If you want to book an event at the largest hotel in Oxford, then you call Calhoun City native Jennifer Langford.
The 31-year-old Calhoun Academy graduate is the Group Sales Manager at The Inn at Ole Miss.
“I never had any intentions of getting into the hotel industry, but once I did it became clear it was a great fit for me,” Langford said.
Her role at The Inn, which sits just off the north side of The Grove, is working with external accounts.
She books meeting space and guest rooms for a variety of events including weddings, family reunions, Christmas parties, conferences, board meetings and more.
“You’ve got to be a people person to do what I do,” Langford said. “I work with a lot of weddings. Sometimes I’ll coordinate with a wedding for a year or more and you really get to know them.”
“By the end of that time span you’ve developed a relationship with them. When I hear from them afterwards they had a great experience, that really fuels me.”
Langford said they host more wedding receptions than actual ceremonies at The Inn, although they’ve done a few.
“A lot of times my role is arranging a hospitality suite, transportation, coordinating gift bags, just simple things to make their experience better,” she said. “That’s always our goal.”
Other recent events she helped organize included a landscape conference, a car show and a banquet for the university.
Langford said many have the misconception that The Inn, because of its location on campus, is strictly for Ole Miss alums or university related events.
“We can host any kind of event and we have,” she said.
The Inn features 146 rooms, a 5,600 square foot ball room, two board rooms and additional meeting space.
“Most of our social functions are more formal, and we do host some of the largest and most important events we have on campus,” Langford said.
“We’re busy all the time, but June is actually our busiest month. On football weekends in the fall, you can’t do anything else in this town. So everything else that needs to happen in the fall has to fit in between home football games. But spring is a very busy time, and we stay booked up with a lot of events every June.”
The daughter of Benny Langford and the late Aubrene Langford, she graduated from Ole Miss in 2008 with a marketing degree and landed a job in Charlotte, North Carolina, working for an online office supply company.
“Growing up in Calhoun County, I always thought I wanted to experience something bigger. I wanted to move to a bigger city,” she said. “When I moved back it was out of necessity for my family, but now I realize I want to be closer to them, so I don’t want to move off again.”
She spent a year in Charlotte before moving back to Oxford so she could be around to help care for her ailing mother who passed away in November of 2010.
“I wanted to come back and help take care of her,” Langford said. “That was important to me.”
She decided to seek employment at Ole Miss, confident she could find something there to fit her talent.
“I knew if I could get my foot in the door at the university, I could find what was right for me,” she said.
She initially got a job at the physical plant working in recycling, but soon after found a sales opening at The Inn. She’s now been working there for more than four years, the last two of which in a management position.
“I really enjoy the people that I work with,” Langford said. “We have a great staff here, a real team mentality. When you work with great people and you enjoy what you’re doing, that makes it rewarding.”
Being back on the Ole Miss campus has also allowed Langford to discover a new talent – painting. She’s been taking art classes the past few years and has begun selling some of her paintings.
“I’ve done several custom pieces for people of their dogs,” she said. “I obviously do a lot of Ole Miss and Oxford stuff. I have a couple of paintings hanging now in Delta Steak House.”
She said she works with acrylics, mostly on canvas, but has painted some scenes on a few old windows.
Langford was recently notified the art department on campus is entering one of her pieces into a summer juried student art show and they have awarded her the Student Art Association David Rory Award.
“I’m very proud of it,” Langford said. “It’s a great honor.”