Research ship named for MS doc

GULFPORT, Miss. - A new oceanographic research ship will be named for Dr. Gilbert R. Mason Sr., a Mississippi physician who filed one of the Deep South's first school desegregation lawsuits and led wade-ins to integrate a federally funded public beach. Mason’s lawsuit - filed for his son, Gilbert Mason Jr. - made Biloxi's public schools the first in Mississippi to integrate, according to a media release from the University of Southern Mississippi. His name was among 160 submitted. Mason also served on an advisory committee to President Richard Nixon's Cabinet Committee on Education and as a consultant to President Jimmy Carter. After Hurricane Camille in 1968, he was on the Mississippi governor's emergency council to plan the Gulf Coast's reconstruction and recovery. His name was among more than 160 submitted. The ship will be built at Gulf Island Fabricators in Houma, La., and is expected to begin studies in the Gulf of Mexico in 2023. It will have homeports in both Gulfport and Houma. (Source: The AP 11/30/19) https://www.cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=77677