepishly go to the main office and ask the staff for help—talk about embarrassing. But, if you have ever stepped foot in McComas Hall, you know how easily that could happen. After a long first day, I then had to maneuver through “Malfunction Junction.” You’d think a girl who learned to drive in Chicago would have been unfazed, but the multiple lanes going in so many directions at that intersection were a challenge.

Talk about change—I was married, started a new job and moved to a completely new culture. I remember riding with Dr. Jean DeHart on what is now Highway 182 and noticing white stuff on the side of the road. I couldn’t figure out what it was. Jean said, “Welcome to the South; that’s cotton.”

I also remember driving past the Little Dooey thinking it looked like people were eating at someone’s house. Well, that ended up being the first place Dr. Hill took me and I raced home to tell Michael, we HAD to eat there!

As I reflect now on 28 years at MSU, I’ve spent more of my life as a Southerner than a Midwesterner. MSU and Starkville are home. I find I am often asked by prospective hires why I am still in Starkville. Every time my response is the same. Out of all of the places I’ve ever lived, the sense of community here is second to none. We are now a family of three and are proudly raising a future Bulldog who also will continue to call MSU home.

In addition to serving on the communication faculty and coordinator of the public relations concentration, Karyn Brown is director of communication for MSU’s College of Arts and Sciences. She holds a bachelor’s from Augustana College and a master’s from Western Illinois University. Prior to joining academia, she worked in broadcast news. Her husband, Mike Brown, is a professor of meteorology and serves as state climatologist. He holds a bachelor's from Western Illinois, a master’s from MSU and a doctoral degree from the University of North Carolina.

ALUMNUS.MSSTATE.EDU 87

Back STORY

RESPONSES Back STORY

Winter 2020

CATHERINE WESTON GRIFFIN (B.S. GENERAL SCIENCE, ’69) “I worked in the library during my first semester at State in 1965. The stacks at that time were closed so I would get a card from the students and then run up and down the stairs to retrieve their books.

Many times, I would bring the books and they were not what the students thought they needed. Later, I would restack all of the books. However, the best thing that happened to me in the library was that my future husband, Lavelle Griffin, saw me there. After studying in the library one night, he saw me leaving. He says to this day that it was love at first sight, but he didn’t know who I was. It turns out that he knew my older brother, Charles Weston, who was a senior. While my brother and I were eating in the cafeteria he came over and introduced himself. We will celebrate our 52nd anniversary this year.

I got a wonderful soulmate because of the library and a great degree from Mississippi State. Because of my degree, I was able to set up medical laboratory procedures for a hospital. One procedure was especially rewarding because it was one that monitored a new transplant drug.”

88 SPRING 2021

R. LANELLE BRETT LACEY (B.S. ELEMENTARY EDUCATION, ’72) “Very exciting to see the picture on the last page of the Alumnus winter issue. The ‘undated’ picture of a student stocking shelves at the library is probably from the spring of 1971. Beth Langston, now Beth Fitts, is a dear friend and Delta Gamma sorority sister of mine. Great picture of Beth that brought back many memories.”

CHARLES V. BELL (B.S. ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING, ’56) “I was thrilled to see the buses on the back cover of Alumnus, poised to carry the Famous Maroon Band off on a concert tour or football game. I do not recognize the musicians in the photo and am not entirely certain of the year it was taken, but I can give you a good idea.

I enrolled as a freshman at Mississippi State College in the fall of 1952. Having enjoyed playing in the Starkville High School band, I naturally looked into continuing to play my clarinet at State. That worked out well as my band scholarship, as solo clarinetist, paid my tuition, which was about $50 a semester!

I remember that the uniforms worn in the photograph were brand new in 1952-53 and that I was among the first 100 members to wear them.

I will always be indebted to

our inspirational director, W. Thomas West, who provided me, and countless others, such an outstanding musical experience while we struggled to master our engineering courses—at that time engineering majors formed the majority of the band. I will continue to treasure my photograph of the concert band in those uniforms, with Prof. West standing proudly alongside us.

Prof. West was a fantastic leader; always made a point of punctuality, which I appreciated very much. When we were on tour, he instructed the bus drivers to depart at the designated time, regardless of who was missing. Sure enough, in Jackson one morning, Prof.

West himself was not at the buses at the proper time. As he instructed, the buses left without him. When he finally caught up with us, he praised the drivers and band members for following his instructions.

He always had a superb band that was strongly supported by the student body. To keep the membership at 100, he had to reject many capable players.

One year, 36 sousaphone players auditioned while we only had spaces for eight! That’s amazing, with a total student body only a bit over 3,300!

I had many fine professors who prepared me well for graduate study at Stanford. Among them, I remember most fondly professors West and Simrall.”

Content has been edited for length and style consistency.

alumnus@msstate.edu

Alumnus Magazine P.O. Box 5325 Miss. State, MS 39762

Officially known as Five-Points Intersection, Mississippi State’s infamous “Malfunction Junction” sparked much frustration,

fear and more than a few prayers for safe passage. As seen in this photo, it also inspired a bit of humor. In this image from the University Archives, a sign reading “Don’t never ever enter” implores drivers to heed the one-way direction of one of the intersecting roads. Have a story about Malfunction Junction or the railway crossing from which it developed?

Share your memories by contacting us. Please include your major(s) and graduation year(s) as some responses may be published in print or online with the next issue.

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History at the Hump

Mississippi State rallies campus resources for safe and effective in-person classes during the pandemic. p. 34