JACKSON – On Sept. 28, Gov. Haley Barbour honored 11 people with the Mississippi Medal of Service, saying their work in business, education, entertainment, politics and the judiciary has made the state a better place to live.
“Every one of them, in a very important way, has made a difference for our state,” Barbour said during a ceremony at the Woolfolk state office building in downtown Jackson.
Some of the honorees, including retired state Court of Appeals Judge Mary Libby Payne, come from families who have lived in Mississippi for generations.
One of them, former state Board of Education member Lucimarian Roberts of Pass Christian, grew up in Ohio and moved to Mississippi in 1975, when she was 45. Her family was transferred to the state for her husband’s military career.
Roberts was the first black woman to chair the Mississippi Board of Education and to become president of the Mississippi Coast Coliseum Commission. She said people in Ohio often ask her when she is going leave Mississippi and return home.
“This is my home,” she said.
Roberts is the mother of Good Morning America host, Robin Roberts.
Payne was among the first group of judges – and the first woman – on the Court of Appeals. She served from January 1995 through July 2001. Payne said she comes from a family with a long history of public service, including a grandfather who was the first president of the University of Southern Mississippi, a father who served 20 years in the Legislature and a husband who has worked in law enforcement in Pearl.
“Public service is its own reward, but this medal is the icing on the cake,” Payne said.
Barbour, a Republican who leaves office in January, created the Medal of Service award two years ago to recognize people whose work has boosted the state.
This year’s other recipients are:
Former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Reuben Anderson, a Jackson native who grew up during segregation in the 1950s and 1960s and worked as a civil-rights attorney. In 1985, he became the first black justice on the state Supreme Court when he was appointed by then-Gov. Bill Allain. Anderson served six years before returning to private practice.
Barbour recalled that when he was a young attorney, he practiced law in front of Anderson, who was then a Hinds County circuit judge. “He’s been somebody who’s meant a lot to me as well as to our state,” Barbour said.
Businessman Jim Barksdale, a Jackson native and former president and chief executive officer of Netscape Communications Corp. In 2000, he and his late wife, Sally, donated $100 million to establish the Barksdale Reading Institute, which has boosted literacy efforts across Mississippi. After Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, Barbour appointed Barksdale to lead a recovery commission. Barbour noted that during the 2003 governor’s race, Barksdale was the biggest financial supporter of Democratic incumbent Ronnie Musgrove – the man Barbour unseated. That prompted laughter from many in the audience.
“He learned a lot,” Barksdale said of Barbour. “And I supported him the next time.”
Republican U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, a Pontotoc native who grew up in Byram. After serving in the Navy and practicing law in Jackson, Cochran was elected to the U.S. House in a central Mississippi district in 1972 and to the U.S. Senate in 1978. He is the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and helped bring billions of dollars to Mississippi and other Gulf Coast states after Katrina, Barbour said.
Cochran thanked Barbour for the medal and said the governor had gotten carried away in his praise of the disaster recovery funding. “We don’t want an audit,” Cochran deadpanned.
Former University of Mississippi Chancellor Robert Khayat, a Moss Point native. Khayat played for the NFL’s Washington Redskins from 1960 to 1964. He earned a law degree from Yale and was a law professor at his undergraduate alma mater, the University of Mississippi, where he taught Barbour. Khayat was chosen Ole Miss chancellor in 1995. He led three fundraising campaigns that brought $900 million to the university before he retired in 2009.
Blues legend B.B. King, who grew up in the Mississippi Delta. King has released more than 50 albums and achieved worldwide fame in a career that spans back to the late 1940s. King did not attend the medal ceremony, but Barbour said the singer and guitar player has been an ambassador for the state.
Former University of Southern Mississippi President Aubrey Lucas, a native of State Line, Miss. Lucas served four years as president of Delta State University four years before serving 22 years in the presidency of USM . Lucas was the state’s interim commissioner for higher education from 2008 to 2009.
Democratic Mississippi House Speaker Billy McCoy, a Rienzi native. McCoy was elected to the Mississippi House in 1980 and has served as chairman of several powerful committees, including Education and Ways and Means. He was elected speaker in 2004 and 2008, and is not seeking re-election to the House this year.
“The news media likes to write about our fighting,” Barbour said, but he described McCoy as a friend and “someone for whom I have great affection.”
Former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Ed Pittman who grew up in Hattiesburg. He served in the Mississippi Senate from 1964 to 1972; as state treasurer from 1976 to 1980; as secretary of state from 1980 to 1984; and as attorney general from 1984 to 1988. He served on the state Supreme Court from January 1989 through March 2004. He was chief justice from January 2001 until he retired.
Jackson businessman Cornelius Turner. He established a contracting company Major Associates Inc., in 1963, and was one of the first black contractors in Mississippi to become bonded. Barbour said Turner once shared an office with Medgar Evers, the Mississippi NAACP leader who was assassinated in Jackson in 1963. Turner’s company has worked on several large construction projects, including the $52 million Capital City Convention Center in Jackson.
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