By Mike Ruffin
It was the late great Mr. C.E. Julian, esteemed teacher of history at Lamar County High School, who taught me that Lamar County was named for a man named L.Q.C. Lamar. I don’t think he told us that “L.Q. C.” stood for “Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus” but it did.
(By the way, he was actually L.Q.C. II - yep, they actually named him after his father, who was already saddled with that name that sounded like a law firm in a gladiator movie. Also by the way, I once asked my father why he didn’t name me after him. He said, “You must be kidding. Would you really want to go through life being called Little Champ?”) I also don’t think Mr. Julian told us that John F. Kennedy devoted a chapter to L.Q.C. Lamar in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Profiles in Courage (1955) - but he did.
[Full Story »]