Feature Story from 2011

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- An upcoming conference in Louisiana will provide a chance for participants from rural Mississippi and Louisiana to learn about unique tourism options.

The Miss-Lou Regional Tourism Summit will be Aug. 9-11 in Oak Grove, La., which is located in the northeast corner of the state, near the Mississippi River.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – For those interested in what varieties of muscadines are good for juice or best eaten fresh, Mississippi State University is offering a field day Aug. 13 in Pearl River County to teach about this fruiting vine.

The 2011 Muscadine Field Day will be held from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. at MSU’s McNeill Unit, a branch station of the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. The event is free and open to the public, and sampling is encouraged.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – An Aug. 13 tour of Mississippi State University’s South Farm will teach participants about the university’s warm-season forage research and demonstrations.

The Warm-Season Forage Tour will be held from 8 to 11 a.m. at the Henry H. Leveck Animal Research Farm at MSU. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is requested. The tour is hosted by the MSU Extension Service forage program and the Oktibbeha County Extension Office.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Starting in August, students will again go in the mouth of a model of the human body and explore for 30 minutes as volunteers teach them fun, healthy lessons about their bodies.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – With most of the state needing rain and south Mississippi under exceptional drought, landowners are watching as their trees deal with stress.

Glenn Hughes, forestry professor with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said dead or dying trees, both pine and hardwood, are becoming a common sight in south Mississippi. This concerns both homeowners and forest landowners.

Karen Templeton
MSU Ag Communications

MISSISSIPPI STATE – The Oktibbeha County Heritage Museum in Starkville reminds visitors of what a small Southern community once was, but also what it could be.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Many adults know from experience about the scars school bullies can leave and should remember that the evidence is not always obvious.

Karen Benson has witnessed behavior by bullies and their victims in the course of teaching relationship classes to teens. She is a child and family development area agent based in Neshoba County with Mississippi State University’s Extension Service.

MISSISSPPI STATE – The dean of Mississippi State University’s College of Forest Resources and director of the Forest and Wildlife Research Center will take on an expanded leadership role.

Effective Aug. 19 and pending formal approval by the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning, George M. Hopper will also serve as the dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and director of the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station.

MISSISSIPPI STATE - Most duck hunters look forward to the thrill of mimicking duck calls to attract members of the flock.

James Callicutt, a former Mississippi State University graduate student, has spent much of his life as a duck hunter and call maker. Most recently, he has studied the sounds of female mallard ducks and compared them to sounds from man-made duck calls constructed of different types of materials.

By Karen Templeton
MSU Ag Communications

MISSISSIPPI STATE - The services at Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine reach far beyond the university and the surrounding community.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – A Mississippi State University Extension associate will be supporting landowners and fisheries resources throughout Mississippi.

Bill Maily began his new duties as an Extension associate in MSU’s Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture on Aug. 1 and will work from the Central Mississippi Research and Extension Center in Raymond. Before joining the department, Maily was an area Extension agent in the Hinds County Extension Office.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Two sisters who like bugs and spiders and getting their hands in dirt found their calling from those activities at summer camps hosted by Mississippi State University.

Breanna and Deanna Lyle, twins from Aberdeen, went to their first “bug camp” in the summer before their 11th grade year. Now, the college sophomores are ahead of many classmates as they pursue careers in entomology and in horticulture.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Mississippi State University Extension Service donated 40 refurbished computers to the Monroe County School District for schools in Smithville, a small town recovering from a devastating tornado.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Summertime brings out the flying and sometimes stinging insects in Mississippi, and some of them look a lot alike.

The mostly harmless carpenter bee resembles the sometimes bothersome bumble bee. Both are important pollinators in the Mississippi landscape.

Blake Layton, entomologist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said the look-alike carpenter bees and bumblebees are not even in the same entomological family.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Trophy bucks and high-quality deer herds are not the result of random chance, but of planned management of habitat and harvests.

“The white-tailed deer is likely the most economically and ecologically important animal in Mississippi,” said Bronson Strickland, wildlife management specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – When it comes to national rankings, Mississippi State University is near the top of the list for its prize-winning herd of Jersey cows.

The American Jersey Cattle Association ranked the MSU dairy herd at No. 7 in milk production for 2010. The only university-owned herd to make the top rankings, the dairy herd has been ranked in the top 10 for the last four years. The 35-head Jersey herd is also ranked in the top 10 in all categories for groups of similar size, ranking No. 5 in protein, No. 4 in milk and No. 10 in milk-fat production.

CORINTH – A few small seeds and many willing hands transformed an inner city vacant lot into a thriving, productive garden at the Lighthouse Foundation in Corinth.

Alcorn County Extension director Patrick Poindexter said the idea for a community garden in this challenging space took root in the mind of Master Gardener Herman Gray, who recruited other Alcorn County Master Gardeners and local businesses to the project in 2010.

ST. MARTIN – Young chefs put a Mississippi twist on a brunch favorite to create the winning entry in the first-ever Southern Regional 4-H Seafood Cook-Off, held in New Orleans.

Adriana Wilson, Sarah Soares, Cory Martin and Jarod Harris, seniors in the hospitality and tourism management program at St. Martin High School, prepared their Mississippi-Style Crabmeat Benedictine once a week throughout the summer to prepare for the competition, which is part of the Great American Seafood Cook-Off.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – The tornadoes that ripped through Mississippi this April damaged about 74,000 acres of forestland in 22 counties, racking up timber losses of more than $30 million. Most of that timber was uninsured, but the results of a survey conducted by Mississippi State University may help change that trend.

Steve Bullard was one of those uninsured. He owns 100 acres of timber in Webster County — 40 acres of 26-year-old plantation pine and 60 acres of mixed pine and hardwood.