FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 28, 2008
Contact: Anika Mitchell Perkins
(662) 329-7124

MUW to award three Medals of Excellence

COLUMBUS, Miss. – Mississippi University for Women will award three Medals of Excellence on Friday, May 30. Awarded since 1979, the Medal of Excellence is the university’s highest non-degree honor.

The special recognitions will take place on campus during dinner at 6:30 p.m. in Pope Banquet Room.

This year’s recipients are Dr. Suzanne Bean, Rep. Esther Harrison and Charles W. Ritter Jr.

Before retiring recently, Bean served as director of the Roger F. Wicker Center for Creative Learning and professor of education at MUW. For the past 27 years, Bean has served in the field of gifted studies as a teacher of gifted students, director of the Mississippi Governor’s School and founder and director of various other programs for gifted students and their teachers and parents. She has served as director of graduate studies and coordinator of graduate programs in education at MUW. In the past four years, she has brought more than $5 million grant monies to MUW.

She has co-authored seven books and has had numerous publications in professional journals. She has co-authored a textbook for teachers of gifted students, “Methods and Materials for Teaching the Gifted.” Bean is on the Editorial Review Board for Gifted Child Quarterly and the Journal for Secondary Gifted Education.

Dr. Bean also has co-authored numerous grants and was the lead author of the grant that established the Roger F. Wicker Center for Creative Learning. For the past two decades, she has made numerous presentations at the state, regional and national levels. She served as president of the Mississippi Association for Gifted Children and she is currently serving as chairperson for the Advisory Board for the organization. Her dissertation and continued research has been in the area of developing leadership potential in children and adults. She also completed the Leadership Mississippi program sponsored by the Mississippi Economic Council. Bean recently was granted emeriti status.

Rep. Harrison has begun serving her ninth year in the Mississippi House of Representatives. She chairs the State Library Committee and serves on the following committees: Medicaid, Education (K-12), Ports, Harbors and Airports and Colleges and Universities.

The Columbus native has received numerous awards and citations for her contributions and involvement in her church, community, state and national organizations.

She is a former school teacher, director of the Tenn-Tom Waterway Minority Business Development Office, project officer for Arc and construction assistant training manager for B&K Construction Company.

Rep. Harrison received her bachelor’s degree from Alcorn A&M University and master’s from MUW.

She is a member of Turner Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where she serves as musician and president of the Missionary Society.

Ritter of Kosciusko is president of JRS, Inc. He also is a member of Sanderson Farms, Inc. Board of Directors, First M&F Corporation and Merchants and Farmers Bank Board of Directors.

He has served as past president and owner or past president and director of the following: The Attala Company in Kosciusko, American Corn Millers Federation and Mississippi Feed and Grain Association.

His civic involvement includes organizations such as the Kosciusko Rotary Club, Kosciusko Foundation for Excellence in Education, MUW Foundation Board, Mississippi State University Foundation, MSU Alumni Foundation, Mid-Mississippi Regional Library System, Attala County Library, Air University, Montfort Jones Memorial Hospital, American Cancer Society and the Andrew Jackson Council, Boy Scouts of America.

He has received many honors including the Golden Shovel Award from the Kosciusko-Attala Chamber of Commerce-Industrial Development Corporation, the Silver Beaver Award from the Andrew Jackson Council, Boy Scouts of America and Alumnus of the Year from the MSU College of Agriculture.

Ritter is a member of Kosciusko First United Methodist Church and has served in various capacities at his church.

He is married to Carolyn Smithson Ritter, a 1957 graduate of MUW.