Bill Text: MS SR16 | 2025 | Regular Session | Engrossed
Bill Title: Recognize Robert Poore as the recipient of the 2025 Governor's Arts Award for Excellence in Visual Arts and Landscape Architecture.
Spectrum: Slight Partisan Bill (Democrat 8-3)
Status: (Passed) 2025-01-30 - Adopted [SR16 Detail]
Download: Mississippi-2025-SR16-Engrossed.html
MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE
2025 Regular Session
To: Rules
By: Senator(s) Horhn, Blackmon, Butler, Chassaniol, Frazier, McLendon, Robinson, Simmons (13th)
Senate Resolution 16
(As Adopted by Senate)
A RESOLUTION EXTENDING THE RECOGNITION OF THE MISSISSIPPI SENATE TO THE LEGACY AND COMMUNITY SERVICE OF ROBERT POORE AS THE RECIPIENT OF THE 2025 GOVERNOR'S ARTS AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN VISUAL ARTS AND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE.
WHEREAS, the Governor's Arts Awards Program has announced its 2025 recipients, which include Robert Poore as the recipient of the 2025 Governor's Arts Award for Excellence in Visual Arts and Landscape Architecture; and
WHEREAS, established in 1988, Governor's Arts Awards are given to individuals and organizations to recognize outstanding work in the artistic disciplines as well as arts-based community development and arts patronage in Mississippi. The awards are presented in partnership with the Governor's Office and signify the important relationship between government and the arts; and
WHEREAS, Robert Poore has become Mississippi's premier landscape architect, and his excellence was recognized in 2023 by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), with his inclusion in their Council of Fellows. He is one of two Mississippians to receive this honor in the category of works for his projects; and
WHEREAS, he is an artist with a 36-year career devoted to art and design through landscape architecture and creative collaborations with other artists and cultural institutions. Poore founded a landscape company called Native Habitats Landscape Architecture in Flora, Mississippi; and
WHEREAS, as a young man, Poore worked in landscaping. His father, Leon L. Poore, was a tree surgeon and landscape designer. Poore's father gave him his first books on landscape architecture when he was ten. However, Poore chose to study the architecture of buildings at Georgia Tech University. He realized this was not the right path, so he dropped out and worked in landscaping. In 1986, he returned to school at Mississippi State University to study landscape architecture; and
WHEREAS, Poore believes that nature is a process-generated art form. With an ecological focus, his designs work harmoniously with nature's processes and patterns, enhancing, promoting, and protecting unique places, plants, culture, and history across Mississippi and the South. His original landscape designs are on display across the state, including the Mississippi Art Garden, the gardens at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, the Mississippi Children's Museum Literacy Garden, and the Crosby Arboretum; and
WHEREAS, Poore collaborated with the late Ed Blake and Carol Franklin for the design of the nationally renowned Crosby Arboretum in Picayune, Mississippi, from 1986-1995. Crosby Arboretum is perhaps the most celebrated work of Mississippi landscape architecture and recipient of the 1991 National Honor Award from American Society of Landscape Architecture. As consulting landscape ecologist for the arboretum, he co-authored the Arboreport 3.3, a research study of representative natural sites that directly informed the arboretum design and won the 1992 President's Award of Excellence in Research from the Mississippi Chapter, and published "Enriching Urban Landscapes with Native Trees," which received the 1995 Merit Award from the Mississippi Chapter; and
WHEREAS, since that time Poore has remained actively involved with the evolution of the arboretum, a unit of Mississippi State University. Working with landscape architecture students and professors, Poore helped design the Gum Pond Wetland and Bayhead Stream Forest exhibitions. From 2018-2020, Poore designed the Rosen Memorial Interpretive Pavilion; and
WHEREAS, over the years, Poore has received numerous recognitions for his work, including the 2013 ASLA MS Merit Award for The Art Garden, the 1991 ASLA National Honor Award for The Crosby Arboretum Master Plan, and the 1999 ASLA National Centennial Medallion Award for the Lake Terrace Convention Center; and
WHEREAS, Poore's two children, Scott Poore and Kristy Hogan, and four grandchildren, Kaylee, Paxton, Abby and Griffin are his greatest inspiration in recent years; and
WHEREAS, it is with great pride that we pay tribute and express appreciation for the energy of a Mississippi landscape architect and arts professional whose work has made Mississippi a better place and exemplifies the charitable and artistic traditions of our great state:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI, That we do hereby extend the recognition of the Mississippi Senate to the legacy and community service of Robert Poore as the recipient of the 2025 Governor's Arts Award for excellence in Visual Arts and Landscape Architecture and extend our congratulations to this outstanding landscape architect on this auspicious occasion.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That this resolution be presented to Robert Poore and made available to the Capitol Press Corps.
