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Charles Overby Honored with Women’s Council Legacy Award
More than 410 alumni, business and civic leaders from across the nation honored Charles Overby who was presented the Legacy Award by the Ole Miss Women’s Council Saturday.
Overby, from Jackson, is one of the nation’s best known leaders in publishing having begun his career as Editor of The Mississippian at Ole Miss where he met his wife-to-be, Andrea, who at the same time was serving as editor of the student newspaper at Mississippi University For Women. He led the Jackson Clarion Ledger in a historic campaign to reform public education in Mississippi resulting in a Pulitzer Prize for the Paper. He went on to play a major role in the development of the nation’s largest newspaper enterprise, Gannet, and oversaw the building of the Newseum, one of the nation’s most popular tourist attractions in Washington, D.C., attracting over 700,000 visitors annually and providing a historical tribute to press freedom and free speech. “Charles is a strategic thinker whose network is boundless and most of his countless acts of kindness are not known,” Meek School of Journalism and New Media dean Will Norton said. “Charles works to promote others — not himself.” The event raised funds for scholarship presented by the Women’s Council which now has an endowment of $11 million and supports 40 students a year with one of the campus’ most prestigious scholarships.