THE VICKSBURG POST
TOPIC SUNDAY, Oc tOber 17, 2010 • SE C TI O N C
LOCAL EVENTS CALENDAR C2 | WEDDINGS C3 Karen Gamble, managing editor | E-mail: newsreleases@vicksburgpost.com | Tel: 601.636.4545 ext 137
THIS & THAT from staff reports
Westside seeking Christmas actors The Westside Theatre Foundation is seeking actors for its production of “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.” Needed are men and women ages 10 to 60. The play is based on a 1972 book by Barbara Robinson that tells of six delinquent children who are given roles in the Sunday school Christmas play and tell the Christmas story in an unconventional fashion. Auditions will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 24-25 at the Coral Room inside The Vicksburg on Clay Street. Call 601-529-2067 or 440781-8729.
m o Fr to
n w o t e m o h d r a v r a H
Akers wins prelim to Miss Mississippi Fenly Akers of Vicksburg has been crowned Miss Heartland, a preliminary title that allows her to enter the Miss Mississippi Fenly Pageant. Akers Akers is a junior at Mississippi State University and the daughter of Tom and Lynda Akers. She will compete for the third time in the Miss Mississippi Pageant, set for next summer in Vicksburg. Akers was fourth runner up in this year’s contest.
Convention center sets Tail ‘Great’ Party The Vicksburg Convention Center and Auditorium will host a Tail “Great” Party Oct. 25, when the Dallas Cowboys play the New York Giants. Admission to watch the game on a 10-foot screen is free, but food and drinks will be sold. Call 601-636-3620, e-mail erinp@vicksburg.org or visit www.vccmeet.com for more information.
Author set to sign story of David Lorelei Books, a downtown bookseller, will host a signing event by author Michael H. Thompson Dec. 9. Thompson, of Memphis, will sign copies of “David: The Illustrated Novel” from 4 to 6 p.m. The book is an illustrated novel of the biblical story. Thompson will bring a Goliath suit of armor and replica of the Ark of the Covenant to the event. The bookstore is at 1103 Washington St. Call 601634-8624 or visit www. loreleibooks.com for more information.
Hummingbirds topic of Audubon session The Jackson Audubon Society and Wild Birds Unlimited will present a lecture featuring hummingbird experts and authors Bob and Martha Sargent. The lecture will be at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, 2148 Riverside Drive, Jackson. The event is free. Call 601-956-7444 or visit www. jacksonaudubonsociety. org.
Sam Wright talks about his military career.
ksbur
KATIE
C
ic •The V ARTER
g Pos
T
Sam Wright has been around the world, back From the bottom to the top — that’s how Sam Wright describes one phase of his life. He began the first grade at Jefferson Davis, graduated from Jett and was ultimately on the staff of Harvard GGorDoN University. Sam, who is 84, spent 30 years in the Navy, joining the ceremonies took place. when he was 17 and a senior (He was assigned to it later). in high school. That was in “We were all making prepaJanuary 1944, and he was rations (for the surrender), granted a delayed entry until I think,” he said, “but little he graduated later that year. enlisted men have no idea Two weeks after he received what’s going on. Sometimes his they’ll tell diploma, you certain he was in things on boot camp the PA, but at Camp not much.” Perry, Va., Though a seaman they recruit weren’t earning $9 told much, a month. Sam said, He joined it really the Navy, made no he said, difference “because of because, the draft. “You’re on That’s what that big old persuaded ship, and Sam Wright and one of his Navy they feed me to join the Navy uniforms you and — I didn’t put you to want no part of the Army.” bed at night, and you just go He got into the action in where the ship goes.” 1945, during the Okinawa There were no surface batCampaign, spending 66 days tles as the war neared an end cruising off Okinawa, and because the Japanese had when that battle was over his lost practically all of their ship was sent to the China fleet. When the war ended, Sea, part of the wrap up as he said, the ship he was on, the war was winding down. the USS Guam, was sent One incident he recalled was to patrol the area between when a boarding party was Korea and China, “But I don’t sent ashore to see what was know for what reason.” in a big old building. Sam He left the service in 1946, finagled his way in on that couldn’t find a job, so he venture, but all they found went to machinists school were crudely made Japanese at Prairie, north of Mayhew rifles. Junction, a training program He was at sea when the associated with Mississippi Japanese surrendered, but State. After he graduated, he not on the Missouri where still couldn’t find a job, so he
ccOttON
A young Sam Wright, second from left, gives a tour of the USS Intrepid. went back into the Navy. Sam was on the USS North Hampton from 1953 to 1959, a heavy cruiser that saw a lot of action as a training vessel for midshipmen who were in the Navy Academy or other colleges. They came aboard
for several months in the summers, working with the crew, learning about shipboard life and “stuff like that. Sometimes we went to the Mediterranean, Brazil or the Scandinavian countries.” Sam saw a lot of places he
had studied about in geography class in school, “though I didn’t pay much attention to it then. Now I know a lot about it. There are few places in this world I haven’t been, See Wright, Page C5.