NATCHEZ — An old Auburn University flag hanging by the front door is the first sign Ralph and Carole LeMay are in small company.

When The Dart landed at the LeMay residence on Mansfield Drive Friday, the flag was one of several pieces of Auburn paraphernalia the family was more than happy to show off. There’s a bigger Auburn flag in the back yard, an Auburn birdhouse, an Auburn blanket and several Auburn pictures — not to mention a ton of T-shirts.

“There’s only about half a dozen Auburn graduates around here,” Ralph said.

Because of that, any college football get-togethers are often with fans of other teams, and Auburn isn’t usually high on the pecking order.

“We usually end up watching the opponents most of the time,” Carole said. “My daughter graduated from Mississippi State, so that’s a big rivalry for us, since all of our money went there. His brother graduated from Alabama.”

Ralph explained he and his brother have a friendly rivalry with the Iron Bowl, the annual matchup between Alabama and Auburn at the end of the regular season.

“It’s all good-natured,” Ralph said. “Probably back in the 1960s, whenever one of our teams lost (the Iron Bowl), you could expect a collect call from the other one.”

Ralph attended Auburn — then Alabama Polytechnic Institute — from 1954-59 on a NROTC scholarship, graduating a year before the school was renamed Auburn University. But Ralph said he has no regrets not staying one more year to get an “Auburn” degree. “I was ready to get out,” Ralph joked.

As soon as he did, he was rushed into military duty. Ralph served with the U.S. Marine Corps in Okinawa, Japan, in 1960 before returning home and marrying Carole the following year.

“In that period, everyone had military obligations,” Ralph said. “If you didn’t go through some program (like NROTC) in college, you’d eventually get drafted. NROTC was the easy way to do it at the time.”

Ralph also said he enjoyed getting to travel — but Carole lamented about being left stateside.

“I didn’t get to travel, you did,” Carole said. “I was stuck at base.”

Looking back, Ralph said he has no regrets about his time in the military.

“I wasn’t in a combat situation, so that probably had something to do with it,” Ralph said.

After being stationed at Camp LeJeune, N.C., the couple moved to Natchez from 1962-64, but Ralph almost returned to active duty early on during their stay in Natchez.

“One month after we moved here, the Cuban Missile Crisis happened, and he got orders to go back,” Carole said. “But (President John F.) Kennedy resolved the issue, thankfully.”

The family lived in Mobile, Ala., from 1964-78, and then they lived in Maine from 1978-81 before moving back to Natchez permanently, thanks to Ralph’s job with International Paper transferring him back to the Miss-Lou.

The couple has two cats and a rescue dog, Abby, who Ralph found abandoned at Duncan Park two years ago. Abby will often accompany Ralph on hunting and fishing trips.

“She goes fishing with me, and she’ll go down to the hunting camp and run around the four-wheeler and chase through the woods, but she doesn’t really hunt,” Ralph said. “She’s a little afraid of guns. Her favorite activity is chasing tennis balls when I play.”

When he’s not hunting, fishing or playing tennis, Ralph said he enjoys watching Auburn games on TV. Though Carole isn’t an Auburn graduate — she attended Mary Washington College, now The University of Mary Washington — she said she also roots for the Tigers.

“I always root for Auburn,” Carole said. “I maybe don’t watch it religiously like he does, but I like to watch football.”