Contact: Harriet Laird
STARKVILLE, Miss.--The formal opening of an historical display titled "Around the World with President Ulysses S. Grant and Julia Grant" takes place Jan. 24 at the Starkville Public Library.
The 5:30 p.m. public program is being organized by the library, with assistance from the Mississippi State University Libraries and MSU-based U.S. Grant Association.
A similar exhibit of Grant memorabilia will be featured concurrently on campus at Mitchell Memorial Library, home of the national Grant Presidential Collection.
Terrence V. Winschel, historian of the Vicksburg National Military Park, will be featured speaker for the Starkville library event. "Ulysses S. Grant in Mississippi" will be his topic.
Prior to his introduction, brief remarks will be made by Starkville Mayor Parker Wiseman, MSU President Mark E. Keenum, library Dean Frances Coleman, and John F. Marszalek, distinguished history professor emeritus and Grant Association executive director.
Michael Madell and Woody Harrell, superintendents of the Vicksburg and Shiloh national military parks, respectively, also will speak.
Ginny Holtcamp, Starkville library director, will open the program, while MSU Archivist and Civil War historian Michael Ballard introduces Winschel.
The Grant presidential collection came to Mississippi State in late 2008 (www.msstate.edu/web/media/detail.php?id=4600). Last year, the American Library Association honored the university for its online digitization of papers in the collection (www.msstate.edu/web/media/detail.php?id=4835).
Later this year, the Starkville and MSU libraries, along with the Vicksburg and Shiloh parks, are co-sponsoring a statewide summer institute for high school history teachers on the Civil War, whose 150th anniversary is being observed this year.
For more information on the Jan. 24 program, contact Marszalek at
662-325-4552 or Holtcamp at 323-2766.