It's been years since Marie Antoon lived in Greenwood, but she says the town remains "a vivid part of who I am."
Antoon now is executive director of Mississippi Broadcasting Networks, which includes a statewide public television network, Public Radio in Mississippi and the Radio Reading Service of Mississippi.
She oversees a staff of more than 150 people and is responsible for an annual operating budget of more than $12.7 million.
She and her husband live in Oxford, but she gets back to this part of the state often to visit family and friends, drive on two-lane roads and enjoy the atmosphere.
"I still drive through the Delta and just fall in love with the landscape," she said.
Antoon, 48, was born in Clarksdale, and her family moved to Greenwood six months later.
Her father, Asper Antoon, grew up in Greenwood and graduated from Greenwood High School. Among the many other relatives nearby were her grandparents, Rose and Farris Antoon, who ran a local grocery store.
Antoon said living in Greenwood shaped her perspective on life and gave her "a broader vision of what our world is about," in part because she was exposed to different cultures.
Many think of Greenwood's population as blacks and whites, but she grew up in a multicultural environment that included Lebanese, Chinese and Italian people.
"People just don't recognize how culturally important, and diverse, and just rich that little town is," she said.
Another landmark close to her is the former Hotel Irving, now The Alluvian, which was in her family before being sold to Viking Range Corp.
She said she was able to meet the architect for The Alluvian and toured the hotel before it opened. "It's just fantastic," she said. "People in Oxford, where I live, talk about it a lot."
Growing up, Antoon read a lot and developed a need to explain things. She said she knew from an early age that she wanted to create radio and TV programming.
Her family lived in Greenwood until she was 7, when they moved to Jackson. But even then, she came back to Greenwood every other weekend until graduation. She had cousins and other relatives in town, as well as friends at Greenwood Leflore Hospital.
In fact, today she still tells people she grew up in Jackson but is from Greenwood.
"It was a big part of my life, it really was," she said.
She went on to the University of Southern Mississippi, earning a bachelor's degree in film. She spent about 2-1/2 years in Alabama public television, chiefly covering the Legislature, and then about 2-1/2 years in Pensacola, Fla., doing artistic and cultural programs.
She then enrolled in the master's program at the University of Mississippi, where she completed a degree in history and political science with emphasis in Southern history.
After graduation, she remained at Ole Miss, first as a teleproductions producer-director and eventually as director of teleproductions. She also coordinated a distance learning and technology program with a $6 million annual budget.
In 1994, she joined the Institutions of Higher Learning in Jackson. As director of academic technologies, she helped create the first distance learning policy there and worked on other educational initiatives.
Much of her work at IHL stressed collaboration among the state's schools. She created a conference with people from community colleges and universities that still is held every year. Also, she has served on the Council for Education Technology, which developed a master plan for using technology to keep the state's educational system moving forward.
Antoon became interim executive director of Mississippi Educational Broadcasting two years ago and executive director in February 2002.
Effective Monday, the agency's name was changed to Mississippi Broadcasting Networks.
Antoon said she tries to position herself to be a storyteller about Mississippi and the South. The agency's job, as she sees it, is to "capture our culture" and preserve it for future generations.
It has been involved in children's programming and literacy efforts for years. For example, it gives 8,000 to 10,000 free books to schools each year as part of its Ready to Learn program.
But Antoon said the name was changed to indicate that the agency is "not just for kids" but covers many other topics. It will be producing more local programs about food, gardening, health, travel and the cultural and natural treasures of the state.
The agency has a dedicated staff and abundant resources to help carry out its work, she said.
"The people in Mississippi don't understand what a deep resource this agency is," she said.
She cited one example from Greenwood as an an illustration of the culture. Once her husband, who is director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at Ole Miss, brought the chancellor of Oxford University in England to town and took him to the Crystal Grill for Sunday dinner.
The chancellor was struck by how many people were dressed up for the meal, she said.
"I think Greenwood, and the Delta in part, still have a little bit of that," she said.
She is committed to preserving the state's sense of history as long as she leads the broadcasting agency.
"I hope, when I leave here, I feel like I made a difference and have been a good steward," she said.
