D. D. Lewis

The Mississippi State University of Agriculture and Applied Science commonly known as Mississippi State University is a land-grant university located in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, United States, partially in the town of Starkville and partially in an unincorporated area. Mississippi State,... Mississippi, is the official designation for the area that encompasses the university. It is classified as a "comprehensive doctoral research university with very high research activity" by the Carnegie Foundation. Fall 2011 enrollment statistics from the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning show the MSU Starkville campus is the largest university campus in the state. They also have campuses in Meridian, Biloxi, and Vicksburg. In 2009, Mississippi State University was ranked #18 nationally in Forbes magazine's "America's Best College Buys" and 1 in agricultural schools within the Southeastern Conference. Mississippi State was also ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best universities in the United States for Engineering and Veterinary Medicine where it ranked #84 and #24 respectively.
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Knoxville is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Knox County. As of 2010, the city had a population of 178,874 residents, making it the state's third largest city. Knoxville is the principal city of the Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in 2000 had a... population of 655,400. The KMSA is in turn the central component of the Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette Combined Statistical Area, which in 2000 had a population of 1,029,155. First settled in 1786, Knoxville was the first capital of Tennessee. The city struggled with geographic isolation throughout the early 19th century, though the arrival of the railroad in 1855 led to an economic boom. During the Civil War, the city was bitterly divided over the secession issue, and was occupied alternately by both Confederate and Union armies. Following the war, Knoxville grew rapidly as a major wholesaling and manufacturing center. The city's economy stagnated after the 1920s as the manufacturing sector collapsed, the Downtown area declined, and city leaders became entrenched in highly-partisan political fights.
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