Mississippi State University recently announced that its annual Charles H. Templeton Ragtime and Jazz Festival will take place in a virtual format on March 26 and 27. The 15th annual event is free and open to the public and will include two shows, one on each day, which MSU will stream live at 7 p.m. on Facebook, YouTube and Vimeo, as well as on MSTV for CSpire Fiber and MaxxSouth Broadband customers. Streaming links will be available at festival.library.msstate.edu/schedule prior to each show.

The March 26 program will include selections from ragtime and jazz musicians featured at previous festivals from 2010 to 2020. Performers include Reginald Robinson, Brian Holland, Adam Swanson, Carl Sonny Leyland, Steve Cheeseborough, Stephanie Trick, Paolo Alderighi, Mimi Blais, Eddie Erickson, Martin Spitznagel, Virginia Tichenor, Richard Dowling and Frederick Hodges.

The first half of the March 27 show will feature 2020 festival performance footage of Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, Stephanie Trick and Paolo Alderighi, Bill Edwards and Jeff Barnhart. The second half of the show will include video performances by this year’s invited artists, including Ivory&Gold, TJ Müller, Brunious-Hook Duo, Josh Duffee and Millenia Musicae.

MSU Libraries will also present the seventh annual Keyone Docher Student Achievement Award to MSU junior music education major Eli Denson of Decatur, Ala., during the March 27 program. Denson will perform after the award ceremony.

Event sponsors include MSU Libraries, the Charles H. Templeton Sr. Music Museum, MaxxSouth Broadband, the City of Starkville, the Mississippi Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.

For more information, call 662-325-6634, visit festival.library.msstate.edu or email [email protected].

JSU Launches John and Vera Mae Perkins Scholarship

Jackson State University recently received a $200,000 donation from Pinelake Church in partnership with the Perkins Foundation to create the John and Vera Mae Perkins Scholarship. The university will match the contribution with Title III funds, bringing the endowment to $400,000.

Named for minister, civil rights activist, author and community developer John Perkins and his wife, Vera Mae Perkins, the Perkins Scholarship is designed for students in need of financial assistance who are likely the first in their family to attend college and demonstrate good character, a release from JSU says.

John and Vera Mae Perkins moved from California to Mendenhall, Miss., during the 1960s. Over a period of 12 years, John Perkins founded one of Mississippi’s first Head Start Programs, youth programs, a cooperative farm, a thrift store, a housing repair ministry, a health center and an adult education program. The couple also worked together to organize communities during the Civil Rights era with marches and community action.

For more information, visit jsums.edu.

USM Announces 2021 Ezra Jack Keats Award Winners

The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation and the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi recently announced the winners of the 2021 Ezra Jack Keats Award, as well as five honorees. The annual EJK Award honors exceptional early career authors and illustrators for portraying the multicultural nature of the world, a release from USM says. This year's event marks the 35th anniversary of the EJK Award.

Tricia Elam Walker won the 2021 EJK Writer Award for "Nana Akua Goes to School," while Heidi Woodward Sheffield won the Illustrator Award for "Brick by Brick."

Raymond Antrobus and Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey won Writer Honors Awards for "Can Bears Ski?" and "The Old Truck," while Steve Small and Victoria Tentler-Krylov won Illustrator Honors Awards for "I'm Sticking with You" and "Cyclops of Central Park."

The virtual award ceremony for the 2021 awards will take place on April 13 during the Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival at USM in Hattiesburg.

For more information about the 35th anniversary celebration, which includes author events, a silent auction and a new documentary film about the evolution of diversity in American children's literature and the impact of Ezra Jack Keats, click here.