Order of the Golden Arrow Award Honors Businessman and Historian

Roy Fountain

A leading Forest businessman and a prominent historian will share a prestigious honor in late October as winners of Mississippi College’s Order of the Golden Arrow.

The award recognizes individuals, alumni or MC friends making outstanding personal or professional achievements in their businesses or careers. It spotlights persons with leadership skills going beyond the ordinary.

Businessman Roy J. Fountain and retired University of Mississippi history professor David Sansing are sharing the honors this year as MC’s two Order of the Golden Arrow recipients. They will join other award winners saluted at an October 21 dinner that’s a big part of MC’s 2011 Homecoming weekend. The event begins at 6 p.m. at Anderson Hall on the Clinton campus.

Fountain, the president of Fountain Ace Hardware, and a trustee with the Mississippi Baptist Children’s Village, is a past president of the Mississippi College National Alumni Association.

His family is loaded with Mississippi College alumni and others on the way. Being an MC Choctaw seems to be embedded in the family’s DNA.

“Family alumni include my mother, an aunt and my brother Carl (Class of 1965). Thirteen close neighbors graduated from MC. But the greatest blessing of my Mississippi College heritage is meeting my best friend and love of my life, Valerie Hewes Fountain, Class of 1976,” he said.

The 59-year-old Scott County resident said the Christian university continues to be a blessing to their family in Forest. Two of their daughters, Amy, of the Class of 2002, and Katherine of the Class of 2004, are MC graduates. A third daughter, Marianna, is a member of the Class of 2012 and Student Government Association chief justice.

A 1974 Mississippi College graduate, Roy Fountain is active as a deacon at Forest Baptist Church and involved in numerous activities to promote his hometown. He’s a past president of the Forest Area Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Forest Lions Club.

Getting the Order of the Golden Arrow award is a high honor for the Mississippian.

“To be honored in such a special way is a wonderful gesture by the university that I dearly love,” Fountain said. “My hope and prayer is that Mississippi College can continue to be a beacon of light through its students, alumni, faculty and administration.” MC, he said, provided an outstanding educational experience that’s “been an indelible influence in our lives.”

Forest Mayor Nancy Chambers is delighted to see Fountain spotlighted.

“We rejoice with Roy Fountain and his family on receiving such a prestigious award from Mississippi College,” Chambers said.

“Roy has spent his entire life being of service to his family, his church, his community and his fellow man. It is fitting that he would be honored by his alma mater with the Order of the Golden Arrow,” the mayor said. “As friends, family and residents of his hometown of Forest, Mississippi, we celebrate this honor with him.”

Sansing, a member of MC’s Class of 1956, retired in 1993 as a history professor at the University of Mississippi. An expert on Mississippi history, including the Civil Rights era, Sansing is frequently quoted in newspapers, including “The Clarion-Ledger,” and other media around the South.

The Oxford resident previously worked as a history instructor at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. He’s written a number of books including “Making Haste Slowly: The Troubled History of Higher Education in Mississippi.” He’s also written a history book on Ole Miss. His son, David Sansing, Jr., teaches history and government classes at Pearl High School.

“Dr. Sansing was a classmate and one of the top historians in Mississippi,” said retired MC administrator Doc Quick of Clinton. “He’s brought honor to Mississippi College.”

Sansing and Fountain, he said, are among many faithful alumni who are always willing to go the extra mile for Mississippi College.