Contact: Joe Farris
A campus memorial honoring the former top aide to U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran will be dedicated Saturday [Nov. 3] at Mississippi State University.
A noon tribute to the late Wiley K. Carter of Jackson, an MSU alumnus, will include remarks by Cochran, MSU President Malcolm Portera and Carter family representatives. The public program will include the unveiling of an inscribed granite fountain located near the center of campus at the northwest corner of Mitchell Memorial Library.
The Wiley K. Carter Memorial is made possible through the private gifts of friends, family and admirers of the 1958 political science graduate who had served as editor of both the student yearbook and student handbook.
Carter, who died in September 1997 at age 61, began working with Cochran in 1974 as manager of Cochran's successful re-election campaign for the United States House of Representatives. He was Cochran's administrative assistant in the House and, after 1978, in the U.S. Senate.
Carter began his long public service career with the Mississippi Democratic Party before becoming an assistant to Lt. Gov. Carroll Gartin. He previously had served on the staff of Congressman John Bell Williams and as assistant director of the Mississippi Agricultural and Industrial Board, a forerunner of today's Mississippi Development Authority.
Carter presented his official papers and memorabilia to MSU in 1996. The collection now is part of the library's Congressional and Political Research Center.