NATCHEZ — The Historic Natchez Foundation hosts its annual meeting starting at 5:30 p.m. today in the Natchez Institute at 108 S. Commerce St., during which two former executive directors will be honored for nearly 40 years of service to the foundation.

Historic Natchez Foundation Executive Director Carter Burns said the public is encouraged to attend today’s meeting for an open cocktail reception and presentation of awards earned during 2019, which was the year of the foundation’s 40-year anniversary.

“Ron Miller was hired by the foundation with its initial staff in 1979 and served as executive director for nearly 30 years,” Burns said, adding Miller’s wife, Mimi Miller, came on as executive director shortly after Ron retired to work for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History on the Gulf Coast in 2008. Mimi retired in 2018. “We encourage people to come to help us honor Ron and Mimi for all of their years of working to preserve Natchez.”

Burns said two traveling Eudora Welty photo exhibits produced by MDAH arrived last week and would be displayed during the reception and through mid-April.

The exhibits feature photographs from the 1930s, Burns said.

One of the exhibits — titled “Eudora Welty: Other Places” — features pictures of New York and New Orleans and the other, simply called “Welty,” features pictures of places in Mississippi that Welty visited, Burns said.