Jim Williams and Allison Vise Finch, Southern Studies graduate students, will spend a portion of the summer of 1997 as interns. Williams, a native of Millidgeville, Georgia, will work at Melrose Plantation in Natchez, Mississippi. The greek revival style home on Melrose Plantation was built in 1845 for Mr. and Mrs. John T. McMurran. The National Park Service currently owns the plantation, having purchased it for $5 million in 1993.

Selected for his impressive level of experience in historic house and museum settings, Williams will be one of three interns working for Kathleen McClain Jenkins, a museum specialist charged with historically preserving the antebellum home. Jenkins notes that she and her staff selected Williams from "a field of very stiff competition." His experience as assistant to the Collections Manager at the University Museums, his extensive research on the Old Governor's Mansion in Millidgeville, Georgia, and his work with antiques at Oxford's Material Culture placed him ahead of other candidates for the position.

Finch will serve as an intern for the Southern Cultural Heritage Complex in Vicksburg. The complex, formerly St. Francis Xavier Convent and Academy, has had a working relationship with the Center since its inception in 1994. Owned by the City of Vicksburg, the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation operates the facility as an artistic, cultural, and educational programming center for the city-offering a neutral space in which residents and tourists of all races and religions may explore Vicksburg and the lower Mississippi Delta. Recent events sponsored by the complex include a "Discovering Vicksburg Thru the Arts" floral show and a seminar on "Landscaping to Support Historic Sites." Working on refurbishing the complex's auditorium as a conference facility and performing arts center, the Foundation hopes to establish a museum, classrooms, cultural resource library, and bed and breakfast within the historic block of buildings. Finch's experience as a graduate assistant for Friends of the Center and her interests in museum work and historic preservation made her an ideal candidate for this internship.