A few weeks ago, I happily received a message from Mr. David Speyerer telling me that I needed to write about this young man. Surely, he said, he deserves all the praise and recognition that his hometown can offer him. Yet, only in two places that he was aware had Mr. Speyerer seen any real recognition of his accomplishments and life.

I was thrilled to be reminded because I too had seen his picture, read his story, and put them on our website. I had even talked with him at Harvard before his coming home for Christmas, and we had planned to meet. But our plans fell through, and I never got to hear his research about the early black journalism that happened here in Vicksburg. By this time I am certain that his work is far advanced.

His name is Donald Brown, “Field” to his family and friends. And he graduated from Vicksburg High School in 2010, third in his class, and top tennis player too.

Field is my hero because he’s living the life I always wanted as an Oxford scholar and a Harvard Ph.D. Time, of course, is always a factor, and I would probably have had problems that he didn’t have. But I had all his advantages too: youth, interest, and ambition, and a love of what I studied. But I lacked his determination; his desire to see it through; and his resistance without judgment to the things he didn’t want.

Field is a Rhodes Scholar, both in people and in prizes, the most prestigious in the world.

He is a scholar, not just a mere success like most of us regard success. His life’s already marked by thought and study well past the aims of most young men. And he tempts us to revise our idols, rejecting some, replacing others. He is only the second MSU alumnus ever to receive this prize; the last, 1911.

Harvard has a legendary paper called “The Crimson.” I hope the issue coinciding with his graduation will read, “Hometown attends Field’s graduation.” And I hope we do. It will be acknowledgment that we have learned from him; that somehow and because of him, we didn’t stay the same.

All this possibility has been here before. But we didn’t know it or we hindered it. “Many thousands gone,” the elders said.

So for all those generations of talent and effort and ability and achievement and struggle and victory and will; for all the philosophers and politicians; for the economists and writers; for all the poets and novelists and astronauts and divas; for all the actors and analysts; humanitarians and linguists; for all the diplomats and scholars and first-time presidents; for all the arts and sciences – and for the many thousands gone, here, in this young man’s face and form,  is proof of what was lost awhile, and now what we have gained.

Please go to my Facebook page to read Field’s whole wondrous story.

And Happy Easter, Mr. Speyerer, to you and everyone!

Yolande Robbins is a community correspondent for The Vicksburg Post. You may email her at  yolanderobbins@fastmail.com