Golden Days: Reminiscences of Alumnae, Mississippi State College for Women

Beverly Stuart Koch Jones, Class of 1957

APRIL 22, 2007 INTERVIEWED BY JAYDE PETERSON TRANSCRIBED BY RACHEL FORESTER & /EVERLY STUART KOCH, BORN ON DECEMBER 2O, 1935, in Picayune, Mississippi, was the daughter of Alberta Elizabeth Stuart Koch, a schoolteacher, and Stanley A. Koch, a lumber salesman. At the age of five, the family moved to Jackson, where Beverly Koch spent the remainder of her childhood. At the W, she majored in home economics education and was a dormitory sings director and a song leader for both the Wesley Foundation and the Student Christian Association. A member of the freshman -sophomore Silhouettes and junior-senior Jesters, she was elected a cheerleader and a Class Favorite in each of her four years at MSCW. She participated on her class basketball team and in dance productions and was both a participant in and director of the Aquacade synchronized swimming productions. She married T. Nelson Jones, a pilot from Starkville, Mississippi, in 1956. After graduation, she became very active in community and state civic organizations, and she served as president of the 335 Class of 1957 Beverly Stuart Koch Jones MUW Alumnae Association from 1999 to 2000. She has been named an Outstanding Community Woman and has received the Juliette Low International Friends Award from the Girl Scouts and an award of merit from her local chamber of commerce . Sheowns and operates an equine boarding facility, the J-3 Ranch, in Starkville. BJ:My mother had to quit college after two years becauseher father died and she couldn't afford to come. At that time, she could teach with two years of college. She had a one-room schoolhouse in Louisiana, across the river from Natchez. Natchez was her hometown. So she went home to teach to make money for her mother and to help her younger sister come to college. Her older sister, Gladys,1 and her younger sister, Mary Louise,2 both graduated from the W. Mother helped put them through school and was able to teach until she married my father in Jackson. When I was growing up, it was quite different from now. We didn't worry about security.We'd play outside until dark, and when the streetlights came on, Mother said, "Come back—get back to the house." Soin the summertime we'd play kick the can and all the other fun things that kids do, playing outside. JP: How did you decide to come to the W? BJ: I was interested in the W a little bit,but we didn't hear that much about it until we were seniors. Some friends from the class ahead of us were at the W, and they invited eight of us from Central High School to come for W Day, they called it, and we spent the weekend. I remember we dressed up with our hats and gloves and got on the bus and rode to Columbus. I have pictures of us all dressed up. Then we spent the night in Callaway. I don't know where all the girls slept, but they gave us their beds, or maybe different ones had gone home. We slept in anybody's bed. And I remember they went to get a black-bottom pie from the Midway, a little tearoom down the way, and that was wonderful. We 1. Gladys L. Stuart McCraine (1904-96), Class of 1925. 2. Mary Louise Stuart Burley (1909-91), Class of 1931. 336 Classof1957 had a wonderful weekend, so all eight of us decided to come to the W. We had one friend that was off at camp, and when we were ready to go, we were all registered, and Sally Brockway McReynolds3 couldn't afford to go. So we got busy, and we finally got her to call up and see if she could get a scholarship. And she got a scholarship to work in the dining hall, so Sally came with us, too, and she was an outstanding student. She made As in every class that she was in—every one except one. I never believed that there was a conflict with professors, but Sally definitely had a conflict with this professor, and we were worried about whether she was going to pass the course. But she did. She was Mortar Board4 because she was so smart, but she almost didn't get to come. After she got here, she got to work for a chemistry professor grading papers, too...