Ira David Pinson

Ira David Pinson was born in 1892, in Pendleton, South Carolina, to Bessie Anna Cash Pinson and James A. S. Pinson, a minister. He completed a bachelor’s degree at Benedict College in 1912, then continued at Benedict for another year, receiving a master's degree in 1913. He completed a second bachelor's at Colgate University in 1918 before coming to the Yale Divinity School, where he received a bachelor's of divinity in 1920. He was a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity.

Pinson taught languages and philosophy and coached baseball at Morris College in Sumter, South Carolina, for fifteen years before becoming president of Morris in 1930. He is credited with keeping the college afloat after the 1929 financial crash left it struggling. The administration building at Morris is named in his memory. In 1921, Pinson married Bessie Alma Buckner, a student and later a teacher at Morris, and the couple had four sons. He was a member of the Elks and was Exalted Ruler of the Sumter Lodge in 1925.

Sadly, Ira Pinson and his son, Sylvester, died in 1939 when the family was in a car accident near South Hill, Virginia. Bessie Pinson was a teacher and administrator at Morris for decades, known to students in her older years as “Mother Pinson,” until her death in 1970.