'Oxford Eagle' Co-Owner Dies at 88

By: Nina Bunch Goolsby, co-owner of The Oxford Eagle and a former editor of the daily newspaper, died Tuesday, her 88th birthday.

Services are at 2 p.m. Friday at First Baptist Church with burial in Oxford Memorial Cemetery.

Goolsby served as editor from 1961 to 2006 and since then had held the honorary title of editor emeritus. She started with the newspaper in 1942, bookkeeping under editor Curtis Mullin. She soon became the society editor and later moved into advertising.

After a one-year departure to work as office manager for North Mississippi Savings and Loan, she bought the newspaper in 1961 with partners Jesse Phillips and W.S. Featherston.

Goolsby continued through the mid-1990s to write her popular "Nina's Notebook" column -- a collection of her folksy observations about community events.

"People looked forward to The Eagle every day, because she wrote about all the parties, the club activities and everything that went on in Oxford. We were like one big family back then," said longtime friend Lake Elliott, whose late husband, Dick Elliott, was mayor of Oxford for three terms beginning in 1953.

Nina Goolsby's late husband, J.C. Goolsby, was alderman when Dick Elliott was mayor.

"Miss Nina" did more than just chronicle daily life in her community.

She was involved in more than a dozen local organizations, and was the first female member of the Oxford Rotary Club.

Goolsby was appointed by Gov. Cliff Finch to the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women in the 1970s, and by Gov. Bill Allain to the Mississippi Ethics Commission in the 1980s.