Gallery: Hub City Tributes
( ♫ in rhythm and rhyme ♫ )
"Small Hub with a Big Heart"
In the process of rummaging through our audio tape archives, we stumbled across a recording of "Small Hub with a Big Heart" by Dave Hall and James Tucker. The song is about our fair town of Hattiesburg, and its one that we honestly had not heard before.
The recording was probably made in the 1980's or 90's. Aside from the reference to "Hercules" (Powder Company), the lyrics remain timely. Click the "play" button to watch our "Small Hub..." video.
Many thanks to Hall and Tucker for this upbeat tribute to our Hub City.
"Hattiesburg is Home"
Hattiesburg native Floanne Kersh was a social worker who was instrumental in developing programs for senior citizens at the Family Y. She retired from her position at the Y in 2016.
Beyond her professional career, Floanne was a poet. One of her works entitled "Hattiesburg is Home" was published in the September 6, 2002 edition of Impact. Click the "play" button to watch a video that features her poem along with photos of the people and the city that she loved so much.
"The Ballad of Hattiesburg"
Award-winning music producer and songwriter Craig Wiseman is originally from Hattiesburg. One of his earliest songs was "The Ballad of Hattiesburg" which he wrote in recognition of the city's 100th birthday. We pulled the song from a 45 rpm recording (remember those?) and include it here as a tribute to both Hattiesburg and to a (then) young songwriter at the beginning of his career.
Click the "play" button to hear the song; we've included classic photos of Hattiesburg from our Hyland Studio Collection.
By the way, Craig also wrote an ode to Hattiesburg that was published in the Hattiesburg American in 2016. See if you share some of Craig's memories of growing up in our town. View
"The Hattiesburg Song"
"The Hattiesburg Song" by Althea Jerome is another recording from our archives. Althea is a founding choral member of Hattiesburg's Meistersingers. She's taught music in public schools and music education courses and voice at the university level.
The video that accompanies Althea's song features archived photos of some of Hattiesburg's influencers from the early 1900's. Stories and backgrounds of these and many other individuals from that era are included in The History of Forrest County (2000); copies are available through the HAHS gift shop.
"The Hattiesburg ABC Book"
The final tribute to the Hub City from our archives is "The Hattiesburg ABC Book." It was written by HAHS vice-president Ursula Jones who has been affiliated with the organization since its inception in 1970.
"The Hattiesburg ABC Book" originally appeared in our Fall, 2010 newsletter. ABC books can serve as a way to teach children the alpahabet and introduce them to new subjects. In this case, we're hopeful that its both instructional and entertaining for all of our web visitors.
Thanks, Ursula, for sharing the ABC's of Hattiesburg.