Former Gov. William Winter is one of two to receive outstanding awards during the annual Alumni Hall of Fame Induction and Rewards reception for the year 2017 at the University of Mississippi. Winter will receive the Alumni Service Award on Friday at a reception hosted by the association at The Inn at Ole Miss.
The Alumni Service Award was created by the Alumni Association in 2002 to recognize alumni members who have proven service to the university and the association for an extended amount of time.
The 1943 graduate was inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame in 1989. He served as governor of Mississippi from 1980 to 1984. Before that, he was elected to the offices of state representative, state tax collector, state treasurer and lieutenant governor. He served as chairman of the Southern Regional Education Board, the Commission on the Future of the South, the National Civic League, the Kettering Foundation, the Foundation for the Mid-South, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the Ole Miss Alumni Association.
Winter was a member of President Bill Clinton’s National Advisory Board on Race and was instrumental in the founding of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at Ole Miss. He was awarded the Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
In 1998, Winter was the recipient of the Mississippi Bar’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Born in Grenada, Winter served overseas as an infantry officer in the Pacific in World War II. An attorney in the Jones Walker law firm in Jackson, he is married to the former Elise Varner. They have three daughters, five grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
The Ole Miss Hall of Fame, created in 1974, honors select alumni who have made an outstanding contribution to their country, state or university through good deeds, services or contributions that have perpetuated the good name of the university.
Other honorees includes five Hall of Fame inductees: Don Frugé, Walton Gresham III, James E. Keeton, Tom Papa and Mary Sharp Rayner. Candie L. Simmons will receive the Outstanding Young Alumni Award.