MSU, Cotesworth Center to honor veterans with ‘Through the Lines: Holiday Letters from the Front’

Contact: Anna Owens

A large white antebellum two-story home with columns and green grass in the front yard
The Cotesworth Culture and Heritage Center in North Carrollton (Photo submitted)

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State University Libraries continues its “Mississippi Land and Literature” series this holiday season by paying tribute to veterans through readings of historical letters.

Free and open to all, “Through the Lines: Holiday Letters from the Front” takes place Sunday [Dec. 8] at 2 p.m. at the Cotesworth Culture and Heritage Center in North Carrollton. A reception follows at the center located at 6151 Highway 17 North.

The event will highlight not only soldiers’ sacrifices during wartime, but their experiences of being away from home during the holidays.

Doug Robinson, an Air Force veteran and program coordinator for MSU’s G.V. “Sonny” Montgomery Center for America’s Veterans, will read a selection of wartime letters from MSU Libraries’ Special Collections.

Additional program participants include Carroll County residents Wilton Sanders, a World War II Navy veteran, and Linda Cooper Perkins, who has compiled a book of letters from her father, also a World War II veteran. 

The “Mississippi Land and Literature” series seeks to commemorate the state’s agricultural and literary history. The series was designated in 2017 as an official Mississippi Bicentennial event and received funding through Mississippi Bicentennial grants from the Mississippi Development Authority and Mississippi Humanities Council. Maintained by MSU Libraries, the program furthers the university’s community outreach mission and by providing free cultural heritage programming to a rural area.

For more information about MSU Libraries, visit www.lib.msstate.edu

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.

Thursday, December 5, 2019 - 8:15 am