The Maroon Edition will host a tour tonight at the Odd Fellows Cemetery.
The event will take place from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Following a presentation on Eudora Welty and her work as a photographer, participants will tour the Odd Fellows Cemetery. Those wanting to participate should meet at the Oktibbeha County Heritage Museum at 206 Fellowship St. before the event.
Alexandra Hui, history professor and facilitator of the event, said she was excited about the potential to show more of Eudora Welty’s life than just her writing.
“We were excited to teach people a little more about Eudora Welty and some of the other things she’s done besides writing award-winning novels,” Hui said.
Welty worked as a Works Progress Administration photographer for many years, taking pictures of ordinary people and places in the South. The event came to fruition as a result of the photographs Welty took during these years.
“She’s a very good photographer and one of her last books that was ever published was on church cemeteries throughout the South, and it’s actually quite a haunting book,” Hui said.
Hui said she hopes participants will gain knowledge and an interest in learning more about Welty, cemeteries and the types of information they can provide. 
“Certainly, we want people to learn about this other side of Welty and then to learn more about the history of our town. It’s the sort of thing you don’t really know about unless you seek it out,” Hui said. “Hopefully it’ll help people see cemeteries in a different light and as another part of their heritage.”
Hui said Jean Marcus and Mattie Abraham, who both have specialty areas useful to the event, will help host the cemetery tours.
“Jean Marcus, an anthropology professor, has recently done work on local burial practices and has studied the way in which African American burial practices may very well be different from white,” Hui said. “Then we worked with Mattie Abraham, who is the head archivist from the library, who’s actually surveyed all the cemeteries in the area.”
Hui said participants should dress warmly and wear comfortable shoes for walking and exploring the cemetery.
Rhett Hobart, Student Association president, said he commends Maroon Edition for creating a various programs to interest a mixture of students.
“The Maroon Edition committee has student members who are able to work to create events that are appealing to many different students,” he said. “I think the committee does a good job of creating events to engage students who have read the novel, as well as even creating events for those who chose not to read the novel but still want to be involved.”
Rachel Mordecki, senior English major, said she thinks the variety of Maroon Edition events is appealing to her as a student.
“I would be more likely to go to a nontraditional event because you can see something rather than just listen to someone speak,” Mordecki said. “I think it’s a great idea to add events like the cemetery tour.”
On Thursday, there will be an encore of the lecture for the Oktibbeha County Historical and Genealogy Society.