Dallas

Created, written, and performed by David Dallas, A Gentleman from Mississippi: One Man Salutes Senator John C. Stennis was featured in August at the university’s McComas Hall theater.

The presentation was sponsored by the Stennis Center for Public Service, the Starkville-based agency established by the United States Congress as a national tribute to the DeKalb native who entered the Senate in 1947 and went on to become its president pro tempore.

Stennis, a 1923 Mississippi A&M College graduate, returned to campus in 1988 following his retirement. Nearly 90 at the time, he lived in a university residence for several years before declining health required his relocation to a full-care facility near Jackson.

Dallas, a former Cleveland resident, was among the MSU graduate students who served for two years as personal Stennis aides. In Gentleman from Mississippi, he portrays three characters: himself as a Stennis caregiver; Stennis as a frail and wheelchair-bound former national leader; and Stennis at the height of his senatorial power.

Stennis died in 1995 and is buried in DeKalb.

After completing his master’s degree in public administration at MSU in 1990, Dallas went to Washington as a Presidential Management Intern in federal service. He also holds a bachelor’s in political science and English literature at Delta State University, where his father teaches history.