Introduction

"Stars Over Mississippi" is a bi-annual concert held in Amory, MS that attracts some of entertainment's biggest and brightest Stars.  Stars is the primary fundraising arm of the Mary Kirkpatrick Haskell Scholarship Foundation, a foundation to help deserving Mississippi students attend college.  

Kathie Lee with Sam and Mary Haskell

The charity was founded by Kathie's agent and dear friend, Sam Haskell at the William Morris Agency, in honor of his mother, Mary Kirkpatrick Haskell.

Mary Nell Kirkpatrick Haskell was born in Amory on July 17, 1925, the third child of G. H. and Mary Katherine Kirkpatrick. She was valedictorian of the Amory High School Class of 1942, which in 1992 celebrated its 50th reunion. She was secretary of the Senior Class, recipient of the 1942 Code of Ethics Medal, DAR Good Citizenship Girl of the Year, Editor of the school newspaper, The Peptomist, and a member of Amory High School's first Hall of Fame, which later became the Golden Panther Awards.

She graduated with honors from the University of Tennessee School of Nursing on a scholarship which was funded through the Air Force Cadet Nurse Corps. After graduation from nursing school, Mrs. Haskell was stationed at Brookley Air Force Base Hospital in Mobile, Alabama.

After marriage and the birth of three sons, Sam, Jamie, and Bill, the Haskell family moved back to Amory in 1959. Mrs. Haskell was active in the Junior Auxiliary, the Fidelia Club, and the First Baptist Church. In 1969, School Superintendent Ed Hayman hired her as Amory's first school nurse.

In 1980, after re-entering school at the University of Colorado at the age of 55, Mrs. Haskell became Mississippi's first School Nurse Practitioner. Mrs. Haskell was a founding member of the Mississippi School Nurses Association, and in 1997, 10 years following her death, she was inducted posthumously into the First Mississippi School Nurses Hall of Fame.

She died of cancer on April 20, 1987. Through her son, Sam, and her daughter-in-law, Mary, Mrs. Haskell has two grandchildren, Sam IV and Mary Lane, who were born after her death.

Sam started thinking almost immediately about something to celebrate his mother's life instead of just mourning her death.  Since one of her top concerns was a lack of money for deserving students to continue their education, Sam decided that a scholarship to benefit students who might otherwise fall through the cracks was a fitting tribute.  In 1991, he established the Mary Kirkpatrick Haskell Scholarship Foundation.