Starkville, Mississippi

Starkville is a city in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, United States. It is the county seat of Oktibbeha County. The population was 23,888 at the 2010 census. The campus of Mississippi State University is partially located in Starkville.

Starkville, also known as "Starkvegas" or "Starkpatch" is considered the Crowned Jewel of the Golden Triangle region of northeast Mississippi which consists of Starkville, Columbus, and West Point.

The campus of Mississippi State University is located adjacent to the east of Starkville. As of the fall of 2008, MSU is the state of Mississippi's largest university with 17,824 undergraduates, more than 4,000 graduate students, and more than 1,300 staff. The university is also the largest employer of Starkville and dominates the city's economy. Students have created a ready audience for the Magnolia Film Festival. Held every February, it is the oldest film festival in the state. Other major events held in Starkville and heavily supported by the MSU Student Body are the Dudy Gras Parade, Cotton District Arts Festival, Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival, Old Main Music Festival, Ragtime Music Festival, and Bulldog Bash.

History
The Starkville area has been inhabited for over 2100 years. Artifacts in the form of clay pot fragments and artwork dating from that time period have been found east of Starkville at the Herman Mound and Village site, a National Historic Register site. The modern early settlement of the Starkville area was started after the Choctaw inhabitants of Oktibbeha County surrendered their claims to land in the area in the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830. White settlers were drawn to the Starkville area because of two large springs. A mill southwest of town provided clapboards which gave the town its original name, Boardtown. In 1835, Boardtown was established as the county seat of Oktibbeha County and its name was changed to Starkville in honor of Revolutionary War hero General John Stark.

On March 21 2006, Starkville became the first city in Mississippi to adopt a smoking ban for indoor public places, including restaurants and bars. This ordinance went into effect on May 20 2006.

Geography
Starkville is located at 33.4625°N, -88.82°W (33.462471, -88.819990).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 25.8 square miles (66.9 km²), of which 25.7 square miles (66.5 km²) is land and 0.2 square miles (0.4 km²) (0.58%) is water.

US Highway 82 and Mississippi Highways 12 and 25 are major roads through Starkville. The nearest airport with scheduled service is Golden Triangle Regional Airport (GTR). George M. Bryan Field (KSTF) serves as Starkville's general aviation airport. There are multiple privately owned airstrips in the area.

Demographics
As of the 2000 census, there were 21,869 people, 9,462 households, and 4,721 families residing in the city. The population density was 851.4 people per square mile (328.7/km²). There were 10,191 housing units at an average density of 396.7/sq mi (153.2/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 64.60% White, 30.02% African American, 0.15% Native American, 3.75% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.64% from other races, and 0.80% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.34% of the population.

There were 9,462 households out of which 24.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 34.1% were married couples living together, 13.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 50.1% were non-families. 32.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 6.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.24 and the average family size was 2.92.

The age distribution, which is strongly influenced by the presence of more than 16,000 students of Mississippi State University, is: 20.0% under the age of 18, 29.7% from 18 to 24, 26.6% from 25 to 44, 15.2% from 45 to 64, and 8.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 25 years. For every 100 females there were 102.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 101.5 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $22,590, and the median income for a family was $39,557. Males had a median income of $35,782 versus $21,711 for females. The per capita income for the city was $16,272. About 18.1% of families and 31.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 28.3% of those under age 18 and 16.8% of those age 65 or over. These median income figures are significantly skewed due to a significant number of people on government assistance.

The Greater Starkville area boasts one of the state’s highest educational attainment levels with an estimated 22.2 percent of the population over the age of 25 having earned at least a Bachelor’s Degree and 24.5 percent having earned a Master’s, Professional, or Doctorate Degree. Compared to the state’s educational attainment level of 20.7 (urban) and 14.1 (rural) percent of the population over the age of 25 having earned at least a Bachelor’s Degree, Starkville is clearly above the Mississippi average.

Oktibbeha County’s current unemployment rate of 5.5 percent is nearly half a percentage below the state average of over 5.9 percent, and well-below the surrounding area’s 8.2 percent. The surrounding area includes Choctaw, Clay, Lowndes, Noxubee, Webster and Winston Counties. Those statistics show that the county, more specifically Starkville, has a sturdy infrastructure and a high quality of life. Oktibbeha County has consistently held the lowest unemployment rate compared to the six surrounding counties, and is ranked in the state’s top 20 counties for the lowest unemployment.

According to the Mississippi Development Authority, 1,840 jobs have been created in the Greater Starkville are since 2001, with 58 firms investing more than $321 million. This amounts to a 211 percent increase in jobs created and a 220 percent increase in Capital Investment, as compared to 2001.

Almost 37 percent of the total population falls within the desirable workforce age range (25 to 49), which is an estimated 8,200 individuals.

Public schools
The City of Starkville is served by the Starkville School District. Starkville High School athletics are designated as Class 5A, Region 2, Division 1.

Private schools

 * Starkville Academy
 * Starkville Christian School

Government
Starkville is located in Mississippi's 3rd congressional district and its 3rd state Supreme Court district.

Popular culture
Famous American pilot Charles Lindbergh made a successful landing on the outskirts of Starkville in 1927 during his famous Guggenheim Tour and stayed at a boarding house in the Maben community. Lindbergh later wrote about that landing in his autobiographical account of his barnstorming days, titled "WE."

Starkville is purportedly the birthplace of Tee Ball, invented by Dr. Clyde Muse, a member of the Starkville Rotarians in 1961. Dr. Muse was also an educator in Starkville, having been Principal of Starkville High School for many years. He also was a renowned baseball and basketball coach (one of his early teams won a State Championship. Members included Lewis Mallory, Jackie Wofford, Barry Wood, and Carse Smith.)  The town itself is considered to be the Baseball Capital of the South, having been the birthplace of National Baseball Hall of Famer Cool Papa Bell and Mississippi State University, whose Diamond Dogs have made nine trips to the NCAA Baseball College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.

Notorious American gangster Machine Gun Kelly lived in Starkville for two years when he attended Mississippi State University. He enrolled in the university to study agriculture in 1917. From the beginning, Kelly was considered a poor student, having been awarded his highest grade (a C+) for good physical hygiene. He was constantly in trouble with the faculty and spent much of his academic career attempting to work off the demerits he had earned.

Johnny Cash was arrested for public drunkenness (though he described it as being picked up for picking flowers) in Starkville and held overnight at the city jail on May 11, 1965, which was the inspiration for his song "Starkville City Jail":                                                "They're bound to get you,  Cause they got a curfew,  ''And you go to the Starkville city jail."  The song appears on the album At San Quentin.

From November 2 to November 4, 2007 the Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival was held in Starkville, the city where Cash had been arrested over 40 years earlier. The festival, where he was offered a symbolic posthumous pardon, honored Cash's life and music, and is expected to become an annual event. The festival was started by Robbie Ward,who urged the town to hold it annually based on the premise that: "Johnny Cash was arrested in seven places,but he only wrote a song about one of those places."

A song entitled "Starkville" appears on the Indigo Girls' 2002 album Become You.

Starkville also appears on a map of Mississippi in the controversial 2007 film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

The Mississippi Horse Park in Starkville is a National Top 40 Rodeo Facility and is considered to be one of the top tourist attractions in North Mississippi.

Starkville has The Magnolia Independent Film Festival, held annually in February. It is the oldest festival in the state for independent films.

The annual Cotton District Arts Festival in Starkville, held in the Historic Cotton District the 3rd weekend of April, is considered to be one of the top arts festivals in the state, drawing a record crowd of nearly 25,000 in 2008. On hand for the festivities were Y'all Magazine, Southern Living Magazine and Peavey Electronics, over 100 of the state's top artisans and 25 live bands.

Starkville is also the home of Bulldog Bash, Mississippi's largest open-air free concert.

Located on the MSU campus, the Cullis and Gladys Wade Clock Museum boasts an extensive collection of mostly American clocks and watches dating as far back as the early 1700s. The collection of over 400 clocks is the only one of its size in the region.

Notable people of Starkville
Birthplace of: Current residence of:
 * Cool Papa Bell, African-American baseball great, 1903-1991
 * Antuan Edwards, NFL player
 * Shauntay Hinton, Miss USA 2002
 * Hayes Jones, gold medalist in the 110-meter hurdles at the Tokyo 1964 Olympics
 * Freddie Milons, wide receiver, University of Alabama, later played for the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles
 * Jess Mowry (1960), American writer of juvenile books
 * Travis Outlaw, NBA player for the Portland Trail Blazers
 * Jerry Rice, National Football League Hall of Fame and College Football Hall of Fame wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders, and Seattle Seahawks, 3-time NFL world champion; set and still owns multiple NFL and NCAA records for receiving
 * Ray Mabus, former Mississippi governor.
 * Gregory Byrne, Mississippi State University Athletic Director
 * Sylvester Croom, first African-American head football coach in the Southeastern Conference and former Mississippi State University head football coach
 * Willie Daniel, world champion running back for the Los Angeles Rams and former Mississippi State University stand-out
 * Bailey Howell, world champion center for the NBA's Boston Celtics and former Mississippi State University stand-out
 * Amy Tuck, Mississippi's former Lieutenant Governor

Educated in:
 * Rich Fields, announcer, The Price is Right
 * Edwin Granberry, one of the writers of the comic strip "Buz Sawyer"
 * John Grisham, acclaimed author of international best-selling novels A Time to Kill, The Firm, The Pelican Brief, Runaway Jury, The Client, The Chamber, etc.
 * G.V. 'Sonny' Montgomery, U.S. congressman
 * Hartley Peavey, founder of Peavey Electronics, the world's largest manufacturer of sound amplification equipment
 * John C. Stennis, U.S. Senator
 * See also: List of Mississippi State University notable alumni

Other famous residents:


 * Dee Barton, composer
 * Machine Gun Kelly, Prohibition-era gangster
 * Shane McRae, actor, appeared in Hack, guest starred on One Life to Live, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and was one of the stars of the ill-fated sitcom, Four Kings
 * Major General William M. Miley (Bud Miley), U.S. 17th Airborne Division WW II, former assistant professor of military science at Mississippi State University
 * Del Rendon, singer and guitarist (Puerto Rican Rum Drunks)

Religion
Starkville boasts over 80 houses of worship, accommodating almost all religious traditions, largely due to the presence of Mississippi State University, which attracts people with a diverse range of nationalities. As of October 2007, approximately half (49.74%) of people in Starkville claim a religious affiliation, with the majority (41.59% ) self-identifying as Protestant. Starkville has small percentages of Catholic, Hindu, Mormon, and Islamic adherents as well, and moderate percentages of Baptist (25%) and Methodist (11%) adherents.