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22, 2013 | V
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MISSISSIPPIAN T h e S t u d e n t N e w s pa p e r
of
The University
of
M i ss i ss i p p i | S e r v i n g O l e M i ss
UM law professors Bradley, Weems to retire in May
and
ltkirkla@go.olemiss.edu
COURTESY UM COMMUNICATIONS
BY Michael Quirk mwquirk@go.olemiss.edu
Two law professors with a combined 83 years of teaching at The University of Mississippi will retire after this semester. John Robin Bradley, a native of Inverness, Miss., practiced with Wise, Smith & Carter after graduating from the Ole Miss law school in 1962. After a year with the Jackson firm, Bradley went to work as a corporate in-house lawyer in Yazoo City, Miss. He worked for the Mississippi Chemical Corporation and Coastal Chemicals for two and a half years before joining the Ole Miss faculty in 1966. After finishing his second semester of law school at the top of his class, Bradley was asked to join the staff after graduation by Bob Farley, then the dean of the law school. Bradley decided to practice law before taking him up on the offer. “The law school was changing in the middle-1960s. A couple faculty members left because of age and a couple because of (James) Meredith,” Bradley said. “So the faculty was young and forward-thinking. It was an exciting place, and I was happy to have an opportunity to be a part of that.” Aside from teaching courses on contracts and corporations,
Bradley has taught classes on workers’ compensation and wrote a book entitled “Mississippi Workers’ Compensation” in 1996. He writes a new edition annually and plans to continue that after he retires. Bradley has taught “thousands” of students, including Ronnie Musgrove, Bill Waller and Roger Wicker. Prize-winning author John Grisham’s first class at Ole Miss was Contracts with Bradley, and he later took Workers’ Compensation. Grisham’s son’s first class at the Ole Miss law school also happened to be Contracts with Bradley. Grisham remembers his days in Bradley’s classes and parallels his own experiences with his son’s. “(Bradley) has a real keen, sarcastic humor, and we needed laughs,” he said. “My son would call me and tell me Bradley’s one-liners and I would laugh and say, ‘Yup, I heard that one about 30 years ago.’” Former Ole Miss Chancellor Robert Khayat said he believes Bradley’s teaching will leave a lasting legacy at the university. “It was a very high-quality experience in his classroom. The lasting impressions students got from him were very positive and that will live on in the lore of the law school,” Khayat said.
In addition to annually updating his books during his retirement, Bradley will teach one Workers Compensation class each spring semester. No single moment stands out to Bradley in his 47 years of teaching, but one process does. “What is gratifying is watching students who come in not knowing the subject but then develop a really good touch and understanding with how to use it. The maturation process, that’s what is really gratifying to me,” he said. Robert Weems, an Ole Miss professor since 1977, will also retire after this semester. A native of Jackson, Miss., Weems graduated from Millsaps College in 1959 before teaching mathematics at Chastain Junior High School in Jackson. After two years at Chastain, Weems enrolled at the Ole Miss law school and graduated in August of 1966. Following his graduation, he practiced law in Vicksburg, Miss., for five years as an associate with Brunini, Everett, Grantham and Quin and six years as a partner with Brunini, Everett, Beanland and Wheeless. In 1977, Weems received a phone call from Khayat, inviting him to join the faculty at the See RETIRE, PAGE 4
since
1911
Medicinal Garden formally dedicated to its developer BY Logan Kirkland
John Robin Bradley and Robert Weems
Oxford
Ole Miss will formally dedicate its new Maynard W. Quimby Medicinal Plant Garden on Wednesday. The portion of the School of Pharmacy’s natural products research center named for Quimby has relocated to a few facility at Insight Park and is being dedicated in honor of its namesake researcher. Derek Oglesby, senior staff researcher at the garden, explained Quimby’s work with the university’s research program. “The plant garden has been named after Dr. Maynard W. Quimby, who joined the pharmacognosy department working to develop the garden into small plots for growing plants to provide their materials for research pur-
poses,” Oglesby said. “His timeless efforts and dedication to the garden and School of Pharmacy were rewarded.” The new facility is built on five acres of land and includes an administrative and laboratory building, a herbarium, a seed bank and a taxonomy lab where plants can be identified. The facility also features a storage tank capable of capturing up to 20,000 gallons of rainwater. The medicinal plant garden’s roots date back to 1965 when university professor Norman Doorenbos began to study the chemistry of some native plants. Quimby then worked to expand the garden after joining the department in 1967. Oglesby and Ikhlas Khan, director of the garden, said the purpose of the See GARDEN, PAGE 5
GREEN WEEK 2013 SCHEDULE
GRAPHIC BY WILL STROUTH | The Daily Mississippian