Contact: Maridith Geuder
If storytelling is a Southern art, two North Mississippi researchers are seeking some local masterpieces from the 1930s.
The U.S. Forest Service and Mississippi State University are cooperating on an oral history project involving residents of Choctaw, Winston and Oktibbeha counties. Helen Regis, MSU assistant professor of anthropology, and Evan Peacock, the USFS's district archaeologist in Ackerman, are leading the on-going interview effort.
Their goal is to tap local memories of the Great Depression and the federal government's acquisition of lands that now make up a large chunk of the two-unit, 66,000-acre Tombigbee National Forest. When completed, the interviews will become part of the public record.
Acquired by the Soil Conservation Service during the 1930s, the units officially were designated national forestland in 1959. The larger Ackerman Unit includes approximately 40,000 acres in the three-county area. (The smaller Natchez Trace Unit is located near Houston.)
Peacock, a Choctaw County native, said much of his daily work involves heritage resources, or local knowledge of the history and cultures of the land.
"People's knowledge and memories are irreplaceable," he said. "We want to capture as much of that as we can."
Under Regis' supervision, senior MSU anthropology majors Jean Carpenter of Grenada and Brad J. Kavan of Meridian soon will begin the interview process.
"The purpose of an oral history is to let people tell the story the way they want to tell it," Regis said. "We want to find people who remember what happened in the 1930s--what their lives were like, what happened after they moved from the land.
"They become creators of history," she added.
Peacock said the project also provides "a rare opportunity" for the students. "They will get a personal view of an historical moment," he said.
For more information about the project, contact Regis at (601) 325-7523 or Peacock at (601) 285-3264, extension 16.