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Groundbreaking Mississippians Chosen
MDAH outreach programs coordinator Claire Gwaitney, Madison Caffey (honorable mention), gifted teacher Allie Reed, principal Paul Lawrence, Alexandra Guzman (winner), gifted teacher Beryl Jones, Mila DouBrava (winner), Hagan Ware (honorable mention), and MDAH director of education Stacey Everett.
Welty Fellow Named
The 2014 Eudora Welty Research Fellowship has been awarded to Jacob Agner, a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Mississippi. Agner will use the $2,000 fellowship to cover expenses incurred while working with the Eudora Welty Collection at MDAH, where he will explore the influence of film noir on Welty’s short stories, particularly “The Demonstrators.”
“I am interested in ‘rural noir,’ the crime fiction and potboilers of southern writers like Welty,” said Agner. “She seems like the least likely noirish writer, but in some of her stories there’s a strain of sudden violence and an anxiety that can’t be quite placed.”
“Jacob Agner’s distinctive research interest promises to add to the high caliber of scholarship of previous Welty Fellows,” said Julia Marks Young, director of the MDAFI Archives and Record Services Division.
Established by the Eudora Welty Foundation and MDAH, the fellowship seeks to encourage and support research use of the Eudora Welty Collection by graduate students.
An author, actress, and school teacher were recognized as groundbreaking Mississippians thanks to MDAH’s inaugural art contest for children and online poll.
Camden Elementary School teacher Derian Knox was the write-in winner of the Groundbreaking Mississippian poll featured on the MDAH website. A graduate of Jackson State University, Belhaven University, and Mississippi College, Knox, pictured at right with his wife Micca, is active in numerous professional teaching associations and community organizations. At Camden Elementary he is the lead math teacher and advisor for their local chapter of the National Elementary Honor Society. At Velma Jackson High School Knox coaches football, track, and powerlifting, and at the Fairview Learning Academy he is a volunteer basketball coach. His wife Micca is a principal at Isable Elementary School. They have two children,
Aiden and Ethan.
Voting was open to everyone, and people were asked to choose the most groundbreaking Mississippian from a list or nominate someone.
The ballot included James Thomas “Cool Papa”
Bell, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield,
James D.
Hardy, Jim Henson, and Eudora Welty.
Two Winona Elementary School students took first place in the statewide art contest. Third-grader Mila DouBrava submitted a drawing of acclaimed author Eudora Welty, and fourth-grader
Alexandra Guzman depicted actress and Meridian native Sela Ward. Children across the state were asked to illustrate and submit their choice of the most innovative, inspiring, heroic, or otherwise significant person in Mississippi history.
Both con-tests were designed to celebrate the construction of the new Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. To learn more about family and educational activities check the Learn tab on the MDAH website, www.mdah. state.ms.us.