Billy Watkins a lifelong Mississippian, has been a newspaper reporter for three decades in his home state, telling the stories of its people. After earning a journalism degree from the University of Mississippi, he was a sportswriter from 1975 to 1990 at The Meridian Star, Jackson Daily News and the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. He was voted by his peers the state's Sportswriter of the Year three times. He then moved to general features at the Clarion-Ledger, where his work has earned him more than 40 regional and national awards. He proudly reminds people that the Saturn V rockets, which powered our astronauts on their way to the moon, were all tested in Mississippi, at Stennis Space Center.