Business, Culture and Media 2023

Legendary business leader and visionary real estate and golf community developer George W. Bryan, Sr., a West Point native and former Sara Lee Corp. executive, 78, died peacefully at his home on Jan. 6, 2023.

George Wilkerson Bryan, Sr. was born in West Point, Mississippi in 1944. He was the son of John H. Bryan and Catherine Wilkerson Bryan, the youngest of four siblings. George was a devoted husband and father and a member of the First  Presbyterian Church in West Point, Miss. Throughout his life, he devoted his energy and passions toward his family, his friends, his businesses, and golf. He had a deep and positive impact on the people in his life.

Bryan supported multiple athletic and academic causes at his alma mater over the course of his life, but the university building that bears his family name is perhaps their best-known contribution. The Bryan Athletic Administration Building is a crown jewel of MSU’s athletic expansion projects of the 1990s. A $5 million facility that opened its doors in January 1995, the facility was made possible largely due to the generosity of the Bryan family. The Bryan Building houses MSU’s athletic administration offices as well as MSU’s athletic ticket office, the Bulldog Club, media relations, business and student services offices.

A 1968 business administration graduate of Mississippi State University, Bryan was a member of Sigma Chi Fraternity. Years later, he was awarded the fraternity’s highest alumni honor when he was named a “Significant Sig.” Prior to entering college, Bryan began his business career in 1964 at Bryan Foods, his family’s West Point-based meat products manufacturing company. He was a graduate of West Point High School.

Sara Lee Corp. acquired Bryan Foods in 1968. After working in cost accounting, Bryan became production manager and vice president of sales before being named Bryan Foods president in 1974. He was named Sara Lee Corp.’s senior vice president in 1983, moving two years later from Mississippi to open the company’s meat group offices in Memphis, Tennessee.

In addition to serving as Sara Lee Corp’s SVP until 2000, Bryan served as chief executive officer of Sara Lee Foods and chairman and director of the American Meat Institute before retiring in 2000.

A tireless champion of business, civic and charitable endeavors, Bryan also served as general campaign chairman for the United Way of the Mid-South, a 30-year director and member of the Audit, Trust, and Compensation committees of Regions Bank, and past president of the Chickasaw Council Boy Scouts of America. He was named an “Outstanding Mississippian” in 1979 by then-Gov. Cliff Finch and was inducted into the West Point Hall of Fame in 1992 and West Point “Citizen of the Year” in 2000.

In 1988, George and wife Marcia were co-founders and owners of his hometown’s Old Waverly Golf Club, one of the South’s premier golf destinations and home to Mississippi State men’s and women’s golf programs. He led in bringing the U.S. Women’s Open to Old Waverly in 1999 — the most prestigious event in women’s professional golf — an achievement that earned him the Jackson Clarion-Ledger’s 1999 “Sports Person of the Year” Award. Bryan also was co-founder of Mossy Oak Golf Club, also home to MSU’s golf programs. Brought to life by Gil Hanse, Mossy Oak Golf Club, which opened in 2016, quickly became one of the most revered golf courses in all of the U.S. and was recognized in 2018 as one of Golfweek’s Top 100 Modern Golf Courses.

George Bryan is survived by his wife, Marcia Lavender Bryan, and their children, Suzanne Lavender Bryan, Brentwood, Tenn.;  George Wilkerson Bryan, Jr. (Amy), West Point, MS; Laura Bryan Williams (Shane), West Point, MS; and Nancy Bryan Campbell (Matt), Oxford, MS; and their 15 grandchildren, John Wright Sampietro, Sofia Louise Sampietro, Harrison Bryan Sampietro, Catherine Simril “Sims” Bryan, Rivers Suzanne Bryan, Bess Howell Bryan, George Wilkerson Bryan, III, and Carlyle Cameron Bryan, McMillan Leigh “Millie” Williams, Jonathan “Wells” Williams, Catherine Bryan Williams, William “Hayden” Campbell, Benjamin “Ben” Marshall Campbell, James “Bryan” Campbell, and Charles Warren Campbell.

In addition to his immediate family, George Wilkerson Bryan, Sr. is also survived by his sister, Caroline Bryan Harrell of West Point, MS., and his brother-in-law Kenneth “Kenny” Dean Dill of West Point, MS, and by Neville Frierson Bryan.