Ada Gwin Pryor Buford, 92 died peacefully on August 1, 2025

She was born January 27, 1933, in Calhoun City, Mississippi to Edward Atkinson Pryor and Minnie Lee Harpole Pryor.

She grew up in a gentle world (albeit the world of the Great Depression and WWII), having a large extended family of beloved aunts, uncles and many cousins. She was born into a world of music, to a family dedicated to church music. Her great-grandfather was William T. Gwin, a founder and leader of the Mississippi Sacred Harp Convention for over 50 years. Her grandmother Minnie May Gwin Harpole directed music at First Baptist Church of Eupora for over 40 years. Her mother Minnie Lee founded and directed the music of First Baptist Church of Calhoun City for 50 years, and her four aunts, the Harpole sisters, directed choirs in Eupora, Bruce, Coldwater, and Inverness. From them all she learned the art of church music. She also was grateful for the influence on her life of Tollie Williams, beloved housekeeper of the Pryor family. Gwin was a natural born musician, endowed with a beautiful voice and the ability to teach and lead from an early age, directing her peers in church ensembles.

Realizing her talent and the need to continue her musical training, her parents sent her to Ward-Belmont Preparatory School in Nashville for her last 2 years of high school, where she early showed her acumen for business and organizational skills as President of YWCA and secretary of National Honor Society chapter and graduated with honors.

Gwin attended Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College) and was selected as Memphis' Miss City Beautiful, winning a trip to New York where she appeared on the Today Show in its first year. She transferred to Indiana University's world-renowned School of Music her sophomore year, where she studied voice performance under famed Metropolitan Opera soloist Anna Kaskas and former assistant conductor of the Met, Frank St. Leger. Gwin was given lead opera roles such as Papageno in The Magic Flute, Despina in Cosi fan tutte, Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, and Annie in der Freishutz. She also sang with the Indianapolis Symphony and appeared in summer stock as the female lead in Carousel and on television during her college years. She entertained the troops during the Korean Conflict as a member of the singing group Indiana Belles. She was selected Miss Arbutus her senior year (Queen of the Indiana Annual) and was president of her sorority Alpha Omicron Pi, member of Sigma Alpha Iota music honorary, Pi Kappa Lambda music scholastic honorary, Mortar Board, the IU Foundation Student Board, was selected as top beauty, and graduated with honors. In 1953 at age 20 she was selected as 1st runner-up in the Miss Mississippi pageant, stunning the crowd with her musical performance.

During her senior year at Indiana, she met and fell in love with T. C. Buford of Glendora, and had to decide between following her dream of a career on the stage or going back home to Mississippi. She chose to come back and marry her true love, but she never stopped singing or teaching, maintaining the highest standard of quality. She immediately began her teaching career as choir director at St George's Episcopal Church, Clarksdale, and also began a thirty-year tradition as soprano soloist in the Messiah.

With William Jernberg, Betty Sue Maynard, and Doyle Tubbs as accompanists and often singing with her sister Lee who also trained at IU, Gwin sang throughout the Delta, in Memphis, and in Jackson, for civic groups, churches, schools, and universities, singing a varied repertoire from classical to sacred. She sang at the Arts Festival in Jackson and Jackson City Opera as soloist. At Delta State University, where she taught voice, she supported the building of the Bologna Performing Arts Center by singing for fundraisers, and later sang on its stage.

An important part of her service to the arts was her work with the Metropolitan Opera District and Regional auditions. She served as judge for the Mid-South auditions in Memphis and New Orleans, and with Keith Dockery McLean, helped bring District Auditions to Mississippi, and worked to support opera in the Mid-South. She was a member of Beethoven Club and Amici, support groups for the opera.

Gwin had the most far-reaching influence on the arts in Mississippi as a teacher of voice, piano, and organ since moving to the Delta in 1955. In addition to giving private lessons to children and adults, she volunteered at the Head Start in Glendora and served as a source of enrichment to musically gifted students at West Tallahatchie High School. Her students carried on her legacy by becoming teachers and musicians themselves, as well as professionals in other areas with a love of music they learned in childhood from "Miss Gwin."

Gwin and T. C. were among the founding members of Episcopal Church of the Advent (Sumner), which became known statewide for its musical excellence. She requested the organ and choir to be situated in the back, resulting in a rich atmosphere of sound that galvanized the congregation in bold singing and communal prayer. Church members labored to transport an excellent tracker pipe organ by hand and farm truck to contribute to her effort in training and inspiring choir and church members to sing and participate robustly in church music to the glory of God. In 2006 after 48 years, she retired as principal musician. However, she continued directing the children's choir, noted by Bishop Duncan Gray as "having an extraordinary musical sound." In addition, Gwin had a strong influence on the young priests who came to Advent as their "first" church and went on to larger churches—and a bishopric--in dioceses throughout the US. Gwin helped found the Mississippi Conference on Church Music and Liturgy and served the board for many years. But most important may be her life of service, giving freely of her time and effort to countless special church services, baptisms, weddings, funerals, near and far, anywhere there was a musical need she could fill, in addition to supporting others' artistic endeavors. Her example of service in the arts has been an inspiration to many.

In 2004, she and her four daughters began a series of annual Christmas Concerts at the Alluvian Hotel that continues today, also performing at the Bologna Performing Arts Center, Cleveland, and the Gertrude Ford Center, Oxford. Her rich musical legacy continues in the voices and musical gifts of her daughters and grandchildren, her many choristers, her beloved successor at Advent, Doyle Tubbs, and many priests who lovingly credit her with helping shape their education in liturgy and church music.

She was a devoted wife, mother and grandmother. She is survived by her four daughters Lillian Lee Buford Threadgill (Burney), Gwin Pryor Buford Lampton (Robert), Sarah Gill Buford Goodwyn (George), and Donna Mills Buford Bryant (Kitt), ten grandchildren Thomas Carnes Buford Threadgill (Elisabeth), Sarah Dabney Threadgill Petrusnek (John), Aubrey Farrell Threadgill (Samantha), Lewis Adolphus Graeber IV, Mims Buford Graeber (Caitlin), Cullom Walker IV (Kinnon), Gwin Pryor Walker Fike (Austin), Gill Buford Walker, Lillian Margaret Spell, and Porter Buford Spell; great grandchildren Nicholas Buford, Michael Thomas, and Elisabeth Carnes Threadgill; John Francis and William Buford Petrusnek; Cullom V and Chapman Carnes Walker; Sarah Cecelia Fike; her sister Lee Pryor Uhlhorn and niece Ann Porter Uhlhorn.

She is preceded in death by her husband of 64 years Thomas Carnes Buford Jr., her parents, her brother Edward Atkinson Pryor Jr, nephew Edward Pryor Uhlhorn, and son-in-law Robert Gene Spell.

Services will be held at The Episcopal Church of the Advent, Sumner, MS, on Friday, August 8, at 2 pm, with Reverend Sylvia Czarnetzky officiating. Wilson & Knight of Greenwood is providing the funeral arrangements. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorials be made to Church of the Advent, P.O. Box 366, Sumner, MS 38957.