UM-Booneville Student Profile
Annette Edmond
UM-Booneville Student Forging New Path After 30 years in Banking.
Edmond pursues passion to encourage community members in their education.
Photo: After over 30 years in the banking business, Annette Edmond of Booneville is completing her degree at the University of Mississippi-Booneville with the goal of helping others succeed.
Booneville, Miss.— After graduating from Corinth High School in 1974, Annette Edmond worked at the ITT telephone factory in Corinth for nearly 11 years when a round of layoffs in early 1988 left her submitting her resume to various businesses in the community.
“I told my friend that was also laid off from the company that if we couldn’t find a job we were going to apply at the fire station,” Edmond said. “What a different life that would have been!”
Shortly after, Edmond’s resume hit the desk of a banking supervisor at Bank of Mississippi, now known as BancorpSouth. The rest is over 30 years of history.
“I enjoyed being at the bank for the customers that came in each day,” Edmond said. “They were doing big things and small things with their businesses and lives. Each transaction was important to them, so they were important to me, too.”
Edmond said that one of her favorite parts of the job was working within the community to share more about banking and financial responsibility. She also taught financial literacy to students pursuing their GED on the Northeast Community College campus.
“I was inspired seeing these children who dropped out for whatever reason, but they were still eager to learn, move past their obstacles to come back to school, and finish what they started.”
Edmond worked at three area branches of the bank over the years, and last year she retired from the BancorpSouth office in Booneville after 32 years with the company.
“It was time to try something new,” Edmond said. “I want to help children, parents, and adults learn to set goals, overcome obstacles, and obtain their dreams.”
Edmond first attended Rust College in the late 1970s. After a decades-long break, she enrolled at Northeast Community College and graduated with honors and her associate’s degree in May of 2015. She was also a member of the Phi Theta Kappa honor society.
Edmond’s granddaughter Kiante Gwyn graduated in 2017 from Ole Miss-Booneville, which is located on the Northeast campus. Gwyn encouraged her grandmother to continue working toward her bachelor’s degree and Edmond followed her granddaughter’s advice.
“The University of Mississippi-Booneville campus offered the courses I needed to complete my bachelor’s degree and the convenience of the nearby campus allowed me to continue working and living in Booneville,” she said.
Edmond is finishing her last classes with the university this summer and will graduate in August with a bachelor’s degree in general business with a minor in education.
Her goal is to work through local non-profit organizations and schools to help parents and students learn more about navigating life.
“I want to teach them about how to apply for personal or business loans, how to budget and handle their bank accounts, how to conduct themselves in a professional interview, and things that will help young people be successful as they are starting out.”
Edmond said that completing her bachelor’s degree is going to open doors so that she can be a positive influence in other’s lives.
“It’s the ‘each one reach one’ philosophy,” Edmond said. “I just want to reach one and that one can reach one, and that one can reach one. I want to see the trail keep going so that any child that thinks they can’t make it will see that now they can.”