By John Cofield

Most small towns mark their worth and validate their greatness by remembering and telling the stories of their time in the spotlight. The night the boys won the state championship, the native son who went on to the governor’s mansion or the little girl who grew up to be crowned Miss Mississippi.

Oxford has all of those and many more: national champions, Miss Americas, Super Bowl MVPs, writers, celebrities and a whole host of true-life characters who have made the local, state, national and international news.

We’ve had more “15 minutes of fame” than most small towns could even dream about.

Yet still, our finest hour tolled some 4,443 miles from Lafayette County as King Gustaf Adolf VI of Sweden presented the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature to William Cuthbert Faulkner of Oxford, Mississippi.