It started in March of last year when Alden Thornhill was eating lunch in the Cotton District.
The famed Cotton District Arts Festival had moved temporarily to fall, leaving the unique neighborhood — and gateway between Starkville and Mississippi University — without a major spring event.
Thornhill knew exactly how to fill the void: A Dachshund Derby. Very few cities put on something like that, he thought. And who knows? Maybe a few folks would show.
Try several thousand.
Run the first Saturday of May, the same day as horses run the Kentucky Derby, dog owners brought their pets to race — dachshunds and non-dachshunds, alike — and many others just came to watch the excitement. The inaugural event raised roughly $21,000 for the Oktibbeha County Humane Society.
“It shows when Mississippi State and Starkville work together, they can do amazing things,” Thornhill said. “Who would have thought 20,000 people would come out and watch a bunch of weenie dogs run?”
For one, Paige Watson, Starkville Main Street director with the Greater Starkville Development Partnership and friend of Thornhill’s.
“I’ll admit I was thrown by the idea at first, but I wasn’t surprised,” she said. “If Alden is involved, it’s probably going to be a success.”
A Greenwood native, Thornhill grew up watching MSU athletics, frequently attending football, basketball and baseball games in person with his family. When it was time to pick a college for himself, only one would do, and he earned a degree from MSU in public relations in 2015.
He moved to New Orleans, where he worked in marketing until 2021, when his wife Abby, a pediatric nurse practitioner and Ripley native, got homesick.
“I said the only way I’d leave New Orleans is for Starkville,” he said.
Thornhill landed a job as marketing lead for Camgian, a software company in Starkville, and immediately jumped into service anywhere he could find a place: board member for the Humane Society, Starkville Area Arts Council and Starkville Community Foundation, as well as a member of Rotary, Starkville Young Professionals and a Partnership ambassador.
Each fall, he also gives tours of the city to MSU international students through the Holmes Cultural Diversity Center on campus.
“We have people from all over the world coming to this town,” Thornhill said. “We can make it the best we want it to be with just a little energy and enthusiasm.”
He helped organize a Downtown Cinema Series in December, which showed “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” in the Starkville Community Theater. He also organizes fundraisers through local restaurants, such as Cocktails and Dogtails, which raises money for the Humane Society.
“He’s creative and good at bringing people together,” Watson said. “He’s a genius at marketing, organizing and getting the word out.”
Organizing last year’s Dachshund Derby took about two months, Thornhill said. This year’s has already taken “quite a bit longer.”
Set for May 4 (known as Star Wars Day due to the pun “May the 4th be with you”), it will hold a Star Wars Theme — “Star Weens: The Derby Strikes Back.”
With the Cotton District Arts Festival not returning until spring 2025, the derby will have an arts festival of its own, along with bleachers, a video screen and a Battle of the Bands.
“It’s going to be a spectacle,” he said.
Whether Thornhill’s own dachshund, Memphis, or his 10-year-old border collie mix Lucy, will be Empire or Rebel Alliance is unsure.
What Thornhill said is certain is his continued commitment to live and serve in Starkville.
“We ain’t moving,” he said. “I ain’t going to lie. I do enjoy leaving a football game and being able to sleep in my bed and not have to drive back five hours to New Orleans on Sunday.”
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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