(Photo by Susan Marquez)
- It was an evening where the press, a restaurateur, and good-natured ribbing came together for a fundraising event for education.
Robert St. John, an entrepreneur, author, restaurateur, and philanthropist, was the subject of the Mississippi Press Foundation’s annual Celebrity Roast. A room full of Mississippi Press Association (MPA) members, along with politicians, friends, family, and others, came together to witness St. John got skewered before he had an opportunity for rebuttal.
The event took place on Thursday, September 11, in the grand ballroom at the Jackson Hilton. MPA Vice President, George Turner (publisher and editor, Greene County Herald, The Richton Dispatch), welcomed the crowd and introduced Marshall Ramsey, who served as the evening’s Master of Ceremonies, or “Roastmaster,” if you will.
St. John, whose weekly column appears each Monday in Magnolia Tribune, has been writing the column for 26 years. The syndicated column runs in newspapers around the state. St. John has written over 1,300 columns with more than a million words, and has never missed a week. He has also written 14 books.
A graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi with a bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Management, St. John is the President and CEO of New South Restaurant Group based in Hattiesburg, where he owns and operates several acclaimed restaurants, including Crescent City Grill, Mahogany Bar, Tabella, Ed’s Burger Joint, The Midtowner, the Downtowner, and Loblolly Bakery.
His work extends into media production. He has created, produced, and co-hosted Palate to Palette with artist Wyatt Waters, which aired on Mississippi Public Broadcasting. He has also produced two television documentaries on Walter Anderson and Eudora Welty. The Walter Anderson documentary captured two Southeast Emmy Awards.
St. John has taken over 1,300 guests on tours throughout Europe and the U.K. since 2016, where they have explored local cultures, cuisines, and histories.
And St. John is a philanthropist, founding Extra Table, a nonprofit organization providing healthy food to food pantries and soup kitchens across Mississippi. Each year, Extra Table delivers more than six million meals to over 63 feeding agencies at no cost.
Panelists/roasters included Malcolm White, retired Mississippi Arts Commission Executive Director and longtime friend of St. John’s. White kicked off the roast with jokes about St. John’s abundant social media presence, saying that although he is sitting in the room right now, St. John was at that very moment also live on social media.
Brian Hadad, a podcaster and host on SuperTalk Mississippi, continued the roast, followed by Anthony Saxton, who is executive director of the Institute for Southern Storytelling at Mississippi College and director of the Walter Anderson and Eudora Welty documentaries, as well as author of the accompanying books for both films. Saxton held up several books with double entendre titles he jokingly said St. John was not so successful in getting published.
Mary Ryan Brown, a Hattiesburg-based writer, comedian, and entertainer, threw barbs at the other roasters before skewering St. John. Brown mentioned that her grandmother was responsible for encouraging St. John to write his first cookbook.
In addition to jokes about his prolific social media presence, roasters joked about St. John’s restaurant “concepts,” particularly those which were less than successful, his writings about his children, and his ability to do so many things at once, thanks to his delegation skills.
Before being presented with the S. Gale Denley Award by MPF Past Chairman Joel McNeece (publisher and editor, The Calhoun County Journal), St. John had an opportunity to have his say, throwing jabs at each presenter before extolling their virtues to the audience.
The Mississippi Press Foundation was established in 1983 to foster journalism education at in-state colleges and universities, as well as provide internships and scholarships for Mississippi journalism students.
Susan Marquez
