Taste of UMC honors longtime public affairs director

The honorary chair of the 2005 Taste of UMC breaks a precedent as the first single person to be so honored. But everyone who knows her agrees that one, in her case, is a powerful number.
Barbara Austin, the director of public affairs since 1978 and an employee of the Medical Center since 1967, was chosen by the UMC Alliance board of directors because of her efforts that have made the Taste so successful in the past.

"She has been the single most important person in getting people from the community involved in the event," said Alliance president Donna Windsor. "We really wanted to honor her for what she's done in shaping what the Taste has become."

This year's event, the major fund-raiser for the UMC Alliance, is at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 19, at the Jackson Medical Mall Thad Cochran Center. Tickets are $20 for adults ($25 at the door); $15 for students, interns and residents; and $5 for children 12 and under. They may be purchased by calling Volunteer Services at (601) 984-2068. Ticket holders get to taste food prepared by more than 35 chefs among the faculty and staff of UMC - dishes representing many countries and cultures.

Austin came to the Medical Center as assistant to the director of the then Department of Public Information in 1967. She had been assistant director of public relations at Belhaven College from 1964 until 1967. At the retirement of director Maurine Twiss, she was named director.

The Terry native was class valedictorian at Terry High School and a magna cum laude graduate of the Mississippi University for Women. She earned the MA in English and mass communications at Jackson State University. As a young career journalist, she served as president of Mississippi Press Women, and director of Region Eight for the National Federation of Press Women. She was vice president of the Jackson Professional Chapter of the Assoc-iation of Women in Communications, Inc., on the board of the College Public Relations Association of Mississippi and Southern regional chair of the Group on Institutional Advancement for the Association of American Medical Colleges. She also has served as editor of the group's national newsletter and as national chair of the American Association of Dental Schools Section on Communication, Development and Public Affairs.

Austin has served the community in many capacities as her way of "paying her civic rent," as she describes it. She has been active in New Stage Theatre since its inception and is a lifetime member of the board of directors. She has served as the theatre's board president several times and has just completed four years as board chair of the Steel Magnolia Affiliate of the Susan B. Komen Foundation. She also has served on the boards of the Jackson Symphony League, the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, the Jackson Opera Guild, the United Way of the Capital Area, the Hinds County March of Dimes, the American Red Cross, Central Mississippi Chapter, and the Fondren Renaissance Renewal. A Junior League of Jackson sustainer, she
was a Goodwill Salute Outstanding Volunteer in 1989.

Austin received the Alumnae Achievement Award from the Mississippi University for Women in 1985 and was named to the MUW Board of Distinguished Alumnae in 1989. In 1991, she received the J. Tate Thigpen Award for Exceptional Volunteer Leadership from the Central Mississippi Chapter of the American Red Cross.