Dr. Ottis Ball with his wife, Dixie.
Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College presents the 2008 Sam Owen Award to Dr. Ottis Ball on Homecoming Day, Oct. 11, at the Perkinston Campus. The award is an honor bestowed since 1956 to a community member who actively supports the college and its ongoing mission to make a positive difference. The Induction Ceremony, where the college will honor Ball, will be held in Perk’s Malone Hall Auditorium, 10-11:30 a.m. Call the Alumni Office at 601-928-6288, or e-mail brenda.donahoe@mgccc.edu, for more information.
Dr. Ottis Ball was born during the Depression more than a decade after his parents, Leonard Daniel and Mildred (Rouse) Ball, thought they had delivered their last child. His life since then has included many adventures which he recounts in a semi-autobiographical book, “Along Came Frog,” published in April 2008. His childhood in Lyman and his years at Perkinston Agricultural High School and Perkinston Junior College were part of his journey, which has included Dixie, his wife of 50 years; their sons Keith, Brad and Steve; 13 grandchildren; and now (and once again), Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.
Ball has been a generous supporter of his alma mater. “Perkinston is really where I got my start,” he said. “At that time, I had just injured my knee playing football. After that, I started studying and doing well in school. The first thing I knew, I was making good grades, and I got involved in lots of extracurricular activities. I figured that if I wasn’t going to play sports, maybe I could do something else. The folks at Perk helped me make the transition from athlete to student.” After graduating from Perkinston, Ball became a member of the first freshman class at The University of Mississippi’s (UMC) School of Medicine in 1958.
Ball recently expressed his gratitude for the education he received at Gulf Coast with the largest monetary gift in the college’s history. “The generosity exhibited by Dr. Ball is a great example of the type of person he truly is,” said Jere Hess, associate vice president of Development at Gulf Coast. “His gift is a result of his estate planning, which we encourage all of our alumni and friends of the college to consider when updating their wills.”
A portion of the donation will go toward the construction of a bell tower and carillon at the Perkinston Campus, while the rest of the money will go toward the Foundation for student scholarships. “I wanted this to be something to help some of the less fortunate students, and help the college,” Ball said. “I’m really impressed with the changes at the campus. It’s grown so much since I was there.”
His donation to the college “comes at a time of increasing costs for students to attend college,” Hess said.
During his time at Perk, Ball earned several titles, including class officer, student council member, cheerleader, Homecoming duke, Wesley Foundation vice president, Cutest, Handsomest, Most Intellectual, Most Talented, Most Likely to Succeed and Mr. Perkinston Agricultural High School.
After Perk, he attended Ole Miss and after medical school, he served two years in the U.S. Army before returning to serve as a resident at UMC. He then worked in Indiana before coming back to Mississippi to work in Tupelo, and then back to Jackson where he worked at Mississippi Baptist Medical Center for 32 years in radiology. While there, he was one of the founders of the Radiology Group, was active in nuclear medicine and helped to establish the Mississippi chapter of the Society of Nuclear Medicine.
In 2007, Ball retired and became an author. His interest in writing was spurred by Fred Haise, a Perk alumnus and Apollo 13 astronaut. “When I was at Perk, I became good friends with Fred. We roomed across the hall from each other. He was editor of the school paper, and he got me interested in that.”
For about 10 years, on and off, Ball worked on “Along Came Frog,” which details many aspects of his life in South Mississippi, including how his father, while working as a railroad fireman, was saved by a man named Frog, an African-American railroad worker. Frog became a lifelong friend to the family after he pulled Ball’s father from underneath a train engine, burning himself severely in the process. In those days, the fireman’s job was to keep fire in the engine by keeping it full of wood or coal. It truly was, Ball says, a brave thing for Frog to do. After the accident, Ball and his family visited Frog at his home on the Coast. He took notes during every visit, something that came in handy when he wrote the book.
Ball and the late author and fellow Mississippian Willie Morris, were good friends. They met in high school at the Mississippi American Legion Boys State, a program established in 1939 that gives young Mississippians a better understanding of how elections and state government work in their state. At the 1951 Boys State in Jackson, Morris defeated Ball by one vote for secretary/treasurer. In the end, however, the two remained friends. Morris, who in 1967 became the youngest editor of Harper’s Magazine, was helping Ball with “Along Came Frog” at the time of his death in 1999, when he died of a heart attack.
All in all, Ball said he feels it is his turn to give back to the college that gave him a good start in life. Many students facing tough economic times these days are looking for financial help to attend college. “My time at Perk equipped me very well for Ole Miss,” he remembered. “I want to give that opportunity to other students.”