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Sidney L. (Sid) Salter
Journalist in Residence

Mitchell Memorial Library

PO Box 5408

Mississippi State, MS 39762

ssalter@library.msstate.edu

662-325-2506

Sidney L. “Sid” Salter is Journalist in Residence at the Mississippi State University Libraries.

Under the guidance of MSU Dean of Libraries Frances N. Coleman, Salter is responsible for strengthening the MSU Library’s existing Special Collections and directing the university’s Morris W. H. (Bill) Collins Speaker Series. Named for the first executive director of MSU’s John C. Stennis Institute of Government, the Collins Speaker Series was created to expand discussion of major political, social and governmental issues. Joining the Stennis Institute as sponsors are the library’s Congressional and Political Research Center and the student John C. Stennis-G.V. “Sonny” Montgomery Association.

Salter will continue writing his syndicated newspaper columns and will produce other unique written and digital content for the university as well as regular classroom interaction with MSU students in Communications and Political Science.

MSU’s 2004 National Alumnus of the Year, Salter was a John C. Stennis Scholar in Political Science as a student. At age 24, he became publisher and editor of the Scott County Times in Forest. He continued in that role for many years before leaving the weekly newspaper to become Perspective Editor at the Jackson Clarion-Ledger for a decade. In addition to duties at the state’s largest newspaper, Salter hosted “On Deadline with Sid Salter”, a statewide talk radio show covering politics and other current issues on the SuperTalk Mississippi Radio Network.

He was the first journalist to hold the Kelly Gene Cook Chair of Journalism at the University of Mississippi and has covered politics from the court house to the state house to the White House. Salter is a past recipient of Mississippi University for Women‘s “Silver Inky” Award for lifetime contributions to American journalism and the University of Southern Mississippi‘s “Student Printz” Award for lifetime contributions to Mississippi journalism.

Salter has been honored by the Mississippi Farm Bureau as their “Agriculture Ambassador” for his writings on rural issues in 2006 and was honored in 2004 with the James Stubbs Award for volunteer service to Mississippi’s mentally ill, chemically dependent and developmentally disabled for his work championing the construction of regional crisis mental health centers in the state.

He is a two-time winner of the J. Oliver Emmerich Award, considered the premier annual honor of the Mississippi Press Association. The award is a memorial to another MSU alumnus who was longtime publisher and editor of the McComb Enterprise-Journal. Salter and Emmerich’s journalism collections are among those housed at the library. Salter is also a member of the MPA’s Hall of Fame and a past MPA president.