Election results are in and congratulations are in order for Rob Rockhold who becomes president elect and Portia Harris who becomes a director. We also welcome Joan Messer who assumes leadership for our Junior Academy activities. See Joan's column in this issue to find out more about the Junior Academy.

I am pleased to report to you that both the number and variety of manuscripts received in the past six months is up from a year ago. I have spoken with many of you over the past two years about the role I see for this journal as a place to publish research that is regional or restricted to Mississippi. I received many encouraging words, but there is nothing so encouraging as the manuscripts arriving. I know that many of you have something to contribute and encourage you to join your colleagues that have been publishing here by submitting your own manuscript.

This issue includes two new categories of publication. (1) Last year the Board of Directors encouraged authors to submit manuscripts describing laboratory exercises suitable for high school or college science teaching labs. The first such paper, written by Robert Hamilton and Prentiss Cox, appears in this issue. Please consider sending in any student exercises that you have found particularly interesting and instructive. (2) Each year the Junior Academy has a paper competition from which two research papers are chosen as overall winner and Clyde Sheely winner. Dr. Rosalina Hairston has raised funds from Mississippi businesses to publish these papers. Three papers representing winners from the past two years appear in this issue. We appreciate the support of local business concerns and ask you to encourage high school students to enter the annual competition. More information about the competition will appear in subsequent issues in Joan Messers' column.

My last editorial addressed the problem of increasing costs of publishing the journal as a paper copy and introduced the idea of moving to electronic format. I have heard from some of you and, not surprising, received a variety of opinions about what to do. Most of the people that contacted me favored some type of electronic format, but also favored keeping some form of paper copy. I would still like to hear for you about this, since the information you provide will be valuable to the Board of Directors in deciding what direction the journal actually takes.--Ken Curry