Scholarship Honors Linton Family of Pharmacists

 

scholarship honors linton family.jpg

Anderson Maltruverse Linton Sr., a 1911 graduate of the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy, compounds prescriptions in his Isola drugstore.

OXFORD, Miss. – One of Allen Linton’s favorite childhood
memories is of visiting her grandfather’s drugstore in
Isola and watching as he stood behind the counter,
carefully compounding prescriptions with a mortar and
pestle. It’s an image that has defined the Linton family.

 

Pharmacy school at the University of Mississippi brought
together Allen’s mother and father; they met there in 1946
and were married in 1948. Pharmacy is the career many
others in the family chose. And it’s the reason Allen and
her mother, Sara LeMaster Linton, have given $25,000 to the
UM School of Pharmacy to seed the Linton Family Pharmacy
Scholarship Endowment.

“We have such pride in our family’s pharmacy background,”
said Allen, who works as a cancer navigator at Baptist
Centers for Cancer Care-North Mississippi. She earned both
bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing from Ole Miss.

“Ole Miss is very dear to all of us,” she said. “It’s a big
part of our family. We feel a lot of loyalty to the school.
Having the gift of an Ole Miss education is a treasure,
especially if passed on to future generations. My mother
wanted to do this to help enrich the lives of others.”

The scholarship honors the notable number of Linton family
members who attended UM’s pharmacy school. It is to be
awarded to full-time students from Mississippi enrolled in
the school, with preference going to students from
Humphreys, Lee and Panola counties, where most of the
Linton family members call home.

“I am deeply appreciative of this generous gift from the
Linton family,” said Barbara G. Wells, dean of the pharmacy
school. “The example provided by their wonderful family is
an inspiration to pharmacists and pharmacy educators
everywhere. Their dedication to help those who follow them
into the profession will make a meaningful difference in
the personal lives and academic experience of deserving
pharmacy students.”

The tradition began with Anderson Maltruverse Linton Sr.,
Allen’s grandfather. In 1911, he became the first member of
the family to graduate from the UM pharmacy school. A
dedicated student, he served as president of his pharmacy
class.

He established a reputation of treating his work as a
calling, rather than simply a job. He was known for keeping
prices as low as possible in his store in the Humphreys
County town of Isola. Sometimes he didn’t charge at all,
and routinely waited for payment until the Delta cotton was
picked, baled and sold. In some ways, with this gift from
his family, that legacy of giving lives on.

Family members say they believe he would be humbled and
honored to have a scholarship bear his name. “He was an
extraordinary, humble and gracious man,” Allen said. “This
is such an appropriate way to honor his legacy. He valued
education, and he was always trying to help people better
their lives.” It was a lesson passed to future
generations.

His son, Anderson Maltruverse “A.M.” Linton Jr., attended
Ole Miss on the GI Bill after serving in the Army Air
Force, flying transport supply missions in the
China-Burma-India theater during World War II. He graduated
from the pharmacy school in 1948 and devoted his entire
33-year career to pharmaceutical service as a Parke-Davis
representative. He passed away in 1988 at age 65.

Sara LeMaster Linton, originally from Batesville, graduated
from Ole Miss with a pharmacy degree in 1948, when pharmacy
was considered a nontraditional career choice for women.
She was one of only four women in her class.

After graduation, Sara began working retail at various
drugstores in and around Tupelo. In 1967, she was the first
pharmacist hired at North Mississippi Medical Center in
Tupelo. She worked there for 33 years before retiring at
age 73.

“I can honestly say that every day I went to work I enjoyed
it,” Sara said. “This was definitely the right professional
career choice for me.”

The family traditions continue both at Ole Miss and in the
profession.

Allen’s first cousin, Camille Shofner Roberts (BSPH 1965),
originally from Isola, is a pharmacist at Forrest General
Hospital in Hattiesburg. Camille’s son, Robert R. Roberts
III (BSPH 1994), works for Compound Pharmaceutical
Technologies, a new compounding-only pharmacy in Daphne,
Ala. Robert’s wife, Julie Giddings Roberts (BSPH 1995),
works for Mobile Mental Health as the director of pharmacy
for BayPointe Hospital in Mobile, Ala. She was also
instrumental in starting and managing the pharmacy at
Mobile Mental Health’s inpatient division. Allen’s first
cousin, Samuel Cook “Sandy” Sugg Jr. (BSPH 1976), also
originally from Isola, works in Memphis at Delta Medical
Center.

For more information on giving to Ole Miss, go to


http://www.olemiss.edu/giving/
.

To learn more about the School of Pharmacy, visit


http://www.pharmacy.olemiss.edu/
.