Bruce Smith

A Mississippi native, Robert Bruce Smith spent his childhood in Ripley, graduated from high school in Tupelo, and received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Mississippi. He now lives in Tupelo, where he does technology consulting and enjoys researching topics about science, architecture, and Mississippi history. Additionally, he reviews classical music concerts for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. In 2004, Smith published a book, Madness and the Mississippi Bonds, about the famous Mississippi bond scandal that became a worldwide cause célèbre in the decades immediately preceding the Civil War. For several years, he has led a walking tour of historic Faulkner sites during Ripley’s annual Faulkner Festival. Last summer, he led a similar tour of Ripley and New Albany for visiting scholars at the University of Mississippi’s Faulkner-Yoknapatawpha Conference in Oxford. His father was the special prosecutor appointed by Governor J.P. Coleman in the Emmett Till case.  Bruce and his brother Jak, an attorney in Tupelo, retain their father’s papers from the Till trial.