Contact: Maridith Geuder
From the time she was a child in Kosciusko reading about author Robert Louis Stevenson's travels through the mountains of France, Carolyn Bennett Patterson wanted to write.
Years later, as the first woman editor at National Geographic Magazine, she would retrace Stevenson's steps.
In April, Patterson will travel to Mississippi State University to donate papers that span her 37-year career at the Washington publication. To be housed in Mitchell Memorial Library, her collection will join those of best-selling novelist John Grisham and former New York Times editor Turner Catledge, among others.
Now retired but an active traveler and lecturer, Patterson will be joined by MSU President Malcolm Portera and Dean of Libraries Frances Coleman for the formal presentation of the collection to the newly expanded library.
Details of the presentation ceremony still are being finalized.
"Mrs. Patterson's papers will be a significant addition to the scholarly resources available to Mississippians and to our students and faculty," Coleman said. "Her career reflects some of the major cultural and historic events of the 20th century."
The Patterson Collection includes memoranda, drafts of articles and other materials related to her long career at the international publication that has been printed for many years in Corinth.
During her career, Patterson served as legends editor, heading a staff that produced information to accompany the magazine's trademark photographs. She also wrote major pieces on a variety of topics, including Winston Churchill's 1965 funeral.
A graduate of Louisiana State University, Patterson spent a year at Mississippi State, where her brother graduated. During her sophomore year at the Starkville campus, and on her subsequent return for an additional semester, she developed a lifelong friendship with G.V. "Sonny" Montgomery of Meridian.
Montgomery, who would go on to serve four decades in the U.S. House of Representatives, also has his papers preserved at MSU.
"I have an enormous fondness for Mississippi State," Patterson said. "Sonny and I were both in the International Relations Club and have kept in touch all these years. He persuaded me that my papers belong at Mississippi State."