Wendy Eddleman
As I listened to Wendy Eddleman at Flashbacks Espresso Café in Byram, I couldn't help thinking of those serene beauties often seen in Renaissance paintings. Not only is the 29-year-old Jackson native outwardly lovely, but an evident inner strength and capability makes her glow.
Cyrus Webb
Read about Cyrus Webb's more recent activities and controversies here
Susan Haltom
Can you even imagine your first job right out of the University of Mississippi being curator of exhibits at the Old Capitol? And then, almost 20 years later, when you're back with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History—part time—being asked to go check on Miss Welty's yard? And having that turn into a 10-year-long odyssey of cohesive research and tireless effort that culminated this past weekend with the opening of the garden at Eudora Welty's Belhaven home?
Nina Parikh
Nina Flaminiano Parikh isn't the sort of name you'd expect for the associate manager of the Mississippi Film Office, but that's what the 30-year-old answers to (even after April 10 when she says will also be honored to be called Mrs. Jerel Levanway). That exotic name fits her to a T. Her looks—her dad is Indian, and her mom is Filipino—might convince you she belongs in front of the camera, though.
Jill Conner Browne
Mississippians are so used to being on the bottom that, without provocation, we'll take aim at our own feet and fire at will just to prove we can blow a damned toe off. That's my thought whenever I hear someone whine about how Mal's St. Paddy's Parade has gotten "too big," or balk at joining the thousands of tiara-ed and sequined "wannabes" who drive, fly and hitchhike into Jackson every March to eat, drink and be friggin' merry enough to last another 11 months or so. It is unfathomable to me that a single Jacksonian would take for granted what Jill Conner Browne has done for this city and its residents.
Jobie Martin
In the library at Morrison Academic Advancement Center, where he substitute-teaches, Jobie Martin's delivery is as graceful, his timing as sharp, his voice as mellifluous as when he was hosting James Brown, Joe Louis and Mahalia Jackson in the 1970s, back when he was the first African American in Mississippi to host a commercial TV program.
Dan Joyner
I met with Dan Joyner recently at Cups, in the heart of the Fondren district where, as Joyner puts it, people interested in the arts can hang out together. Joyner, 28, himself is an example of creativity nurtured. Now he is the area manager for Cups, but when I first met him in the spring of 1993, his senior year at Forest Hill High School in South Jackson, I also met his parents Evelyn and Robert. Like many supportive parents, they were again involved with one of Dan's creative undertakings—Colonel's Classics, a Forest Hill tradition that gave high school students, aided by dedicated teachers, a place to hang out: to write scripts, build sets, rehearse and present skits to an audience of their peers and loved ones in packed auditoriums.
Monique Guillory
Dr. Monique Guillory has been busy for the last few years. As deputy chief of staff for Jackson State University President Ronald Mason since 2000, the 34-year-old New Orleanian met myriad goals: the restoration of Gibbs-Green Week at Jackson State, commemorating two young men killed on campus by police in 1970; starting the President's Newsletter that keeps 35,000 alumni up-to-date; strategic planning for the university's Millennium Agenda; and writing a grant to fund a collaborative education project. And two years ago her son Julien was born. "The French spelling," she explained. "It's those Louisiana roots."
Luis Bruno
If you believe that life can come full circle, you might also buy that some people's lives have more than one circle. Circle No.1 for 34-year-old Luis Bruno started when he was 13 in Tivoli, N.Y.—upstate about 20 miles from Hyde Park where his family had moved from his native Bronx—at his brother's business called Bruno's. "It was a produce, meat ... seafood market, dairy … deli … [and] a pizzeria later on, from there we had a family restaurant," he says. Bruno decided that attending culinary school was the next logical step for him. He packed up and moved to Clearwater, Fla., where he attended Pinellas Technical Education Center for two years. There he met his wife, Kathleen, a native of Mississippi, while in school. "We graduated top in our class," Bruno states with a soft glow in his brown eyes. After graduation and getting married in 1995, the Brunos moved to Jackson to be near her family.
Caleb Hampton
If it weren't for the deep teal blue sign perpendicular to the street, I wouldn't have noticed the unassuming rectangle of concrete blocks at 3028 W. Northside Drive. Caleb Hampton, a Jacksonian who will turn 56 on Jan. 1, has owned and operated Hamp's Place, what I call an old-school-style club, since 1997. He opened his first club, Stardust, in 1975, back behind Hamp's on the Strip—on Moonbeam Street, just one block past Sunray Drive. It took some convincing by a friend who ran Birdland, but finally Hampton gave in. "I said, 'I'm going to try it for a minute,' and I've been trying it ever since," he told me in a deep, quietly resonant voice.
Debra Kassoff
Seated demurely before me was the first rabbi I'd ever met—a slim clear-eyed young woman who looks like she could be a lawyer, a teacher, a counselor—not the stereotypical picture I have in my head of a rabbi—a man with a beard, wearing glasses and a yarmulke on his head. Debra Kassoff, 33 and a native of Maryland, joined the staff of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in April 2003 as the director of Rabbinic services. Based on the old-time tradition of the itinerant rabbi, Kassoff serves small Jewish communities in 12 Southern states.
Seetha Srinivasan
From her fifth-floor window at the Education and Research Center of Mississippi—known as the R&D Center by most—Seetha Srinivasan has a splendid view of the surrounding trees. Not that she's got her head in the clouds. This petite lady—dressed, always, in her traditional sari—was born 60 years ago Dec. 27 in Bangalore, India. Today she has her feet planted firmly in the state she calls home and where she serves as director of the University Press of Mississippi.
Rhonda Richmond
Rhonda Richmond's voice comes as a complete surprise. An earthy, organic, smooth sound weaves itself around your soul and into your heart. I first heard Richmond sing, swaying softly to the music, for the small crowd of jazz-lovers gathered at the Mississippi Museum of Art atrium on an October Thursday.
The Rev. Ed King
June 18, 1963: Just six days after Medgar Evers had been assassinated in Jackson, white civil rights fighters Ed King and John Salter lay unconscious in Salter's blue 1961 Rambler on Hanging Moss Road—victims of what official police records called a traffic accident. "The accident destroyed the foundation of what we were trying to do; Medgar was dead and we were unconscious," King told me.
Anna Barber
What little girl hasn't dreamed of being a princess? Anna Barber, a 20-year-old member of the Gena Band of Choctaw Indians in Gena, La., not only had that dream, but she was actually crowned princess when she was 15.