Page 24 - South Mississippi Living - November, 2015

COASTNOTES
MEDAL
AWARD
Gulfport author receives award
from Military Writers’ Society
story by Lynn Lofton photo courtesy of Thomas E. Simmons
Gulfport author Thomas E. Simmons has received the Gold Medal Award for Biography from the Military Writers’ Society of America for his book The Man Called Brown Condor (Skyhorse Publishing).
This narrative biography details the
life of African-American pilot John Robinson. Born in 1903, he grew up in segregated Gulfport with, at the time, the impossible dream of becoming a pilot. “With determination, skill and courage,
Robinson achieved his dream against all odds,” Simmons said. “He planted the seed for a school of aviation at Tuskegee and later gained fame as Colonel John Robinson, commander of the small Ethiopia Air Corps under Emperor Haile Selassie during the brutal Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935-36.”
Simmons was previously honored by the Mississippi State Senate with a concurrent resolution for his writing. He currently has two other books in print, Escape from
Thomas E. Simmons
Archangel (University of Mississippi Press) and Forgotten Heroes of World War Two, Second Edition (Taylor Trade/ Rowman & Littlefield.) A new novel, By Accident of Birth (TouchPoint Press), is scheduled for publication soon.
promoting reading worldwide
story by Lynn Lofton photo courtesy of Jana Brune
WILLA REED PITTS of Laurel at Jana Brune’s Little Free Library.
Little Free Libraries are popping
up in neighborhoods all over the world. Currently there are three in Ocean Springs. The concept is to take a book or leave a book — or both — with no library cards required and
no due dates. The goal is to promote reading and build literacy-friendly neighborhoods. The organization was started six years ago by Tod Bol of Hudson, Wis., who built a model of
a one-room school and filled it with books in honor of his mother, a teacher.
Jana Brune of 123 Bradford Circle in Ocean Springs asked local artist, L. Kim Braa, to create a Little Free Library using recycled materials. “I love reading and inspiring my
children, as well as other children,
to read. Reading always matters,” Brune, a pharmaceutical company representative, said. “This Little Free Library offers a way to share good things to read — favorite books from your childhood or books you would recommend to friends, books that teach, intrigue and engage you.”
Brune says the Little Free Library belongs to everybody — neighbors, friends, and people she doesn’t even know.
Jana Brune
janabrune@yahoo.com
L. Kim Braa
lkimbraa@att.net
24 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • November 2015
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