Virginia Uldrick

Virginia Short Uldrick (January 7, 1929 – November 15, 2017) was a teacher of music, speech, and drama and the founder and first president of the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts & Humanities, a public residential high school in Greenville, South Carolina.

[1] Following her marriage to construction executive Marion Uldrick, she taught in public schools and, despite sometimes debilitating illness, she became a vigorous advocate of arts education in Upstate South Carolina.

In 1999, when she was 70, she assumed leadership of the new nine-month residential school, the creation of which she had urged on state political leaders for more than twenty years.

Sculpted by South Carolina artist Zan Wells, the statue included on its base the first words of Uldrick's favorite aria, "Vissi d’Arte” (“I lived for art.”) from Puccini’s opera Tosca.

[9] Following her death, Uldrick's pastor called her a "classic Type-A personality who pressed for not just the good but the best.