who had formerly belonged to the owner of a local service station and whom Willie referred to as 'the Mayor of Bridgehampton,' back to Mississippi with him. Later, after Pete's death, Morris requested and received permission from the Episcopal church for a burial of Pete within the same cemetery where Morris himself would later be buried.) Morris died of a heart attack just before the movie debuted, after seeing an advance screening of the film and praising it. Willie Morris is buried in Glenwood Cemetery in Yazoo City, close to the "grave" of the fictitious Witch of Yazoo, a character from one of Morris' books, Good Old Boy: A Delta Boyhood. In life he counted among his friends a wide circle, including Yazoo City childhood friends, well-known writers like Winston Groom (Forrest Gump), William Styron (Sophie's Choice), John Knowles (A Separate Peace), James Dickey (Deliverance) and Irwin Shaw (Rich Man, Poor Man), and Larry L. King ("The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas"). Morris invited Dickey and King to join him as Associate Editors of Harper's when he became editor. Morris and King wrote for the Texas Observer, the progressive voice of Texas in the mid 20th century. Morris was revered by the students in his writing classes in Oxford. He was known as an unerring mimic with a warm sense of humor and a sense of the absurd. Morris helped two Mississippi residents by giving them a second chance at sight by being an eye donor. Morris appeared in Ken Burns's 1994 documentary Baseball. Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction Since 2007, Reba White Williams and Dave H. Williams have sponsored the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction. The award is given to a novel set in one of following Southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, and which reflects the spirit of Morris's work. The novel should stand out for the quality of its prose, its originality, its sense of place and period, and the appeal of its characters. An independent panel of judges votes on the award from books submitted for consideration. Recipients of the award to date: 2007: The King of Colored Town by Darryl Wimberley 2008: City of Refuge by Tom Piazza 2009: Secret Keepers by Mindy Friddle 2010: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin 2011: If Jack's In Love by Stephen Wetta 2012: A