Marion B. Burton (1930–2024)

Marion B. Burton was an attorney who was active in the Arkansas Republican Party in the 1960s, becoming an important figure in the administration of Governor Winthrop Rockefeller. He remained affiliated with various Rockefeller organizations after an active political career. He became known for his activities as an aviator and served in various civic roles.

Marion B. (no middle name) Burton was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on November 23, 1930, to Melvin Burton and Helen Tedstrom Burton; he had four siblings. After graduating from Little Rock public schools, he attended Pennsylvania State University with a Navy ROTC scholarship. He graduated in 1952 with a major in physics and minor in mechanical engineering. He was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy and served four years as an aviator, flying carrier-based fighters. After active duty, he remained active in the Navy Reserve and retired as a captain.

After military service, he graduated from the University of Michigan law school in 1958. He returned to Little Rock with his wife Ann Tyler Burton (whom he married in 1955) and their four children; they later had a fifth child. In 1966, their seven-year-old son Douglas drowned. In 1973, the couple divorced.

Upon his return to Little Rock, Burton served as clerk to Chief Justice Carleton Harris of the Arkansas Supreme Court before entering private law practice. He became involved in the state Republican Party (GOP) at a time when virtually all elected officeholders were Democrats. His political career developed rapidly. In 1962, while serving as legal counsel for the state GOP and later executive assistant chairman of the party, he met Winthrop Rockefeller, who was trying to energize the state’s Republican Party. Burton chaired the Pulaski County GOP and was involved in Rockefeller’s unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 1964.

Circuit judge Wiley Bean and Sheriff Marlin Hawkins briefly jailed Burton in Morrilton (Conway County) in 1963. He had been in court as a trial witness, and during a recess, the judge invited him into chambers and asked him questions unrelated to the trial. The county officials thought that the state GOP, and Burton personally, were initiating lawsuits by citizens protesting fraud in elections—a charge Burton denied. He refused to answer the questions, stating that it was an illegal procedure. The judge threatened Burton with jail, and he was held for three hours before being released. The judge also barred him from practicing law in the Fifth Judicial District. In subsequent proceedings, the Arkansas Supreme Court cleared Burton of any charges and criticized the judge for his actions. A newspaper report stated that the Supreme Court “lectured Bean in forthright terms.” In 1965, he was indicted by a Conway County grand jury as a party to a conspiracy to have Sheriff Hawkins arrested illegally. The charges were dismissed by Circuit Judge Russell Roberts.

Burton was campaign director in 1966 when Rockefeller was elected to his first of two terms as governor (1967–1971.) The new governor appointed him as executive assistant, and he later served as chief legal advisor. He was a delegate to the constitutional convention that drafted a proposed new constitution in 1969. In 1970, he attended the GOP national convention as a pledged delegate for presidential candidate Gerald Ford. Burton ran unsuccessfully for the Arkansas Senate in 1970.

Burton was also a pilot for Rockefeller and flew Rockefeller’s corporate jets and managed Rockefeller’s aviation operations and private airport on Petit Jean Mountain. As copilot in Rockefeller’s Falcon jet, he won speed records for that type of aircraft, including one transoceanic flight. He was also a co-founder of a glider club. The Federal Aviation Administration gave him the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for over fifty years of professionalism and expertise in aviation.

Burton was active in civic affairs, serving as chairman of the Metropolitan YMCA and the Riverdale Levee Improvement District boards. Three different governors appointed or reappointed him to the Arkansas Aeronautics Commission. He served on the board of Winrock International, the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation, the Arkansas Aviation Historical Society, and the Arkansas Aerospace Education Center.

He had several hobbies in addition to flying, including rebuilding airplanes and cars, operating a cattle ranch, tinkering with his boat, playing tennis, and skiing.

When Rockefeller died in 1973, Burton was named co-executor of the estate and a trustee of the Rockefeller Charitable Trust. While he was serving as executive trustee, in 2018, the trust created the Governor Winthrop Rockefeller Endowment of one million dollars for the Winthrop Rockefeller International Agricultural Institute, which Burton was instrumental in forming. That fund is held by the University of Arkansas Foundation to ensure long-term support for the institute, which is housed on Petit Jean Mountain. In 2021, Burton, through his family foundation, gave a gift of $100 million to the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute.

He died in Little Rock on January 27, 2024. His obituary noted that he had “spent the last 27 years of his life with his loving partner, Doris Davis.”

For additional information:
Kreth, Ellen F. “Marion B. Burton.” Arkansas Democrat High Profile, September 8, 1991, pp. 1, 4.

Obituary of Marion B. Burton. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, January 29, 2024, p. 2B. Online at https://www.arkansasonline.com/obituaries/2024/jan/29/marion-burton-2024-01-29/ (accessed November 11, 2024).

W. W. Satterfield
Little Rock, Arkansas