She spent countless hours writing to authors and illustrators of contemporary children’s books to acquire original material for the library.
That was the year Ezra Jack Keats, internationally acclaimed author and illustrator for children, was invited to accept the Southern Miss Medallion.
Since his death, the university has acquired his personal and professional papers, original artwork, typescripts, and dummies and preliminary sketches for 36 of his books.
Dr. Boshears, during Dr. Laughlin-Porter's directorship of the festival, continued to work closely with her and chaired the Medallion Selection Committee through spring 1993.
Chance's retirement in 2004, Dr. Catharine Bomhold became the director of the Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival.
[3][4] 1969 Lois Lenski 1970 Ernest H. Shepard 1971 Roger Duvoisin 1972 Marcia Brown 1973 Lynd Ward 1974 Taro Yashima 1975 Barbara Cooney 1976 Scott O’Dell 1977 Adrienne Adams 1978 Madeleine L’Engle 1979 Leonard Everett Fisher 1980 Ezra Jack Keats 1981 Maurice Sendak 1982 Beverly Cleary 1983 Katherine Paterson 1984 Peter Spier 1985 Arnold Lobel 1986 Jean Craighead George 1987 Paula Fox 1988 Jean Fritz 1989 Lee Bennett Hopkins 1990 Charlotte Zolotow 1991 Richard Peck 1992 James Marshall 1993 Quentin Blake 1994 Ashley Bryan 1995 Tomie de Paola 1996 Patricia MacLachlan 1997 Eric Carle 1998 Elaine Konigsburg 1999 Russell Freedman 2000 David Macaulay 2001 Virginia Hamilton 2002 Rosemary Wells 2003 Lois Lowry 2004 Jerry Pinkney 2005 Kevin Henkes 2006 Walter Dean Myers 2007 Eve Bunting 2008 Pat Mora 2009 Judy Blume 2010 David Wiesner 2011 T.A.
Barron 2012 Jane Yolen 2013 Jon Scieszka 2014 Christopher Paul Curtis[5] 2015 Paul O. Zelinsky[4] 2016 Jacqueline Woodson 2017 Kate DiCamillo 2018 Dav Pilkey 2019 Tamora Pierce 2020 Rita Williams-Garcia 2021 Andrea Davis Pinkney 2022 Brian Selznick 2023 Gene Luen Yang