Dick Molpus

His grandfather, Richard Hezekiah Molpus, established the first sawmill in Philadelphia in 1905 as part of a general merchandise venture, the Henderson-Molpus Company.

Richard Henderson Molpus Jr. (born September 7, 1949) is an American businessman and Democratic Party politician who served as Secretary of State of Mississippi from 1984 until 1996.

Richard Henderson Molpus Jr. was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi, on September 7, 1949, to Richard Henderson Molpus Sr. and Frances Blount.

The corporation later transformed into the Molpus Lumber Company in 1957, focusing its business in wood, and passed to Dick's father.

Molpus began working for the company at a young age.

By the time he was a teenager, he was a certified lumber inspector.

He returned to work for the company after graduating from college, assuming temporary control after his father suffered a stroke.

A staffer for William F. Winter's gubernatorial campaigns in 1967, 1975, and 1979, the governor appointed him executive director of the Governor's Office of Federal-State Programs.

He also lobbied on the governor's behalf for education reform in the state legislature.

He graduated from Philadelphia High School in 1967, and from the University of Mississippi with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1971.

While there he served as president of the Sigma Chi fraternity chapter, and unsuccessfully pushed for the fraternity to racially integrate.

During the 1967 Mississippi gubernatorial election, Molpus worked as a youth coordinator in Neshoba County for Democrat William F. Winter's unsuccessful campaign.

He co-chaired a blue ribbon highway study committee during Governor Bill Waller's tenure.

His father was one of Winter's leading supporters during the 1967 and 1975 elections, but later supported Republican nominee Gil Carmichael in the 1975 election and Jim Herring in the 1979 Democratic primary.

He married Sally Galbraith Nash, with whom he had two children, in 1971.

He rose to the position of vice president for manufacturing and oversaw the establishment of a second lumber facility in Morton in 1975.

He volunteered for Winter's 1975 campaign and for his successful 1979 gubernatorial campaign.

Molpus was Winter's first announced appointee when he was selected as executive director of the Governor's Office of Federal-State Programs, on November 15, 1979.

The office coordinated actions between federal and state agencies.

Together with the state director of administration, Molpus consolidated the office's 17 agencies into seven, reducing administrative expenses by 25%.

Born in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and educated at the University of Mississippi, Molpus worked at his family's lumber company before its sale in the 1980s.

The lumber company was sold in the mid-1980s.

Molpus served on the board of directors and executive committee of the Mississippi Forestry Association, vice-president of the Mississippi Lumber Manufacturers Association, and on the board of directors of the Morton chamber of commerce.

He also helped Winter lobby the Mississippi State Legislature to pass the 1982 Education Reform Act, hosting the governor's staff at a cabin he owned for strategy sessions, delivering over 35 speeches to build public support for the bill, and organizing a phone call campaign to pressure a state senator to support the creation of public kindergartens.

State Senator Ellis B. Bodron, who was broadly opposed to the legislation, denounced Molpus and other young Winter aides—including Ray Mabus, David Crews, Bill Gartin, Andy P. Mullins, and John Henegan—as the "Boys of Spring", a moniker in which they thereafter took pride.

Winter's tenure sparked a decade of political interest in reforming state government and led to like-minded candidates—many being former members of his administration—to seek elective office.

Molpus successfully ran for secretary of state in 1983, campaigning on his managerial experience and promises to reform the office.

For his work in reducing staff and improving the agency's efficiency, he was selected in 1983 as Mississippi's Public Administrator of the Year by the American Society for Public Administration.

Mississippi Secretary of State Edwin L. Pittman announced that he would run in the 1983 gubernatorial election.

Molpus was considered a candidate to succeed Pittman and he considered running for either secretary of state or public service commissioner from the Central District.

Molpus announced his resignation from Winter's administration effective May 9, and launched his campaign for secretary of state on May 16, 1983.

He was the second member of Winter's staff to run for statewide office after Mabus announced his campaign for state auditor.

Reelected in 1987 and 1991, he reorganized the office through the creation of four departments and shifted its purpose away from clerical duties and towards more active policy engagement.

He oversaw the digitization of the office's records, the renegotiation of thousands of leases on public lands to raise money for public education, reformed the state's election laws, and sought reforms in corporate law and lobbying rules.

Molpus unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in 1988, losing the Democratic nomination to Wayne Dowdy and accruing the third highest campaign debt for any senatorial candidate nationwide.

He unsuccessfully ran for governor in 1995 against Republican incumbent Kirk Fordice.

He later established a timberland management company.

Throughout his public life he has pushed for reforms to support public education and promote racial reconciliation.

In his unsuccessful campaign for governor in 1995, his apology for the Mississippi Burning murders, the first by a statewide office holder, was used against him.

He started a timberland investment management organization in 1996 and was appointed to the United States Endowment for Forestry and Communities in 2006.