Category: News

ELLISVILLE – Hundreds of Jones County Junior College alumni gathered recently for Jones College’s Homecoming Luncheon which honored several alumni for various accomplishments. During that event, the Alumni Association of Phi Theta Kappa’s International Honor Society, Rho Sigma Chapter bestowed a unique award to one of its members, a 1970 JCJC graduate from Clara, Sara Smith Landrum. She was the first of the recently formed Alumni Chapter of PTK at Jones College to receive the honor of, “PTK Alumnus of the Year.”

“The activities and projects I participated in while in PTK broadened my knowledge of working with others of academic excellence,” said Landrum. “When current PTK Advisor at Jones College, Mark Brown expressed his desire to contact former members and to learn about the early days of the Rho Sigma Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, I knew that I could help him, thanks to information that I had noted in my 1968-69 and 1969-70 yearbooks, The Lair.

Brown described Landrum’s work as invaluable. Building the JC database is just one of the many reasons she earned the first honor bestowed to an alumnus of the recently formed Alumni chapter of PTK at Jones College.

“She has been integral in helping us contact past members from that time. The Phi Theta Kappa International Office maintains a database going decades into the past but much of the information is outdated. Most of the PTK members before 2000, do not have email addresses. Ms. Landrum has been instrumental in providing contact information for numerous past members and helped us develop our database at JC.” explained Brown. “Sara has continually been supportive of our efforts to develop a Jones College Phi Theta Kappa Alumni Association.”

Returning to the Ellisville campus for Homecoming recently was an eye-opening event for “Sara from Clara,” as she is affectionately known to many.

“Homecoming weekend was thrilling, walking on a completely different campus compared to my memories of 53 years ago. I’ve always considered my two years at Jones to be the happiest time of my educational career.”

The Wayne County native earned the title of Valedictorian of the Clara High School class of 1968. Living in the Strengthford Community allowed Sara to live at home and take the Jones County Junior College bus to Ellisville. She shared, “JCJC was a gift to the community. I could ride the JCJC bus that originated in Clara, just like my older brother Al Smith (1967), and my siblings, Dan Smith (1975), and Syble Smith Courtney (1979).”

While at JCJC, Sara continued to earn accolades as she actively engaged in academics and related organizations on campus. She joined the first chapter of Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society at Jones College, serving as the first secretary of PTK. Coming from a family that encouraged, promoted, and even pushed education, it’s not a surprise she thrived and earned many honors and leadership opportunities. In addition to her PTK responsibilities, Landrum also served as President of the National Student Education Association and was a member of the Executive Committee of the Mississippi Student Education Association. She was named to the “Hall of Fame” in the JCJC Yearbook for Academic Excellence. She also received the Letter “J” Award for maintaining Honor Roll and President’s Lists and she was the recipient of the Robert H. McFarland Scholarship. Landrum was also honored for having the highest average of all the female JCJC students graduating in 1970.

While serving on NSEA, Sara was inspired by the NSEA advisor and her biology teacher, Shelby Price to major in biology. She continued her education at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee where she was a member of the academic honors organization, Alpha Chi. She graduated summa cum laude in 1972 and returned to Clara to teach biology and chemistry at Clara High School.

Landrum began her education as a first grader at Strengthford School before it consolidated to become Clara School in 1957. Much to her dismay, there was never a reunion until it became a “burning desire in her heart” to organize the first Strengthford School Reunion in 2004, which brought 329 people from nine states to the gathering. Landrum spearheaded the reunions which were held every year except in 2020, when Covid canceled everything.

“Having a teacher’s heart is all about helping others. I find that the Strengthford School Reunions are fulfilling to me because old friends have reunited after many years of being apart. The happiness and joy in their faces brings me great satisfaction.”

Her husband of 53 years, Albert Landrum also graduated from Clara as did their daughter, Melody. Their two grandsons are currently at Clara Elementary School. In her spare time, Sara serves as the pianist/organist, Bible School teacher, and Sunday School teacher at Clara Church of God.

Jones College will hold its annual Most Beautiful Pageant on Wednesday, November 8, at 7 p.m. in the M.B. Bush Fine Arts Auditorium. Thirty-two contestants will vie for Most Beautiful, Top 10, Top 5, Best Essay, and Most Photogenic. There will also be a People’s Choice award for the contestant with the most votes from the audience. Each vote costs $1. General admission is $8, with admission for Jones College students with proper I.D., and K-12 student admission only $2. For more information, contact Emily Sullivan at 601-477-4030.

Photo by JC student, Marlee Brewer:Top Five: The Top Five contestants recognized at the Most Beautiful Pageant held last spring are pictured left to right, Amberlyn Holifield of Leakesville, third alternate; Taylor Garretson of Leakesville, first alternate; Summer Boyd of Laurel (Most Beautiful), Halle Myrick of Petal, second alternate; and Kailee Pipkins of Richton.

ELLISVILLE – Several hundred superheroes, princesses and ghouls came out to have fun at the annual Jones College Treats in the Streets on the JC campus in Ellisville. Kids played games for treats in the booths set up by JC faculty and students as a way to give back to the community. Some children participated in the costume contests for babies through teens, with the winners of the creatively dressed kids receiving a variety of goodies and sweet prizes from the JC Office of Student Affairs.

Jones College students who dressed and impressed the judges, received prizes for their efforts. The top five winners of the Costume Contest for JC students included JC childcare employee, Christina Nixon as the cowgirl, winning the overall top prize. Jones College students from Morton, Meghan Toranno, Tristen Goss and Ghenessy Lopez who dressed as The Lorax, took third place, and from Enterprise, Lainey Parker who dressed as the Balloon Dog, won second place. Honorable Mention went to Maddie Smith of Sumrall who dressed as Barbie in a Box and Mekhiya Bates of Pascagoula who dressed as Steve Harvey.

Treats in the Streets is an annual, free, community event hosted by the Jones College with various student organizations and academic and technical divisions setting up games and offering candy gifts.  

ELLISVILLE- Jones County native, former New York City resident and current Athens, Georgia resident, Noel Holston will be returning to Laurel as the guest author for the Laurel-Jones County Library’s “Author Event.”  The 1968 Jones County Junior College alumnus is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist and critic, songwriter and photographer, who has recently published his second book, As I Die Laughing: Snapshots of a Southern Childhood. Holston will be sharing some of the stories he wrote about growing up “free-range” in Laurel, Ellisville and the Pendorff community at the Laurel-Jones County Library on Thursday, November 9, from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m.

“As tickled as I am to have a chance to read chapters from As I Die Laughing to people I grew up with, what I really look forward to is the stories they’re going to tell me. Yarns will be swapped, I’m sure,” said Holston,. “I don’t go home as much as I once did now that my parents and extended family have all passed on, but I still get up that way every couple of years. I did a book signing at the library in Laurel in 2020, when my book, Life After Deaf was newly published. Any time I visit, I see my only sibling, my younger brother, (a JCJC graduate and retired professor at the University of South Alabama) Tim, who lives in Mobile. We drive up to Jones County for the day. It’s sort of a ritual: We visit our folks’ graves to pay respects, go by my grandmother’s old house on 5th Street in Laurel, drive by our family’s house in Pendorff, cruise on down to Ellisville, and eat chili cheeseburgers at Ward’s.”

Holston’s humorous account of his childhood adventures in Jones County with his boyhood friends, family and residents of Jones County in the 1960s, earned him the nickname, the “Mark Twain of Laurel” by reviewers of his new book. Some readers may remember the author’s relatives like his uncle, M.D. “Shorty” Holston who owned a car dealership in Ellisville and his first cousins, David and Dr. James Holston. Other friends he remembers fondly include, Freida Gunn Collins, Jim Clark and Eddie Endom.

“About half of the stories and sketches are things I’ve been telling for years as a ‘stand-up’ storyteller. Pretty sure it will amuse most everybody who came of age in the 1960s and ‘70s,” shared Holston.  

The semi-retired writer’s first book was a memoir called, “Life after Deaf,” which chronicles his efforts to recover from a near total hearing loss in 2010. The book was published in 2019 and continues to sell and make Amazon’s Best Sellers List.

Ironically, the author of now two books and a long-time newspaper columnist at Newsday in New York City, was inspired by his JCJC teacher and campus newspaper/yearbook advisor, Hunter “Mack” Cole to change course and be a writer. Holston was in Cole’s English class his freshman year at JCJC. After finishing the semester, Cole recruited Holston to be the yearbook editor and to write a column for the student produced, Radionian newspaper. His assignment was to write what was “IN” at JC.

“I was supposed to suggest stuff that was ‘happ’nin’ at the school and elsewhere or what struck my fancy. My output included a review of The Beatles’ then new, ‘Sgt. Pepper’ album and columns about the blues music revival that was underway, the impact of the murder of Martin Luther King and silly stuff such as trying to calculate whether all the cigarette butts tossed on campus grounds would eventually bury the school. To my shock, I won a state student journalism prize for some sample columns Mr. Cole submitted without telling me!” said Holston.

The JCJC 1968 graduate never thought about being a writer before this chance encounter with Cole. He enjoyed “playing with words” but believed like his parents, that he should pursue a practical career, so he earned a finance degree at USM and then his MBA degree.

“The game changer was editing the USM yearbook, The Southerner, which was a paid position I got thanks to my JC Lair yearbook experience. I oversaw the 1970 and 1971 yearbooks which led to an invitation to a summer program at Harvard for students involved in campus publications. The encouragement I received there for my writing led me to seek a journalism job rather than something in banking or corporate management. My folks felt like I had run off and joined the circus, but I never regretted my choice. I got paid to write a popular culture, news, politics and social issues column for almost four decades, kind of like my ‘IN JC’ column but on a national scale.”

In 1972, Holston was hired by the Orlando Sentinel newspaper as a general assignment reporter. He later became a contributor and editor of its Sunday magazine a year later, and then was asked to be the paper’s TV-Radio columnist. Occasionally, he wrote about music, movies, theater, food, and visual art, but TV became his “meal ticket.” In 1986, Holston worked in Minneapolis and then New York, in 2000.

At Newsday, he reviewed TV shows, commented on the industry and the electronic media’s impact on society, as well as interviewed and profiled dozens of entertainment and news personalities.

“It was great fun, and it was great training for the writing I’m doing now,” said Holston. 

Currently, Noel lives in Georgia with his wife, singer-songwriter, Marty Winkler and they have two sons, a stepdaughter, and a couple of grandchildren.

ELLISVILLE- Jones College’s select vocal ensemble, JC Voices will be performing for the first time at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel, on Thursday, November 9, at 6 p.m.  The vocal performance entitled, “Original Design” is a concert filled with the message of hope in today’s worldly challenges. Choral Director, Dr. Imgyu Kang said many are still dealing with the impact of the Covid pandemic and music is a way to offer peace in the darkness.

“This world seems to be getting darker and darker with war and hunger. I believe that we were originally designed and created with blessings of joy and love to share with one another, and I hope that this concert can be a time for restoration. I hope this music will be a light in all the darkness in the world today and that it can unite us in the face of such division,” said Kang.

Some of the vocal selections performed by the 25-member ensemble include music from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, along with contemporary, hymnal and spiritual songs. Additionally, as a South Korean immigrant who has been living in the U.S. for 25 years, Dr. Kang will be sharing a Korean folk song he and his wife, Sungsil arranged called, “Arirang” which mixes the melody of the American religious hymn, “Amazing Grace” with the Korean folk song, “Arirang.”

Jones College JC Voices Fall 2023

Trinity Amason, Mize

Kimberly Arevalo, Pearl 

Marvertrius Arrington, Waynesboro

Karoline Ayres, Heidelberg

Daniel Baldwin, Meridian

Hannah Byrd, State Line

Walker Dear, Florence

Jessie Deare, Sumrall

Silas Ensign, Laurel

Caleb Griffin, Meridian

Hope Houston, Laurel

Irish Horne, Petal

Anna Grace Jolly, Laurel

Samantha Jordan, Mobile, AL

Dwight McClendon, Hattiesburg

Micah McSwain, Laurel

Danielle Parker, Laurel

Morgan Prestage, Morton

Karina Ross, Slidell, LA

Madeline Russell, Columbia

Marcus Sims, Laurel

Kyllee Sumrall, Laurel

Zoe Vanderslice, Stringer

Skylar White, Laurel

Lillian Wilson, Laurel