Hattiesburg, Southern Miss recall Jimmy Buffett before he was legend

HATTIESBURG — Former Southern Miss president Martha Dunagin Saunders was a USM undergrad in the late 1960s at the same time as Pascagoula native Jimmy Buffett, the future billionaire singer-songwriter. The two were friends. “My most vivid memory of Jimmy from those days is of coming out of night class, and seeing him racing across campus with a guitar over his shoulder, obviously running late to play a gig,” Saunders said Saturday, hours after learning of Buffett’s death. “All Jimmy wanted to do back then was play his music. He...