The 5th annual Magnolia Independent Film Festival is scheduled for February 7-9 at the Starkville Cinema. Thirty films in the lineup have won a combined total of more than 100 major awards worldwide. A partnership with the Rhode Island International Film Festival will allow the sharing of each other's winning films.

Starkville High School art students came home with 30 awards from the Mississippi Regional Scholastic Art Awards competition. Three of the five American Visions Award winners, the highest award presented, were from SHS.

CONGRATULATIONS, Starkville High School Yellowjackets football coaches and team, 5A State Champions! Congratulations also to SHS Head Coach Bill Lee on his selection as the new head football coach at Gulf Coast Community College. Starkville will miss you, Coach!

Officials with the Mississippi Development Authority announce Mississippi is ranked number 1 among all states through June 2001 in terms of percentage of increase in export trade over the same period last year. Statistics released by the U.S. Department of Commerce indicate Mississippi for the first time has led the nation in a percentage increase of exports. In a year- to- date comparison (January-June) 2001, Mississippi exported $1,790,048,701 worth of goods, reflecting an increase of 40.68% from the previous reporting period.

MPI Software Technology, Inc., has been awarded a Tibbetts Award for excellence in Small Business Innovation Research. These prestigious national awards are made annually to those small firms, projects, organizations and individuals judged to exemplify the very best in SBIR achievement. The nomination selection and processes are designed specifically not to pit any one geographic area against any other. Significant state and regional variation is assumed. The emphasis is on recognizing those accomplishments where, in the judgment of those close to hand and often most immediately affected, the stimulus of SBIR funding has made an important and difference.

The Golden Triangle Enterprise Center will soon have a new home, thanks to a $1.5 million grant award by the U.S. Department of Commerce/Economic Development Administration. The EDA grant will be combined with funding from the Tennessee Valley Authority, Appalachian Regional Commission, OCEDA, the City of Starkville, and the Mississippi State University Research Foundation. The $3.5 million, 25,000 square foot building will be located in the Mississippi Research and Technology Park. In addition to housing the technology business incubator program client companies, the building will have a 5,000 square foot "clean room" and office space for current and future clients of the incubator program.

Viking Range Corporation has announced plans to locate a research and development center in the Mississippi Research and Technology Park. According to company officials, the center is formed as a result of an alliance with Mississippi State University. "This collaboration will expand research opportunities for our faculty and hands-on learning opportunities for our students in several science and engineering fields," said MSU President Malcolm Portera.

Aeration Technology International has opened a production/assembly operation in Starkville. Already with a research and development center in the Research Park, the company incorporates state-of-the-art technology to design, engineer, build, and install aeration systems for wastewater treatment and other processes. The new design increases capacity, lowers energy costs, reduces pond footprints, and meets or exceeds discharge compliance requirements.

For daily news coverage of Starkville, Oktibbeha County and North Central Mississippi, visit the Starkville Daily News Website.

Starkville High School, named a "Value Added School" at the PREPS Winter Conference.

Starkville School District Superintendent Dr. Larry Box, named Mississippi Superintendent of the Year for the American Association of School Administrators.

Dr. Janet C. Henderson, recently honored as the 2001 Distinguished Educator by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Dr. Dennis Truax, MSU Civil Engineering Professor, recently installed as a director of the American Society of Civil Engineers. A Hearin-Hess Professor in the College of Engineering, Truax is faculty advisor for ASCE's student chapter which has twice been named top student civil engineering group in the nation.

For information about events in Starkville, see calendars of the Visitors and Convention Council.

MSU NEWS OF NOTE:

A $3 million, 5-year grant is extending the work of a longtime MSU research program supporting professionals who work with the blind or severely visually impaired. The Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision was established on the campus in 1981 and remains the only center of its kind. The National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, a unit of the U.S. Department of Education, provides the funding. Mississippi State University research contracts and grants climbed to a record $112 million during the fiscal year ending June 30. This is an 18 percent increase over the previous year. The funding included 1,468 sponsored projects, up from 1,300 the previous year.

The MSU RecPlex has been awarded one of seven 2000-01 Sports Facility of the Year Awards by the

The latest "TOP 500" list of supercomputing site shows MSU's Engineering Research Center has the 158th most powerful computer in the world, 85th most powerful of any U.S. facility and 13th at any American university. The "supercluster" at the ERC is using high-performance software developed and marketed by MPI Software Technology, Inc. MSTI is a graduate of the technology business incubator program and, among other significant honors, was named Research Park Company of the Year by the Association of University Related Research Parks.

The MSU Engineering Research Center has received a $108 million award from the Department of Defense to provide Programming Environment and Training (PET) support in the DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program. The ERC-led team of twelve universities and two industrial partners won three of the four components in this national competition. The three components are based at the Army Engineering Research and Development Center at Vicksburg, MS, Air Force Aeronautical Systems Center at Dayton, OH, and Naval Oceanographic Office at Stennis Space Center, MS.

MSU has also announced a $1,345,500 Air Force contract for research and development in support of high temperature, high power, high efficiency, high voltage converters using Silicon Carbide program. Silicon carbide is one of the semiconductor research opportunities which is widely believed to be enabling technology for a number of advanced concepts, including more electric vehicles and for high performance sensors and communication equipment.

MSU continues to rise among the nation's top research university. National Science Foundation data recently released showed the following: MSU is #58 among public universities in total research and development expenditures (up from 59th), #8 in agricultural expenditures, and #37 in engineering expenditures (up from 49th). Of the $153.2 million reported for all of Mississippi's doctoral-granting institutions, MSU's expenditures represent more than 72 percent of the state's total.

A Rural Health, Safety and Security Institute was recently established through $2.2 million in funding from the U.S. Office of Rural Health Policy. The Institute is based in the university's Social Science Research Center.

A $2.5 million commitment from Hunter W. Henry, Jr., a 1950 chemical engineering graduate and retired president of Dow Chemical USA, will help fund a new alumni and development center.