She wanted to follow her dream, so Lea Margaret McLaurin sold her business, packed up, and left small-town Mississippi for a sprawling, nine-acre hotel in fast-growing Nashville, Tenn.

Hollandale native joined the Opryland Hotel and Attractions-"the largest hotel and convention center under one roof in the world"-in December 1999 as one of its five catering sales managers.

Five months later she confesses, "I feel like I jumped in with two feet and kept running.

McLaurin is responsible for scheduling events at the hotel for local nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals.

"In December I have the company Christmas parties to put together and February and March begins the season of nonprofit organizations' fundraisers. Somewhere in between there are corporate meetings, company picnics, and senior proms to plan."

McLaurin and other managers in the catering department put the personality into Opryland's hospitality each day, focusing special attention on groups as small as 10 and as large as 5,000.

While caterers in the convention side of the hotel delegate and separate duties, McLaurin does a little bit of every- thing-from selecting food and decorations to planning the entire event.

"Doing everything" is a concept not unfamiliar to the 1990 Mississippi State graduate. While she was working on a bachelor's degree in human sciences, she began making wedding accessories that she sold through her mother, a wedding consultant. This led to her forming her own business, Lea Margaret and Co.

After graduating from MSU and moving back to her hometown of Hollandale, McLaurin's firm purchased a children's accessory manufacturing company in Dallas and moved it lock, stock, and barrette to the Delta. Lea Margaret and Co. designs eventually were featured in national catalogs and stores. In addition, she designed and sold Bulldog jewelry through the company.

She and her mother were partners until her mother's untimely death in 1996. To help cope, McLaurin decided she would remedy the lack of a floral shop in Hollandale and opened one herself. She also found the time to do some catering. Ultimately, though, all this wasn't enough and McLaurin sold her company and the flower shop and moved to the country music capital.

"I needed a change, personally," she explains. "I was married to my business and felt like I was wasting my talents. I wanted to be somewhere I could show what I was capable of doing."

Since she already had friends in Nashville and liked the city she calls "a small town in a big town," she began talking to people and found a job there.

And while she has been extremely active in the past with the MSU Alumni Association, she hasn't yet had much time to get involved with the Nashville chapter. But, don't expect that to last. The 2000 Alumnus of the Year for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences plans to take an active role in the near future.

"I'm looking forward to getting involved in this chapter. MSU is a big interest of mine and I always like to tell people how much my human sciences degree fits in with where I work."

So, is she happy about making that big change from small-town entrepreneur to one in a cast of thousands at a major corporation?

"I love what I do and the team spirit of the people I work with," she says, "and our management (owner Gaylord Entertainment Co.) encourages innovative and creative ideas."

McLaurin could be describing herself when she adds, "There are visionaries in this company."