Thought you might be interested in a couple of sidebars to your interview with John Barry concerning his book Rising Tide.

My father, John H. Sorrells was managing editor of the newly formed Scripps Howard paper the Memphis Press Scimitar when the flood hit in 1927. According to an article in the Feb 1, 1930 Editor And Publisher "Memphis was in the center of the worst of [the flood], and the only [United Press] center outside of St. Louis in the [Mississippi] valley. Sorrells personally took charge of the story and covered the valley from St. Louis to the gulf, without aid from any news service until after the waters had started to recede. "He commandeered airplanes, long distance telephone lines and ran up an expense account that made the editorial budget look like a French franc. But he covered the story. It was during this flood that newspapers, it is believed, were first delivered in any quantity by airplane. Sorrells did it.

"When the levee at New Orleans was blasted to save that city, he hired a plane and rushed a photographer to the scene to get exclusive air pictures that the Press Scimitar used the next day. " Also, Berry referred to LeRoy Percy's son "Will. " That was William Alexander Percy, a fairly well respected poet of his time, but most noted for his book Lanterns on the Levee: Reflections of a Planter's Son, a fairly romanticized vision of certain aspects of the South, but a beautifully written and also highly informative book. Will Percy's nephew, Walker Percy, was a physician who became a novelist (because of an illness that kept him from practicing as a doctor) who wrote a number of well-received, highly acclaimed, and critically praised books including The Movie Goer.

Just thought you might be interested.

--Yrs. Robert T. Sorrells
Rochester, Minnesota

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