Andrew P. Mullins Jr. is an American retired educator.
Andrew P. Mullins Jr. is an American retired educator.
Mullins grew up in Macon, Mississippi. He graduated from Noxubee County High School and then earned a bachelor's degree in history from Millsaps College. He later earned a master's degree and doctorate in history at the University of Mississippi. [1]
In November 1980, Governor William F. Winter hired Mullins as an education policy advisor. [2] He frequently accompanied Winter to appearances with intergovernmental organizations. [3] He also served as aide to the governor's Blue Ribbon Committee on Education, which was tasked with studying public education in Mississippi and suggesting reforms. [4] He also helped Winter lobby the Mississippi State Legislature to pass the 1982 Education Reform Act, joining the governor's staff for strategy sessions to build public support for the bill. [5] State Senator Ellis B. Bodron, who was broadly opposed to the legislation, denounced Mullins and other young Winter aides—including Ray Mabus, David Crews, Bill Gartin, Dick Molpus, and John Henegan—as the "Boys of Spring", a moniker in which they thereafter took pride. [6]
After Winter left office in 1984, Mullins became a special assistant for Governor Bill Allain. [1] Allain assigned him as a staff support member to the newly-reformed Mississippi Board of Education. After six months, Mullins became an assistant to the Mississippi Superintendent of Education. [7]
Upon leaving politics, Mullins returned to work in education. He cofounded the Mississippi Teachers Corps in 1990. [1] In 1994 he became an administrator at the University of Mississippi. [8] In 2008, Mullins helped organize the debate between candidates Barack Obama and John McCain hosted by the university during the 2008 United States presidential election. [9]
David Ronald Musgrove is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 62nd governor of Mississippi from 2000 to 2004. A Democrat, he previously served as the 29th lieutenant governor of Mississippi from 1996 to 2000. He was the Democratic nominee in the 2008 special election for one of Mississippi's seats in the United States Senate, losing to incumbent Senator Roger Wicker. Musgrove is a principal at a public affairs consulting firm, Politics. In 2014, he became founding partner of a new law firm in Jackson, Mississippi, Musgrove/Smith Law.
Raymond Edwin Mabus Jr. is an American politician and lawyer. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Navy from 2009 to 2017. Mabus previously served as the State auditor of Mississippi from 1984 to 1988, as the 60th governor of Mississippi from 1988 to 1992, and as the United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1994 to 1996.
William Aloysius Allain was an American politician and lawyer who held office as the 59th governor of Mississippi as a Democrat from 1984 to 1988. Born in Adams County, Mississippi, he attended the University of Notre Dame and received a law degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1948.
Richard Henderson Molpus Jr. is an American businessman and Democratic Party politician who served as Secretary of State of Mississippi from 1984 until 1996. He unsuccessfully ran for governor in 1995 against Republican incumbent Kirk Fordice. He later established a timberland management company. Throughout his public life he has pushed for reforms to support public education and promote racial reconciliation.
William Lowe Waller Sr. was an American politician and attorney. A Democrat, Waller served as the 56th governor of Mississippi from 1972 to 1976. Born near Oxford, Mississippi to a farming family, Waller went to law school and in 1950 established a law practice in Jackson. Nine years later, he was elected District Attorney of Hinds County, Mississippi. Waller attempted to reform the position and provoked the ire of local law enforcement for aggressively prosecuting several cases. In 1964, he twice prosecuted Byron De La Beckwith for the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, with both trials resulting in deadlocked juries. In 1967, he launched an unsuccessful campaign for governor, finishing fifth in the Democratic primary.
William Forrest Winter was an American attorney and politician who served as 58th governor of Mississippi from 1980 to 1984. A member of the Democratic Party, he also served as the lieutenant governor, state treasurer, state tax collector, and in the Mississippi House of Representatives.
Bradford Johnson Dye Jr. was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 27th Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi from 1980 until 1992. Dye was the only individual in state history to have served as lieutenant governor for 12 consecutive years.
Edythe Evelyn Gandy was an American attorney and politician who served as Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi from 1976 to 1980. A Democrat who held several public offices throughout her career, she was the first woman elected to a statewide constitutional office in Mississippi. Born in Hattiesburg, she attended the University of Mississippi School of Law as the only woman in her class. Following graduation, she took a job as a research assistant for United States Senator Theodore Bilbo. She briefly practiced law before being elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives, where she served from 1948 to 1952. Defeated for re-election, she worked as director of the Division of Legal Services in the State Department of Public Welfare and Assistant Attorney General of Mississippi until she was elected State Treasurer of Mississippi in 1959.
Patrick Hayes "Pete" Johnson Jr. is an American politician and lawyer who served as State Auditor of Mississippi from 1988 to 1992. Originally a Democrat, he joined the Republican Party in 1989, thus becoming the first Republican to hold statewide office in Mississippi since the Reconstruction era. He mounted an unsuccessful campaign for governor in 1991. He served as Federal Co-Chairman of the Delta Regional Authority from 2002 to 2011.
Jack Raymond Reed Sr. was an American businessman and politician. Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, he served in the United States Army during World War II and earned degrees from Vanderbilt University and New York University before returning home to help run his family's retail business. He later assumed control over their department store after his father's death in 1956. Active in local civic affairs, he chaired the Mississippi Economic Council from 1963 to 1964 and became a vocal proponent for public education. Appointed to the Mississippi Board of Education in 1984, he chaired the body until he decided to run for the office of governor of Mississippi in 1987 as a moderate Republican. Reed lost the general election but performed better than any Republican gubernatorial candidate had in Mississippi in the 20th century to that point. In his later life he continued to advocate for public education. He died in 2016.
Eddie Jerome Briggs is an American politician and lawyer. After service in the Mississippi State Senate, Briggs was the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi, a position which he held from 1992 to 1996. He was the first Republican to have held the office of lieutenant governor of Mississippi since Reconstruction.
The 1995 Mississippi gubernatorial election took place on November 7, 1995 to elect the Governor of Mississippi. Incumbent Republican Kirk Fordice won reelection to a second term.
The 1983 Mississippi gubernatorial election took place on November 8, 1983, in order to elect the Governor of Mississippi. Incumbent Democrat William Winter was term-limited, and could not run for reelection to a second term. As of 2022, this is the last time that Hinds County has voted for the Republican candidate.
Ellis Barkett Bodron was an American lawyer and Democratic Party politician who served in the Mississippi State Senate from 1952 to 1984 and in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1948 to 1952. He was blind.
Gilbert Ellzey Carmichael was an American businessman and politician. Born in Columbia, Mississippi, he attended Texas A&M University and served in the United States Coast Guard during the Korean War, earning a Silver Lifesaving Medal for helping rescue crewmen from a sinking tanker. In June 1950 Carmichael was hired by the Dow Jones & Company to sell its newspaper, The Wall Street Journal. After eight years, he joined a friend in distributing cars in Shreveport, Louisiana. He later became a partner in a car dealership in Meridian, Mississippi, before taking over the business. A member of the Republican Party, he became involved in politics in the 1960s, making two unsuccessful bids for a seat in the Mississippi State Legislature. Carmichael also ran for a U.S. Senate seat in 1972 and in 1975 ran for the office of Governor of Mississippi, the first serious Republican contender for the post in decades. He lost a narrow race and made another unsuccessful bid in 1979. He also launched an unsuccessful independent campaign in 1983 to be elected Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi. From the 1970s to the 1990s he served on various national transportation advisory boards. He died in 2016.
Steven A. Patterson is an American lawyer and politician who served as State Auditor of Mississippi from 1992 to 1996. A Democrat, he worked on several political campaigns in the 1970s and served as treasurer for Bill Allain's 1983 gubernatorial campaign. With Allain's backing, Patterson assumed the chairmanship of the Mississippi Democratic Party, which he held until 1987.
Leon Crow Bramlett Jr. was an American farmer, football player, and politician. Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, he briefly played football at the University of Mississippi and the University of Alabama before being admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy, where he played from 1943 to 1947. He briefly worked as an end coach for the team while serving in the United States Marine Corps before returning to Clarksdale to farm cotton. He served on the Mississippi Marketing Council and chaired the Mississippi Democratic Party from 1968 to 1972, during a time when the party was split between conservative "Regulars", including Bramlett, and pro-civil rights "Loyalists". In 1976 the Regulars and the Loyalists reached a compromise and in response Bramlett joined the Republican Party. He lost the 1979 Republican gubernatorial primary in Mississippi but secured the nomination four years later before losing in the general election. He retired from farming in 2001 and served on U.S. Senator Thad Cochran's staff for several years, dying in 2015.
Horace Lavelle "Sonny" Merideth Jr. was an American lawyer and politician.
William J. Cole III was an American politician and lawyer who served as the State Treasurer of Mississippi from 1980 to 1988.
The Mississippi Education Reform Act of 1982 was an education and revenue law enacted in the U.S. state of Mississippi in 1982.