Sarah Dixon Pegues plans to retire in December after 35 years with the university’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture. Photo by Robert Jordan/Ole Miss Communications
OXFORD, Miss. – After being a constant in Barnard Observatory for 35 years, Sarah Dixon Pegues is preparing to retire from the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi.
As the center’s administrative assistant since 1980, she handles all financial matters including budgets, payroll, travel requests, procurement and purchasing, as well as processing grant applications and helping with reports for externally funded projects.
An Oxford native, she earned her bachelor’s degree from Mississippi State University. After finishing college, she job-hunted all that summer, and the center was the last of six interviews she had with various university departments.
“After meeting (former director) Bill Ferris and hearing about the mission and projects of the center, I felt this would be a very interesting place to work, and it has been,” Pegues said.
Ferris, senior associate director at the Center for Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina, said Pegues has been essential to the center’s growth over the years.
“Sarah Dixon Pegues is truly the heart of the center,” said Ferris, UNC’s Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History. “For over 35 years she kept a watchful eye on center staff and their programs, and she made sure their finances were in order.
“I was blessed to work with Sarah during my 18 wonderful years at the center. She is a true star for all who know her.”
During her three-and-a-half decades on campus, she has seen many shifts in the center and Ole Miss.
“The biggest change has been the growth of the center – from the number of B.A. and M.A. students to the number of faculty-staff (Southern Foodways Alliance, Living Blues, and Media and Documentary Studies, joint appointments, etc.) and outreach projects,” she said.
“The biggest change at the university is how it has grown in the number of programs, projects and buildings. When I first started in 1980, you could name the departments and knew where they were located. Now there are tons of departments, institutes and research centers. I would be a terrible tour guide!”
Ted Ownby, the center’s director, said that Pegues knows how to get things done.
“I’ve said a lot that Southern studies tends to attract people who want to do things their own ways and want to break the rules, or never learn them,” said Ownby, who has worked with her since 1988. “People like that can sit around theorizing and redefining all day, but we need someone like Sarah to make sure we get our bills paid.
“I should also mention that she’s the master of a rare form of communication in universities: the one-line, completely clear and successful email message.”
Great people, including her former bosses and current colleagues, are one of the best parts of working at the center, she said.
“I really appreciate how I’ve been entrusted to do my job without any supervision,” Pegues said. “Plus I’ve met a few celebrities along the way. I still have the photo I took with Alex Haley, author of ‘Roots,’ from when I first started.”
Those memories, along with seeing Ferris play his guitar and sing the blues, are among her favorite recollections.
Professor emeritus Charles Reagan Wilson, who joined the center a few months after she did as managing editor of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, said the center is blessed by Pegues’ presence.
“In the early 1980s, it was a lively place, full of interesting people experimenting with ideas and projects about the South,” Wilson said. “Sarah was always the down-to-earth one who assisted us with managing the finances of projects that often didn’t have enough financing, but she always figured out easy to help and keep on budget.”
Throughout Wilson’s directorship of the center from 1998 to 2007, he appreciated her professionalism and good spirits.
“I always thought I detected a half-skeptical eye to some of our wilder ideas, but she kept us grounded,” he said.
It’s not all numbers for Pegues, though.
“I love to read romance/romantic suspense novels, listen to music – as everyone knows when they pass by or enter my office – and hang out with family and friends,” she said.
Pegues’ last official day is Dec. 31.