A Hattiesburg native was recently named Mr. Ole Miss, which is the highest title bestowed on a male student by fellow students at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
Cade Slaughter was elected to the honor by the university’s student body, and he was presented with the award by Jake Fanning, attorney general of the Ole Miss Associated Student Body.
“Each year, five or six students run for each position, and the student body votes for each role,” Slaughter said. “Mr. Ole Miss is part of the homecoming court each year, and he spends the next year working on a philanthropy project with Miss Ole Miss.”
Slaughter will reign with Miss Ole Miss Lilli Gordon, and the pair will partner with a few campus-wide organizations to benefit programs in mental health, the arts and literacy.
“We’ll also raise funds for a few different partners and provide varied types of programming,” he said. “We’re planning these things now, and we’ll implement them in the spring semester.”
Slaughter, 22, is a senior at the university, and he is dual majoring in public policy leadership and integrated marketing communications. He plans to attend graduate school and specialize in community and economic development.
“I’m especially interested in economic development,” he said. “My honors thesis is on the ‘brain drain’ in Mississippi, and it also focuses on downtown revitalization projects.”
The “brain drain” is a well-studied phenomenon throughout the state. Sociologists have stated that educated millennials are leaving Mississippi in droves, and this outmigration will plague the state for years.
Slaughter said he hopes to help stop “brain drain,” and he intends to stay in Mississippi and work in fields that build up the state and its citizens.
The Sacred Heart High School graduate said his upbringing in Hattiesburg – including living in the same house in the downtown area his entire life – prepared him for success at Ole Miss and beyond.
“Hattiesburg prepared me to want to do good things, to put my time into many different things,” Slaughter said. “College challenges you to find things to put your energy into, and, in Hattiesburg, people put their energy into great things.”
Slaughter – the son of Susan Cade Slaughter and the late Jay Slaughter – has one sister, Kathryn, and she is a sophomore at Mississippi State University.
“We’re definitely a house divided,” he said with an accompanying laugh. “My mom went to Southern Miss, so we have a family that represents the entire state pretty well.”
