About Louise Bishop
Louise C. Bishop was a longtime philanthropist who gave generously to important community projects in St. Petersburg. She had special affection St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts where a gallery is named after her and her husband. She was a major benefactor of the Florida Orchestra and the University of South Florida St. Petersburg as well.
Mrs. Bishop endowed the Louise and Wally Bishop Center for Ethical Leadership at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. For this and other support of programs, including the interdisciplinary course and lecture series “Critical Choices: Ethics in a Complex Society,” USF St. Petersburg awarded her the Dean’s Citation Award in 1992.
Born Louise Carson in Evansville, Ind., she studied at Ferry Hall Prep, Lake Forest, Ill., and majored in piano at King-Smith Studio School, Washington, D.C.
She married Wallace Bond “Wally” Bishop at her parents' home in Evansville in 1936. She had wintered in St. Petersburg with her parents for many years, and on one of those occasions she was introduced to her to Mr. Bishop, whose Muggs and Skeeter comic strip was nationally syndicated and once ran in the St. Petersburg Times.
In 1938 the Bishops bought and began to restore Perry Snell's Italianate villa on Brightwaters Boulevard.
Over the years, Mrs. Bishop also contributed to the Bishop Day Care Center at the Pinellas Association for Retarded Children, the St. Anthony's Hospital Foundation and gave generously to the Great Explorations children's museum.
The Florida Orchestra, in recognition of her many gifts, presented its Golden Baton Award to her in 1992. She had been a member of the Orchestra Guild since it was organized in 1963 as the St. Petersburg Symphony Guild.
Mrs. Bishop's memberships included the Junior League of St. Petersburg.
Her concern for the development of ethics and leadership in undergraduate college students led her to provide funding to establish the Wally and Louise Bishop Center for Ethical Leadership.
