Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi State officials soon will open formally a new residence hall named in honor of a prominent Starkville businessman and well-known proponent of higher education.
The Sept. 16 public ceremony dedicating S. Bryce Griffis Hall begins at 11 a.m. in the fourth-floor Forum Room of the co-residential facility that also houses offices and some classes of the Shackouls Honors College. A reception at the location follows.
Situated just east of the Joe Frank Sanderson Center and adjacent to the one-year-old Roy Ruby Residence Hall, Griffis Hall opened for occupancy with the 2006 fall semester. Among other amenities, the 306-bed, double-occupancy residence includes full furnishings, private baths, wireless Internet access, and individual room heating and air conditioning units.
In addition to the building's namesake, featured program speakers will include Mississippi State President Robert H. "Doc" Foglesong, Ed Blakeslee of Gulfport, junior Lee Weiskopf of Columbia, and university vice president Bill Kibler. Blakeslee is a university alumnus and member of the Board of Trustees, State Institutions of Higher Learning; Weiskopf, MSU Student Association vice president; and Kibler, head of the Division of Student Affairs.
The Meridian-based Luke, Peterson & Kaye, P.A., architectural firm designed the 115,000-square-foot, four-story brick-and-wood quadrangle. Inman Construction of Memphis, Tenn., was general contractor.
Griffis, president of Sturgis Timber Co., served for 16 years on the College Board. He was board president in 1986-87.
In addition to his public service on behalf of higher education, Griffis has been a generous private supporter of MSU and Delta State University, from which he received a business administration degree in 1954. He also is a Grenada High School graduate.
He is a longtime member of the MSU Foundation board of directors and its president 1998-2000. He also is a director of the Bulldog Club and Foundation.
At DSU, where Griffis was a three-year letterman in football and baseball, he also has served on that school's foundation board of directors and as president of the DSU Athletic Alumni Association. An indoor practice center at the Cleveland institution earlier was named in his honor.
In his business career, Griffis has served as president of the Mississippi Forestry, Southeastern Lumber Manufacturers' and Mississippi Lumber Manufacturers' associations. For nearly three decades, he was a director of Starkville's Security State Bank and, later, chairman of the advisory board of the city's Deposit Guaranty/AmSouth banks.
The dedication will precede MSU's third successive home football game of the 2006 season. The Bulldogs take on the Tulane University Green Wave at 6 p.m. in nearby Davis Wade Stadium at Scott Field.
For more information on the dedication, contact Kibler at 662-325-3045 or Ann Bailey, director of housing and residence life, at 325-3557.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.