Alumnae Spotlight

Claims to fame for Clarksville, Tennessee include The Monkees hit, “The Last Train to Clarksville” (well, sort of), The Leaf Chronicle – the oldest newspaper in Tennessee, being a neighbor to Fort Campbell where Jimi Hendrix was a Paratrooper in the Army from 1961-62, and the hometown for our very own Emily DeLoach Gatlin, (TR 2000). And Emily has a personal/professional connection to Jimi Hendrix closing the loop on all things Clarksville. 

Emily credits Hansi Orgain Russell (TR 68) and her daughter, Darby Russell Walden (TR 95) for introducing her to Nakanawa. They were her neighbors growing up and invited Emily to camp slideshows before she was “even old enough to attend camp.”

Emily spent 8 years at Nakanawa as a camper and 3 years as a counselor. She refers to her final summer as a counselor in 2006 as “my Quarter-Life Crisis Summer”. Emily was Head of Tennis that year but also spent those 6 weeks determining what direction her life would take post-college. “I felt like I was floating around in different directions with no idea what to do next or where to land . . . and the only thing I could think to do was return to the place that shaped me and made me who I am.” 

During her TR summer in 2000, Emily excelled in and medaled in Riflery. She had “never shot a gun” in her life but a sprained ankle sidelined her from most physical activities so she “really zoned in on riflery.” Emily still has her framed “Target of the Week” hanging in her office to this day. Glee Club was another favorite activity. “It was always a nice break in the middle of the day to sit on the Crow’s Nest and sing camp songs.” Like so many of us, Emily shared “rock meetings hold a special and sacred place in my heart – the moss, the smells, everything . . . I can be outside at just the right time when the wind blows and I’m right back there on the Valkyrie Rock.” 

“I think every moment of my TR summer was special,” said Emily, but the three-day canoe trip in 2000 was one for the books. A severe thunderstorm blew through shortly after the campers had gone to bed for the night. “The thunder and lightning were terrifying, and we made a run for the vans.” The stormy weather prevailed through the night. When asked the next morning if they wanted to go back to camp, “there was not a single protest. We came back and got to spend the next two days in our pajamas, had a pizza party at the Big House”, and the rest is TR 2000 history. 

TR 2000 is a close-knit group. “Several of us reconnected after our 10-year reunion, and since then we try to take a trip/meet somewhere centralized every year. We’re still using a Marco Polo group video chat we started several years ago during the pandemic to keep up almost daily.” Emily admits, “one of my most cherished possessions is the support system we have built with each other . . . a real-life tangible thing and we’ve run the gamut of life together.” 

Other camp experiences of note for Emily included being the Wild Woman in the circus as a counselor, and she is “pleased to report she does not have a ketchup aversion.” She was co-head of the Circus that year and honestly feels that role prepared her “later in life for being the author coordinator for the Mississippi Book Festival. Grouping people by personality type, coordinating scheduling – you don’t realize how much things like that come into play as an adult.” 

Emily’s career path has been “storied with many editions.” After marrying her husband, Robert, they moved to Tupelo from Oxford. She took a job at a local downtown department store that also housed “a full-fledged independent bookstore.” She soon became manager of the store “scheduling events, staying on top of publishing trends, making connections with authors, publishers and Mississippi readers.” Before long, Emily started a blog called Bookseller Barbie, “a name I was given at a trade show that was probably supposed to be snarky, but I’m a Nakanawa girl and not much phases me.” The blog allowed her to easily share book recommendations with her customers and get noticed by “a quiet group of local publishers.” Offers started pouring in to write for several local magazines, which eventually lead to her being published by USA Today, The Huffington Post, and she even briefly wrote the monthly advice column for Men’s Fitness before the magazine went out of print.  

In 2013, Emily met Ole Miss adjunct professor, and SPIN Magazine Editor Bob Guccioni, Jr. Guccioni approached Emily about starting an online travel magazine called WONDERLUST, which was put on hold when she was traveling to New Orleans for a reunion with her TR friends and Guccioni called to ask, “What do you know about Jimi Hendrix? I’m creating a bookazine.” Emily mentioned the connection she and Hendrix both share to Clarksville, Tennessee and Guccioni loved the hook. The short bookazine piece she thought she was writing turned into a full on 8 weeks of research that culminated into a book length magazine titled The Unknown Hendrix, which debuted in August 2015 with an initial print run of 200,000 copies. Emily and Guccioni collaborated on a second bookazine titled The 101 Greatest American Rock Songs and The Stories Behind Them.  

Even with several hundred thousand copies of her works in print and viral online articles, Emily believes her lasting legacy is that she is one of the co-founders and first Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Book Festival, which just celebrated its 10th year with a historical marker that was unveiled on the grounds of the State Capitol in Jackson.  

Admitting that she “operates best when I have a full load,” Emily has not stopped retooling her talents. In March of 2022 she took a job at Mississippi’s #1 real estate firm by volume as the Executive Administrator for one of the firm’s founding partners. “Every single day is different,” she says, “and it’s never the day I expected!” Not a real estate agent herself with no plans to become one, she says “it’s far more fun to be behind the scenes and make sure clients are taken care of as best as possible.” 

When Emily is not writing, coordinating, developing, or dreaming up the next best thing, she and her husband enjoy time together walking their two Golden Retrievers Dolly and Copper and “feeding SEC sports teams, ESPN crews, and even a few famous families” from their HoneyBaked Ham franchise in Oxford, Miss, which they purchased in 2023. Regardless of her busy life, Emily finds time to play tennis, pickleball, and mahjong and attends Ole Miss games. 

What was it that Mitch always said? “Busy girls are happy girls!” Emily, you must be incredibly happy!