Sam Gore Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

Sam Gore

Internationally celebrated sculptor Sam Gore will receive a lifetime achievement award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters.

It’s the latest recognition for the 85-year-old Mississippi College graduate and former chairman of the university’s Art Department. His fabulous contributions to the arts world span more than six decades.

Gore is set to receive the award at a June 9 banquet at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson.

“It’s quite an honor,” Gore said Friday when reached at his home in Clinton. “I’m like a turtle on a fence post. I didn’t get there by myself. I have been blessed to become acquainted with the pillars of the Jackson community.”

The 1951 MC graduate credits God for giving him the skills to create extraordinary art pieces that include his “Servant Savior” on the Clinton campus and a 1,200-pound bronze masterpiece “Jesus and the Children” outside the School of Education.

Retired Hinds County Circuit Judge Swan Yerger, a member of the group’s Board of Governors, recently nominated Gore for the lifetime achievement award.

“He brings a great reputation in the arts world and in sculpture,” Yerger said. “He’s renowned and such a good influence on arts students over the years. Students of his include Bill Dunlap and Wyatt Waters and they’re impressive. He’s such a good role model.”

Gore will join an all-star roster of previous lifetime achievement winners including such literary icons as Eudora Welty, Shelby Foote, and Ellen Douglas, famous opera singer  Leontyne Price, artists Marshall Bouldin III and Walter Anderson and actor Morgan Freeman.

Founders of the private Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters in 1978 include former Mississippi Gov. William Winter and retired University of Southern Mississippi President Aubrey Lucas. The group’s awards also cover such categories as fiction, non-fiction, visual art, musical composition, photography and poetry.

Waters, Dunlap, and retired MC music professor and composer James S. Sclater, have been recognized for awards in various categories from the 34-year-old organization.

Randy Jolly, director of the Gore Galleries on the Mississippi College campus, was delighted to hear the news about Dr. Gore. “It’s a wonderful honor for him. He’s a fantastic sculptor who’s left an impact on the arts in this state.”

Mississippi University for Women English professor Bridget Pieschel, the institute’s immediate past president, joins Yerger in saying the award is well-deserved for Gore. The son of a well-traveled Baptist preacher, Gore grew up in Calhoun County and first got interested in art as a young boy in North Mississippi.

Gore’s sculptures have popped up all around metro Jackson and beyond, including First Baptist Church Jackson, the Gilfoy Nursing Museum at Baptist Medical Center, the Mississippi Capitol, and the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum. Gore is busy working on a “Fallen Comrades” sculpture that will salute America’s military veterans and be installed at the Clinton Visitors Center this spring.