SCOOBA — Tony Boutwell, a computer animation and marketing specialist, has been hired as East Mississippi Community College’s director of Marketing, Digital Media and Web, while veteran journalist Rocky Higginbotham has been named director of the college’s Public Information Department.

Both positions report to the Department of Institutional Advancement.

“Tony and Rocky bring a wealth of knowledge to our efforts to promote the school,” EMCC Assistant Vice President for Institutional Advancement Leia Hill said. “We are in the midst of a major push to redesign our website and create a consistent EMCC brand across all mediums. Tony’s expertise in video, web development and computer graphics and Rocky’s background in print media are the perfect complement to ensure our efforts are successful.”

Boutwell, who resides in Collinsville with his wife, Amy, and their two daughters, Jenna, 5, and Lauren, 12, is a Meridian native who graduated from Mississippi State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in art, with an emphasis in computer animation.

Computer animation was a relatively new field when Boutwell graduated in the early 1990s and demand was high for employees with his skillset. He interviewed with some of the biggest names in the industry, including Disney, Nickelodeon and George Lucas’ animation company, Industrial Light & Magic.

While waiting to hear back from the companies, Boutwell was offered a job as art director at Meridian-based Peavey Electronics, which at the time was one of the largest audio manufacturing companies in the world.

“A week later, Nickelodeon called and offered me a job but I told them I had accepted a position locally,” Boutwell said.

He later managed the department that oversaw Peavey’s video production and website, the latter of which contained 3,000 pages and was garnering millions of monthly page views.

After working for Peavey for 8 years, Boutwell saw a need for a marketing and advertising company in Meridian and decided to launch his own company. He joined forces with Tony Pompelia, who created Leading Edges. Boutwell served as the company’s creative director and later as vice president. During the 13 years Boutwell was there, Leading Edges grew from three employees to 15 and is now considered one of the premier ad agencies in the Southeast.

“We had clients in all the surrounding states and all over the world,” Boutwell said. “It was amazing to see it grow and evolve.”

Boutwell decided to branch out on his own and created BrightFX, a company that specialized in computer animation and high-end special effects. While successful, Boutwell said, “I found running the business, day-to-day, took me away from what I really loved to do, which is create.”

Boutwell, whose company handled a couple of graphic design and branding projects for EMCC, applied for the marketing director’s position at the college.

“EMCC has a family environment that isn’t common and I found that very enticing,” Boutwell said.

Higginbotham, 44, has worked at EMCC since 2012 when he was initially hired as a marketing and public information associate.

Born in Noxubee County and raised in Kemper County, Higginbotham’s ties to EMCC date back to his youth.

“When I was being interviewed for ‘Last Chance U’ last fall, the reporter asked how long I’d been associated with EMCC football and my answer was ‘pretty much my entire life,’” Higginbotham said. “My mom retired from EMCC in December of 2015 after spending 34 years here. I was a 17-year-old freshman here when I started working for The Meridian Star as a sports writer. I told the reporter I’ve been a fan of EMCC, written about EMCC and written for EMCC for nearly 40 years – sometimes all at the same time.”

His daughter, Meagan, is a 2017 graduate of EMCC and is now a junior at Mississippi State University. His son, Jordan, a junior at Kemper Academy, is a familiar figure on EMCC’s Scooba campus, attending many of the same events his father did in his youth.

Earlier this year, Higginbotham was named interim director of Public Information prior to the announcement that the appointment would be made permanent.

He brings 22 years of experience in the newspaper industry to the position, with a better part of 14 years spent in a variety of roles at The Meridian Star. Prior to his hire at EMCC, Higginbotham worked for Prince Newspaper Holdings, Inc., where he was a publisher and editor for the group which owns the Madison County Journal, Neshoba Democrat and Kemper County Messenger newspapers.

He has written for more than 80 newspapers across the southeast. Higginbotham said he is looking forward to his new role at EMCC.

“Coming here 5 years ago was like coming home, and with everything the college has facing us right now, I can’t remember a more exciting time to be here,” Higginbotham said.