Sponsored Content
If ever there was evidence that small town doesn’t always mean small time, it’s Oxford, Mississippi.
Eighty miles south of Memphis, Oxford is home to the walkable Courthouse Square and the campus of the University of Mississippi, which sit shoulder to shoulder. Those 28,405 Ole Miss students and the school’s spirited sports traditions imbue the town of 26,000 with palpable enthusiasm and appetites, which the town feeds with memorable food and fun. And in terms of food, Oxford consistently gets national recognition for its ability to give downhome Southern specialties a cosmopolitan air.
That’s a big plus for meetings and conferences, where, as everyone knows, remarkable meals make permanent impressions. Late last year in fact, four Oxford area restaurants were among 159 to make the first-ever Southern edition of the Michelin Guide, quite a feat considering Oxford’s size. Planners will want to get their attendees to at least one of the four: Ajax Diner, for fried catfish, dumplings and sweet tea; City Grocery, where chef John Currence infuses Southern specialties with worldly influences; and Snackbar, where French influences elevate Southern recipes, all on the square, and if there’s time, to Taylor Grocery, in nearby Taylor.
Flavor beyond the dinner table
Another way to add Oxford’s flavor to a meeting is by including aspects of the university. Start with Ole Miss sports traditions. Although football weekends are not recommended as conference dates, Ole Miss’s high-end tailgating can be duplicated any time of year in a handy parking lot. Another rousing way to incorporate Rebels athletics? Invite a coach to give attendees a pep talk at the conference or during an opening reception in a suite high above the field at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
For a look at the respected educational institution’s studious side, find an appropriate professor to give a lecture or plan a tour of campus. Visit Oxford can help put planners in touch with university staff for arrangements.
A tour of the new Duff Center for Science and Technology Innovation, Ole Miss’s $175 million STEM facility, is sure to inspire ideas about collaborative learning, with its tech-infused classrooms wrapped in white boards and roundtable layouts.
For a lesson in music history, schedule a tour and talk at the Blues Archive, an Ole Miss collection of some 400,000 artifacts that includes BB King’s personal collection. It’s a look at “the people’s music,” a genre that has influenced almost every other.
Well-known Oxonians
Beyond the university, well-known personalities who make Oxford their home are often available to talk to conference groups. Among them is John T. Edge, founding director of the Southern Foodways Alliance and host of the TV show TrueSouth; author Wright Thompson, who writes about sports for ESPN but is also known for his nonfiction books about bourbon and the Mississippi Delta; and Elizabeth Heiskell, a chef and cookbook author who is a regular contributor on the Today Show where she shares her passion for Southern recipes and hospitality.
For more information on planning an event in Oxford, Mississippi, please contact:
Visit Oxford
Nadia Thornton, TMP
Director of Sales and Marketing
662-232-2477
