Contact: Maridith Geuder
Former Kosciusko resident Carolyn Bennett Patterson will be the keynote speaker for an April 12 event in support of Mississippi State University's libraries.
National Geographic magazine's first female editor, Patterson announced earlier this month the donation of her personal and professional papers to MSU. She will formally present the material at a 10 a.m. public ceremony in the John Grisham Room of Mitchell Memorial Library.
At 7 p.m., Patterson will address the university's Friends of the Library, also in the Grisham Room. [For tickets, telephone (601) 325-3061.]
A Washington, D.C., resident, the former Attala Countian retired in 1986 after a 37-year career with the national publication. She briefly attended MSU before ultimately graduating from Louisiana State University.
"The evening event will launch a subscription drive for memberships as friends of the libraries," said William Parrish, history professor emeritus and the organization's steering committee chair. "Funds raised by the subscriptions will support a variety of special projects, including displays and exhibits."
Dean of Libraries Frances Coleman said Mitchell and its branches on the Starkville and Meridian campuses and at other off-campus locations "are resources not only for the university, but for their communities and the state, as well."
Patterson's papers join those of several other prominent Mississippians, among them Grisham, former New York Times executive editor Turner Catledge and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hodding Carter Sr.
Mitchell Memorial currently is a candidate to become the state's first library accepted into membership in the Association of Research Libraries, a non-profit organization that shapes policy development for the nation's research libraries.