A world-wide phenomenon.
In her
first six years of life, Oprah learned to read (at age three) and to recite so
many Bible verses she was nicknamed the Preacher at the church she and her
grandmother attended. At home, she was
already practicing for her future profession, interviewing her corncob dolls
and the crows that sat on the property’s fence. Although her life would take her away from the Mississippi Hills,
Oprah’s connection to the area remains strong.
When one of her aunts suggested that Kosciusko needed a Boys and Girls
Club, she funded the construction of a state-of-the-art facility that has drawn
praise as well as visitors to the area. For a recent Book Club selection, she chose works of William Faulkner, a
fellow Hills resident. Faulkner donated a portion of his 1949 Nobel
Prize earnings toward a scholarship fund for students at Rust College;
still, could he have imagined “the Oprah effect” on American reading habits,
and on American culture itself?
When Oprah
speaks, millions listen, and where once the residents of the Mississippi Hills
made vibrant communities with each other, Oprah’s community has, famously,
grown to include the entire world.