vidalia — Black and gold dominated the color scheme in one corner of the Sandbar restaurant Tuesday night, as some of Southwest Mississippi’s biggest Golden Eagle fans met to share stories and catch up on Southern Mississippi athletics.

Natchez-native and South Natchez High School standout Steve Buckley represented Southern Miss as the guest speaker for the event. Buckley is the associate head coach for the Golden Eagles’ football team, and he said it was good to come home for the alumni event.

“It’s always fun (to do alumni events),” Buckley said. “This is probably the third time I’ve done one this spring, but it’s especially rewarding to come back home. I still consider Natchez home.”

This is Buckley’s third stint with his alma mater, and he said Southern Miss has always had a great fan base in Southwest Mississippi.

“We’ve always had great support here,” he said. “We have a really strong group of people in this area.”

Buckley said he is very excited to be back at Southern Miss after five years of coaching Petal High School, and he expects new head coach Ellis Johnson to provide fans with some excitement this season.

“Ellis Johnson is a guy I always wanted to work with,” Buckley said.

Golden Eagle alumni also had the opportunity to hear from Wilkinson County Christian Academy’s Caroline Walker, who just wrapped up her freshman season for the Southern Miss softball team.

Walker was named to the All-Freshman Team this season. CollegeSportsMadness.com also named her freshman player of the year in Conference USA.

“It was a great honor,” Walker said. “I didn’t expect to achieve that, and I appreciate the people who voted for me.”

Walker said she was glad to come to the event and give fans the chance to speak with a current Golden Eagle athlete.

“This is really great,” Walker said. “They don’t do this enough I don’t think. It’s great to show support for the school, because we all bleed black and gold.”

Tim McCann, president of the Southwest Mississippi chapter of the Southern Miss Alumni Association, said the chapter tries to get together annually.

“It’s very important for us to keep in touch with all the alumni,” McCann said. “It’s great to have different events to get together, socialize and share old stories.”

McCann said the chapter recently added Concordia Parish to the chapter, and he was glad they were able to include Golden Eagle fans from across the river.

Jerry DeFatta Jr., executive director of the Southern Miss Alumni Association, said the Southwest Mississippi chapter provides a strong alumni base for the university.

“There are about 700 alumni in the Natchez/Vidalia area,” DeFatta said. “As a general rule the further away from the university the less alumni there are, but we find that there is a greater turnout percentage (in those places).”

DeFatta said alumni meetings are designed to share what is going on at Southern Miss with alumni and also generate excitement about the upcoming athletic seasons.

“When you live farther away, you don’t have as much of an opportunity to know what’s happening at Southern Miss,” he said.