{"id":9381,"date":"2023-04-21T15:22:55","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T15:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/?page_id=9381"},"modified":"2023-04-21T15:22:55","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T15:22:55","slug":"janice-wyatt-oral-history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/janice-wyatt-oral-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Janice Wyatt Oral History"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_spacing=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][divider line_type=”No Line”][vc_column_text]\n

Janice Wyatt Oral History<\/span><\/h1>\n[\/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”No Line”][page_submenu alignment=”center” sticky=”true” bg_color=”#008542″ link_color=”#ffffff”][page_link link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/manuscripts-and-guides\/” title=”Manuscripts & Subject Guides<\/strong>” id=”1682090002034-7″ tab_id=”1682090002035-1″] [\/page_link][page_link link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/guides-to-the-collection-page\/” title=”Collections Portal<\/strong>” id=”1682090002042-8″ tab_id=”1682090002042-1″] [\/page_link][page_link title=”Visit<\/strong>” id=”1682090010454-5″ tab_id=”1682090010455-1″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/visit\/”][\/page_link][page_link title=” Make a Request<\/strong>” id=”1682090011496-9″ tab_id=”1682090011496-9″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/requests\/”][\/page_link][page_link title=”About Us<\/strong>” id=”1682090012121-3″ tab_id=”1682090012121-9″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments-archives-museum-about-us\/”][\/page_link][page_link title=”Yearbooks Online<\/strong>” id=”1682090013170-6″ tab_id=”1682090013171-7″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/yearbooks-alumni-magazines-delta-state-histories\/”][\/page_link][\/page_submenu][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_spacing=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]Wyatt, Janice\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 6\/15\/00\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tape 1 of 1\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 OH# 271<\/strong><\/p>\n

By: Brenda Outlaw<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is an interview for the Mississippi Oral History Project.\u00a0 The interview is being recorded with Ms. Janice Wyatt on June 15, 2000.\u00a0 The interviewer is Brenda Outlaw.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Help us give us your name and maybe the date, and then we will check on that.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0\u00a0 Janice Wyatt on June 15, 2000.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Ms. Wyatt we appreciate you doing this interview for the Delta State Oral History Program.\u00a0 If we could start with your parents\u2019 names and maybe your mother\u2019s maiden name, and a little bit about how your family came to live in the delta.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 My mother\u2019s name was Opal Elizabeth Johnson.\u00a0 She married my father who was Thomas Jefferson Collins.\u00a0 So her maiden name of course would be Johnson.\u00a0 My father was a foreman with the Mississippi Levy System when they were building the levies.\u00a0 My father was much older than my mother.\u00a0 They met.\u00a0 Well I was born in 1934.\u00a0 I was the fourth child.\u00a0 They came here because of the levy system.\u00a0 I am sure, but now my father was born and raised in Myersville, MS.\u00a0 So he had been here since the eighteen hundreds.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Oh how wonderful there is a lot of history background there.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 A lot of it.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Yes, so he stayed in the delta because of the levy system.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Well after they married, he stayed that, but his folks settled the Myersville area.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Do you know why they came?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Farming, they came from North Carolina.\u00a0 They came down from North Carolina.\u00a0 One of my father\u2019s grandmother married a man that had a plantation.\u00a0 They farmed it for years and years and years.\u00a0 When he died, he left it to about ten or eleven children.\u00a0 Then the flood of \u201927 was when they lost all of it.\u00a0 They are still all buried on a huge Indian mound in Myersville, MS.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Oh how wonderful.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 It dates back to the Civil War.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 What a lovely family history.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 They came across some of them.\u00a0 The other side, the Collins\u2019 side, came across from Louisiana years later.\u00a0 So there is a lot of history out there.\u00a0 We have gone through all of the books and texts the library and everything.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Yeah, do you know how your parent\u2019s met?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I do not.\u00a0 I do not.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Do you know where your parents went to school?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Pine Bluff High School, now mother was in Pine Bluff High School.\u00a0 My father was privately tutored in homes, plantation homes in Louisiana.\u00a0 He never went the school.\u00a0 He was never recorded on any public schools.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Now was several of his family done that way, or was he just?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 All of the family was sent back to Louisiana and they were tutored in some of the big homes over there.\u00a0 You know how they used to the tutors?<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Yeah<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I was just trying to think.\u00a0 My father would be like a hundred and ten, twelve, thirteen, or twenty if he was living.\u00a0 He was much older.\u00a0 He was forty-seven when I was born.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Oh yeah<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 A lot of history, my grandfather, which is unbelievable, fought in the Civil War.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Oh my that is.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 On his tombstone, on that mound in Myersville, has C. A. F., Confederate Arm Forces, Louisiana Division.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Oh my<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 So a lot of history there.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Do you know when they are married?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 No<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Okay, can you tell us your brothers and sisters?\u00a0 How many people were in your family?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I have twin brothers, and then I have a sister.\u00a0 They are older than I.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 So you are the baby of the family?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Right<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Can you tell us what your house was like while you were growing up.\u00a0 You live in Rolling Fork?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Originally I lived in Grace, MS.\u00a0 My father was a farm manager.\u00a0 It was a wonderful life living way out in the country.\u00a0 It was just a wonderful life.\u00a0 He provided all the food and everything on the farm.\u00a0 There were vegetable gardens.\u00a0 They raised animals, cows, pigs, and you know all this type of thing.\u00a0 We farmed a lot of land.\u00a0 The house was a big frame house with fireplaces in every room. It was this type thing.\u00a0 It was quite old.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Did you all have indoor plumbing?\u00a0 Do you remember?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Yes<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Interesting<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Yes, I do not remember ever having outdoor plumbing.\u00a0 I have been in a lot of homes that did at that time when I was very little.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 But you all did have electricity?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Not in Grace, MS on second thought no because I can remember the lamps.\u00a0 I can remember them cleaning the lamps, the glass portion of the gas or kerosene.\u00a0 I guess they were.\u00a0 I can remember that vaguely.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 So you were very small at that point.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0\u00a0 I was actually a baby probably and up.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 And when did you all move to Rolling Fork?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Well we moved from there to Carrie, MS.\u00a0 My father was a farm manager.\u00a0 Then from there we moved to Rolling Fork.\u00a0 I would guess we moved to Rolling Fork probably when I was in about the sixth grade.\u00a0 That is as close as I can get it. It was somewhere in there.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Now where did you all go to school?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Rolling Fork my entire time.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 The entire time.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 First grade to the twelfth.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Can you give us any experiences in your school at that point?<\/p>\n

JW: Excellent academic school, there were excellent teachers.\u00a0 Of course then all teachers had to be single.\u00a0 They all had to live in the home provided for them by the principle.\u00a0 They were excellent.\u00a0 I had a wonderful high school experience.\u00a0 I hated to get out of high school.\u00a0 I love the cheerleading and all these different things.\u00a0 I loved it all.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 When did you first hear about Delta State?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I knew very little about it.\u00a0 I had come up here with my parents when my brothers who was older played ball.\u00a0 They basketball and all type of sports.\u00a0 They were very good.\u00a0 We would could come up and play in the Delta State gym in some finals.\u00a0 I had been on the campus as a child.\u00a0 I knew nothing about it.\u00a0 First heard (?) really thought anything about it, the summer I graduated.\u00a0 My family was really pushing me to go to Mississippi College.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t dance.\u00a0 I knew I wasn\u2019t going there.\u00a0 H. L. Nowell and Wig Rielly came by this place that I was working keeping books.\u00a0 I was at a telephone bulk plant, Gulf All Bulk Plant.\u00a0 Pure All, I think it was then.\u00a0 They talked to me about Delta State.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Where had your brothers and sisters?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Mississippi College, my brother, my sister did not go until later in her life.<\/p>\n

BO: So you were the first to come to Delta State?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Definitely, we had no connections with it what so ever.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Can you tell us about your first day on campus?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I can tell you about the ride up here.\u00a0 I was the youngest.\u00a0 I was very attached to my family.\u00a0 I cried all of the way.\u00a0 I can remember coming down the old driveway.\u00a0 All of the beautiful trees, one of my brothers, my father had died.\u00a0 One of my brothers and my mother brought me, and I cried all of the way.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 How did your mother react to that?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 She said that when I went in the first grade she put me on the bus from Grace, MS crying.\u00a0 There she was taking me to college, and put me in the dorm crying.\u00a0 It was beautiful.\u00a0 I remember thinking that Memorial Drive. You know how something stands out in your mind.\u00a0 That was in 1952, I was thinking how beautiful this drive was.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 When you came on campus, did you have a roommate?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I did.\u00a0 I had a roommate from Ruleville, MS.\u00a0 You know how after a few days you do fruit basket turnovers.\u00a0 I got with a girl that I knew.\u00a0 I cried so much the first two weeks that my mother would not even call me.\u00a0 She would call my friend of mine from Rolling Fork to see how I was doing because I would cry so, but after two weeks I took to it just absolutely.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t even want to call home or go home.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Did they have sororities at that point?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 They definitely did not.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 So what did you all do for organized social activities?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 We had pretty good severe restrictions what we could do.\u00a0 You know dorm time.\u00a0 You had to sign in or out if you went anywhere. You could only go out one night a week.\u00a0 Something like that I would have to look at the handbook.\u00a0 It was pretty restricted.\u00a0 You could not, freshman, could not single date in cars.\u00a0 We managed to get around a lot of things.\u00a0 We had a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 You mentioned that Mississippi College didn\u2019t have dances.\u00a0 Did Delta State?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Yes<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Who sponsored those dances?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 There was probably, even then it was probably sponsored by the student government or the Dean of Women probably with a group.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember that.\u00a0 We would have huge dances in Whitfield Gym.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Did you all have live band or records?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Live band, we had live bands.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Do you remember any of them?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Well we had the Red Tops.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 I can remember people talking about having the Red Tops.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I followed all my last probably ten, eleventh, and twelfth in high school.\u00a0 So that was just a continuation you know.\u00a0 We had other live bands.\u00a0 We had some pretty good ones to come in.\u00a0 Some of them were known nationally.\u00a0 I would have to look in the yearbook to remember them.\u00a0 That was a big thing.\u00a0 They had the big dances.\u00a0 We loved.\u00a0 I loved dormitory life.\u00a0 I really did.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 So who were your best friends, and how did you?\u00a0 Were they ones that came with you?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Predominantly the first were the ones that came with me, and I roomed with them.\u00a0 We were all very close.\u00a0 In fact we ran around with sophomores.\u00a0 In fact seven of us this year and . . .<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Can you tell us their names?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 We all went to Gulf Shores for a solid week and had a big reunion this year.\u00a0 It was the first time we have all been together for a length of time for forty-seven years.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Oh what great memories.\u00a0 Oh my.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 It was Vickie Carter from over in Ruleville.\u00a0 Nancy and Janelle Picket, they were the Picket twins that I was cheerleader with for all the years out there.\u00a0 I got to be very close.\u00a0 These were sophomores. Liz Parker from Drew, the Pickets were from Jackson, close to Jackson.\u00a0 I just as well can not remember right now.\u00a0 Betty Jo Gillian, she is from up close to Booneville, up in the northeast.\u00a0 Of course Ruth Anne Cancave from Clarksdale, well Tupelo then.\u00a0 Mary Allan Smith was from Merigold. There were others, but that was the core group that we ran around with.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 What brought you all together?\u00a0 What was your common?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Well Ruth Anne and I started as freshman together with Mary Allen.\u00a0 We just immediately just became friends.\u00a0 It was nothing that pulled us together except friendship.\u00a0 I guess had mutual interests.\u00a0 Yes<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Just enjoyed each other.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 The others I was pulled into the sophomore group because of my friendship with the twins and cheerleading with them.\u00a0 That is how I got to know them real well.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Did you come with an interest in a certain area?\u00a0 Did you just?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Definitely in business, all my life I knew I wanted to do something.\u00a0\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to teach at that time.\u00a0 The most, then the most that I could aspire to do was possibly a high power personal secretary to some firm to this type thing.\u00a0 There was just not that many.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t into sciences.\u00a0 I was really into the bookkeeping, typing, shorthand, and all of that and office machines.\u00a0 That is what I really aspired.\u00a0 I said that could be a big trick to do that.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 What changed you from that?<\/p>\n

JW: \u00a0Well I did that.\u00a0 I went with that.\u00a0 I got a one year secretarial degree.\u00a0 Then I got a two-year then three-year.\u00a0 Then I said, yeah I am here I will just go on to four year business education degree.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Okay, so your degree is in Business Education.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 My first degree is in Business Education.\u00a0 I went to Mobile, AL.\u00a0 Kent and I married.\u00a0 I moved to Mobile, AL.\u00a0 When I went in for my interview, they said Ms. Wyatt you will have students in your classes.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t but like twenty.\u00a0 They said you would have students in your classes that are older than you are in Murky High School.\u00a0 We could not begin to let you teach in our public schools.\u00a0 You are too young.\u00a0 You could not control the boys.\u00a0 So we will put you in the elementary grades.\u00a0 I went into an elementary grade.\u00a0 I worked totally with gifted children.\u00a0 I fell in love with it.\u00a0 I came back.\u00a0 I got the undergraduate degree and the masters in elementary.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 When did you meet your husband?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I knew him as a freshman.\u00a0 I thought he was a real cute fellow, but he was going with another girl.\u00a0 So I just dated around, and I had a ball.\u00a0 Our sophomore year, he loves to tell the story that he went out.\u00a0 They needed a cheerleader for the last minute.\u00a0 Kent had been playing football and basketball.\u00a0 They told him that he had to decide on one or the other.\u00a0 Of course he took the basketball because he had a scholarship.\u00a0 So he was available.\u00a0 Of course he was real good in gymnastics.\u00a0 We talked him into it.\u00a0 It was the Picket twins, Kent, and Charles Wilkenson who is a phediadonist in Memphis now and myself.\u00a0 There were five of us.\u00a0 That is how I really got to know him.\u00a0 He loves to tell the story that he did that so he could get to know me better.\u00a0 He tells (?).<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 That is not the wholly the truth?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Well now at that point did you all cheer for football and basketball?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Everything<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 You cheered for everything.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Yeah<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 So you all were quite busy for the whole year.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Yes, it was a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 It must have been difficult to keep your grades up with that much outside activity.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Well I was always a real good student.\u00a0 I never worried about grades.\u00a0 In fact when I got to college, I wanted the top score that came out everywhere.\u00a0 Then I got to college. I discovered how much life really was.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have to work real hard to get B\u2019s.\u00a0 So I never had to worry about my grades.\u00a0 I can make easily passing good grades with out a lot of effort.\u00a0 So that was it.\u00a0 I knew I could.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Could you tell us some instructor that you remember that stands out in your mind for either for good or for bad reasons?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Well of course I had Katherine Keener in all the Business classes the shorthand, the typing, and all of this.\u00a0 She was excellent.\u00a0 She probably stands out as much as any.\u00a0 Of course when I came back I had Foster Wilkenson.\u00a0 He was one of the best that I have had.\u00a0 He was tough.\u00a0 He was a very hard teacher.\u00a0 He made you produce.\u00a0 He made you do it on your own.\u00a0 He was an excellent teacher when I came back to get my masters.\u00a0 I took a lot of courses under Ms. Keener because of the business.\u00a0 I had English under Ms. Hammed.\u00a0 Then they give you test.\u00a0 According to how you scored.\u00a0 If you scored high, you got Ms. Hammed.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Well tell us about Ms. Hammed because I have heard tells of her before.\u00a0 She was quite.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 She was quite different.\u00a0 She was quite a different person.\u00a0 She had written books.\u00a0 Just quite a different person.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Do you remember anything particularly amusing about your years as a student at Delta State?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Looking back on it, they were not funny to us.\u00a0 We used to have in decorating the goal post.\u00a0 We would almost beg for money to buy crate paper to decorate with.\u00a0 We used to get so angry because they would not let us have what we needed.\u00a0 It was just many fun things in the dormitories.\u00a0 We had an experience.\u00a0 Back then you had.\u00a0 I remember Ms. Brumby lived on my floor.\u00a0 You had some one that lived on the floor, an adult supervisor.\u00a0 I can remember a lot of fun things that happened.\u00a0 We thought it was great fun to fill the water buckets with water and poor them down on the girls on the first floor.\u00a0 This type of thing.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 You didn\u2019t get in trouble doing that?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 If you got caught.\u00a0 We had some girls to slip some whiskey in one night.\u00a0 That was a big to do.\u00a0 They were thrown out of school.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Oh my that was very serious.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Oh yeah you were thrown.\u00a0 They were caught.\u00a0 Of course they were put out.\u00a0 It was just a lot of comeidary.\u00a0 I love the friendships that do develop.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 About how many students that were on campus at that point?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I would guess about four hundred.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 About how many faculty?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I do not know.\u00a0 I could not tell you.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 What was the most popular form of entertainment at that point?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 On campus?<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Yes<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 The dances, I would guess.\u00a0 We just didn\u2019t.\u00a0 You stayed on campus for a lot of things.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t have movies on campus.\u00a0 There was a movie downtown.\u00a0 I guess we did that.\u00a0 There were not a lot of cars on campus because freshman could not have cars.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 So you walked if you went to the movie downtown?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Unless someone had a car.\u00a0 Of course a lot of the guys had a car.\u00a0 You could double date in it.\u00a0 Of course you had to sign out.\u00a0 You had to be in a certain time and sign in.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Was there a dress code?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Definitely, you could not wear shorts except in the gym class.\u00a0 If you had to go to a gym class, you had to wear a raincoat over your shorts walking over there.\u00a0 Dress appropriate at all times.\u00a0 You got demerits if you did not keep your room clean.\u00a0 If you left a coke bottle in your room you got a mark.\u00a0 If you got a lot of those, you went in front of the Dean of Women Merrill Lawler.\u00a0 So it was much stricter.\u00a0 It was nothing wrong with it.\u00a0 At that time it was what we expected.\u00a0 It never bothered me.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Now who gave the demerits for the messy rooms?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 It came out of the Dean of Women\u2019s office.\u00a0 I do not know.\u00a0 Well you had a dorm mother.\u00a0 She I guess checked it, and then she turned it in to that office then.\u00a0 If you got so many, you are in trouble.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Now at that point was there a laundry on campus, or how did you manage?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 There was always a laundry.\u00a0 It was then, yes.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 You didn\u2019t have any problems with that?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Not really.\u00a0 We still when we went home.\u00a0 I never did go home much.\u00a0 A lot of people took their stuff home.\u00a0 I can\u2019t remember washing machines in the dormitories like they are now.\u00a0 It might have been.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 What was the most popular major on campus at that point?\u00a0 What was the strongest?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Education by far, anything in education.\u00a0 Elementary and secondary is what I would guess.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Was that mostly the girls that went into that field?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Yes<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 And what were the boys?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Physical Education and Business, not as strong of a business program.\u00a0 It was a good program.\u00a0 When I say not as strong, I mean not in numbers.\u00a0 It was very strong in academics.\u00a0 We had some excellent teachers.\u00a0 Probably those are the three.\u00a0 Sciences, there were some.\u00a0 I remember the Tibb\u2019s boys.\u00a0 They were both in school.\u00a0 They were the boys then.\u00a0 They went on to become doctors.\u00a0\u00a0 We had one.\u00a0 I think we had one girl who was in the sciences.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Girls just didn\u2019t go into the sciences?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Just didn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Not because they were discouraged, they just didn\u2019t?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 We just didn\u2019t know that it was even open to us really.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Maybe others did.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 You married Kent Wyatt in what year?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 \u201956, we married three, four, five, six.\u00a0 March the third in fifty-six.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Oh<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 It was in between quarters.\u00a0 That was our senior year.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Then after you graduated you went immediately both of you were employed, or did you go on?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Well we married.\u00a0 We lived with his mother and father for approximately April and May.\u00a0 I was working at the time part time at Kossoms in secretarial work.\u00a0 As many hours as I could.\u00a0 Then he was doing different things too working.\u00a0 Then we finished.\u00a0 We graduated together.\u00a0 I graduated.\u00a0 My diploma reads, Janice Collins.\u00a0 I was determined that.\u00a0 Dr. Farrah was here then.\u00a0 He was a favorite of mine.\u00a0 He was the Dean of Students.\u00a0 He was very good to me.\u00a0 I was crazy about him. I remember.\u00a0 It was beautiful quadrangle graduation and all of this.\u00a0 We married.\u00a0 We lived there.\u00a0 Then we went to the coast that summer, Mississippi Gulf Coast.\u00a0 He worked with his father at a camp down there.\u00a0 I did the bookkeeping in the (?) camp.\u00a0 The next year we went in September to Mobile, AL.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 What was he doing there?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 He taught at a military school, mathematics and coached basketball.\u00a0 I taught in the public schools.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 You came back in?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 1960 to Cleveland, and I didn\u2019t want to come home.\u00a0 They called.\u00a0 By then we had Tara.\u00a0 We waited till after about three years.\u00a0 She was about eighteen months old.\u00a0 They wanted to come back to his auda motto high school.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to.\u00a0 I loved Mobile.\u00a0 Once again there was the same situation.\u00a0 Once I got into to something, I love it.\u00a0 I am always a little hesitant going in.\u00a0 I did not want to come home.\u00a0 I just loved it down there.\u00a0 They finally persuaded me because Kent\u2019s mother had a nursery school.\u00a0 I could come home, and Tara could go to her grandmother\u2019s nursery school.\u00a0 I could still teach.\u00a0 So we came back to Cleveland.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 So after you came back here you decided to get the degree in elementary education?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Yes<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 So you taught while you got your degree?<\/p>\n

JW: Yes<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 How many years did that take you?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I needed thirty-three hours.\u00a0 Or some many few hours, I had a lot of education courses.\u00a0 I had to zero in right on the elementary education.\u00a0 I got my certificate.\u00a0 Then I went back and got the masters.\u00a0 I got the masters probably after I had quit teaching.\u00a0 I only taught in all probably eight or nine years.\u00a0 So I still teach.\u00a0 I refer myself as a teacher in front of my youngest daughter who is thirty-two one day.\u00a0 She said, \u201cWell mother you never taught since I have been.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember it.\u201d\u00a0 I never have with her.\u00a0 I said, \u201cElizabeth, once you are a teacher, you are always a teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 That is true.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 You are always are.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Now you were here how many years before Kent moved from the high school to Delta State?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 We came home in 1960. I can not tell you when he came out to Delta State.\u00a0 We have been here forever it seems like.\u00a0 He taught.\u00a0 We worked in the public schools.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 How did he make the transition from the high school?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Alumni Secretary, they hired the first full time.\u00a0 Dr. Ewing did.\u00a0 He stayed there about a year or two.\u00a0 During that time, Dr. Ewing encouraged Kent.\u00a0 He saw something in Kent.\u00a0 He encouraged Kent to go back and get his doctorate.\u00a0 He had gotten his masters in Mathematics at Southern while we were in Mobile.\u00a0 Then we came back.\u00a0 I went back and got the degrees.\u00a0 Then after I did that, Dr. Ewing really encouraged them.\u00a0 He made it so that he could go.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 How did you feel about him pursuing a higher degree?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Had to, if we knew if we were going to stay in education he had to.\u00a0 I knew that Kent had the administrative ability.\u00a0 He had a quietness, determination, and strength about him that knew.\u00a0 His judgement was very good.\u00a0 So he, Dr. Ewing, I give him tremendous credit for Kent\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Did Kent at that point aspire to being an administrator here, or did he think probably that he would go to another school?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 You don\u2019t know.\u00a0 You plow on and get that degree.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 (?)<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 You know you have got to have it.\u00a0 As soon as he got that degree, that is when I went back and got my masters because Aubrey Lucas was here when I got my masters.\u00a0 He handed my diploma.\u00a0 I drag that out a few years.\u00a0 The length of time that I could because I was having children, another child and working and all of that stuff.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 What was you doing at that time, still teaching?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Yes, some of the early in going into it.\u00a0 Then I helped my mother-in-law at the nursery school for a couple of days a week.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 So when you all became or appointed to the president\u2019s office, how did you feel about that having been a faculty member under Ms. Ewing?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Felt overwhelmed.\u00a0 We were thirty-nine and forty years old. I was thirty-nine.\u00a0 I think Kent was thirty-nine or forty.\u00a0 I think he was forty.\u00a0 We were a little bit overwhelmed.\u00a0 I look at forty-year-olds today.\u00a0 I think goodness gracious.\u00a0 We did this at forty.\u00a0 I loved the school.\u00a0 I knew that we had such deep love for the school.\u00a0 We are both products of education. We are both products of Delta State.\u00a0 It was just about pre-overwhelmed.\u00a0 We knew that we have always worked as a team.\u00a0 We both felt that as a team backing each other not actively, but really backing we could do most anything.\u00a0 We really just tackled it.\u00a0 We just got in there.\u00a0 It was very difficult.\u00a0 We were.\u00a0 We had people here that had taught us.\u00a0 We always remembered that.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Did that ever present a problem for either of you?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Never. I never called them anything, except Ms. Brumby and Ms. Castle. You know I could never call them Gladys and Carol.\u00a0 I just stayed right there where I was.\u00a0 That respect was there.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Now what problems did you have has president\u2019s wife?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 First problem was the children.\u00a0 Elizabeth was six.\u00a0 I had always deferred to Kent on big decision.\u00a0 I have always in essence we lost Kent then pretty much.\u00a0 I could not go with him with one thing and every little thing.\u00a0 I had to make more of the decisions especially with the children.\u00a0 That put a lot of more responsibility.\u00a0 In retrospect it made me much more independent.\u00a0 Fiercely independent because I had to do it myself and make many more decisions.\u00a0 With Elizabeth my problem was that I had to be gone so much with Kent.\u00a0 Basically I am first a mother.\u00a0 I did not like leaving her.\u00a0 I had to work out something that would make me happy leaving that child at home so much.\u00a0 We would go on trips. The first year as a president, you are just overwhelmed with obligations and things and social things.\u00a0 There is just things you have to do.\u00a0 You have travel and everything.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Now I know that you entertained a good deal.\u00a0 How did that work out with two fairly young children in the house?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 No problem with that at all.\u00a0 I had grown up in the Mississippi delta.\u00a0 I have always said this.\u00a0 Even before he was president, we entertained a lot.\u00a0 I thought of nothing of having sixty or seventy people for something.\u00a0 That never, I loved it.\u00a0\u00a0 That was never, never presented a problem for me.\u00a0 Whether it was a small group or large group, I used to have sort of rule of thumb.\u00a0 If it was under forty, I did the cooking.\u00a0 If it got over that, my kitchen couldn\u2019t handle it.\u00a0 I just did not have the facilities.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Now did how did your children react to a sudden well a lot of attention?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Well Delta State has been a sort of a part of their lives, all of their lives because of Mr. Wyatt, Kent\u2019s dad.\u00a0 Then their father had been out their as either one could have remember much about it.\u00a0 I never saw it as a problem.\u00a0 They bulled the brunt a few times when something directly affected them.\u00a0 A decision, Kent had to make a tough decision, maybe somebody was let go.\u00a0 I remember particularly with my Elizabeth.\u00a0 It hit Elizabeth a lot more than it did Tara in instances.\u00a0 They were both pretty levelheaded little girls.\u00a0 They had grown up.\u00a0 Then knew what their role was.\u00a0 There was no problem with them.\u00a0 Other than I did not leaving Elizabeth as little as she was.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 What was the solution to that?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 We worked it around to where I would get young college students to come in and stay with her.\u00a0 She loved that.\u00a0 That was okay.\u00a0 First we tried using my mother.\u00a0 That was an imposition.\u00a0 That was so much.\u00a0 Then I would find.\u00a0 Sometimes I would find a married couple.\u00a0 They would just move in the house and take care of her while I was gone.\u00a0 She loved that because they were young.\u00a0 Then as she got older.\u00a0 They would we would get a senior in college, a girl mostly not couples then, and they would stay with her.\u00a0 She loved it.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 What would you consider as a president\u2019s wife you biggest challenge?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Mine, I think it is two folds.\u00a0 You have your duties.\u00a0 I always saw that as an official hostess for the university.\u00a0 Anything they ask me to do, I don\u2019t think I ever refused unless I had a conflict that would support the university.\u00a0 Number one the biggest thing is just support the university in any way and promote it in any way you can.\u00a0 You got to love it. Kent and I have a deep love for this university.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 It shows.\u00a0 It really does.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 We wanted Delta State to be first class all of the way.\u00a0 That was our main thrust.\u00a0 No matter if it was entertaining, if it was academics, he immediately started the presidential scholars, pulling the better students.\u00a0 Trying, trying, and trying.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 When you all first accepted this position, did you all have a specific goal that you wanted to achieve maybe personally in that position?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Just that first class business, we were determined that we would do all that we could do to make Delta State as first class institution that we could in every way.\u00a0 Not just in the athletics, not just in these other areas.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 What was the most difficult thing that you found during your years as a president\u2019s wife?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I think that probably some of the most difficult things were some personnel problems.\u00a0 Any president is going to have.\u00a0 There were some pretty tough times when I saw Kent.\u00a0 Laughingly say, we lost a year of life over that, we were agonizing over it.\u00a0 Always trying and doing everything you could to protect Delta State.\u00a0 There were a couple of times that were extremely difficult.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 I remember the time they were proposing to close Delta State.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Extremely difficult time.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 I can imagine that was very stressful.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Just agonizing to see Kent.\u00a0 I went with him the second time.\u00a0 He was called to testify twice.\u00a0 I went with him the second time in Oxford.\u00a0 I remember just sitting there thinking the wait of his words and what they were going to mean.\u00a0 If he said just one thing wrong, it would pick up.\u00a0 It was tough.\u00a0 Once again, he was totally prepared.\u00a0 Always his game plan is you better be prepared before you go in.\u00a0 He was totally.\u00a0 It was a very difficult time.\u00a0 It was a frightening time.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Yes it was.\u00a0 Did he foresee this was coming?\u00a0 Was this rather a surprise when it happened?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I never talked to him about it.\u00a0 I am not sure.\u00a0 I know Kent.\u00a0 I know how he always looks ahead and thinks ahead.\u00a0 He never said it.\u00a0 I would bet he had a feeling he knew it was coming.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 What would you consider the most joyous time?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Christmas time, I love Christmas in the president\u2019s home.\u00a0 We did a lot of entertaining.\u00a0 We used to have huge things with open houses.\u00a0 That became just sort of old.\u00a0 So we quit doing that.\u00a0 Then we had groups in.\u00a0 We would have students and different groups.\u00a0 Then it all shut down.\u00a0 Everybody went home, and we had personal Christmas.\u00a0 I remember those times the best.\u00a0 That was probably some of the happiest times.\u00a0 We really have a go in for Christmas with all the entertaining, friends of family, and all of this type thing.\u00a0 Those were some of the joyous times probably.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Now Delta State was what size when you all entered as Presidents?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Brenda, I am not positive.\u00a0 I am not sure.\u00a0 I would be hesitant to say.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 And it was how large when you?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 It was four thousand when he finished.\u00a0 It was a little four but not much.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 What did the campus look like when you all took over the facilities?\u00a0 How many?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Buildings, you know it was so much smaller.\u00a0 I lived in the two dormitories that are still standing, Cleveland Hall and Ward Hall.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Were they new at the time that you lived in them?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 No, they were originally.\u00a0 I think.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 I think they were too.<\/p>\n

JW: Yeah, the union was being built.\u00a0 I think it was just completed or being completed.\u00a0 The education building was not.\u00a0 It might have been completed.\u00a0 No it wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 I remember the old Armory being on that corner.\u00a0 The business, what is now the business.\u00a0 That was the administration and everything.\u00a0 The Kethley Building was of course finished.\u00a0 The science building was there.\u00a0 You know it was just small.\u00a0 The men\u2019s dormitory, H. L. (?) was finished over there.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 That is Governor\u2019s (?)?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 No, not the big new one, the other one the first one right there.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 It is right across from the new swimming pool?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Yes, cafeteria was as it is right now.\u00a0 I think.\u00a0 We are talking about twenty-four years ago.\u00a0 It is hard to believe.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Well you have had a lot of buildings built in that twenty-four years.\u00a0 You have expanded the campus.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Unbelievable<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Considerably<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Emisably, I think they said there was like fifteen different buildings on there now.\u00a0 When we came in, I am not sure of that number.\u00a0 Always, that was a real.\u00a0 Kent really believes in a total picture.\u00a0 We are very different.\u00a0 I am very impulsive.\u00a0 He is very.\u00a0 He thinks everything through.\u00a0 As a team, it works well.\u00a0 He looks at all of the broad picture.\u00a0 Many of the night, we just rode the campus.\u00a0 He just looked to see what needed to be done.\u00a0 What would improve the campus?\u00a0 How this traffic pattern, and things like that.\u00a0 Even the grass needs cutting, or those light bulbs are not in, they ought to be.\u00a0 Safety and all of that was a big part of with him.\u00a0 He really did that.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Which did you feel like was your most successful ways to promote Delta State?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 I always well of course entertaining.\u00a0 I thought Kent and I could do that.\u00a0 We always felt very comfortable doing that.\u00a0 Our philosophy if we never made it so formal, now we could do the formal entertainment.\u00a0 We never made it so formal, but we like to entertain to make people feel at home and very comfortable.\u00a0 We tried very hard to do that.\u00a0 That was a big way of promoting that.\u00a0 I felt like.\u00a0 I really truly felt being graduates, knowing as well as we did, and loving it.\u00a0 That if anybody could promote it, we could.\u00a0 We were products of it.\u00a0 I felt like that was real plus for us.\u00a0 I just felt if you could put us one on one with somebody, a couple, a legislator, or anybody that we could promote Delta State.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 So you have been connected personally with Delta State from 1952 until now?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Yes<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Forty-eight years<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Yes<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 You have seen it grow from, how many buildings were on campus when you came to the school?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Well let me see, I am thinking.\u00a0 The Wright Art Building was on campus.\u00a0 Fielding Wright was from Rolling Fork.\u00a0 He was the governor.\u00a0 I had grew up knowing his children.\u00a0 Seven, I think it was very few.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 It was just the quadrangle at that point?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 The Wright Art Building was the library when I was here.\u00a0 That was our library.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 So you have seen it grow from just a few buildings to a fairly extensive campus?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 (?) I know there was less than ten, if ten.\u00a0 I can\u2019t remember exactly.\u00a0 There was not many.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Do you have a special memory that you would like to share with?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 No not really, there is just so many in twenty-four years.\u00a0 There is just so many memories.\u00a0 Of course the memory of the interesting thing.\u00a0 A funny story is the remembering of Kent\u2019s inauguration of course would stand out.\u00a0 You know we were young.\u00a0 We were so enthusiastic.\u00a0 We were so humbled by being chosen, just the entire experience.\u00a0 He had gone over his speech a gillion times.\u00a0 He knew it.\u00a0 I knew.\u00a0 I imagine the children knew it.\u00a0 That thing had been refined.\u00a0 We worked on it.\u00a0 He had gone on over.\u00a0 We were to be picked up by security and brought over and taken down front and seated.\u00a0 It got to be.\u00a0 That was thirty minutes before hand.\u00a0 Well it got to be ten minutes before hand, and nobody had picked us up.\u00a0 It got to be five minutes.\u00a0 When it got down till about ten minutes, and I knew something had to happened.\u00a0 So I had to put the two girls in the car.\u00a0 We were all dressed.\u00a0 You know everything.\u00a0\u00a0 I put the two girls in the car.\u00a0 Elizabeth, I still have her little dress from the inauguration.\u00a0 She looked so darling.\u00a0 It was a little thing.\u00a0 Tara and I got her, and we took off.\u00a0 Traffic was blocked up all the way on Fifth Avenue till where we came out there.\u00a0 We couldn\u2019t get in.\u00a0 Of course, I am very impatient too.\u00a0 That really bothered me.\u00a0 I was pretty upset.\u00a0 I was trying to be calm because of the children.\u00a0 We finally got across Highway 8 and to one of the men, policeman.\u00a0 He stopped us.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t going to let us in.\u00a0 I said, \u201cI am Janice Wyatt.\u00a0 My husband is going to be inaugurated.\u201d\u00a0 Then he recognized me.\u00a0 He said, \u201cOh Ms. Wyatt.\u201d\u00a0 Of course he got on, he called down to the men in front of the coliseum.\u00a0 They got us right on down.\u00a0 My main problem with I was so concerned, if Kent looked out there at those three seats.\u00a0 He would wonder where was Janice.\u00a0 I felt like I was a lot of support for him.\u00a0 I needed to be there.\u00a0 We finally got there.\u00a0 Some funny stories came out of that later.\u00a0 (?)
\nBO:\u00a0 Oh I bet.\u00a0 I can imagine.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 You know it was just one of those things, but it was not funny that day.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 No, I can imagine that was a little stressful.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 It was almost panic time.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Any other memories, stories that other people might not be aware of?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Well let\u2019s see.\u00a0 I am sure there is gillions.\u00a0 I will have to give a lot of credit to Dr. Ewing for Kent\u2019s career.\u00a0 He just.\u00a0 He saw the potential.\u00a0 He really, really encouraged Kent.\u00a0 I think Kent learned invaluable lessons from Dr. Ewing.\u00a0 Dr. Ewing was a consament.\u00a0 He was an educator.\u00a0 He was the best with the legislator with anybody we have ever known. Then Aubrey came.\u00a0 Aubrey was an entirely different personality.\u00a0 He was much more outgoing.\u00a0 He was much more of a people person.\u00a0 I always felt like Kent got a blend of two really different administrators, which were both wonderful.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 When Kent was first approached about applying for the president\u2019s job, was he hesitant?\u00a0 How did he react to that?\u00a0 Had he thought to?\u00a0 Was that one of his ambitions?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 You know I am sure in the back of his mind, it had to been because he loved it so.\u00a0 We never verbalized it.\u00a0 We never talked about it.\u00a0 It was one of the most harrowing experiences you will ever go through. Going for university presidency is sometimes you think is not even worth it.\u00a0 It is tough.\u00a0 You have very tough times.\u00a0 People that you thought was your best friends, well not your best friends but some very close friends, turn out to be not your friends.\u00a0 It is a tough time.\u00a0 It is pretty tough.\u00a0 I would not go through it again.\u00a0 We were here.\u00a0 I guess seven years or so when he first started getting inklings from other universities out of the states and different places and in state some.\u00a0 I guess after ten years, we really.\u00a0 We never let his name being put up for any presidencies.\u00a0 We just finally made a real conscience decision.\u00a0 When you had all that you wanted, you just back off and settle.\u00a0 You are happy.\u00a0 You do the best you can do there.\u00a0 Why should we go for more headaches in a place we don\u2019t even know or love?\u00a0 Why should we go for?\u00a0 Was there anything more prestigious?\u00a0 Not to us, so we just made a real conscientious decision that this was it.\u00a0 That this was all we ever wanted if we even knew we wanted this.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 So the decision to become president sort of grew, but the decision to stay president at this school was a very though out decision?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Yes definitely, definitely.\u00a0 We just had everything that we could ever wanted we thought in career wise.\u00a0 So we just stayed with it.\u00a0 We would not let his name be put up for anything.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Well that is a compliment for the school.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Well I feel sure that is what Aubrey Lucas did too.\u00a0 These were two home bread guys that loved it.\u00a0 Aubrey could have gone anywhere probably.\u00a0 So of course they have been a main stay in our lives too.\u00a0 They are great friends.\u00a0 If you need somebody who has been through it and is in it.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Yes, you all have worked well together over the years.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 For years<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 The schools have worked well together.\u00a0 Are there any other things that you would like to tell, any stories?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Not really just great friendships.\u00a0 Kent and I had deep friendships on campus.\u00a0 They were quite ones.\u00a0 You have to walk sort of a chalk line there too.\u00a0 Then we had deep lasting friendship in the community and all around.\u00a0 We thought we would retire and live in Jackson. We bought the condo there.\u00a0 When we got right down to it, we just didn\u2019t want to leave.\u00a0 We had too many friends.\u00a0 We enjoyed too much of Delta State.\u00a0 We enjoyed the Performing Arts Center tremendously.\u00a0 We enjoy the athletic events at Delta State.\u00a0 We just enjoy.\u00a0 I missed graduation this year.\u00a0 That is the first graduation that I have missed since Ms. Ewing, since he came to Delta State.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Many, many graduations?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Yeah<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 So you have heard many graduation\u2019s speeches?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Oh a lot.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Do any stand out in your mind?<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Not really, I couldn\u2019t name a one.\u00a0 I know a lot of them.\u00a0 Some of them that I knew so personally that would influence me.\u00a0 I never hated going to graduation because once you got there.\u00a0 You saw the parents.\u00a0 You looked at them.\u00a0 You knew the sacrifices and what that day meant to them.\u00a0 It was all worth it seeing hundreds of them walk across that.\u00a0 Yes it was all worth it.\u00a0 That kept you renewed all of the time.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 You need renewing, definitely.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 You do.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 We appreciate you giving us this interview.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Well it has been much easier than I thought really.\u00a0 I think you helped being a friend.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 I hoped I helped.\u00a0 I hope you have recorded the things that you want people to remember when we are both no longer on this earth.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 When I don\u2019t have to hear it, to hear my own voice.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 Those of us who are southern sometimes are conscientious, self-conscience about our vocal abilities.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 So conscience.<\/p>\n

BO:\u00a0 We appreciate it and thank you very much.<\/p>\n

JW:\u00a0 Thank you<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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