Harris Barnes Papers

Harris Hastings Barnes, Jr, son of Harris Barnes Sr., an agricultural agent, and Lula Talley Barnes, was born on December 8, 1918, and grew up on his father’s small farm. He graduated from Clarksdale High School in 1937, and Mississippi State University in 1941. He married Jayme Haskins (1921-2002) in 1942. Following service in the Marine Corps in the Pacific Theater of World War II (1941-1946), he pursued a career in farm management. Barnes served as the manager of Baugh Plantation, Connell and Co., Sherard, Coahoma County (1946-1957) and general farm manager King and Anderson/Oakhurst Company, Clarksdale, Coahoma County (1957-1969).

His journalism career ran concurrently with his farming career. He began taking photographs in late 1946 with a Kodak Flash Bantam, size 828, and his first article, on King and Anderson, appeared in Progressive Farmer in 1957. During the course of his career Barnes worked for Farm Quarterly (journalist, 1969-1972), Delta Farm Press (associate editor, 1972-73), Southeast Farm Press (editor, 1973-1980), and finally as a freelance photojournalist in South Carolina and Clarksdale from 1980-2006. He received the Progressive Farmer Magazine Man of the Year Award in 1967, the Mississippi Historical Society Award of Merit in 2004, and the Mississippi Library Association Author Award in 2005.

In addition to his journalism and farming activities, Barnes was Vice-President, American Soybean Association, 1966-1967 and member of soybean market study mission to Japan; President, American Soybean Association, 1967-1969; soybean trade mission to Europe promoting export markets; Director, Executive Committee, Soybean Council of America, 1967-1968; Director, Mississippi Soybean Association, 1967-1968; President, Mississippi State University Alumni Association, 1958-1959; President, Clarksdale Rotary Club; and Elder emeritus, First Presbyterian Church, Clarksdale.

Major Publications: The Pick of the Crop: A Collection of Recipes, Drew, Miss.: North Sunflower PTA, 1978 (Cover by Barnes) Between the Levees: A Collection of Mississippi Delta Recipes, Cleveland, Miss.: Delta Rice Promotions, 1994 (Photographs by Barnes) Cotton: A 50-Year Pictorial History, Brandon, Miss: True Exposures Pub., 2002 The Beauty of Southern Agriculture, Brandon, Miss.: True Exposures Pub., 2004 The Good Ol’ Days on the Cotton Farm, 2006 National Cotton Council annual calendars

Harris Barnes died on August 25, 2006, and was survived by his children Harris Barnes III, Dudley McBee Barnes, Jim Barnes, and Jamye Barnes Lane, 10 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.