The Town & Tower Club presented the annual awards for outstanding service at its annual holiday luncheon held Thursday at Mississippi University for Women.
This year’s recipients are Phillip Stockton, assistant professor of music education and director of choral activities at Mississippi University for Women, and Chuck Yarborough, history instructor at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science.
Stockton is the recipient of Town & Tower Club’s Campus Service Award and Yarborough is the Community Service Award winner.
Campus service
The Campus Service Award is presented to an individual and/or organization demonstrating any of the following: Long-serving contributions to the campus community or to a local community organization, nonprofit or city initiative, accomplishments that have brought positive recognition to The W and the area, volunteerism that has improved the quality of life, health, education or potential for economic growth in the area and notable recognition beyond the area.
Since arriving at The W in 2013, Stockton has worked to build relationships with students, campus and the Columbus community. Stockton has traveled with The W’s choir to Edinburgh, Scotland, to produce a CD while continually traveling alongside the choir across the Southeast.
“Dr. Stockton goes out of his way to provide unique opportunities for his students so that they can have an education to remember. He sets up study abroad trips that require a good deal of work, but he does it for his students. Also, he takes the initiative to set up recruitment trips to help increase the enrollment of music majors at The W,” said Andrea Stevens, executive director of development and alumni.
Stockton recently visited Africa to teach students music. He used his trip to bring awareness that we are all united. Stockton used music to link his students at The W to the ones he taught in Africa. He is also the minister of music at Beersheba Cumberland Presbyterian Church and a member of the American Choral Director’s Association.
Community service
The Community Service Award is presented to an individual and/or organization demonstrating any of the following: Long-serving contributions to a local community organization, nonprofit or city initiative, accomplishments that have brought positive recognition to Columbus and the Golden Triangle, volunteerism that has improved the quality of life, health, education, or potential for economic growth in the area and notable recognition beyond the area.
Yarborough has been a member of the MSMS faculty since August 1995 teaching U.S. History, African American History, U.S. Government and Mississippi Crossroads. He has been named Mississippi’s First Congressional District Teacher of the Year 2017, National Public Radio’s “50 Great Teachers” and selected as STAR Teacher at MSMS three times.
“Mr. Yarborough is one of the go-to people for history in Columbus and is well respected among his peers. I am proud to work with such an amazing teacher. He is truly one of the best I have seen,” said Germain McConnell, executive director of MSMS.
Yarborough serves on the Mississippi Department of Archives and History Teacher Advisory Group, Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration Advisory Board, the Mississippi Digital Newspaper Project advisory committee and is a participating scholar partnering with the Mississippi Heritage Trust and the National Park Service on the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom
His most recent publication is “Centers of the Storm: Civil Rights Sites in Mississippi, Lesson Plans,” an online publication for the Chicago-based Society for Architectural Historians.
Town & Tower’s purpose is to promote the mutual interests of Columbus and The W.
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