The director of Vicksburg’s Old Court House Museum was presented Saturday with a First Families of Mississippi award for leadership in genealogy and historic preservation.

Gordon Cotton received the award of Meritorious Leadership in Mississippi History, Genealogy and Historic Preservation from the Order of the First Families of Mississippi, a state historic-preservation group for descendants of people who lived in what is now Mississippi from 1699 until it became a state in 1817.

Cotton has been director of the museum on Cherry Street in downtown Vicksburg for 28 years. He also writes a weekly Vicksburg Post column, Old Court House Comments.

The award is to honor a person who has made outstanding contributions to Mississippi history, genealogy and historic preservation. A Utica OFFM member, Helen Yates Price, wrote a letter nominating Cotton for the award for 2004.

“He is author or co-author of more than 17 books on local, regional and state history, many of which have sold out and been reprinted several times and some of which are now on the rare book-sellers’ shelves and on line with booksellers such as Barnes and Noble,” Price wrote of Cotton. “He is an internationally known author and a much-sought-after source of Southern, Mississippi and Vicksburg history.”

Cotton also makes presentations each year to history, genealogy and civic groups in Mississippi and Louisiana, Price wrote.

Cotton was born in 1937 and reared in Campbell Swamp at Yokena in southeastern Warren County, where he lives.

The first member of his family moved to Mississippi in 1780, he said.

“He presides over a large menagerie of wildlife and pets and maintains the history and status quo of that part of the county,” Price wrote.

Cotton also worked for the Hinds County Gazette in Raymond and as a reporter for The Vicksburg Evening Post.

He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Mississippi College and has taught in schools including Jett and Warren Central in Warren County and at a school in Holmes County.

The award was presented Saturday afternoon in Natchez by the chairman of the award committee, Thomas H. Bowen Jr. of Jackson.

Past winners of the award are: Marie Luter Upton in 1994; Everette Goeffrey Truly, 1995; Etoile Loper Hopkins, 1996; William Marion Smith, 1997; Thomas H. Bowen Jr., 1999; Frances Elizabeth Aydelott, 2000; Charles Owen Johnson, 2001; Martha Ker Lum, 2002; and Dr. Mary C. Landin in 2003.