Development Direction

Giving Opportunity

Family funds scholarship to honor career, contributions to agriculture

Story by Susan Collins-Smith • Photo by Michaela Parker

Edna Ruth Morgan’s family never would have guessed her chosen career would have been in entomology.

“It’s not something we saw her doing,” says her sister, Jane Loveless. “But I think she just grew to love it because she worked with all the entomologists in the department for all those years.”

Morgan, who was an office administrator in the Mississippi State University entomology department, began working at the university in the 1950s at the age of 15.

“Our dad was an electrician,” Loveless relates. “One day he was working for Dr. Shaw, and he mentioned that he needed a secretary. So, my dad said, ‘I’ll send my daughter over there.’”

She continued to work for the department as she earned her bachelor’s degree in education. In the early 1960s, she took a job teaching office practices in Alabama. After a year, she returned home to Starkville and to the entomology department.

“They were just begging her to come back. They missed her,” says Loveless, noting her sister’s skills and her unwavering attention to detail. “She could write anything, and she was very outgoing. She loved people.”

As an office administrator, she was the first professional woman to work in agriculture for the Extension Service. She would mark a few other firsts during her 42-year career.

After earning a master’s degree in agricultural and Extension education with a focus on entomology, she advanced in the department and was the first woman in the nation to work as a pesticide coordinator and specialist. She was also the first woman to serve on the executive board of the Mississippi Entomological Association.

“It really was an accomplishment, but it wasn’t something she ever talked about,” Loveless explains. “It was just what she did.”

After Morgan’s death in 2023, Loveless and her daughter, Cindy Prewitt, and grandsons, Cody and Seth Prewitt, created the Edna Ruth Morgan Memorial Endowed Scholarship to honor her career and contributions to agriculture. The scholarship will be awarded to full-time undergraduate students in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

“There was no question we were going to create a scholarship in her name,” Loveless said. “She would want us to help give others the opportunity to pursue their goals. She was the type of person who would encourage others to give in this way.”