FILE - Clarke Reed, who was chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party from 1966-76, discusses the contested 1976 ...

As a former chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party, he helped grow the party into a dominant force in the South ...

(AP) — Clarke Reed, a Mississippi businessman who developed the Republican Party in his home state and across the South starting in the 1960s, died Sunday ... President Gerald Ford and former ...

Clarke Reed, a Mississippi businessman who helped build the Republican Party across the South, has died JACKSON ... closely divided between President Gerald Ford and former California Gov.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Clarke Reed, a Mississippi businessman who developed the Republican Party in his home state and across the South starting in the 1960s, died Sunday at his home in ...

died Sunday at his home in Greenville, Mississippi. He was 96. Reed was chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party from 1966 to 1976, beginning at a time when Democrats still dominated in the region ...