Contact: Robbie Ward
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A $25,000 endowment to the department of geosciences is creating a memorial for longtime Mississippi State geography professor M.W. "Duke" Myers.
Myers, who died in 2003, taught geography for 38 years before retiring from the university in 1978. The Illinois native was the department's longest-serving faculty member.
His daughters, Kathryn Hamilton of Columbus, Ga., and Beverly Myers of Hattiesburg, recently established the endowment with the MSU Foundation to assist the department's academic mission, particularly in geography teaching and research.
Myers, a recognized mapmaking specialist, was asked by the military during World War II to teach mapping courses to servicemen. The Southeastern Section of the American Geographers honored him with a lifetime membership in 1977.
Beverly Myers smiled while discussing the decision she and her sister made to create the endowment. Observing that so much of what defined her father revolved around his profession, she recalled traveling with her father and learning geography lessons from the "best teacher" she knew.
"He would teach us about places we went," Myers said during a recent campus ceremony honoring the late geographer.
Department head Darrel Schmitz said a public display featuring Myers' doctoral dissertation, as well as photographs and other documents associated with his long MSU service, has been created on the first floor of Hilbun Hall, home of the department.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.