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cddrtihg HANCOCK COUNTY
page J
Headliners are part of county’s heritage
A sampling of famous or notable people with Hancock County connections includes:
• Brett Favre attended Hancock County schools, excelled in football in high school and college and is now MVP-winning quarterback for the Green Bay Packets.
•	Stephen Ambrose, historian-author, whose many books include multi-volume biographies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. The University of New Orleans retiree is former director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies and founder of the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans.
•	U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor served on the Bay St. Louis City Council and as state senator before his election to Congress in a 1989 special election. Taylor, a Democrat, is a ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee
[ and a member of the House | Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
•	Pete Fountain internationally renowned jazz trumpet player.
•	Douglas Brinkley, histo-
rmn-author, is director of the Eisenhower Center, a professor of history at the University of New Orleans and is a regular contributor ■—	PuKli/' Radio and
has written for numerous newspapers and magazines.
•	Evelyn McPhail (deceased) served as co-chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1995 to 1997. She
■ was chairwoman of the state GOP from 1987 to 1993 before joining the national party as director of political education. “It’s you who make the difference, nor the politicians,” she told a gathering in 1996. “Freedom is not a gift. Freedom is a task.”
•	Richmond Barthe (deceased), award-winning sculptor, attended the Chicago Art Institute and later maintained studios in New York and Los Angeles. His sculptures are found worldwide in both public and private collections. His works include the eagle on the Social Security building in Washington, D.C. and likenesses of actors Katherine Cornell, John Gielgud, Helen Hayes and Laurence Olivier.
A Richard Barthe mural on Second Street wall of the county tax office was painted by Waveland artist Joseph Pearson.
•	Hunter Kimbrough (deceased) was business manager-producer for “Que Viva Mexico,” a 1933 silent film directed by the experimental Russian director Sergei Eisenstein. Kimbrough’s sister, Mary Craig, was married to author-activist Upton Sinclair.
•	Ed Nelson performed in
stage plays, movies and on TV; he is perhaps best remembered for his TV role in the “Peyton Place” series.	v,
•	Charles Hawkins, award-winning hody-builder.
•	Douglas Williams (deceased) became the first black police chief in the state to be appointed in a predominantly white citv in 1976. On
April 1, 1965, Williams and William M. Tate had been sworn in as the first black police officers in Bay St. Louis.
•	Leo Seal, chairman of the board of Hancock Holding Co., parent company of Hancock Bank.
•	Joseph “Papa Joe” Labat (deceased) built many of the county’s buildings, including St. Rose de Lima Catholic Church and Valena C. Jones United Methodist Church in Bay St. Louis; Catholic churches in Rocky Hill, Fenton and Kiln; early buildings at St. Augustine Seminar,’ in Bay St. Louis; the chapel and several other buildings at Gulfside Assembly in Waveland; and many beachfront homes.
•	Eugene Ray (deceased) is said to have built "half the town” of Bay St. Louis. What was the Crescent Hotel and three Queen Anne cottages near the L &. N Railroad were among his handiwork. It was the threat of losing these cottages that was the impetus for developing an historic preservation ordinance to protect the architectural heritage and historic sites in Bay St. Louis.
•	Valena Cecelia MacArthur Jones (deceased) was a Bay St. Louis native who became one of the most respected black educators in the city and later in New Orleans. She retired from teaching to become the wife of the Rev. Robert E. Jones, a Methodist Episcopal bishop. Her name has been memorialized in a school in New Orleans and one here, which for years now has housed the city’s police, file, public works and recreation departments, and a Methodist church here.
•	Wendell Ladner (deceased), forward for the American Basketball Association’s New York Jets, whose rough-and-ready style earned him the nickname “Wondrous.”