November 10, 2021
Carthage resident and artist Dwayne Warwick (third from left) is shown presenting a painting of legendary and beloved East Central Community College English instructor the late Ovid Vickers to college President Dr. Brent Gregory (second from left). Also in attendance for the presentation were Vickers’ daughters, Harriet Vickers Laird of Starkville (left) and Nona Vickers of Trussville, Ala.
Leake County native Dwayne Warwick of Carthage recently donated a painting of beloved East Central Community College English instructor Ovid Vickers to the college.
Warwick made the presentation to ECCC President Dr. Brent Gregory during a recent visit to the Decatur campus.
Vickers’ daughters, Nona Vickers of Trussville, Ala., and Harriet Vickers Laird of Starkville were also in attendance for the presentation.
The painting depicts Vickers during his early years and will eventually be displayed in The Alumni House once renovations are complete on the facility. The Alumni House is the former college President’s Home located on the southwest corner of campus. Vickers and his family resided in the home for a number of years after a new President’s Home was built.
Warwick attended East Central in 1955-56 before studying art at the University of Southern Mississippi. He completed a brief stint at the Student’s Art League in New York. He married fellow artist Henrietta Green in 1965 and they exhibited art together and lived in Nashville for a number of years before her death in 1995. In 2004, he married ECCC alumna Bobbie Ruth Oliphant of Carthage, a former student of Vickers. She died in 2020.
Vickers, a native of Dodge County, Ga., spent 40 years on the ECCC campus and taught generations of students to love literature and poetry. He died March 31, 2020, at age 89. Vickers joined the then East Central Junior College faculty in 1955 when he was just 24 years old and would later serve as chair of the English Department for many years. Throughout his career, Vickers was not only a teacher, but was also a published poet, newspaper columnist, public speaker, playwright, practicing folklorist, and a collector of antiques.
He published two books with profits benefiting the East Central Community College Foundation. His first book, The East Central I Knew: A History of East Central Community College, covers the college from its beginning in 1928 through 2013. His second book, Notes in the Margin: A Collection of Columns About East Central Community College, is a collection of essays Vickers pulled from his weekly newspaper columns, which highlight various people, places, and events associated with the college.
Warwick and Vickers’ wife, the late Carol Farish Vickers, were classmates at Noxapater High School. The Warwicks and the Vickers would become great friends through the years and spent time together during class reunions and dinners with other classmates. Vickers included a story about Warwick and his art in his book Notes in the Margin.
A well-known quilter and author, Carol Vickers professional talent and greatest career achievement were as a classroom English teacher in the Decatur public schools from 1966-1982 and as an instructor at East Central Community College from 1983 until her 1992 retirement. She died August 19, 2020.
An event honoring the Vickers’ legacy is scheduled for April 1, 2022, on the East Central Community College campus and more details will be released in the future.
