Released September 30, 1999

McCARTY'S LIFE, DEATH PROMPTS E-MAIL TRIBUTES
By Bill Sutley

HATTIESBURG -- People from across the nation are responding to a University of Southern Mississippi invitation on the Internet to tell how Oseola McCarty offered them inspiration.

After McCarty's death Sept. 26, Southern Miss updated a website devoted to McCarty (http://www.usm.edu/pr/oolamain.htm) with details on her funeral plans. The university also invited visitors to submit remarks by e-mail on McCarty's life and her impact, promising to publish the remarks on the website.

One New Jersey high school teacher told how she happened to have recently shared McCarty's story with her students.

"Many had a difficult time dealing with her generosity," wrote Adele Berardi of Southern Regional High School in Manahawkin, N.J. "Violence, drugs and anger are much easier for these children to understand, but true selflessness can be such a foreign concept to them."

Berardi said two of her students came running to tell her this week that they had heard the news of McCarty's death.

"It is a great loss to have lost her, and yet a great gift to our class to have simply known about her and her humble gift," Berardi wrote. "God must have inspired me to use her story as our very first reading selection of the year. I think Miss McCarty would have appreciated the timing."

Susan Sharp of Sneads Ferry, N.C., the first person to respond to Southern Miss's Internet invitation, wrote to tell how she was "inspired by (McCarty's) humility and uncomplicated view of the way things should be."

W.L. Jenkins of San Diego, Calif., was also impressed with McCarty's humility. "What impressed me most was that she could not understand she had done anything remarkable," Jenkins wrote. "She did what came natural for her: giving more than she received. Mississippi claims many great sons and daughters, but none as authentic as Miss McCarty."

Richard L. Dill, who gave no hometown but said he had read about McCarty's death in the Boston Globe, noted that McCarty's gift would keep giving beyond her death. "Her legacy will live on in the education and lives of those who are helped by the scholarship fund she founded," Dill wrote. "I came to this (website) to find out where I may send the first of what I intend to make annual contributions to her scholarship fund in her memory."

To offer similar thoughts on McCarty, write to pr@usm.edu or visit the McCarty website, http://www.usm.edu/pr/oolamain.htm. A link to that page is temporarily posted on Southern Miss's main web page, http://www.usm.edu. Tributes to McCarty received so far are published at http://www.usm.edu/pr/ommsgs.htm.

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