(November 3, 2010) The Martha Belle More on what Maintaining Saunders’ Airplane is Costing Taxpayers "The volume of
reports and editorials here at USMNEWS.net regarding USM president Martha Saunders’ university airplane is already
mindboggling, and yet the mountain keeps getting higher and higher in elevation. What USM provost Robert Lyman once
said may be “an extravagance” is looking more and more like just that with each and every completed paragraph.
(November 2, 2010) QUESTION: WHOSE PLANE IS THIS? Why do USM students and faculty pay for N777AQ while IHL
members seem to use it more than anyone else? To Columbus, MS (Golden Triangle)
ARTICLES CONCERNING
MARTHA D. SAUNDERS' AIRPLANE - AIRFARCE ONE
(November 3, 2010) QUESTION: WHOSE PLANE IS THIS? Why do USM students and faculty pay for N777AQ while
IHL members seem to use it more than anyone else? To Madison, Then Greenwood MS
(November 3, 2010) Is Your Department Bigger than Airplane Operations? A Campus-Wide Comparison Much has been
made around the USM campus, Hattiesburg, and Mississippi, as well as on the pages of USMNEWS.net, The Hattiesburg
American, The Student Printz and other media outlets about USM president Martha Saunders’ decision to sign a $2
million lease of a Beechcraft airplane (for USM) during the worst economic period since the Great Depression.
(November 4, 2010) QUESTION: WHOSE PLANE IS THIS? Why do USM students and faculty pay for N777AQ while
IHL members seem to use it more than anyone else? To Natchez, MS
(November 3, 2010) Aunt Martha’s Extravagance Part 7 – Sneaking in a Beach Trip? Via a Mississippi Open Records Act
request, USMNEWS.net recently obtained a large batch of documents from USM relating to USM president Martha
Saunders’ university aircraft. This series, Aunt Martha’s Extravagance, provides analysis of these documents. This
installment examines the 18-March-2010 trip in the USM airplane taken by Saunders to make a “SACS Reaffirmation
Visit” and to attend “Bond Request meetings.” That invoice is inserted below, and it indicates that USM charged itself
$5,040 for Saunders to take this recent trip.
