Born in Jackson in 1934, Willie Morris spent a magical Yazoo boyhood playing pranks and baseball with his dog and his friends or playing "Taps" on his trumpet for military funerals. His writing talent was evident early on in pieces he wrote for the local and school newspapers. As a student at the University of Texas, he was editor for the Daily Texan and won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University in England. He was editor for the Texas Observer and later became editor-in-chief of Harper's Magazine in New York. In 1980, Morris returned to Mississippi to become writer-in-residence at Ole Miss and later lived in Jackson. Notable among his twenty-three award-winning books are North Toward Home, Yazoo, and My Dog Skip. When he died on August 2, 1999, his body lay in state at the Old Capitol. Perhaps the South's best ambassador, this beloved native son is buried in Glenwood Cemetery.