Lott asks for 'quantum leap' plan

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said Nov. 11 he believes Mississippi is poised "to make the greatest progress we have made in our lifetimes."

Speaking at Mississippi State, he told a packed house of more than 500 at the McComas Hall theater that Mississippi's citizens must no longer be satisfied "just to inch up" but, rather, "to take a quantum leap."

Lott's remarks came during an afternoon session of "Legacy of Leadership," a two-day campus program celebrating Mississippi's long tradition of producing national legislative leaders. Former governor William F. Winter, veteran newspaper columnist Bill Minor, 3rd District Rep. Chip Pickering, and former congressmen David Bowen and G.V. "Sonny" Montgomery were among others speaking on the program.

Ceremonies the following day featured the official opening of MSU's Congressional and Political Research Center at Mitchell Memorial Library.

Also being opened for the first time are major portions of the library's John C. Stennis Collection, the official and personal papers of Mississippi's longtime United States senator who retired in 1989 and died in 1995.

Lott, who filled the vacancy left by Stennis' retirement and is the first Mississippian to hold the Senate's top post, called for the state to develop a specific plan of action to improve its quality of life.

Lott proposed that state and local officials and business and education leaders come together to craft a four-year plan of action to move the state out of its historic place at the bottom of many economic and social scales.

"What do we want to have in Mississippi four or eight years from now?" Lott asked the audience of students, faculty, program participants and visitors. "How can we get there if we don't have a plan?

"We all have to come together and sit down and say: What can we do together?"