William Forrest Winter (21 February 1923 – 18 December 2020) was the Democratic Governor of Mississippi from 22 January 1980 to 10 January 1984, succeeding Cliff Finch and preceding William Allain.
Biography[]
William Forrest Winter was born in Grenada, Mississippi in 1923, and he served in the US Army in the Philippines during World War II. Afterwards, he attended law school and became involved in Democratic politics, serving in the State House from 1948 to 1956, as state tax collector from 1956 to 1964, as state treasurer from 1964 to 1968, as Lieutenant Governor from 1972 to 1976, and as Governor from 1980 to 1984. Winter styled himself as a pro-business conservative, and he supported civil service protections for state employees, removed racial considerations from the hiring process, increased spending on public education, and established public kindergartens. He failed in his 1984 bid for the US Senate, and he later campaigned for Bill Clinton and supported the removal of the Confederate "Stars and Bars" from the state flag. He died in 2020.