Contact: Brad Moreland
STARKVILLE, Miss.—Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour will visit Mitchell Memorial Library at Mississippi State University next week as part of a national book tour.
Free and open to all, the Monday [August 24] event will take place from 2:30-5 p.m. in the third-floor John Grisham Room, where Barbour will discuss and sign copies of his new book titled “America’s Great Storm: Leading through Hurricane Katrina.”
The 276-page personal memoir highlights the many leadership lessons Barbour learned and employed in a time of massive crisis.
Barbour was assisted by contributing author Jere Nash. The book's foreword is by Ricky Mathews.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event. Purchases also may be made via Amazon at http://bit.ly/BarbourKatrinaBook.
“When Hurricane Katrina hit Mississippi on August 29, 2005, it unleashed the costliest and third-deadliest natural disaster in American history. Barbour had been Mississippi’s governor for only 20 months when he assumed responsibility for guiding his home state’s recovery and rebuilding efforts,” according to the book’s publisher, University Press of Mississippi.
For the book, Barbour and his colleagues interviewed more than 45 key people—local, state and federal officials to private citizens—who played pivotal roles in helping Mississippi recover following Katrina’s landfall.
The book discusses the special legislative session that allowed casinos to build on shore and the role of the recovery commission chaired by Jim Barksdale. Along with providing a behind-the-scenes description of work done with Congress to pass an unprecedented, multi-billion-dollar emergency disaster assistance appropriation, the book discusses the enormous roles played by volunteers in rebuilding the entire housing, transportation and education infrastructure of south Mississippi and the Gulf Coast.
Barbour, a native of Yazoo City, served as governor from 2004-12. In addition to two terms as the state’s chief executive, he is a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and former White House political affairs director.
For more information on the book signing or to request special assistance relating to a disability, contact Mandy Page at 662-325-0813 or mpage@library.msstate.edu. Additional event details also may be found at http://library.msstate.edu/barbour.
MSU is Mississippi’s flagship research university, available online at www.msstate.edu.