Harrison Foxworth's love for Ole Miss, along with his incredible support system, involvement and concern for people led to him being elected Mr. Ole Miss during his senior year at the university.
Miss Ole Miss, Lydia Robbins, and Mr. Ole Miss, Harrison Foxworth, pose together during the Ole Miss Homecoming game.
The biggest thing Harrison, a 2019 graduate of Columbia High School, has learned since he went off to college was that he grew up with really, really good parents. He learned the importance of this because so many people he has met come from broken homes or homes with parents who haven't always been there for them. He has gained a new appreciation for his parents, Drew and Allison Foxworth, and for his siblings.
Harrison explained that the three of them are all different. His older brother, Nathan, who is in his second year of medical school, is very regimented, and his desire to help people and to make Harrison a better person has helped Harrison by leaps and bounds. His younger sister, Myers, who is a senior at Columbia High School, is a very go with the flow type of person and very compassionate. Harrison claims to be a mixture of the two.
Harrison, a senior studying public policy leadership with minors in German and higher education, was elected Mr. Ole Miss earlier this semester. He said it is essentially a personality election in which the student body votes, and it rewards involvement and philanthropy because candidates have to run on a platform.
His platform was The Happiness Team, a project under the William Magee Institute, that Harrison created and developed as a student volunteer organization. It was created to combat drug and alcohol abuse, as well as mental health issues, through storytelling and advocacy.
"The storytelling aspect relates to the idea that having people who have been through something tell their anecdotal stories will assist people in getting the help they need," Harrison said. "The most effective education is peer to peer rather than by some big organization that seems out of touch with the student body."
The election was held over a 12-day period, which began on a Thursday and ended on a Tuesday. Harrison had a table and was permitted to have a 6 foot by 2 1/2 foot sign. He passed out stickers, but the biggest part was his use of social media. He also hosted a basketball tournament that raised $1,200 for The Happiness Team.
Results of the election came in at 3 a.m., and Harrison had made the runoff election against Robert Allen, an Ole Miss basketball player. Harrison won that runoff three days later by a margin of only about 2%.
"I think I won because of my support system," Harrison said. "A lot of people were really kind and helped me out with my campaign. I couldn't have done it without them. I feel incredibly honored. I think this was one of my bigger goals because Ole Miss is something that's meant so much to me my entire life. It felt like an accumulation of my life from academic to extracurricular to that point. I am grateful and humbled to even be in a position to where I could run."
Harrison said he didn't think much about running for the position. He was pushed to do it by friends because he knew a lot of people, was very involved in campus life and loved Ole Miss so much.
He had the support of many people in Oxford, such as M.J. Hymel, Calvin Sanders, Emison Geiger, Cat Romaine, August Boyd and Marshall St. Amant in his quest for the position.
"By the end, it didn't feel like a result driven thing," he said. "I felt like the amount of support I received and the good we were able to do for The Happiness Team was far greater than a win could have been."
Harrison's plan at this time is law school, although he isn't sure where he will attend.
Contractual/Transactional law is his goal because he wants to tie back into advocacy for people who don't have a voice. He feels it is less problematic than criminal or familial law but would still enable him to be of help to people.
Harrison wanted to thank his grandmother, Marilyn "Foxy" Foxworth, and all of the people who helped with his campaign, which included Columbia residents Thomas Hahn, Maggie Townsend, Hannah Watts, Jada Barnes and Sanjay and Sharad Patel. He also wanted to thank all of the people in Columbia who helped him get to this point, especially in the education system. These include Jay Rayborn, Mike Novinski, Ashley Haddox and Jason Harris.
