Barbara Carpenter, executive director emeritus of the Mississippi Humanities Council, taught college English for fifteen years at Southeastern Louisiana University, St. Joseph Seminary College, and the University of Southern Mississippi before joining the MHC. As an element of programming for the Columbus Quincentenary, she developed, secured funding, and oversaw the council’s ethnic heritage project, serving as editor for Ethnic Heritage in Mississippi and coeditor for Ethnic Heritage in Mississippi: The Twentieth Century, both published by University Press of Mississippi. She continues to research, speak, and write on the topic in her retirement.
