Mississippi State University will honor the late Dr. Richard Holmes with a memorial service.
Holmes, who integrated the university when he enrolled on July 15, 1965, passed away on Oct. 16 at age 82. To honor his life and legacy, Mississippi State is holding a memorial service in the Cleveland Gallery at The Mill on Tuesday, Nov. 3, at 10 a.m.
Speakers will include Mississippi State President Dr. Mark Keenum, Rev. Guy Thompson, senior pastor of Second Baptist Church in Starkville, and Mississippi State vice presidents Rasheeda Forbes and Sid Salter. Holmes’ fraternity, Kappa Alpha Psi, will deliver a tribute. The university’s Black Voices gospel choir will also perform.
A native of Starkville, Holmes earned an undergraduate degree in liberal arts and a master’s degree in microbiology at Mississippi State. He continued his academic career at Michigan State University, where he earned his medical degree. He later served as an emergency room physician in Birmingham, Ala. Holmes returned to Mississippi and joined his alma mater’s Longest Student Health Center in 2003 as a staff physician, later earning an honorary Doctor of Science degree.
In 1991, Mississippi State recognized Holmes’ campus achievements and medical career by naming the university’s cultural diversity center in his honor. Holmes and his wife, Judie, later endowed a minority scholarship fund that also carries his name. A lifelong Bulldog, Holmes was named the 2006 National Alumnus of the Year.
In August of this year, Keenum led Mississippi State’s dedication and ribbon-cutting for the Dr. Richard E. Holmes Plaza, which he described as “a place where everyone can find opportunity and belonging” and a space for “community, conversation, connection, and friendship.”
