Congressman Thompson speaks at MSU Monday

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Rep. Bennie Thompson will discuss his work in the U.S. Congress Monday [Oct. 19] as part of the Lamar Conerly Governance Forum at Mississippi State.

Organized by the university’s Department of Political Science and Public Administration, the program featuring Mississippi’s 2nd District congressman begins at 1 p.m. in the fourth-floor suite of the Swalm Chemical Engineering Building.

The program is free and open to all. Due to space limitations, those planning to attend are encourage to arrive as early as possible.

A Bolton native and former chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Thompson will address a range of homeland security issues, as well as efforts in 2005 and beyond to help secure federal disaster relief for Gulf Coast residents following Hurricane Katrina.

A former Bolton mayor and Hinds County Board of Supervisors president, he holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees, respectively from Tougaloo College and Jackson State University.

First elected to Congress in 1993, Thompson serves a district that includes most of Jackson and the Mississippi Delta. In addition to being the current ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, he has been a member of the House Agriculture, Budget and Small Business committees. For more, see https://benniethompson.house.gov/.

“I’m a big believer in the need to complement classroom education with real-world education, and when you can bring in someone of Congressman Thompson’s stature, it’s all the better,” said Whit Waide, assistant clinical professor for political science and public administration and head of MSU’s pre-law program.

“There’s no one more qualified to talk about Homeland Security policies,” Waide added.

The lecture series is made possible by major support from Conerly, a 1971 MSU accounting/pre-law graduate and longtime partner in the Destin, Florida, law firm of Conerly, Bowman and Dykes LLP. He is both a former national MSU Alumni Association president and continuing College of Business Alumni Fellow.

Department head K.C. Morrison said Mississippi author, journalist and civil rights activist Curtis Wilkie delivered the series’ inaugural lecture in the spring, and Vicksburg major and former state legislator George Flaggs Jr. will speak at MSU in November. He hopes all the lectures will provoke a “lively and energetic discussion” among the audience.

“It’s value added to what our students are already doing,” Morrison said.

For more about the political science and public administration department, visit www.pspa.msstate.edu; the MSU Pre-Law Society, www.pspa.msstate.edu/about/assoc/prelaw.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.