Grand Gulf exec, senator to speak here on MLK Day
Published 12:00 am Monday, January 10, 2005
[1/10/05]Grand Gulf Nuclear Station’s manager and a state senator from Cleveland are to speak here during ceremonies that will be part of local observances of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.
Three ceremonies are planned for a week from today, which is a national holiday in honor of the late civil rights leader, who was murdered in 1968. He would have turned 76 on Jan. 15.
The vice president of operations at the Port Gibson nuclear power station, George A. Williams, is scheduled to speak at a 1 p.m. ceremony at Vicksburg Auditorium.
Williams has 18 years’ experience in the power-generation and nuclear business. He was first assigned to Port Gibson in April 2003 and now supervises the about 750 employees and contractors who work at Grand Gulf.
The observance is free and open to the public. Other scheduled program participants are soloist Andre Voss, Nathaniel Williams and The Mighty Train of Gospel, and representatives of the three Vicksburg-based U.S. Army Corps of Engineers organizations, the Mississippi Valley Division headquarters, the Engineer Research and Development Center and the Vicksburg District.
Sen. Willie Simmons, D-Cleveland, is scheduled to speak at the annual scholarship breakfast, set for 8:30 a.m. at Rainbow Casino.
Simmons owns a Cleveland consulting firm and is a native of Utica and an alumnus of Utica Junior College and Alcorn State University. He is vice chairman of the senate’s Economic Development & Tourism committee and is also a member of seven other senate committees.
Tickets for the event are $15 and are available from Dr. John Walls, 634-6349; Gabe Harris, 634-6594; Lewis Burke, 634-2757; and Ben Brown Jr., 638-9047.
The concluding event Monday will be the 5:30 p.m. lighting of a torch at the Dr. Martin Luther King monument on Martin Luther King Drive.
Before the holiday, an observance in honor of King is scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Vicksburg District offices, 4155 Clay St. Corps employees are to perform a dramatization highlighting the last days of King’s life. The public is invited.
The auditorium event and torch lighting are sponsored annually by the city’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Day Committee, the Mississippi Chapter of Blacks in Government and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The scholarship breakfast is sponsored annually by the Omicron Rho Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc.
Public schools and city, county and federal offices are to be closed Monday.