Milam students beat stock market

- Sixth-grade students at Milam Elementary in Tupelo swept the junior division of the Mid-South Regional of the Tennessee Stock Market Game.

The game gave students studying the stock market a fictional $100,000 to build a stock portfolio in five companies and then tracked to results over 10 weeks.

First-, second- and third-place teams were recognized at AutoZone Park before a Memphis Redbirds game. The winners received a cash award and medal. They were:

First place: Kelli Repult, Daniel Patterson and Christian Henderson; second place: Max Southworth, Lauren Kate Carter and Amy Haadsma; and third place: Lydia Smith, Marcelino Quiej and Mallie Hunt.

This year, 48 of the top 50 teams in the junior division came from Milam.

Lending company endows scholarship

- An agricultural lending company has made an investment in the University of Southern Mississippi

The Southern AgCredit Board of Directors donated $25,000 to create an endowment to provide scholarships to students at USM's College of Business.

The scholarship will be awarded to a full-time undergraduate student enrolled in the College of Business or an incoming freshman entering the College of Business.

The company has a branch in Hattiesburg.

Career center students earn competition awards

- Students from the Tupelo Career-Technical Center have taken top awards at two competitions.

Two students from the career center recently competed in the District Skills USA Competition.

Donterrio Barker won first place in Job Demonstration of the Scan Tool in Automotive Technology. Cody Calloway won third place in the Technical Drawing Competition in Drafting.

A team of three students - Zachary Moore, Tyler Durham and Blake Basting - placed fifth in the state at the Ford Motor Company/AAA Student Skills Contest and placed in the state competition.

The students were awarded a $2,000 scholarship to Nashville Auto Diesel College and a $1,500 scholarship to Ohio Technical College.

Food Service Institute names new leader

- The National Food Service Management Institute will have a new leader starting Thursday.

Katie Wilson, who has 22 years as a school nutrition director, will take over as executive director of the institute which is based at the University of Mississippi. She currently serves as the school nutrition director for Onalaska Public Schools in Onalaska, Wis., and chairs the board of the School Nutrition Foundation.

Wilson holds a bachelor's degree in dietetics, a master's in food science and nutrition and a doctoral degree in food service and lodging management.

She has won a USDA best practice award for her Junior Chefs Nutrition Education Program.

MUW announces faculty of the year

- Dr. George V. Pinchuk, associate professor of biology was name the faculty member of the year at Mississippi University for Women.

MUW's Mortar Board Honor Society and Alumni Association co-sponsor the annual award. Nominations were accepted from students, and the faculty member with the most votes was selected for the honor.

Born and raised in Ukraine, Pinchuk graduated from Kiev Medical School and completed a medical doctorate/doctorate program in medical genetics at the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR and postdoctoral

He has taught at Mississippi University for Women since 2004.

Mississippi family adds to scholarship

- A family with deep roots in Mississippi and education has added $70,000 to a scholarship fund at the University of Mississippi.

The scholarship honors John Napier III's parents, John H. Napier Jr. and Lena Mae Napier, who inspired him and his brother, Eastman Francis Tate Napier, also an Ole Miss alum, to establish a scholarship fund in 1989.

The elder Napiers were native Mississippians, but they live and worked in Arizona and California before returning home to Pearl River County.

John Napier III recently arranged the additional $70,000 gift through his brother's estate in England.

Napier and his wife, Cameron, live in Ramer, Ala., in addition to a career in the United States Air Force, Napier is an author and historian.

The scholarship benefits students from Pearl River and adjacent counties.