Prestige dropped to a low level In Mississippi's institutions of higher education during Mr. Bilbo's second regime as governor (1928-1931 inclusive). The state-supported schools lost' their accredited standings among southern colleges and universities, and there was a corresponding exodus among the faculties of same.
Over at State College (then A&M) for instance, Dr. J. M. Deal quit as head of botany for a similar position at the University of Chicago, and Dan, Scoates of Agricultural Engineering, left Starkville for Texas A & M. Dr. Fitz-John Waddell, dean of the English Department, took off for Virginia, and Professor R. W. Harned resigned from entomology to become entomologist and consultant for the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, United States Department of Agriculture, with headquarters in Washington, D. C.
Maybe Prof. Harned was ready to pull out of Mississippi anyhow. Maybe he was weary from trying to instill some of his own enthusiasm for the six-legged critters of this world into such dumb-clucks as Old Stuff. But we don't think so, because the Professor was a natural-born teacher, and it has always been our understanding that dumbness and classroom ineptitude are in no ways discouraging to such as he. They offer challenges instead, or so we have heard.
Maybe Prof will get a slight charge out of the fact that we still remember some of the things he told us in that classroom more than thirty-seven years ago. Take the praying mantis, or Devil's Horse as most laymen call it. Despite its sinister appearance (Magnified it looks like something off'n Mars), we have Dr. Harned's word that the praying mantis is one of the best friends the farmer ever had. Because it feeds, from preference, upon the San Jose scaleI
Another of Professor Harned's favorite people was the lady-bird beetle, or lady-bug as it is generally known. This is the little pink fellow with black dors on its wing covers, which we gardeners often see scurrying up and down, a cornstalk, or crawling along a melon vine if not our 'own pants leg. Anyhow the lady-bird beetle is a voracious feeder upon the eggs of the sucking-bugs - squash, slink or what have you and other garden pests.
So, Professor Harned left A&M College to enter the service of the nation at large. And come July 16, 1954, he will reach his seventieth milestone which automatically means retirement from government service.
His associates in the U. S. Department of Agriculture, which Prof. Harned has labored for so faithfully and well, will undoubtedly give him a retirement party, consisting of light refreshments and a nice, but not too expensive gift. But some of his old boys in that neck of the woods (including W. E. Dove, Class '13 and K. P. E Wlng, Class '20) would like to enlarge both the party and the gift.
They would like to give Prof. Harned a TV-radio-phonograph, combination. It costs $600, and the idea is for all his former students to send a small check to help with its purchase. If there is any money left over, it will be presented to Prof. Harned to be used any way he wants.
At the same time, the old boys have come up with another very happy thought, and that is a bound volume of letters to the good professor from his former students.
Write your letter on one page, either letter-head or plain bond paper, size 8.5 by 11 inches, with left margin of 1.5 inches to facillitate in binding. Reminisce, or poetize, or say anything you like, and send a letter with check to K. P. Ewing, Entomology Research Branch. U.S.D.A., Plant Industry Station, Beltsville, Maryland.
All of this is a surprise to Prof. Harned, so please do not clip this column and send it to him, that is not before July 16th anyhow.
In the meantime, S. L. Calhoun, and old friend of Prof. Harned's who is associated with Doc Parish in the insecticide business here, sent prof a copy of this newspaper's Land-use edition for March I2th, 1954. And the Harned response to the Calhoun gesture must warm the hearts of us all, whether we wrote the copy or set it up, or sold the ad or bought it. He congratulates Brother Calhoun for the latter's preparation of "a very interesting, instructive, and helpful article, '100 Years of Entomology.”
“However," continues Prof. Harned." I have been and am enjoying every page. It is like rending a hometown paper. You would be surprised how many names in this paper are well-known to me. I read with interest even the society columns and the list of those who are delinquent for taxes. It would take several pages] for me to tell you about the various items and articles and names of special interest to me in this copy of the Delta Democrat-Times.
P. S. It is with considerable, and we trust, commendable restraint that we have deleted a beautiful plug for Mostly Old Stuff from the foregoing quote.
- B.C.
