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Harvey, Robert Drennen (Bob)

Robert Drennen (Bob) Harvey was a farmer and lawyer in Jackson County who spent thirty-two years in the Arkansas General Assembly after World War II, most notably fighting relentlessly for a lean state government. He announced to his colleagues in 1978 that he was not going to run for the Arkansas Senate again because he had finally recognized the loneliness and futility of trying to maintain frugal government in Arkansas. Harvey, a soft-spoken bachelor, was an icon in Jackson County, his forebears having arrived there in 1849. Bob Harvey was born on May 22, 1914. His father and mother, William Richard Harvey and Lula Belle Shaver Harvey of nearby Strawberry (Lawrence County), were farmers near the town of Swifton (Jackson …

Hawkins, Marlin Conover

Marlin Conover Hawkins served Conway County as an elected official for thirty-eight years. His ability to deliver votes to statewide and national candidates gave Hawkins a profile in state politics that was rare for a county official. His political machine is an important part of Arkansas’s political lore, and the effects of his political contacts are still evident in Conway County. Marlin Hawkins was born on April 22, 1913, near Center Ridge (Conway County) to John Carl Hawkins and Nettie Mae Hawkins. John Carl Hawkins, a sharecropper and part-time barber, died in 1929. As the second of seven children, part of the burden of supporting the family fell on Hawkins. He worked as a sharecropper and part-time janitor until Olen …

Hollensworth, Carroll Charles

Carroll Charles Hollensworth was a prominent member of the Arkansas General Assembly in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Serving as the Speaker of the House and then as the floor leader, he was a central figure in the legislature’s work throughout that period. Carroll Charles Hollensworth was born in Warren (Bradley County) on January 6, 1900, to Presbyterian minister Eli Asa Hollensworth and Mary Elizabeth Lee Hollensworth. He had an older brother and a younger sister. He grew up in Bradley County and attended the local schools, but little is known about the specifics of his early life. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I and afterward married Mayme Bird Stevens. The couple had a son and …

Hoofman, Clifton Howard (Cliff)

Clifton Howard (Cliff) Hoofman, who was reared by grandparents on tenant farms in White County, became a lawyer and politician and held constitutional offices in all three branches of state government. He served in the Arkansas House of Representatives for eight years, the Arkansas Senate for twenty years, four years as a state highway commissioner, and two years on the Arkansas Supreme Court; he also had two separate sojourns of two years each on the Arkansas Court of Appeals. As a close friend and ally of two governors, Bill Clinton and Mike Beebe, Hoofman was instrumental in passing much of the major legislation enacted during their combined twenty years in the governor’s office. Cliff Hoofman was born on June 23, …

Hudson, Dianne Elizabeth Ferguson

Dianne Hudson served as a state representative from Sherwood (Pulaski County) in the 81st Arkansas General Assembly from 1997 to 1998. Dianne Elizabeth Ferguson was born in 1939 in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Ralph James Ferguson, who was a civilian employee at Camp Joseph T. Robinson, and Josephine Margurite Uekman Ferguson, a homemaker. She grew up in North Little Rock (Pulaski County), graduating from St. Patrick’s Catholic School in 1953 and Mount St. Mary Academy in 1957, and worked as a cashier at the Rialto Theatre. She later audited classes at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She married Freddie D. Hudson in September 1958, and they had three daughters: Donna, Chris, and Connie. She was a homemaker …

Hughes, Green B.

Green B. Hughes was an influential figure in early Arkansas. He served as the first postmaster at what is now Benton in Saline County in 1836. Later, Hughes served as county clerk and county judge before being elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives. He also served as a railroad commissioner and chairman of the Saline County Democratic Party. Hughes died in the summer of 1858, reportedly leaving behind an estate worth a considerable amount. Green B. Hughes was born in Tyrrell County, North Carolina, in 1800 to parents of Welsh descent. He moved to Hot Springs (Garland County) in 1818, when Arkansas was still a territory. He married Louisa West, the sister of Claiborne West, one of the signers …

Hunt, Frances Rowena Mathews Jones

Frances Hunt was a representative from Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) in the Forty-third, Forty-fourth, and Forty-fifth Arkansas General Assemblies, serving from 1922 to 1926. She was the first woman to serve in the Arkansas General Assembly.  Frances Rowena Mathews was born on June 6, 1874, in Des Arc (Prairie County) to Julia Ann Wair Mathews and Allen C. Mathews, a Confederate veteran and editor of the Des Arc Citizen. Her friends and family called her “Fannie Dear.” She was educated in the Des Arc schools and learned the printing trade in her father’s newspaper office.   Her father died in 1891, shortly after purchasing the Prairie County Democrat and founding the Des Arc Guidon. Her mother moved with her family to live on the plantation of her brother, Samuel T. Wair, in Redfield (Jefferson County). Wair was active in politics, representing Barraque Township on the Jefferson County Democratic Central Committee and serving as a delegate to the Democratic State Convention. Another …

Hunter, Andrew

Andrew Hunter, one of the earliest and longest-surviving itinerant preachers in Arkansas, was an influential, popular, and highly respected leader in the development of Methodism in Arkansas. He served in almost every capacity in the Methodist organization and was involved in most of the historic events in the Methodist Church during his fifty-five years of active ministry and subsequent services after retirement in 1889. Andrew Hunter was born on December 26, 1813, in Ballymoney County, Antrim, Ireland. His mother converted from Catholicism to Presbyterianism before the family migrated to Pennsylvania, while he was still very young. The attentive ministrations of a Methodist preacher during the illness and subsequent death of Andrew’s father led to the family’s conversion to Methodism. Hunter converted on …

Hurst, Quincy Byrum

Quincy Byrum Hurst Sr. was a lawyer, banker, and politician whose battle to protect and legalize gambling in his hometown of Hot Springs (Garland County) resulted in a historic conflict with Governor Winthrop Rockefeller in the 1960s. Hurst began his political career as a reformer in the famous GI Revolt of returning soldiers from World War II, led by future governor Sidney S. McMath, but he ended his career in the service of the state’s “Old Guard” politicians and as the lawyer of two major figures in organized crime. He served twenty-two years in the Arkansas Senate and ran for governor, unsuccessfully, in 1972 while he was under investigation for bank fraud. In 1974, he was convicted in Missouri of …

Jeffery, Jehoiada

Jehoiada Jeffery and his family are believed to have been the first permanent settlers in Izard County. Jeffery was a prosperous farmer who was a war veteran and served as justice of the peace, county judge, and territorial legislator. While in the legislature, he introduced the bill that created Izard County.  Jehoiada Jeffery was born in Rutherford County, North Carolina, on August 10, 1790, to James Jeffery and Jane Mason Jeffery. He was the oldest of their four sons and two daughters. About 1800, his family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, and a short time later to Christian County, Kentucky. In 1808, the family moved once again to Union County, Illinois, where they remained for about eight years.  Little is known of Jeffery’s educational training, which was likely very limited due to the family’s regular moves. However, his mother was educated and served as a teacher for the entire family. He married Mary Weir on February 12, 1811. The couple had …

Jeffery, Robert Emmett Jr.

Robert E. Jeffery Jr. was a descendent of one of the earliest families to settle in north–central Arkansas. With very little formal education, he practiced law and also served as a prosecuting attorney, circuit judge, and member of the Arkansas General Assembly. In 1915, he was appointed a minister to Uruguay by President Woodrow Wilson.  Robert Emmett Jeffery Jr. was born in Mount Olive (Izard County) on January 30, 1875, to Dr. Robert Emmett Jeffery Sr. and Mary Cason Jeffery. He was the great-grandson of Jehoida Jeffery, considered by some to be the first white settler in present–day Izard County. He was the oldest of eight brothers and two sisters.   Jeffery, who was called Boyse by his family, grew up in rural Arkansas and had few opportunities for a formal education, attending local schools for no more than …

Jeffries, Peggy Sue Newlon

Peggy Jeffries was a senator from Fort Smith (Sebastian County) in the Eightieth and Eighty-first Arkansas General Assemblies, serving from 1995 to 1998. Although she served only one term, she was a significant forerunner of the extreme Republican Party lawmakers who would take over state government more than a decade after she left.  Peggy Sue Newlon was born on June 4, 1940, in St. James, Missouri, to Thelma Geneva Edgar Newlon, who was a homemaker, and Graydon Hopkins Newlon, a truck driver with England Brothers Truck Line who also had a career as a construction foreman with Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. Due to her father’s work, she attended first grade in Fayetteville (Washington County) and fifth grade in Mena (Polk County) but otherwise attended Fort Smith public schools at Trusty Elementary and Fort Smith Senior High School (Northside), graduating in 1958. In high school, Peggy …

Johnson, Lycurgus Leonidas

Lycurgus Leonidas Johnson was one of the largest cotton planters and slaveowners in antebellum Arkansas. Around 1860, he built an imposing, seventeen-room mansion in the Greek Revival style along the banks of the Mississippi River at his Lakeport Plantation in Chicot County. Lycurgus Johnson was born on March 22, 1818, the eldest of nine children born to Joel Johnson and Verlinda Offutt Johnson of Scott County, Kentucky. The Johnsons were among the most prominent families in early Kentucky. Johnson’s paternal grandfather, Robert Johnson, was a political, educational, and religious leader in the Bluegrass State; he had been instrumental in establishing Transylvania Seminary (later Transylvania University) at Lexington, the Rittenhouse Academy in Scott County, and the Kentucky Society for Promoting Useful …

Jones, Green Hill

Green Hill Jones was an African-American politician and Free Will Baptist minister in Chicot County. Born into slavery, Jones served in the Union army during the Civil War and received an education in the North following his discharge. Upon returning to Chicot County, he became county treasurer and county assessor and served two terms in the Arkansas General Assembly. Throughout his adult life, he was known as G. H. Jones, Greenhill Jones, Green Hill Jones, or Hill Jones. However, in an interview with the U.S. Pension Office, he stated that his true name when he attained his freedom was Green Hill Jones Haywood. Born a slave in Maury County, Tennessee, on December 18, 1842, Green Hill Jones was part of …

Jones, James Fred

J. Fred Jones was a farmer, laborer, lawyer, and populist politician who aspired to be a justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court and made it in 1967 after his third race for the position. His ten years on the bench, begun as he approached retirement age, were marked by sympathy for underdogs, workers, and educators. He found that the law nearly always sided with them rather than their adversaries.  James Fred Jones—he went by “J. Fred”—was born on January 12, 1907, on a Ouachita Mountain farm near Mount Ida in Montgomery County. His children described his childhood home as so remote and untamed that a mountain lion once crashed through the roof of the house. His parents were Ira S. Jones and Ella Tyler Jones.   Jones attended Montgomery County’s rural schools and …

Jones, Myra

Myra Jones was a political activist and governmental official as well as an entrepreneur in Little Rock (Pulaski County) in the latter part of the twentieth century. Throughout two decades in elective office, Jones made a substantive impact on the direction of both Little Rock and the state, becoming the first woman elected to the Little Rock Board of Directors and later serving from 1985 through 1998 in the Arkansas General Assembly. Myra Lee Gutsche was born on March 8, 1936, near Belle Fourche, South Dakota, to Ernest and Edith Gutsche. She was raised on a ranch in Belle Fourche, which was north of Rapid City. She learned to drive a tractor at an early age and was active in …

Jones, Oscar Eve (O. E.)

Oscar Eve (O. E.) Jones Sr. was a successful Batesville (Independence County) newspaper publisher and a state senator representing Independence and Jackson counties. O. E. Jones Sr. was born in Newport (Jackson County) on June 20, 1905, to Dr. Oscar Eve Jones and Frances “Fannie” Redman Jones of Newport. He had one brother, Lacy R. Jones. O. E. Jones was educated in the public schools of Newport and received a degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). His mother died when he was in his teens, and his father died about two years later. Jones went to live with his maternal uncle and aunt, Harry Brandenburg and Minnie Redman Brandenburg of Newport. On January …

Julian, Patricia Roberts (Patti)

Patti Julian was a representative from North Little Rock (Pulaski County) in the Eighty-ninth Arkansas General Assembly, representing House District 38 from 2013 to 2014.  Patricia Roberts was born in 1955 in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Marion “Mickey” Knowles Roberts, who was a homemaker, and David Earl Roberts, a real estate agent and businessman. She attended public schools in North Little Rock, graduating from North Little Rock Northeast High School in 1973. Attending the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), she received a BSBA in accounting in 1977 and a JD in 1980.   Roberts married fellow attorney Jim Julian in 1980. After graduation from law school, her first job was with Touche Ross CPAs in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1983, she returned to Arkansas and worked for one year at the Arkansas Securities Department and then five years as a governmental affairs attorney for Arkansas …

Kavanaugh, William Marmaduke

William Marmaduke Kavanaugh was briefly a U.S. senator for Arkansas after the death of incumbent Jeff Davis. In addition, Kavanaugh also served as managing editor of the Arkansas Gazette from 1890 to 1896, sheriff and tax collector for Pulaski County from 1896 to 1900, probate and county judge from 1900 to 1904, and member of the National Democratic Committee from Arkansas from 1912 to 1915. William M. Kavanaugh was born on March 3, 1866, near Eutaw in Greene County, Alabama, to the Reverend Hubbard Hinde Kavanaugh and Anna Kimbrough Kavanaugh; he was one of six children. His father was a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and chaplain of the Orphans Brigade, which was the only Confederate brigade from …

Keet, Jim

Jim Keet is a former member of the Arkansas General Assembly who served in both the House and the Senate. He also conducted two unsuccessful political campaigns, one for U.S. Congress and one for Arkansas governor. A prominent Arkansas businessman, he became a major developer in the regional restaurant and hospitality business. James Holland Keet III was born in Springfield, Missouri, on May 12, 1949, to prominent lawyer and judge James Holland Keet Jr. and Virginia Keet. In 1971, he graduated from Southern Methodist University (SMU), earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration. While at SMU, he served as the student body president of the School of Business. After graduation, Keet began a lifelong career in the hospitality industry and …

Kizer, Bernice Lichty Parker

Bernice Lichty Parker Kizer was a lawyer and a path-breaking state legislator and judge in Arkansas in the second half of the twentieth century. After almost fifteen years in the Arkansas General Assembly, Kizer stepped down to seek election as a probate judge. Her subsequent victory made her the first woman in state history to be elected to a judgeship. Bernice Lichty was born on August 14, 1915, in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) to E. C. Lichty and Opal Lichty. She graduated from Fort Smith High School in 1932 and worked for two years as a grocery checker at Fort Smith’s first self-serve grocery store in order to save money for college. She initially attended Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, …

Knox, Robert C.

Robert C. Knox, scion of a southern Arkansas family of politicians and lawyers, built a thirty-year legal and political career on advocacy for the Democratic Party and its powerful leaders—notably Governors Charles Hillman Brough and Homer M. Adkins. Adkins appointed Knox in 1942 to his final and preeminent job, justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. He was a justice for twenty months, although a heart attack and its impairments limited his service. Before that, he had been the mayor of Monticello (Drew County), briefly the county judge, a chancery judge, an assistant attorney general, a state senator from Pulaski and Perry counties, and chairman of the Arkansas Corporation Commission. Robert Carr Knox was born on April 19, 1892, in Plantersville, …

Kramer, Frederick

Frederick Kramer emigrated in 1848 from Prussia to the United States, settling in the 1850s in Little Rock (Pulaski County), where he became a wealthy businessman and a participant in the city’s civic life. He served two terms as an alderman (1869–1872) and four terms as mayor (1873–75, 1881–1887). Also, he was elected to Little Rock’s first school board in 1869 and served continuously on the board until 1894, most years as the board’s president. He was a member, and often an officer, in social and service organizations ranging from the Casino Club, of which he was president, to the Masons, in which he rose to the highest ranks. Frederick Kramer was born on December 22, 1829, in or near …

Lafferty, John

John Lafferty was, according to several sources, the first known white settler of record in Izard County and an eyewitness to the effects of the New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811–1812 along the White River. John Lafferty was born in Donegal, Ireland, in 1759. His parents’ names are unknown. Lafferty grew up in Rutherford County, North Carolina. Lafferty signed the papers of the First Council of Safety of the Revolutionary Party in South Carolina in November 1775 and enlisted in a volunteer company of militia under Captain William Fullwood during the American Revolutionary War. For his service, he recived a land grand of 1,000 acres in the Camden District of South Carolina. At some point, Lafferty married Sarah Lindsey, who was …

Laman, William Fewell “Casey”

William Fewell “Casey” Laman exerted a vigorous—albeit dictatorial—style of leadership during his sixteen-and-a-half-year reign as mayor of North Little Rock (Pulaski County). Serving four terms from 1958 through 1972, and the balance of an unfilled mayoral term from 1979 through 1980, he modernized one of the state’s most populous cities by directing millions of federal, state, and local dollars for housing, education, recreation, and infrastructure. Casey Laman was born on October 20, 1913, on a farm north of Jacksonville (Pulaski County) to James Newton Laman and Anna Fewell Laman; he had two siblings. His father was a machinist-helper for the Missouri Pacific Railway Company and later opened a furniture store and served as an alderman in North Little Rock, where …