Dr. William Ware always had a heart for his hometown and its people, and after he obtained professional degrees elsewhere, he returned to Greenwood and Leflore County.
This action leapt into Dr. Roy Hudson’s mind after hearing that Dr. Ware, 85, died Saturday at Crystal Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center following a lengthy illness. Services had yet to be scheduled Monday. Sanders & Sanders Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
“He came back and did the greater part of his professional services in Mississippi,” said Hudson, former vice president and interim president at Mississippi Valley State University.
Ware
Both he and Dr. Ware earned bachelor’s degrees from Valley, which was established in 1950 and for many years was primarily a teacher’s college. Dr. Ware graduated in the middle 1950s, about 10 years ahead of Hudson.
At that time, Hudson knew Dr. Ware as a coach and basketball referee. “He was a member of the first football team at Valley,” Hudson said.
“He was a very stern and consistent person in the athletic business back then,” Hudson remembered. And, in many ways, he was a winner. Hudson said in later years he would joke with Dr. Ware about his good fortune in finding the right bride. “He was so lucky to get a ‘Miss Valley,’” Hudson said he would tease.
Hudson was speaking about Dr. Ware’s wife, Lottie, who passed away in 2016. Both were teachers when they moved to California, near Los Angeles, to raise their family and further their careers. Dr. Ware earned a master’s degree from California State University and a doctorate in physical education from the University of Southern California.
In 1979, the Wares returned to Mississippi — to Starkville, where he joined the physical education faculty at Mississippi State University. In 1990, then-MVSU president Dr. William Sutton lured him to Valley to run the education department. Dr. Ware retired from that job and about the same time, in 2001, helped to found Greenwood Interfaith Ministries. The ministries organized Greenwood’s Community Kitchen, and Dr. Ware was a former president of the Interfaith board.
Over the years, Dr. Ware devoted himself to service throughout the community. He was active in the Greenwood-Leflore County Chamber of Commerce and helped to organize its Leadership Tomorrow program.
In 2006, Dr. Ware was chosen for The Greenwood Commonwealth’s Community Service Award.
Dale Persons, then a Viking Range executive, said at the time, “He is a man of his word, the kind of guy people immediately trust. He treats people with respect, and he earns respect.”
Former Greenwoodian Bill Henderson, who now lives in Alabama, wrote a letter to the editor, saying he had worked with Dr. Ware during the founding of Greenwood Interfaith Ministries. “I found him to be ... honest, hard-working and dependable with a heart for those in need. Most importantly, he is willing to actually do something about the problems he sees rather than just talk about them. He truly ‘walks the walk.’”
Dr. Ware’s friend and pastor, the Rev. Dr. Calvin Collins of New Zion Missionary Baptist Church, said Dr. Ware looked for ways to actively support everything that involved the church.
“He spun a lot of energy achieving things,” Hudson observed.
Collins said, “He taught Sunday school. He sang in the Men of Zion choir. He was on our building committee. He attended Bible study.” Dr. Ware was instrumental in interdenominational activities such as Mission Mississipi and the community’s annual Lenten Luncheons.
“He was involved in everything,” Collins said. “He was engaged in — you name it.” Dr. Ware would ask, “Pastor, how can I help? How can I do more?”
Hudson said Dr. Ware reminded him of an old saying about rusting out versus wearing out. “He wasn’t going to rust out. He was going to wear out. And stayed that way to the end.”
• Contact Susan Montgomery at 581-7241 or smontgomery@gwcommonwealth.com.
