Lois Smith Clover

JACKSON, MS -- Lois Smith Clover, beloved wife and mother, journalist and one of the state’s strongest voices for the arts of her generation, died at St. Dominic Jackson Memorial Hospital in Jackson on Monday, November 10, 2014.

She was 89.

A reception celebrating her life is scheduled for Wednesday, November 12, from 3:30 to 6 at Fairview Inn in Jackson..

A native Mississippian, Mrs. Clover was born in Starkville on March 6, 1925 to the late Myrtle Davis and Floyd Rowan Smith. She was the fourth of their five children. She lived with her family in Magnolia, Yazoo City and several other Mississippi towns before her father moved the family to Alabama in 1940 when he became associated with Brookley Field in Mobile.

Mrs. Clover graduated from Murphy High School there. She worked for the Mobile Press Register while in high school and edited her school paper her senior year. Under her leadership, the paper received “All –American” honors, and she and key members of her staff went to New York for the recognition ceremony.

Years later, when she was director of public relations at Belhaven College and serving as the campus newspaper’s advisor, she also helped guide that paper to elite All-American status in the nation’s collegiate press.

Mrs. Clover attended Louisiana College in Pineville, on both academic and public relations work scholarships after high school graduation. There she met her husband, Chandler, who had returned to college after serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II. Both earned their baccalaureate degrees at the Baptist institution. After they married in 1947, they lived in nearby Alexandria, where Chandler was a junior executive at Central Louisiana Electric Power Co.

(CLECO), and Lois was on staff of the Alexandria Town Talk, the local daily.

Active in Alexandria’s arts scene, the Clovers continued their involvement with arts organizations when they moved to Jackson in 1955. Mrs. Clover frequently recalled that the Symphony League was just being organized as a supporting arm for the now Mississippi Symphony Orchestra when she and Chandler moved here. She was asked to join, and when she told league founders she was a journalist, was asked to do promotion for both the orchestra and symphony – which began her and her husband’s long association with the professional orchestra.

Mrs. Clover became the symphony league’s seventh president in 1960. Her husband, who died in 2001, served several terms on the orchestra’s Board of Governors, including a term as board chairman. She originated two of the Jackson Symphony’s League’s major fundraising projects that benefit the orchestra: the Symphony Ball, which began in 1960, and the Jackson Cookbook, first published in 1970.

In addition to those two projects, Mrs. Clover also chaired the symphony’s first Pops Concert at the Reservoir; co-chaired the symphony’s Heritage Ball celebrating Mississippi’s sesquicentennial year; co-chaired the 50th and 60th anniversary celebrations of the symphony’s founding and co-chaired the symphony league’s commemoration of its 50th anniversary.

In recognition of her extensive commitment to her community, Mrs. Clover was recognized in 2007 as one of Goodwill Industries' Volunteer Services volunteers of the year.

Mrs. Clover co-chaired the 150th anniversary celebration of the First Baptist Church of Jackson and served as president of the Jackson Symphony League, Mississippi Opera Guild and the Pleiades Literary Club. She chaired the 1976 Arts Festival, which celebrated the nation’s bicentennial with a street festival along Capitol Street, exhibits and shows for young Mississippians, concerts at the Mississippi Coliseum and a stop by the Freedom Train.

In 1974, she was tapped by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to serve as Director of Public Information for Mississippi’s participation in the Heritage of American Folklife festival sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Mrs. Clover also was a longtime member of the Research Club, the oldest study club in the state, and chaired events commemorating its 100th anniversary in 2008. She had also been a member of Woodland Hills Garden Club, Fourth Thursday Discussion Group, Town Club and Southern Luncheon Club.

A sustaining member of the Junior League of Jackson and one of the editors of the league’s first “Jackson Landmarks,” she was honored as a Beautiful Activist by Germaine Monteil and McRae’s Department Stores for her many contributions to community life, named a distinguished alumna by Louisiana College and was founding editor of Jackson, a quarterly magazine celebrating both the capital city and state.

Mrs. Clover served several different times as Belhaven College’s public relations director. During those years, she was tasked with helping the College transition from an all-female “finishing” school toward the outstanding co-educational institution it has become. She worked tirelessly to bring regional and national attention to many of the college’s notable programs – among them, its highly acclaimed Concert Choir, the Singing Christmas Tree and a number of academic programs, including the English Department’s literary series which brought nationally recognized writers to the campus for public lectures and classroom discussions.

She also mentored many student workers and several assistant directors in the ways of concise, journalistic writing and total public relations programs.

But most of the time, as she often put it, she “worked free” for good causes. She taught the young writers who were fortunate enough to work with her to use their journalistic skills to give back to their communities and help build a better quality of life for all.

Mr. and Mrs. Clover had two daughters, Chandler and Jane, who were her heart. After moving to St. Catherine’s, though, nothing brightened her eyes more or made her smile larger than time with her six-year old granddaughters, Elizabeth and Emily, who called her “LoLo.” She could never resist saying to anyone in hearing distance, “Aren't they something?”

In addition to her husband, Chandler, Mrs. Clover was preceded in death by a son, her parents, and her brothers, Starr Smith of Montgomery; Col. James Wesley Smith of Colorado; J. C. Smith of Tuscaloosa; and her sister, Vera Hastings of Mobile.

Immediate survivors include her daughter Dr. Chandler Thompson of Boston, and her husband, Raymond F. Thompson, Jr., and her daughter Jane Alexander of Jackson and her husband, Brent, and their daughters, Elizabeth and Emily.

Other local survivors include: niece Starr Miller, her husband Scott, their daughter Trenton Miller Milam and husband, John Paul, and their sons, Max and John Scott. Mrs. Clover also is survived by several nieces and nephews who live in other parts of the country.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorials in Mrs. Clover’s name be made to the Jackson Symphony League's Eddie Hodges Scholarship Fund at the Community Foundation of Greater Jackson, 525 E. Capitol St., Jackson, MS 39201 (www.cfgj.org), the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, P.O. Box 2052, Jackson, MS 39225-2052 (www.msorchestra.com), or a charity of your choice.