Sam Gore Sculpture Honors Winona Physician Dr. Bill Middleton

A Winona physician who’s delivered 3,500 babies, serves as a church deacon, and is a beloved community leader; Dr. Bill Middleton has many admirers all over Mississippi.

The 85-year-old Mississippi College graduate is seen as “the pillar of the community in Winona,” says internationally celebrated artist Sam Gore.

In honor of his 57 years of dedicated medical service in Montgomery County, including work as chief of staff at Tyler Holmes Memorial Hospital, Middleton is the subject of the newest Gore sculpture. The life-sized 800-pound bronze sculpture will stand in a prominent place outside the Winona hospital where he helped patients. Ceremonies to unveil the piece of art work are being planned for this fall.

Gore, whose most recent sculpture of the late Lt. Gov. Evelyn Gandy now graces the Capitol, expects the Middleton project will take four months. But it’s really a labor of love for the retired Mississippi College Art Department chairman because he and Middleton are distant cousins. There are other family connections.

Gore’s great uncle, Dr. Wes Gore, was the physician who delivered Middleton at a house in rural Montgomery County more than eight decades ago. Gore’s older brother Dr. Al Gore, and Dr. Middleton are contemporaries in the medical community in the Magnolia State. They were medical school classmates in the 1950s.

A 1949 Mississippi College alumnus who served in the Army during World War II, Middleton is a graduate of the Tulane School of Medicine in New Orleans. He’s won numerous awards during his career, including the 2006 Physician of the Year by the Mississippi Academy of Family Practice. Other awards have come from the Mississippi Medical Association. He practiced family medicine for years at the Middleton Clinic on Summit Street in Winona.

Although he retired on December 31, 2009, Middleton continues visits with 25 patients at a Winona nursing home, remains active as a supporter of the Winona hospital, and stays busy as a backer of his alma mater in Clinton. Thanks to his financial support, there’s a Dr. William A. Middleton Scholarship at Mississippi College. The award goes to outstanding students in the Department of Communication. Scholarships have already gone out to eight MC students over the years.

Simply put, Dr. Middleton is “a man of many talents,” says his wife, Nell, a 1954 Mississippi College nursing graduate.

The Middletons have a talent for welcoming newcomers to town.

“He and Nell are like surrogate grandparents,” says Amanda Sexton, 35, editor and publisher of “The Winona Times.” Once she moved to Winona from Southaven, “they took me in like family. They’ve been kind over the years. In Winona, everyone in town knows Dr. Middleton. It doesn’t matter what your age is,” Sexton said.

Turning 85 and finally retiring last year hasn’t slowed down the Mississippi College graduate. “I feel pretty young,” he said. Middleton vividly recalls the first day he went to work as a Winona doctor – on July 3, 1955. People in his hometown are delighted he stayed. Gore’s sculpture is their way of saying thanks.