{"id":77510,"date":"2019-07-08T12:38:22","date_gmt":"2019-07-08T17:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=77510"},"modified":"2019-07-08T12:38:29","modified_gmt":"2019-07-08T17:38:29","slug":"mississippi-historian-david-sansing-passes-away-at-86-leaves-historical-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/mississippi-historian-david-sansing-passes-away-at-86-leaves-historical-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Mississippi Historian David Sansing Passes Away at 86; Leaves Historical Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>David G. Sansing<\/strong>, professor emeritus of history at the <strong>University of Mississippi<\/strong> and author of the definitive history of the university, died Saturday, July 6, 2019 in a Memphis hospital one day after suffering a fall at his Oxford home. He was 86.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A beloved historian, writer and teacher, Sansing spent his career shining an honest spotlight on the complicated history of his home state through great writing and heartfelt stories. His writing and teaching have touched hundreds of thousands of Mississippi students over several decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe are deeply saddened by the loss of David Sansing,\u201d said <strong>Noel Wilkin<\/strong>, provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs. \u201cHe was an outstanding university citizen who made substantial contributions to our institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DavidSansing-2.jpg?resize=480%2C270\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-77513\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DavidSansing-2.jpg?w=480&amp;ssl=1 480w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DavidSansing-2.jpg?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><figcaption>Mississippi Historian David Sansing.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt is a sad day for the entire university community, and he will be greatly missed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sansing published dozens of scholarly papers and authored more than a dozen books and textbooks on various aspects of Mississippi history, including\u00a0<em>The University of Mississippi: A Sesquicentennial History<\/em>, <em>Making Haste Slowly: The Troubled History of Higher Education in Mississippi<\/em> and <em>Mississippi Governors: Soldiers, Statesmen, Scholars and Scoundrels<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His last book, <em>The Other Mississippi: A State in Conflict with Itself<\/em>, was published in 2018 as\u00a0a compilation of articles, essays, speeches and lectures given throughout Sansing\u2019s career.\u00a0His 2013 textbook,\u00a0<em>A Place Called Mississippi<\/em>, remains in use in public and private high schools throughout the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDavid Sansing was my professor and friend for 50 years,\u201d United States Senator <strong>Roger Wicker<\/strong> tweeted Sunday. \u201cRemembered me as a far better student than I actually was \u2013 What a loss for Mississippi!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A native of <strong>Greenville<\/strong>, Sansing credited his 11th-grade history teacher, <strong>Nell Thomas<\/strong>, also of his hometown, with instilling in him a love of history. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he earned both a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in history from Mississippi College and a doctorate in history from the University of Southern Mississippi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sansing began teaching history at Ole Miss in 1970. In 1990, he was named the university\u2019s Teacher of the Year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sansing is survived by his wife of 61 years, <strong>Elizabeth<\/strong>; three children, <strong>David Sansing Jr.<\/strong>, of Canton, <strong>Elizabeth Sansing McLarty<\/strong>, of Jackson, and <strong>Perry Sansing<\/strong>, of Oxford, who serves as the university\u2019s special assistant to the chancellor for governmental affairs; and five grandchildren, <strong>Cherish Sansing<\/strong>, <strong>Mary Love McLarty<\/strong>, <strong>Michael McLarty<\/strong>, <strong>Kimberly Sansing Molteni<\/strong> and <strong>Elizabeth Sansing Eaves<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All eight of Sansing\u2019s children and grandchildren earned degrees from UM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A memorial service for Sansing is set for 4 pm Wednesday, July 10 at <strong>Paris-Yates Chapel<\/strong> on the university campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"25\" height=\"16\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/TheLocalVoiceLigature-25web.jpg?resize=25%2C16\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14544\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David G. Sansing, professor emeritus of history at the University of Mississippi and author of the definitive history<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":77512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1209,1],"tags":[14748,1594,4315,14750,14749,4,5765,265,655],"class_list":["post-77510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituaries","category-uncategorized","tag-david-g-sansing","tag-greenville","tag-history","tag-nell-thomas","tag-noel-wilkin","tag-oxford","tag-paris-yates-chapel","tag-roger-wicker","tag-university-of-mississippi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DavidSansing.jpg?fit=3865%2C2737&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}