RAYMOND – Laura Hammons, English instructor on the Raymond Campus, is the winner of the Mississippi Humanities Council’s Humanities Teacher Award for .

Winners of the award present a lecture on a topic each year. On Feb. 4, Hammons will present “Packmule Educator: Building Readers and Writers One Book at a Time at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.” The presentation begins at 1:30 p.m. at Eagle Ridge Conference Center. It is open to the public.

Hammons, of Raymond and formerly of Brandon, has taught at Hinds for 19 years and is a member of numerous professional boards, including the college’s Faculty Council and the Two-Year College Association of Mississippi (TYCAM), of which she is a co-founder. She holds bachelor’s degrees in English from Belhaven University and Mississippi College. Her master’s degree in English is from also from Mississippi College.

She is a past winner of the Cowan Award and the Vickers Award for excellence in teaching English, as well as the Webb Award and the Doster Award for service to TYCAM and its regional organization, TYCAM-SE.

Hammons was a co-editor of a textbook, “For Our Students,” which is used in community college English composition classes. The book also has contributors from other community colleges in Mississippi.