2020 Spring Summit

Susan Sweeney is a best-selling author, an internationally recognized Internet marketing and e-business expert and a partner in eLearningU, an online education portal specifically for travel and tourism. As a professional Internet marketing speaker, Susan has delivered lively keynotes, workshops and bootcamps to audiences on 4 continents.

Susan is the author of 8 Internet marketing books, including 101 Ways to Promote Your Web Site, now in it’s 8th edition, it has been translated into German, Spanish and Chinese, and has sold over 77,000 copies.

Susan is the Dean of eLearningU.com, an online eLearning portal that has travel and tourism business courses from all of the industry’s leading experts, authors, business people, companies and industry gurus.

Tricia Walker is a singer and songwriter whose songs are steeped in the passion, pain and grace of the American South. Born and raised in Mississippi, Tricia has become one of the clearest voices of her own time and place. Her music has been recorded by Faith Hill, Patty Loveless and Alison Krauss, whose performance of Tricia’s Looking in the Eyes of Love earned a GRAMMY® award. A recording artist herself, Tricia’s CD, “The Heart of Dixie,” thoughtfully captures the songwriter’s view of the South with well-placed lyrics and music reflecting her folk, R & B and storytelling influences.

“Culture is a precious, living thing,” Tricia says. “It has to be nurtured if it’s going to survive. Any artist or creative thinker has a responsibility to help chronicle his or her own time, place and people. That’s the surest way to keep a culture from disappearing.”

Before moving to Nashville in the 1980s, Tricia earned an A.A. degree from Copiah-Lincoln Community College and a degree in Music Education from Delta State University. While working on her Master’s Degree, she performed at clubs and festivals in Mississippi and Louisiana. She won American Song Festival and Mississippi Song Festival awards and moved to Music City to sign with giant gospel music publisher Word, Inc. As her songs were recorded on GRAMMY-nominated discs by Kathy Troccoli, Debby Boone, and The Imperials, her reputation as a songwriter spread. Well-respected producer Jerry Kennedy signed Tricia to his Polygram Group stable of writers, further solidifying her credibility.

Tricia’s instrumental skills earned her a spot backing Grand Ole Opry star Connie Smith, with whom she played for six years. She also toured extensively with Shania Twain and Paul Overstreet as a keyboard player and vocalist. Along with Pam Tillis, Karen Staley and Ashley Cleveland, Tricia was a founding member of “Women in the Round,” one of the most celebrated foursomes at Nashville’s prestigious Bluebird Café.

She has performed at the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Tin Pan South Songwriting Festival in Nashville, was a New Folk Winner at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas and featured at Austin’s South by Southwest Music Festival. Additional musical highlights included singing at Robert Redford’s Christmas Cantata at his Sundance Resort as well as a choreographed work for the Nashville Ballet entitled “All the Way Home,” co-written by Tricia and Kate Campbell.

Tricia returned to her native Mississippi in 2006 to become director of the Delta Music Institute, an entertainment industry studies program at her alma mater, Delta State University. After retiring from DSU in the summer of 2019, she was awarded the title of Director Emeritus and plans to develop new musical and creative projects for Big Front Porch Productions. Tricia was recently honored with the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award by the Mississippi Writer’s Guild.

Tricia Walker offers an entertaining slice of her places and times, delivered with a beautiful voice, strong musicianship and the ease of a veteran entertainer. Southern style never had it so good.