Southern Studies Alums

Undergraduate students who major in Southern Studies face a frequent question, “What can you do with a degree in Southern Studies?” The people willing to answer that question tend to be creative and at least a bit courageous, because at the University of Mississippi, they receive the only Southern Studies B.A. available in the world. The following students, all undergraduate majors, show the variety of choices people have made with their degrees.
Southern Studies majors have continued their educations in graduate programs of many kinds. Franklin Ridgway, the only two-time winner of the Gray Award for writing the best undergraduate paper in Southern Studies, is completing his M.A. degree in English at the University of Mississippi and will enroll in the fall in the English Ph.D. program at the University of Illinois. Ridgway was a founding member of the Green Party of Mississippi and helped organize the Southern Writers Southern Writing Conference in 2001. Elizabeth Taylor Barton graduated in Southern Studies in 1991 and received a degree in counseling from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University in 1998. She now lives in Jackson, working as senior high counselor at Jackson Preparatory School and a therapist at the Shepherd’s Staff Counseling Center. Maria McGowen, who worked for Living Blues while earning her Southern Studies degree, received her M.A. in history at Wake Forest University before moving on to the Ph.D. program at the University of Delaware. Sarah Alford completed her undergraduate degree in 2000 and is now in the Southern Studies M.A. program, where she is writing her thesis on cooperative farming in the Mississippi Delta. Chris Price is a graduate student in journalism at the University of Mississippi. He has continued his undergraduate interests by taking graduate classes in Southern Studies.
Law schools like Southern Studies majors, and several Southern Studies students have gone into law. Leslie Ayres completed her Southern Studies degree in 1999. She will graduate this spring from the law school at the University of Texas and has worked in the juvenile public defender’s office in Austin. After graduating, she will begin working for a law firm in Baton Rouge. Ann Carson Alias, a double major in Southern Studies and English, completed law school at the University of Georgia and has worked as a law clerk in United States District Court in Georgia. Tiffany Kilpatrick worked in a public defender’s office in Mississippi before moving on to work in advertising in Atlanta. She plans to attend law school.
Other majors have made careers connecting issues of Southern culture to public audiences. John T. Edge realized his “calling” as a student of Southern foodways while pursuing his undergraduate degree in Southern Studies. Edge has received great acclaim as executive director of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi and as the author of countless publications on Southern food, including the books Southern Belly and A Gracious Plenty. Emy Bullard Wilkinson graduated in Southern Studies in 1993 and immediately became the first executive director of the Yazoo County Convention and Visitors Bureau. She is now director of tourism for the Corinth Area Tourism Promotion Council and has served as president of the Mississippi Tourism Association. Michelle Weaver Jones received undergraduate and graduate degrees in Southern Studies. She works with the Historic Preservation Division of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, running a field office housed in the School of Architecture at Mississippi State University. Jones works with groups throughout the state on historic preservation projects. Ginny Smith left for Washington, D.C., in August 2001 and is now working for a nonprofit group called IES. Independent Educational Services helps private schools across the country find teachers and administrators.
Southern Studies continues to attract interesting and creative individuals. For example, Chris Thompson, a double major in Southern Studies and journalism and the editor of the Daily Mississippian, completed his degree in 2001 by writing a novel for his Honors project. He is now working in the Peace Corps in Niger. Lauren McDaniel completed her degree in 2000 and went to Charleston to work as a pastry chef. She plans to enroll in graduate school in social work in 2002. Laura Anne Heller works as assistant librarian at Jackson Preparatory School and is developing a documentary photography and oral history project on the churches of Madison County, Mississippi. She is pursuing a graduate degree in library science. Cynthia Gerlach came from Portland, Oregon, to the University of Mississippi for undergraduate and graduate degrees in Southern Studies and found she did not want to leave Oxford. She is owner of Bottletree Bakery, a favorite spot for Southern Studies students, faculty, friends, and alumni. Justin Showah completed a double major in Southern Studies and English in 2000. He has played bass in several north Mississippi bands, including the Circuit Riders, Coldwater Independence, and the Thacker Mountain Radio Show house band. He appeared on Cary Hudson’s recent cd, The Phoenix, on Black Dog Records.
Other former students continue to do fascinating things, and we will be delighted to learn about the careers and interests of other Southern Studies alumni and to spread the word of their activities in future articles.

Ted Ownby