Jackson Free Press

Jackson State University will host its homecoming parade in downtown Jackson on Saturday, Oct. 12, beginning at 8 a.m.

NFL Hall of Famer Robert "Dr. Doom" Brazile will serve as parade grand marshal. After graduating from JSU, Brazile played for the Houston Oilers from 1975 to 1985. JSU inducted him into the JSU Sports Hall of Fame in 2003, and he entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018.

The parade route will begin at Court and State streets and go north on State Street then left onto East Pearl Street. Then, it will move left to S. West Street and return to Court and State streets.

On Thursday, Oct. 10, rap artists Lil Baby and LightSkinKeisha will hold a concert in the Lee E. Williams Athletics and Assembly Center at 7 p.m. Students can purchase tickets in the JSU Business Office, and nonstudents can purchase them in the JSU Campus Store.

JSU will hold its Homecoming Yard Fest on Friday, Oct. 11, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The event will include performances by the Sonic Boom of the South, JSU cheerleaders and the JSU Dance Ensemble, and food trucks on the Gibbs-Green Plaza.

The Homecoming game between the JSU Tigers and the Alabama State University Hornets will take place on Saturday, Oct. 12, at 2 p.m. at the Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium.

For more information, visit jsums.edu.

MSU Opens MaxxSouth Digital Media Center

Mississippi State University held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new MaxxSouth Digital Media Center on Monday, Oct. 7, inside the Mitchell Memorial Library.

MaxxSouth Broadband donated $440,000 to MSU to construct the digital media center and provided an accompanying endowment to support the facility's upkeep, MSU said in a release. MSU's Office of the Provost, the College of Arts and Sciences and its department of communication, the University Television Center and MSU Libraries also contributed to the renovation.

The MaxxSouth Digital Media Center will include an audio and video recording studio; a makerspace and multimedia lab with 3D printers, two sewing machines, and craft supplies for sewing, knitting, building and modeling; the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems Mixed Reality Studio, which features virtual reality stations with Oculus Rifts, Microsoft HoloLenses and two developmental computers; a television broadcast studio for class instruction and a weekly, live news show by broadcasting majors; and a collaboration studio for meetings and study for groups of five or more, as well as individual study areas.

John Block, an owner of Block Communications Inc., of which MaxxSouth Broadband is a subsidiary, also started the John Block Special Collection Excellence Fund, which will help the MSU Libraries acquire, maintain and display rare books for its special collections division.

For more information on the MSU Libraries, call 662-325-6762 or email [email protected].

USM Launches Fundraiser for Quinlan-Hammond Hall of Honor

The University of Southern Mississippi's USM Foundation recently launched a campaign to raise $2.4 million to construct a new building to house the Quinlan-Hammond Hall of Honor. The new facility will be located at the corner of Thirty-Fifth Avenue and Pearl Street in Hattiesburg.

Quinlan-Hammond is currently located in a 1,600 square-foot refurbished building on the west side of the Hattiesburg campus, but has outgrown its current space, a release from USM says. The new Quinlan-Hammond building will be a 5,200 square-foot facility with a conference room, study space, a library with a lounge and study, meeting areas and staff office space.

The tentative completion date of the building is fall of 2021. When finished, the center will be able to house more than 1,700 student veterans, service members and their families, the release says. The university will use any funds raised over the construction and furnishing costs to create an endowment to support the center.

For information on USM Foundation, visit usmfoundation.com. To support the building initiative, visit usmfoundation.com/Veterans.