Sidney L. “Sid” Salter is Journalist in Residence at the Mississippi State University Libraries. He is the author of Jack Cristil: Voice of the MSU Bulldogs, the successful 2011 biography of the longtime dean of Southeastern Conference sports radio broadcasters.

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.

Since the late 1970s, Salter’s syndicated newspaper columns distinguished him as what The Washington Post called ”one of the nation’s best state political reporters.” Salter also produces other unique written and digital content for the university as well as serving as an instructor to 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.

Salter also had a successful 10-year run as a television commentator for Meridian’s ABC affiliate WTOK-TV and as a longtime guest commentator for Mississippi Public Broadcasting television and radio broadcasts.

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 was honored by the Louisiana/Mississippi Associated Press Managing Editors for excellence in both editorial and column writing over the course of his career. 

Salter is a two-time winner of the J. Oliver Emmerich Award for Excellence in Editorial Writing, 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.

Salter has served on the advisory board of MSU’s John C. Stennis Institute of Government and works with executive director Marty Wiseman and his staff on a variety of political and public policy issues.

For more about the university’s holdings in journalism and mass media, see http://library.msstate.edu/specialcollections/manuscripts/masscomm.asp.