No one who visits with a member of the Sturdivant family for more than a few minutes can fail to be impressed with a certain strength of character that permeates the conversation. It is more than the self-assurance, more than the warmth, more than the quick humor - although each of them has these qualities in abundance. One senses, somehow, that each member of the family is truly happy - not in the sense that their lives are without the sorrows and problems that everyone faces, but in the sense of some underlying contentment that springs from within.

The younger generation of Sturdivant adults is able to give a name to this quality - a strong moral compass - and they all give quick credit to their parents for providing this compass. That, they say, and the unusually close family ties, have provided the framework upon which they have based their very successful lives.

Most Deltans know, or at least know of, the Sturdivants. The family has been farming larger and larger holdings in the Glendora area for several generations. The family is also well known in Jackson, its MMI Hotel Group being a long-term corporate citizen. In addition, the present patriarch of the family, Mike Sturdivant Sr., became known in Mississippi’s political circles when he ran for Governor during the 1980s.

It is in their communities, however, that all the Sturdivants seem to make their biggest marks. Each of them very active with a host of involvements that cover everything from churches to civic organizations to professional boards. This commitment to citizenship also finds its roots in family tradition.

Mike Sturdivant, Sr., and his wife, Ygondine, have five children - Mike, Walker, Sykes, Gaines and Ygondine. They have lived at the "home place" in Glendora throughout their married life despite Mike’s business in Jackson. They enjoyed the life there and believed it to be a good environment for rearing their children.

The farming operation is called Due West. "That’s because it is due west of my great-grandfather’s old home site across the Tallahatchie River," Mike Sr., explains. "He originally settled that site in the 1840s. There was a little steamboat settlement there called Graball. My grandfather had a store there and he bought this land in the 1880s. Since it was due west of his father’s place, that’s what he named it."

This same grandfather, and of course his grandmother, raised Mike, Sr., since his mother passed away when he was quite young. He was attending Harvard when his grandfather died and he had to leave school suddenly and return to run the farm. Sturdivant says that this is how he got into the hotel business. He had roomed with Earl Jones at Harvard Business School in 1947. After a few years of running the farm, he was becoming concerned about the future. "At that time (1955), it looked like agriculture was going down the tubes. I was looking for something that had nothing to do with agriculture. I bought the franchise for a Holiday Inn in Meridian and called Earl in California to see if he would be interested in going into business with me. He came and we opened it in 1956."

Forty-two years later, Sturdivant and Jones are Co-Chairmen of the Board of MMI, and Gaines, the youngest son, is President. The company owns and manages six Cabot Lodges, five Holiday Inns, an Embassy Suites, a Comfort Inn, a Courtyard by Marriott, The King and Prince resort on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, and are building a new Fairfield Inn. A new Marriott Residence Inn is on the drawing board. "Earl and I are still very much involved," Mike, Sr., says. "We handle new locations, financing, and we’re directly responsible for the golf course and real estate development at the St. Simon’s property."

As it turned out, agriculture didn’t go down the tubes after all, so Sturdivant was happily the proprietor of two successful businesses. In addition, he had many years on the Board of Directors with Methodist Health Systems, based in Memphis, and still holds a seat on the Board of Methodist Hospital in Jackson. He also served many years on the College Board for Mississippi. He says that is how he got into politics. "I was Chairman of the Finance Committee for the College Board, so I saw the good side of politics, those who were trying to do the right things. I ran against Bill Allain.

"After the election, I worked very closely with him (Allain) and he talked me into running again. That’s where I made my mistake," Sturdivant chuckles. He admits that he enjoyed the experiences, as grueling as they were. "I never had an unpleasant experience. I met people from all over the state, listened to their issues, learned about them. It makes you feel good about the people."

Sturdivant says he’s still as involved in politics as he wants to be, but that he is trying to slow down a little and enjoy his nice life on the farm. He has recently spent a long week-end babysitting his three and one-year old grandchildren, with his wife of course, and laughingly says he may be getting too old for that. On the more serious side, he says that he really enjoys it because he was too busy to do that with his older grandchildren and feels that he missed something with them.

The eldest son, Mike, Jr., explains that the way the family business is set up is a partnership. Apparently the parents and each of the siblings is a partner in both MMI and the farming operations. They all have input, but they may not have hands-on operational responsibility. Mike, Walker, and Sykes each has his own farming operation, known respectively as Due West, Vance; Due West, Reynolds; and Due West, Duckland. Dad’s place is, of course, Due West, Home.

Gaines, as President of MMI, has operational responsibility for the hotel properties, but has input into the farming as the other siblings have into MMI. Ygondine, he says, is very involved with both businesses, but doesn’t have operational responsibilities for either. "And Mom," he chuckles, "just tells everybody what to do." Both husband and siblings agree with the assessment and say that she is nearly always right. They enjoy telling about the time that they wanted to plant a particular piece of acreage. "Mom put her foot down. She said it was too close to the house. Of course it didn’t get planted."

Mike, Jr., and his wife, Jan, have two children. Their son, Micajah, will be a sophomore at Ole Miss this year and their daughter Lee will be a senior at Pillow Academy in Greenwood. "Micajah is actually mine and Dad’s name too," Mike says. "Mike is a nickname. It’s Biblical, but I think it’s misspelled." Walker adds that his mother’s and sister’s name is probably also misspelled from the original because it came from a French novel that his mother’s grandmother liked and that he has never been able to find it.

Mike graduated from Millsaps College and took his MBA from Harvard. "I did enjoy it," he says. "It was different, but it was different by design. I still enjoy my reunions." He also took a six-weeks crash course in agriculture at MSU before beginning to farm. Of his wife he says, "I married a Memphis girl and moved her to the country. She loves it and wouldn’t go back. Jan is a horse lover. She teaches and rides. She started a National Pony Club in Greenwood."

Like the rest of the family, Mike grew up in the Methodist Church in Glendora, but says that since Jan was Episcopalian, they compromised, and he is a member and Elder at First Presbyterian Church in Greenwood. He is also Past President of the Delta Council and is still very active on committees, serves on the Board of Mississippi Methodist Rehabilitation Center in Jackson, serves on the Board of the local farmers cooperative in Greenwood and is a member of the Memphis branch of the Federal Reserve Board.

"My great-grandfather was on the Federal Reserve in St. Louis," Mike says. "Depending on the region, they frequently have someone who represents the ag sector." He says that the co-op in Greenwood runs a chemical business, a tire division, a propane division, a grain elevator and a farm and ranch store.

Speaking of growing up at Due West, Mike says, "I’m fifth generation. We’ve been real lucky to grow up there. We learned to work and play real well together. We’re very fortunate because we still work and play together. We’re a very competitive family," he chuckles. "We have a lot of fun. We play golf for a dollar and it’s dog eat dog."

It seems that the entire family plays golf, Dad and the boys once a week, Gaines and Ygondine when they can get there. Most are avid tennis players. They snow ski, hunt duck, deer and dove, and make a point of taking vacations together. In the winter, they leave the kids behind and the siblings go to the Caribbean. In the summer, they take everyone and go to the St. Simons property for an entire family vacation.

Walker, the second son, says that, "one of the reasons I like being back in Glendora is the relationship with Dad and my siblings." After graduating from Vanderbilt, Walker obtained his law degree from Ole Miss and an LLM in tax law at NYU. He practiced in Greenville, but in 1987 decided to go into farming. "I represent the family in the farm and hotel business, but I quit practicing full time."

He is now fully immersed in farming and loves it. "I love farming and I love the Delta. I feel like one of those professional sports figures. I love what I do and I get paid for it. We have a great group of people who work here. They are knowledgeable, they work hard, they want to do the right thing - it’s enjoyable just being around them."

Walker and his wife, Lanie, still live in Greenwood with their three children. Kathryn is seventeen and will go to Wake Forest in the fall. Walker, Jr., is fourteen and Susanne is eight. Lanie is from Oxford and is a CPA, graduating from Ole Miss. "She worked before the children were born," Walker says. "We say she gave up an eight-hour a day job for a twenty-four hour one. She is on the School Board at Pillow Academy, several church committees (St. John’s Methodist), is very active in the garden club and with a lot of the children’s activities."

Walker is on the Board of Methodist Health Services (Memphis) which he says has been a great learning experience and also an enjoyable one. He is also Past President of the Methodist Foundation; on the Board of Beacon Harbor, a sheltered workshop environment for the mentally challenged; on the Board of the Greenwood Little Theater; a lay delegate to the Methodist National Conference; and an assistant Scout Master.

Walker loved growing up on the farm. "We went to a county high school. There was such a sense of community. We got to play and compete in sports even though we were small. We were real close as a family because there weren’t many neighbors our age. And it was hard to get into trouble because everyone knew us. It was a wonderful experience." He also enjoys family stories.

"Mom was the daughter of a doctor and a banker’s daughter from Lambert, Mississippi. She was Miss Ole Miss. After graduation, she went to Shaw to teach English. Dad had set himself a distance limit on dating. He said that he would only date girls within a 30-mile radius of Glendora. The circle expanded to 75 miles after he met Mom," Walker chuckles. "Mom was real involved with us, a den mother and all those things. But the most important thing was that she was our moral compass. There was never any question about what was acceptable and permissible. You couldn’t ask for a better mother.

"There’s a great story about Dad," he continues. "He was going to baby-sit Carson, his granddaughter, who was almost three. She was going to start pre-school but wasn’t potty-trained. Dad told my sister, ‘I’ll potty train her while you’re on vacation.’ And he DID IT! After that, he would say, ‘If anybody needs me, I’m expensive.’ We still don’t know how he did it that fast."

Sykes, son number three, is the politician in the family now, according to his dad, holding an elected position as President of the Yazoo/ Mississippi Delta Levee Board. "That’s an important position now that river boat gambling is in the Delta," Mike, Sr., says. "The Board oversees a great deal of money that is vital to development in the area."

Sykes holds an appointed position on the Yazoo/Mississippi Delta Water Management District Board and serves on the Board of the Delta Council. He is also Vice Chairman of the Industrial Board of Tallahatchie County, serves on the Board for Habitat for Humanity, and is a member of the Sumner Rotary Club and the Methodist Church in Glendora.

The position on the Levee Board gives Sykes a sense of history and tradition. "My great-great-grandfather, Captain Ben William Sturdivant, served on the Board in 1884," he explains, "and my great-grand-dad, Micajah Purnell served in 1910."

In addition to operating his farming business, Sykes operates the flying service for the family business and handles marketing for the grain elevator. "We started the flying service to handle crop protection in 1982," he says, "and we buy and sell corn for the elevator in addition to our own crop." This is another example of how the family works as a partnership. Even though each farm is a separate entity, the elevator, the cotton gin, the flying service and all the purchasing is operated as a unit for the partnership, providing economies of scale to each member.

Sykes works hard for economic development in Tallahatchie County. "All our industry left and went to Mexico," he says. "We really need jobs here. You can tell how many people are idle just by the increase in petty crime. We’ve been trying to attract a privately-run prison to the county, and it’s looking good. We have the land, and we have had proposals from two of the top three private companies in the business.

"But we need other jobs too. We’re trying to bring in another garment company to replace the jobs lost when Angelica left. Experience in the cut and sew business is what we have in our labor pool. We’re trying to get a grant to purchase and fix up the old picture frame factory in Tutwiler. The county already owns the Angelica building. We need good existing buildings to help attract new industry."

In addition to all this hard work, Sykes and his wife, Cindy, find time to participate in the family activities. "Golf and tennis are my main hobbies," he says. "I coach a tennis team and we went to State this year. Cindy is a really good tennis player. She’s on the circuit. She was number one in the state in doubles, with her partners, for four years."

As to growing up on the farm and in his family, Sykes says, "It was the greatest life in the world. We had to work hard. Dad made sure we stayed busy. We knew everybody in every community and everybody was treated the same. It was very comfortable. And Mom, well, I just love her to death. She was the spearhead to why we’re the way we are. We always ate supper together and she was involved in all our activities. It takes a real effort to create the kind of family we had - and have. I still love the country life. I think it has a lot of advantages over the city."

Gaines, the fourth child and youngest son, is the only one of the boys who lives in the city. He, like each of the children, had an opportunity to try both the farm and the hotel business. "I enjoyed a number of aspects of the hotel business. I enjoy being around a lot of people. I thought I’d give it a shot and I really liked it. No one else in the family had chosen to go into it, so it was a natural.

"The work fits my personality too. I need to be pushed, and this work will do that. My brothers love farming, but I don’t think I could handle nine months of really hard work and then, suddenly, three months with nothing to do. I like this structure."

Perhaps Gaines understands himself so well because he graduated from Vanderbilt with a degree in psychology. He says that field of study really helped him in the hotel business, where he has not only to please thousands of guests each year, but also to manage 1400 employees who work in the hotels and in the young but important new division, MMI Dining Systems.

Gaines and his wife, Lynn, have two children, Gaines II, who is fifteen, and Adair, who is eleven. Lynn is from Macon, Georgia, and they met at Vanderbilt. They are members of St. Andrews Cathedral, and he says that Lynn does a lot of church work there and is an avid tennis player.

Gaines serves on the Board of St. Andrews School as well as the Boards of the Mississippi Museum of Art and the International Ballet Competition. He also plays all the family sports, "but my real passion is aviation," he says. "Mike shares this passion. My wife and children just tolerate it as a convenience," he chuckles. "I got my seaplane rating a couple of years ago. I fly whenever I get the chance, for business or pleasure."

As to his experience in the family, Gaines says, "at the tender age of nine, I was robbed of the opportunity to be the spoiled youngest child." This has apparently always been a joke in the family because although the boys were close together in age, Ygondine was not only a girl, but came along nine years later. They tease her about ruining their plans for a basketball team.

Gaines says that farm life was "the best." "We had the ability to roam and explore, to be creative in keeping ourselves busy, to work and make additional money, to learn about things. I love technical things and I learned about all of that and it came for free. I remember things like sitting with Mr. Fly at the General Store, just talking about things. He was the greatest of psychologists - and without even a high school degree.

"The country is really one big community," Gaines continues. "You learn to deal with all types of people. There were no security issues. We all felt safe. And Mom made growing up easy. She was the boss, and she was clear on where she stood. We knew what was off limits. Somehow she managed to convey her expectations without actually saying it. She gained our respect because of that and it was a stress-free family setting. We played together all the time - the whole family. It may be trite, but it’s true that those who play together stay together. The bottom line is, she was a great mother and would be a good role model for any family. Dad was great too. He was a great mentor and a great encourager. All the siblings are still very good friends, and we have them to thank for that."

Ygondine agrees with her brothers in their assessment of their parents and their fortunate sibling relationships. "There was never any gray area with Mom or Dad. They made it simple. Not enough could be said about them. They’ve been a support and a rock for all of us. It’s nice to have parents that you really enjoy being with. They’re good grandparents too," she adds.

She describes her mother’s involvement with Methodist Senior Services. "They oversee retirement houses. She served as Chairman for years. She stepped down recently, but is still on the Board. She was always a room mother, den mother, all those things that five children require.

"My father taught us good work ethics, but I refused to chop cotton. I’m sorry now that I didn’t. I did pick cotton though. Dad said he’d pay ten cents a pound. I picked all day, and when they weighed it, it was exactly a pound. So I made ten cents. It was a short career." Ygondine laughs.

Ygondine lives in Memphis with her two children, Carson, who is three, and Neal, who is one. She lost her husband less than a year ago, but with typical Sturdivant character and the support of her family she is making a new start on her own, not an easy task with children so small.

Her brothers like to brag that she was Valedictorian of her class at Pillow Academy. She graduated from Vanderbilt with a major in communications and spent over three years in Atlanta doing management recruitment (from colleges) for C &S Bank. Her husband-to-be was attending law school in Knoxville, so they had extensive long-distance dating before he graduated and they married. They had met in Washington, D.C. when she was a summer intern for Senator Stennis and he was working for the Republican National Committee. Ygondine laughingly says it didn’t take her long to convert him.

They lived a year in Nashville, and while Ygondine says that both Atlanta and Nashville were wonderful cities, she was really glad when their life brought them back to Memphis. "I love being close to the family. We have a great time together. They tell me I’m their favorite sister," she laughs.

Ygondine is very active in St. John Episcopal Church and serves on the Young Adult Board for both the Dixon Galleries and the Botanic Gardens. She has always loved sports and is an avid golfer and tennis player. Her Dad brags that she could dribble a basketball when she was two years old, and the brothers claim that she still beats them at golf.

With a couple of the older grandchildren beginning their college careers, it won’t be long before another generation of Sturdivants begins to make its presence felt in the Delta. The family still has each of them work a stint on the farm after high school, and each is free to explore the hotel business as well. It will be interesting to see which personalities enjoy the farm and which choose to become "city slickers." One thing is certain. Whatever their career paths, if they follow the Sturdivant tradition, they will be assets to whatever communities they choose to call home. DBJ

For more Delta Business info, Subscribe Now!

View Archives

../issues/current/articles/index.htm

Site last updated January 10, 1999.