Entries - County: Saline - Starting with M

Ewell Ross McCright was an Army Air Corps lieutenant in World War II. While a prisoner of war, he secretly recorded detailed information about fellow prisoners of war while captive in Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Germany. McCright was awarded the Legion of Merit posthumously in 2004 after his ledgers were published. Ewell McCright was born on December 4, 1917, in Benton (Saline County) to Lewis Ross and Minnie Lee (Donham) McCright. He never married or had children. On December 4, 1940, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He applied for aviation cadet training on June 21, 1941, and was assigned to training as a bombardier on the B-17 on August 6. McCright was a B-17 bombardier with the 360th …

Tom Mehaffy was a self-educated schoolteacher, lawyer, and politician whose life at the age of sixty-seven was transformed by family tragedy into a distinguished career on the Arkansas Supreme Court. After fifteen years on the court during the Great Depression and the early stages of World War II, the aged and ailing justice retired in 1942, having earned the sobriquet “the Chief Dissenter” for his frequent disagreements with the other justices over the value that should be given to precedents. Mehaffy also founded what became Arkansas’s largest law firm, known in the twenty-first century as the Friday Law Firm in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Thomas Miller Mehaffy was born on October 3, 1859, in Ripley, Mississippi, to Thomas Langley Mehaffy …

Ron Meyer was a graphic artist, journalist, satirist, newspaperman, and political cartoonist from Little Rock (Pulaski County). In the early 1960s, Meyer went to work for Sam Hodges at the Benton Courier, first in advertising and later as general manager. During his tenure, Meyer helped the paper achieve both state and nationwide recognition. He also worked as a freelance artist for several Little Rock firms before opening his own advertising agency. Ronald Edward Meyer was born on October 18, 1938, in Little Rock to Velma Irene Maghar Meyer and Raymond Edward Meyer, who was originally from Hazen (Prairie County). He had one brother, Gerald, and two sisters: Patricia and Betty. Meyer’s parents divorced when he was ten years old, leaving …