JENNIFER PUCKETT, HILLIARD RESIDENT, NAMED MELLON FELLOW

   COLUMBUS -- Jennifer Puckett, a senior majoring in French, medieval and renaissance studies, Russian and Chinese at The Ohio State University, has been awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies. She is one of 98 national recipients.

   Fellowships, initiated in 1982 and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, are geared toward helping exceptionally promising students prepare for careers of teaching and scholarship in humanistic studies. The one-year award provides a $14,500 stipend plus tuition and fees. Nearly 800 students competed for this year's fellowships.

   Puckett said she is "thrilled" to have won such a prestigious award. She is completing her French honors thesis on a collection of medieval occitan debate poems known as "tensos." She also is working on her medieval and renaissance studies thesis of a feminist analysis of "Troilus and Criseyde," a long Chaucerian poem from the 14th century.

   After graduation this June, she will attend Johns Hopkins University and major in French literature. Puckett, a 1989 graduate of Hilliard High School and daughter of Milton A. and Michel A. Puckett of Hilliard, plans to become a professor of medieval French literature.

   Fellows may attend any accredited graduate school of arts and sciences in the United States, studying such disciplines as English, history, philosophy, foreign languages and literature, art history, classics, music history and theory, cultural anthropology and linguistics.

Contact: Jennifer Puckett, (614) 262-4161