Tim Bowens

The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university in Oxford, Mississippi, United States. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as... the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. It also operates the University of Mississippi Field Station in Abbeville. Additionally, it is both a sea-grant and space-grant institute. Sixty-nine percent of undergraduates are from Mississippi and nineteen percent of all students are minorities. International students come from sixty-six nations. Ole Miss is a large university in the state of Mississippi with a total enrollment of 20,844 in fall 2011. The Oxford campus is the second largest main campus in the state with a fall 2011 enrollment of 16,586. The Mississippi Legislature chartered Ole Miss on February 24, 1844. The university opened its doors to its first class of 80 students four years later in 1848. For 23 years, Ole Miss was Mississippi's only public institution of higher learning, and for 110 years it was the state's only comprehensive university.
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Okolona is a city in and one of the county seats of Chickasaw County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 2,692 at the 2010 census. Okolona is located at 34°0′21″N 88°45′2″W / 34.00583°N 88.75056°W / 34.00583; -88.75056... . According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.4 square miles , of which, 6.3 square miles of it is land and 0.04 square miles of it is water. The community is at the junction of U.S. Route 45 and State Highway 32 . Okolona began its development as the settlement of Rose Hill in 1845, but it was later discovered that another location had this name. When a post office was located there in 1850, it is reported by the Okolona Area Chamber of Commerce that the postmaster of nearby Aberdeen Colonel Josiah N. Walton remembered an encounter with a Chickasaw brave while traveling in the area years earlier. The brave’s name had been Oka-laua meaning peaceful, yellow, or blue water. Walton renamed the town in the brave’s honor as Okolona. Due to the destruction brought to the area by the Civil War, few structures from this early period remain.
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