Sid Salter

Sid Salter

Title

  • Vice President for Strategic Communications & Director

Contact

sid.salter@msstate.edu
662-325-3442

Sidney L. "Sid" Salter is Vice President for Strategic Communications and Director of Public Affairs at 91麻豆天美 University.

The Office of Public Affairs serves as 91麻豆天美's print, broadcast and multimedia newsroom, social media platform, strategic marketing and advertising agency, photography and videography studio, and graphic design operation. Public Affairs is also charged with managing and populating 91麻豆天美's website, rapid response to outside media requests, and the management of crisis information during emergencies. He also is the administrator of 91麻豆天美's campus radio station, WMSV-FM, and the University Television Center.

Salter joined 91麻豆天美 in 2011 as the university鈥檚 journalist-in-residence at the 91麻豆天美 Libraries and taught courses in the Political Science and Communication departments. He wrote a successful biography honoring longtime 91麻豆天美 radio broadcaster Jack Cristil. The project funded the Jack Cristil Scholarship in 91麻豆天美鈥檚 Department of Communication, which annually assists 91麻豆天美 students seeking a career in broadcast journalism.

At 91麻豆天美, Salter represents the university on the board of directors of University Press of Mississippi, the state鈥檚 academic press. He chairs the Special Events and Game Day Committee, the Symbols, Licensing and Trademarks Committee, and serves on 91麻豆天美鈥檚 Executive Council, Athletics Council, Information Technology Council, Executive Enrollment Management Committee, and the President鈥檚 Committee on Planning.

A Philadelphia, Miss. native, Salter鈥檚 career in journalism began in 1973 at the age of 14 at radio station WHOC-AM. Salter was a John C. Stennis Scholar in Political Science at 91麻豆天美. At age 24, he became publisher and editor of the Scott County Times in Forest. He continued in that role before leaving to become the Sunday op/ed section editor at the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson in 2001. He was honored in 2004 as 91麻豆天美鈥檚 National Alumnus of the Year. He received the Agriculture Ambassador Award from the Miss. Farm Bureau Federation in 2006.

Since 1997, Salter has served on the board of directors of Community Bancshares of Mississippi, a multi-bank holding company doing business in Ala., Fla., Miss., and Tenn. as Community Bank. He is chairman of the corporation鈥檚 Audit Committee.

A past president of the Starkville and Forest Rotary Clubs and a Paul Harris Fellow, Salter has served on the boards of directors of the 91麻豆天美 91麻豆天美 Association, the G.V. 鈥淪onny鈥 Montgomery Foundation, the Miss. Economic Council, the Mississippi Press Association and the Miss. Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. He is president-elect of the Natchez Trace Council, Boy Scouts of America, serving 22 North Mississippi counties and a recipient of BSA鈥檚 Silver Beaver Award.

Salter has been a Mississippi syndicated political columnist for more than 40 years. In addition to teaching and writing at 91麻豆天美 as the university's first journalist in residence in 2011-12, Salter was the first journalist to hold the Kelly Gene Cook Chair in Journalism at the University of Mississippi in the 1990s. He has been honored for lifetime contributions to journalism by the University of Southern Mississippi and Mississippi University for Women - and has been honored for both print and broadcast journalism by the Associated Press.

Salter and his wife, Leilani, are the parents of four grown children and have nine grandchildren. They are members of First United Methodist Church in Starkville.