Alumni Fellows - 2021
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Camille Scales Young
With more than two decades of experience in state and federal government affairs and a wealth of issue expertise, Camille Scales Young is helping to lead change through her personal and professional endeavors.
The Shannon native currently serves as principal and director in the Jackson office of Cornerstone Government Affairs, a full-service, bipartisan consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. In her role, she helps clients navigate policies, create and drive effective advocacy campaigns, utilize business and development opportunities and craft successful public affairs efforts.
Camille first discovered her love for politics during her time as a student at Mississippi State University when she participated in a summer internship on Capitol Hill. She earned both a bachelor’s degree in communication and a master’s degree in agriculture and extension education from MSU in 1994 and 1996, respectively.
After graduating, Camille worked with the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation in various positions, including communications specialist, director of media relations and government relations specialist, which enabled her to spend time on Capitol Hill and in the Mississippi Capitol providing support for the agricultural community. She then spent 10 years as a government affairs representative with Watkins Ludlam Winter & Stennis, P.A. before assuming her current role.
In addition to her MSU education, Camille also holds a Diversity and Inclusion Certificate from Cornell University and has been very involved in both workplace and community diversity and inclusion activities. She was honored to serve as national board president of the MSU Alumni Association and, during her tenure, she increased participation of many diverse factions of the alumni base.
Camille is involved in community activities like the boards of directors for BankFirst, Cal-Maine Foods, Mississippi Power Company and the Woodward Hines Education Foundation, Mission Mississippi and the Mississippi 4-H Foundation. She is a life member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. At MSU, she is also involved with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Department of Communication advisory boards.
She has been honored for her professional accomplishments and service to the community as a member of the Mississippi Business Journal’s Top 50 Business Women and as a Woman of Distinction by the Girl Scout Council of Middle Mississippi. In 2017, Camille was recognized in the inaugural class of Top 50 Most Influential People in Mississippi.
Camille and her husband Keith are the proud parents of three children—a 2021 MSU graduate, a junior at MSU and a freshman at Itawamba Community College¬—and enjoy living in rural Madison County.
College of Architecture, Art and Design
Janet Marie Smith
Renowned architect and urban planner Janet Marie Smith is well-known in the sports world for her work on some of America’s most classic venues. Named one of the 30 Most Powerful Women in sports by Adweek.com, she joined the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012 after working with other Major League Baseball teams, including the Baltimore Orioles, Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox.
As executive vice president of planning and development, Janet’s work with the Dodgers has included overseeing the large-scale improvement and expansion projects at Dodger Stadium and Campo Las Palmas, the club’s development facility in the Dominican Republic.
She began her big-league career in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1989. There, she made a name for herself through her work on Oriole Park at Camden Yards, which set the standard for a new wave of ballparks after its opening in 1992. From there, she also helped transform Atlanta’s 1996 Olympic Stadium into Turner Field, oversaw the preservation and expansion of Fenway Park and the development of the Philips Arena (now State Farm Arena), home to the NBA Atlanta Hawks and NHL Atlanta Thrashers.
Outside of baseball, Janet has worked on urban development projects, including Battery Park City in New York and Pershing Square—Downtown Los Angeles’s oldest park. She worked on the concept design for the renovation of the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California, and was a member of one of the two final teams in the competition for the World Trade Center site in New York City in 2002.
Janet earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Mississippi State University in 1981 and later received a master’s degree in urban planning from City College of New York. At Mississippi State, she took an interest in civic buildings and cities, and was always interested in architecture on a larger scale and the impact spaces could have on cities. The School of Architecture helped grow that passion for her through field trips to New York and Chicago and lecture series that brought renowned architects to campus to speak.
The Jackson native credits MSU with serving as a launchpad for her career and has remained connected to her alma mater over the years. She delivered the keynote address during MSU’s 2013 commencement exercises and was a champion for the recent renovation and expansion of Dudy Noble Field, which has earned rave reviews nationally since opening. She also has extended support to the School of Architecture, student scholarships, and faculty awards in the College of Architecture, Art and Design.
Janet’s work is recognized at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in its “Diamond Dreams” exhibit honoring the historic involvement of women in baseball. She was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 2020 and was earlier recognized by Sports Business Journal as both a Power Player for Design and Development and as a member of their 2017 Class of Champions.
Janet resides in Baltimore with her husband, Bart Harvey, and has three adult children.
College of Arts and Sciences
Bruce Thomas
Bruce Thomas is a distinguished meteorologist better known as the “Weather Radio King” among audiences in the Midwest. His career in weather began during his time as a student at Mississippi State University in the early 1980s, and today he continues his work as chief meteorologist for the News-Press Gazette TV station in Saint Joseph, Missouri, and a consultant for predictive weather modeling platform Weather2020.
Before his current role, Bruce served as a marketing meteorologist and national spokesperson for Kansas City, Missouri-based Midland Radio Corporation. His television and radio broadcasts promoted weather safety across America’s tornado-prone areas and helped position Midland Radio as a leader in sales of early-warning weather products, including NOAA Weather Radios for home and business use.
A native of Mississippi, he spent most of his childhood between Jackson and Biloxi. Bruce enrolled at MSU at the age of 16 and began pursuing his studies in geosciences. The geology field trips to Big Bend National Park and the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas were among his favorite student experiences. Bruce was also proud to serve as the first student weather forecaster on campus, sharing his weekly forecasts in MSU’s student-run newspaper, The Reflector.
Bruce also credits the mentorship he received at Mississippi State for much of his success. Last year, he created the Dr. Charles L. Wax Endowed Climatology Faculty Fellowship at MSU in honor of Wax, a professor emeritus and former geosciences department head who greatly influenced Bruce’s education and passion for meteorology.
While Bruce’s educational career began at MSU, he completed his bachelor’s degree in broadcast meteorology from Metropolitan State University in Denver, Colorado. He also pursued postgraduate studies at Texas A&M University while serving as the local television weatherman for nearly a decade in Central Texas. After receiving recognition for his television coverage during a tragic tornado outbreak in Jarrell, Texas, Bruce’s career skyrocketed, and he was hired as a severe weather expert by KCTV5 CBS station in Kansas City.
Bruce is a member of the American Meteorological Society, where he earned the designation of Certified Broadcast Meteorologist, and is a past president and lifetime member of the National Weather Association. His dedicated service and career spanning more than three decades has garnered several honorable distinctions, including the National Weather Service Weather-Ready Nation Champion Award in 2019 and the prestigious U.S. Department of Commerce NOAA/National Weather Service Mark Trail Award in 2006.
For Bruce, being chosen as Alumni Fellow for the MSU College of Arts and Sciences is the apex of a long career journey that began when he was an ambitious, young student at Mississippi State. He resides in Lenexa, Kansas, and has two daughters, Betty and Tori.
College of Business
Kathy St. John
Kathy St. John believes her Mississippi State University student experience gave her the tools to lead and work with others in accomplishing goals for the betterment of all—an attribute that she continues to uphold each day. As a proud advocate for her alma mater, she is grateful for the honor and opportunity to represent the College of Business as its Alumni Fellow.
The Brookhaven native graduated from MSU with a bachelor’s degree in marketing in 1979. She later pursued a graduate degree in secondary education from the University of Southern Mississippi before beginning her career.
Kathy employed her MSU degree primarily in the landscape, property management and healthcare industries over the years. She was a co-founder of St. John & Associates, a commercial and residential landscape business in Hattiesburg before assuming the role of marketing director and sales lead at Hillenmeyer Nurseries in Lexington, Kentucky. In 2005, she transitioned into healthcare. She served as managing director and contracts consultant for a senior-living healthcare group purchasing organization NAPA HealthCare Connection, Inc. in Lexington, KY for nearly a decade, retiring in 2015.
Of all her professional endeavors, Kathy is most proud of an entrepreneurial venture that she started in 1988 while living in Memphis, Tennessee. The business, which began as a small property management operation intended for Homeowner Associations in planned unit developments and single-family neighborhoods, grew to encompass 11 developments with 750 homes. Kathy employed her MSU education to successfully navigate the business, managing communications and financial operations for each development’s board of directors. A competitor offered a profitable buyout and Kathy agreed to sell her self-made business in 1994.
Outside her professional pursuits, Kathy is also passionate about giving back, particularly through her service and commitments at MSU. Inspired by her father, a fellow Bulldog graduate, she established the Kathy Moreton St. John Endowed Fellowship in Marketing in 2011 and was an early investor in the Market Innovation Lab and Observatory, enabling the college to purchase necessary equipment to kick-start the innovative program. Over the years, she and her husband Drew have generously contributed to areas across the university including athletics and student and faculty support and created the St. John Family Endowed Professorship in Wildlife Management in 2017.
Kathy is a member of the marketing advisory board, which she earlier chaired for several years, and was recently nominated to chair the executive advisory board for the College of Business beginning in 2022. She also serves as president of the Jackson alumnae chapter of Delta Gamma Fraternity and chaired the capital campaign for renovations of the Delta Gamma house on the MSU campus. The second-generation Bulldog believes that giving back to MSU is a continuation of a heritage instilled in her by her dad and considers the nomination to chair the executive advisory board to be the “icing on the cake” for her retirement years.
She and Drew, a 1980 MSU graduate whom she met on campus during their student years, reside in Madison and have three children and six grandchildren.
College of Education
Rona Johnson-Belser
Rona Johnson-Belser is an inspiring educator who dedicated her career to helping others. Although she retired from her role as a childhood teacher with the Jefferson County School System in Birmingham, Alabama, she continues to make a difference in students’ lives at Mississippi State through her involvement.
A native of Burnsville, Rona attended Northeast Junior College before transferring to MSU in the fall of 1971. She graduated from the MSU College of Education in 1974 with a bachelor’s degree in special education and began her longtime career in the special education field, working with children and adults with special needs in Mississippi and Alabama. Rona strived to meet and ensure the individual needs of each of her students and their families, and through her work, she became a recognized advocate for people with special needs.
Rona believes her student experience at MSU gave her the confidence and training needed to become a successful special education teacher. Moreover, she is grateful for the fond memories and lifelong friends made on campus, which allowed her to become a more independent person and set the foundation for her lifelong love and support for her alma mater.
As a result, Rona and her husband, Dan, have proudly given back to MSU in various ways for four decades. Among the areas they generously support are student scholarships, Bulldog athletics, the T.K. Martin Center, and the Steinway Piano Fund. The couple also actively contribute to the advancement of the College of Education and the College of Veterinary Medicine and have established endowed scholarships bearing their names in both colleges.
In addition to financial commitment, Rona also shares her expertise and time. She is a member of the College of Education’s dean’s advisory board and continues to serve as an inaugural member of the College of Veterinary Medicine’s dean’s council. For her contributions, Rona was honored by the veterinary college with the Vice President’s Pegasus Award in 2019.
A loyal and dedicated alumna, Rona is also an active member of the MSU Alumni Association through involvement with her local Birmingham chapter. She helped facilitate the chapter’s co-sponsorship of the annual Young Teen Asthma Camp, which gives participants opportunities to learn new asthma self-management skills while engaging in a full range of fun camp activities. She also earlier served as an officer of the chapter and helped lead the greater association as a member of the Alumni National Board of Directors.
Rona and Dan make their home in Birmingham, Alabama.
James Worth Bagley College of Engineering
John D. Davis, IV
John D. Davis IV was drawn to the medical field from an early age. He remembers watching the surgical procedures demonstrated in PBS documentaries and being fascinated by the positive outcomes experienced by patients. Today, he is helping to create similar experiences, addressing issues that impact the health and lives of Mississippians as a renowned neurosurgeon and founding partner at NewSouth Neurospine.
Born in Starkville and reared in Jackson, the third-generation Bulldog graduated Summa Cum Laude from MSU’s James Worth Bagley College of Engineering with a degree in biological engineering in 1988. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity, elected as Mr. MSU and president of the Student Association, and was named the university’s Outstanding Student.
John earned his professional degree in 1992 from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha. He completed residency in neurosurgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1999, during which time he earned a master’s degree in health finance and management, also at Johns Hopkins. It was that training that spawned his vision for a spine center of excellence.
After years of planning, NewSouth NeuroSpine, Mississippi’s only comprehensive, multispecialty spine-focused practice, opened for patient care in 2008 in a new, state-of-the-art facility in Flowood. John, who has a particular interest in cervical spine or neck disorders, practices there with twelve other surgical and non-surgical spine care physicians representing four specialties. He and his partners take pride in a conservative approach to spine care, successfully treating various spine disorders non-surgically in most cases.
John has completed terms on the board of directors and the nominating committee for the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and as president of the Mississippi Neurosurgery Society and chairman of the board of directors for NeurosurgeryPAC, organized neurosurgery’s only political action committee in Washington, D.C. He currently serves on neurosurgery’s Washington Committee and as a delegate from Mississippi to the Council of State Neurosurgical Societies, where he was previously elected chairman of the Southeast Quadrant. Additionally, John is a member of the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission Advisory Council and a certified peer reviewer for World Neurosurgery.
Through his esteemed career, John was chosen in 2017 as a substitute unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant for the National Football League, where he oversees evaluations of players who may have suffered concussions. He also was recently appointed by Governor Tate Reeves to serve on the Mississippi State Board of Health.
Outside his profession, John also actively contributes his time and support to his alma mater by serving on the board of directors for the MSU Foundation, where he chairs the directors and governance committee. For his loyalty and service, he has been recognized as a Distinguished Fellow of the Bagley College, the MSU Biological Engineering Alumnus of the Year and the Central Mississippi Chapter of the MSU Alumni Association’s Alumnus of the Year. In 2017, he was a keynote speaker at the university’s fall commencement exercises.
John and his wife Lesley, fellow MSU graduate and the university’s 1988 homecoming queen, have three sons and reside in Flowood.
College of Forest Resources
G. Glynn Pittman
Glynn Pittman is a 45-year veteran of the forest products industry who has managed facilities from Texas to New England. Despite the years of hard work, he remains just as passionate about his job as he did when he first started and always enjoys the opportunity to share his experience and knowledge with others along the way.
The Memphis, Tennessee native attributes his love for forestry to his father, who often told stories about the work he did with the Civilian Conservation Corps to expand conservation efforts during the Great Depression. Eager to follow in his father’s footsteps to become a second-generation forester, Glynn studied forestry at Mississippi State and graduated from the College of Forest Resources in 1976.
He began his career with International Paper Company as a field forester in central Mississippi and later advanced to more progressive roles. Over the years, he supervised logging operations and assumed plant management responsibilities at treated wood products facilities.
In 2012, he joined Stella-Jones Corporation, where he serves as vice president of utility pole operations, overseeing multiple facilities across the southern and southeastern U.S. Before his current role, Glynn helped establish the company’s Southern Yellow Pine Division, which now encompasses 12 facilities across the South. As director of operations, he led the hiring and training of the division’s management team.
An active member of the Louisiana Forestry Association, Glynn is past president of the Southern Pressure Treaters Association and has chaired several of the industry’s key standard-setting committees through the American Wood Preservers Association. He also was recently appointed to a five-year term on the board of directors for the Louisiana Forestry Commission by Governor John Bel Edwards.
Glynn has been an active advisor in other civic organizations and at his alma mater. He volunteers his time and support on the advisory boards for the College of Forest Resources and its Department of Sustainable Bioproducts. He also served on interview committees to assist the university in filling the positions of the sustainable bioproducts department head and the dean of the Division of Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine.
Glynn is grateful for the solid, practical education he received at MSU and the friendships and connections he made as a student—all of which have proven valuable throughout his life. Being recognized as Alumni Fellow for his professional contributions by the people and place that means so much to him is a meaningful and rewarding honor.
He and his wife, Gayle, have four children. The couple make their home in Walker, Louisiana.
College of Veterinary Medicine
M. Camille Hopkins
Camille Hopkins has always been fascinated by nature and is passionate about the wellbeing of wild animals. She was determined to become a wildlife veterinarian after completing a Girl Scout Wider Opportunity experience with the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo.
Accordingly, after graduating from the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science and earning a bachelor’s degree in biology from Cornell University, she graduated from Mississippi State University’s DVM program in 2004. She continued her studies, receiving a master’s in veterinary medicine science focusing on wildlife epidemiology from MSU in 2005 and a doctorate in disease ecology from Virginia Tech in 2014.
As a student, Camille was awarded a prestigious National Institutes of Health Graduate Research Fellowship in 2009. The award provided enhanced support for her study of forest disturbance and its ecological impacts on the La Crosse virus, a mosquito-borne disease that can cause seizures, coma, paralysis, and permanent brain damage in severe pediatric cases.
Additionally, Camille interned in the Republic of South Africa and at the Wildlife Center of Virginia, gained clinical veterinary experience at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoological Park and completed arboviral diagnostics and surveillance training at the Center for Disease Control’s Arboviral Diseases Branch. A veteran officer of the U.S. Army Reserves Veterinary Corps, Camille also cared for military working dogs during two overseas deployments.
After completing her graduate studies, she joined the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Reston, Virginia, where she could apply her clinical and research experience as the wildlife disease coordinator in the Ecosystems Mission Area. In her current role, she oversees the national aquatic and terrestrial wildlife disease portfolio and represents USGS in interagency efforts to respond to wildlife diseases, including zoonotic diseases. She also participates in international discussions and meetings and contributes to Department of the Interior emergency management activities related to wildlife diseases.
Camille’s passion for her work, matched by an impressive resume, has propelled her successful career over the years. Beginning in individual animal wildlife medicine, she is now engaged in efforts with regional, national and international implications. More importantly, because several diseases she studies can be transferred from wildlife to humans, her work has made significant contributions to the health and wellbeing of animals and humans alike.
One example is her recent work contributed to research on COVID-19 transmission in North American bats. Camille has also been involved in studies related to chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer, a top game animal for Mississippi.
Camille is grateful for the opportunity to work in a field she loves that also enables her to make a difference in the world. She enjoys sharing her passion and expertise with others and is proud to represent the College of Veterinary Medicine as Alumni Fellow. A Mississippi native of Ridgeland, Camille currently resides in Washington, D.C.
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