Contact: Maridith Geuder
Twin sisters with long Mississippi State connections are memorializing their late father with a scholarship endowment to the university.
Margo (Margaret) and Martha Swain, both of Starkville, have given $25,000 to establish the Jim Henry Swain Endowed Scholarship in the College of Engineering.
Their father was a Union County native who attended New Albany public schools before enrolling in then-Mississippi A&M in 1910. Following graduation, he worked for the Arthur E. Morgan engineering firm, primarily constructing drainage canals, flood control levees, dams, and bridges along several states bordering the Mississippi River.
He later worked for the Tennessee Highway Department before returning to Mississippi in 1933 to become a project engineer for the Northern District of the state highway department. He retired in 1958 after 25 years of service and died in 1967.
The family, including wife Verna and another sister, Mary Elizabeth, lived in Amory, Tupelo, New Albany, Holly Springs, and Starkville before settling permanently in New Albany.
All three of Swain's daughters subsequently taught at Mississippi State. Margaret "Margo" joined the MSU faculty in 1969 as a member of the social work faculty, retiring as director of the program in 1994. Martha, an MSU graduate, served as an adjunct history professor 1995-98 following her retirement from Texas Woman's University. Mary Elizabeth briefly served as a part-time political science professor at Mississippi State and was a longtime faculty member at Kent State University.
A civil engineering major will be named the first Swain Scholar this fall.
For more information about the Swain Scholarship, telephone Amy Cagle of the MSU Foundation at (662) 325-1006.