Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mike Espy will be featured speaker Monday [Jan. 15] for Mississippi State's 2007 observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday.
The annual community breakfast featuring the Yazoo City native and former U.S. representative and agriculture secretary will get under way at 7: 30 a.m. in the university's Bost Extension Center auditorium.
Coordinated by the Richard Holmes Cultural Diversity Center, the program is open to all.
As part of the national and state MLK observances, the university also will be closed Monday. Spring classes and daily campus operations will resume regular schedules Tuesday.
Espy currently is an attorney, counselor and agricultural adviser with offices in Jackson and Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of Howard University in Washington and the University of Santa Clara (Calif.) Law School.
After serving in several positions with the Mississippi secretary of state and attorney general offices, he was elected as the state's 2nd District congressman in 1987. He served in that capacity until President Bill Clinton appointed him secretary of agriculture in 1993.
In 1999, Espy donated his professional papers to the Congressional and Political Research Center of MSU's Mitchell Memorial Library.
For additional information on the MLK Breakfast, contact Wanda P. Reed at 662-325-2493.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.