Distinguished Alumni

Mr. Jasper S. Lee grew up in the farming community of Tinnin in Hinds County, Mississippi. He completed bachelor's and master's degrees in agricultural education at Mississippi State University in 1963 and 1966, respectively. Afterwards, he taught agriculture in Hinds and Warren Counties, Mississippi, and then pursued doctoral study at the University of Illinois, earning his Doctorate of Education in 1970.

Lee served 25 years in higher education as a faculty member in agricultural education at Virginia Tech and Mississippi State University. It was at MSU that he served extensively including time as department head. During those years, he worked with many outstanding faculty members, students, and agricultural educators.

Lee's major professional niche was in authoring and editing agricultural books and related materials. His first book, Commercial Catfish Farming, was published in 1973 by Interstate Publishers. In the years that followed, Lee had many opportunities with publishers, curriculum organizations, and research units. This led him to leave the university he loved in 1993 to work fulltime in publishing. He advised book publishers; identified topics, titles, and treatments; and recruited and trained authors. While doing so, he authored numerous titles himself with approximately 400 publications produced under his direction. In 2018, he donated the Jasper S. Lee Agriculture and Applied Science Collection of about 1,100 publications to the MSU Libraries.

Lee and his wife, Delene, have two adult children and four grandchildren. They currently live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Northeast Georgia.