Entry Type: Group - Starting with A

Arkansas River Blues Society

The Arkansas River Blues Society (ARBS), based in Little Rock (Pulaski County), began its life as the Arkansas Blues Connection (ABC) in June 1984 as Arkansas’s first chapter of the National Blues Foundation. Based in Memphis, Tennessee, the National Blues Foundation seeks to “preserve blues heritage, celebrate blues recording and performance, expand worldwide awareness of the blues, and ensure the future of the uniquely American art form.” The Arkansas River Blues Society seeks to preserve the legacy of Arkansas blues and to provide a place for budding musicians to keep the blues alive. What became the Arkansas River Blues Society began in a Little Rock blues club. A group of local blues enthusiasts—including John Craig, Steve Logan, Jeff Weeden, and …

Arkansas River Valley Area Council (ARVAC)

When President Lyndon Johnson took office in 1963, he declared war on poverty. The nation’s poverty rate was at nineteen percent. Over the course of his term, he initiated more than 200 bills and ushered in many of the federal programs active today, including the Medicare and Medicaid programs, early Head Start programs, a host of rural and small-business loan programs, and the VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) program. One of the most successful of these VISTA programs is the Arkansas River Valley Area Council (ARVAC), an agency continuing to serve a low-income citizens in a nine-county region in rural central Arkansas. The VISTA program was created with the passage of the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act, which also gave …

Arkansas Science and Technology Authority (ASTA)

The Arkansas Science and Technology Authority (ASTA) was created in 1983. Its mission is to bring the benefits of science and advanced technology to Arkansas. The legislation creating the authority was based on the growing interest in replicating the technology-based economies of Boston, Massachusetts; California’s Silicon Valley; and Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. For most states, the justification for establishing mechanisms similar to Arkansas’s was faith that investment in science and technology would lead to the creation of high-tech jobs. The first programs were implemented in 1986, and more have been added. The programs are grouped into three broad categories: research and commercialization, technology and manufacturing extension, and management services. In the research programs, ASTA provides funds and technical support …

Arkansas Securities Department

Securities regulation in the United States started with state laws known as Blue Sky Laws, the first one enacted in Kansas in 1911. Arkansas enacted its first such law in 1913. Administration of that law was initially put under the Insurance Commissioner but almost immediately moved to the Bank Commissioner. Securities regulation remained under the auspices of the Bank Commissioner until the passage of Act 254 of 1959, the Arkansas Securities Act, which still governs securities regulation in the twenty-first century. The act created the position of Securities Commissioner as the head of the Securities Division of the Arkansas State Bank Department, who reported to the Bank Commissioner. In 1973, the Arkansas General Assembly removed the Securities Division from the …

Arkansas Sheriffs’ Youth Ranches

Arkansas Sheriffs’ Boys Ranch, Inc., was founded in 1976 as an exclusively charitable and educational organization for “the prevention of cruelty to boys, by providing a home, ranch, and training school for underprivileged boys.” The organization was created to provide a non-governmental residential childcare program for boys from all Arkansas counties. Today, Arkansas Sheriffs’ Youth Ranches, Inc., provides residential and non-residential services to both boys and girls. The organization was incorporated on January 6, 1976, after two years of planning. In the early 1970s, a group of sheriffs asked the seventy-five-member Arkansas Sheriffs’ Association (ASA) to help develop a children’s home that would rely on the generosity of Arkansans. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, some of these sheriffs …

Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center

The Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center (ASBTDC) had its beginnings in 1979 as part of the former Industrial Research and Extension Center. Originally named the Arkansas Small Business Development Center, it has been a separate entity since the mid-1980s, when it was transferred to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR), where it has become more comprehensive. The center is now a part of UALR’s College of Business in the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Business and Economic Development. In addition to this central office, ASBTDC has six regional offices, all linked to universities. The 2003 annual report sets out the center’s mission: to provide quality consulting, training, research, and technology services to the small-business community through …

Arkansas Society, United States Daughters of 1812

The Arkansas State Society, United States Daughters of 1812 (often abbreviated as USD 1812) is affiliated with the National Society, United States Daughters of 1812. It is a non-profit, non-political women’s service organization for descendants of patriots who aided the American cause during the War of 1812. The national organization was founded on January 8, 1892, marking the seventy-seventh anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans, which began on January 8, 1815. The American victory in the clash at New Orleans was the last major battle of the War of 1812. With a motto of “Liberty, Fraternity, and Unity,” the National Society USD 1812 is headquartered in Washington DC. In the organization’s forty-three state societies, there are more than 6,000 …

Arkansas Soft Pine Bureau (ASPB)

Founded in 1912 by executives of a dozen prominent Arkansas timber firms, the Arkansas Soft Pine Bureau (ASPB) spent decades promoting its members’ southern pine lumber. American Lumberman ad salesman Robert H. Brooks originally conceived of the ASPB, using his previous experience with these firms to convince them to try a one-year advertising campaign funded by an assessment of five cents per 1,000 board feet of lumber manufactured in their Arkansas mills. The first ASPB advertisements appeared in October 1912 and proved successful enough that, by the spring of 1913, the ASPB principals initiated a national campaign and coined the term “Arkansas Soft Pine”—a description patented in 1921 as a registered trademark. Brooks, a Kansan with previous experience in the …

Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board

Arkansas ranks in the top ten of U.S. states for soybean production. Products made from soybeans can be found in almost every aisle of the supermarket and even in most hardware stores. Soybeans, sometimes called “miracle beans,” deliver essential nutrients and high-quality protein to people and farm animals. The Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board was established to support this important industry in the state. Act 259 of the 1971 Arkansas General Assembly established the Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board to provide producers in the state with an organization that works to improve the soybean industry. The board consists of nine unpaid soybean producers nominated by various agricultural organizations within Arkansas (including the Arkansas Farm Bureau, the Arkansas Soybean Association, the Agricultural Council …

Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame

The Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the history of sports in Arkansas while honoring those who have played or coached in the state. The organization began in February 1958 when a group of prominent Arkansas businessmen began discussing the need for such an entity. On August 16, 1958, the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame was incorporated, with Little Rock (Pulaski County) construction executive Jack Pickens as its president. Pickens was the force behind the Hall of Fame in its early years, serving as president from 1958 to 1971. Other officers in 1958 were Milton Green as vice president, Cliff Shaw as treasurer, Warren Wood as legal counsel, and Allan Berry as secretary. The first …

Arkansas State Bank Department

The Arkansas State Bank Department (ASBD) is an executive branch state agency that was created by Act 113 of 1913, and it is responsible for the regulation and supervision of Arkansas’s state-chartered banks as well as bank holding companies of its state-chartered banks, state-chartered trust companies, industrial loan institutions, regional and county industrial development corporations, and regulated economic development enterprises. For at least a decade prior to the passage of Act 113, Arkansas bankers had been advocating for the creation of a state bank department. Aside from national banks that were regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, banking was unregulated in Arkansas in the early twentieth century. This lack of oversight encouraged fraud and left many …

Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce

aka: Associated Industries of Arkansas (AIA)
The Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce and the Associated Industries of Arkansas (AIA) was founded in 1928. Almost immediately, it became the foremost private organization for the promotion of economic interests, and the state chamber established research agencies and agencies to promote its interests to public bodies. After World War II, business leaders saw the need for a coordinated effort to develop the state’s economy. Each region had unique attributes and needed local development groups. The state chamber was to be the body coordinating the efforts of the various local chambers organized along city or county lines. Associated Industries of Arkansas, the purpose of which was to provide political support to business and industrial interests, was organized at the same …

Arkansas State Guard

The Arkansas State Guard was a military force that performed homeland defense, disaster relief, and search-and-rescue duties during World War II while the Arkansas National Guard was in federal service. From 1942 to 1946, this volunteer military force helped fight floods along the Arkansas and Ouachita rivers, looked for missing persons, and assisted in recovery efforts following devastating tornadoes around the state. The State Guard was authorized by Act 85 of 1929 of the Arkansas General Assembly, which allowed for its organization whenever at least seventy-five percent of the Arkansas National Guard was called into federal service. The need for this type of unit was proven during World War I when, after the three Arkansas National Guard regiments were federalized, …

Arkansas State Horticultural Society (ASHS)

The Arkansas State Horticultural Society (ASHS) is a horticultural crop producers’ organization whose primary purpose is to provide its members, through annual meetings, with information to enhance their horticultural enterprises. The Arkansas State Horticultural Society was formally organized on May 24, 1879, by nineteen men meeting in the council chamber of the city of Little Rock (Pulaski County). The organizers were engaged in horticultural pursuits and were aware of a growing interest in horticultural crops being grown on lands adjacent to the land-grant railroads then expanding through Arkansas. News of the May 24 meeting was published in area papers, extending an invitation for all interested to attend. The object of the society is “to collect and disseminate information relative to …

Arkansas State Medical Association (ASMA)

The Arkansas State Medical Association (ASMA), organized in 1870, was Arkansas’s first statewide professional organization for regular physicians (meaning those within the regular medical mainstream). A dispute over ethics erupted in 1873, which contributed to the ASMA’s eventual dissolution in 1879. In nineteenth-century America, regular physicians engaged in professional organizing and advocacy. In 1866, a group of Arkansas’s regular physicians, including Dr. Philo Oliver Hooper of Little Rock (Pulaski County), formed the Little Rock and Pulaski County Medical Society (PCMS). Encouraged by their success, PCMS members looked to establish a state organization for regular physicians. At a meeting held in Little Rock in 1870, a group of regular physicians organized the Arkansas State Medical Association. The ASMA, whose members were …

Arkansas State Police

A division within the umbrella agency of the Arkansas Department of Public Safety (ADPS), the Arkansas State Police is the state’s primary statewide law enforcement agency. Although it has had many duties since its inception, the primary functions of the agency remain criminal investigation, traffic safety, and highway patrol. As a state agency, the State Police is overseen by a director bearing the rank of colonel who serves at the pleasure of the governor. The State Police’s main headquarters are located in Little Rock (Pulaski County), with the highway patrol organized into twelve regional “troops,” each commanded by a captain, and the criminal investigation division organized into six regional “companies,” each commanded by a lieutenant. The creation of a centralized, …

Arkansas State Sovereignty Commission

aka: State Sovereignty Commission
The Arkansas State Sovereignty Commission (ASSC) was created in February 1957 to “protect the sovereignty of Arkansas…from encroachment by the federal government” in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas school desegregation decision and 1955 implementation order. Although given sweeping powers, the ASSC in fact met only twice, proving itself to be merely posturing over rather than actually practicing measures against the federal government. Nevertheless, the creation of the ASSC was an opening salvo in a three-year barrage of pro-segregation laws passed by successive sessions of the Arkansas General Assembly. The ASSC, modeled after the Virginia State Sovereignty Commission, was created by Act 83 of the 1957 Arkansas General Assembly. The act …

Arkansas State Teachers Association

The Arkansas State Teachers Association (ASTA) is a professional organization for education professionals that adheres to a non-union and non-partisan operation policy. Professional membership in ASTA is open to any employee of an educational entity—certified, non-certified, and classified. ASTA is unrelated to an earlier organization which went by the same name and later became the Arkansas Education Association (AEA). The roots of ASTA intertwine with its national organization, the Association of American Educators (AAE). AAE was established in 1994. In 2001, groundwork began for an AAE affiliate in Arkansas. ASTA was established in 2004. ASTA and AAE are licensed by the IRS as 501(c)(6) professional trade organizations. Like organizations it partners with in other states, ASTA works collaboratively with local …

Arkansas State Troops (CS)

aka: Army of Arkansas
On May 20, 1861, the Arkansas Secession Convention passed an ordinance creating an Army of Arkansas with a First Division in western Arkansas and a Second Division in the eastern part of the state. These were placed under the command of a major general, with brigadier generals heading the two divisions. The Army of Arkansas was to be controlled by the state Military Board, which the convention had formed five days earlier with the power to call out the militia and use it as needed to defend the state. Despite that, the convention elected James Yell as major general, Nicholas Bartlett Pearce of Benton County as brigadier of the First Division, and Thomas H. Bradley of Crittenden County to lead …

Arkansas Swimming Hall of Fame

The Arkansas Swimming Hall of Fame is a body that recognizes swimming excellence in the state. The induction of its first class in 1986 served as an announcement of the state swimming community’s determination to raise the profile of swimming in Arkansas beyond its emergence every four years as part of the summer Olympics. The Arkansas Swimming Hall of Fame is a nonprofit organization that seeks to recognize and honor those who have contributed to swimming in Arkansas and to promote amateur swimming throughout the state. Its club efforts both teach swimming and offer the first opportunities for competition to the college teams that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)–sanctioned championships to the high-level club teams that serve …

Arkansas Symphony Orchestra

The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, based in Little Rock (Pulaski County), provides opportunities for the residents of the state to hear and to perform quality instrumental music. The current orchestra, which incorporated in 1966, is the successor of several previous and shorter-lived attempts to create a sustainable performing group. Most reports of musical performances in early Arkansas history are of vocal performances, brass ensembles, concerts by amateur groups, recitals by pupils of individual teachers, or church-sponsored events. No regularly performing instrumental groups available for public enjoyment appear in reports until after the turn of the twentieth century. During the early years of 1900s, music clubs over the state, as well as individual music lovers, became vocal about the desirability of musical education for …

Arkansas Teachers Association (ATA)

The Arkansas Teachers Association (ATA) was an organization that strove for racial equality in education for young African Americans. From 1898 to 1969, it was instrumental in equalizing salaries for black teachers across the state, integrating schools during the desegregation era, and fighting teacher displacement. In 1898, a group of fewer than a dozen teachers in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) created the State Teachers Association of Arkansas, which later became the Arkansas Teachers Association. The teachers—including the association’s first president, Joseph Carter Corbin—wanted to increase the value of black children’s education, ensure better health for the black community, improve school buildings and equipment, and provide better preparation for teachers. No written records are available on the association until the 1928 …

Arkansas Travelers [Baseball Team]

For parts of three centuries, the Arkansas Travelers baseball team has used only one nickname, played on only three home fields, and become owned by its fans, something unusual in professional sports—in 1960, shares were sold to fans to ensure that the team would not leave Little Rock (Pulaski County). In 1957, to draw fans from the entire state, management changed the name from the Little Rock Travelers to the Arkansas Travelers, making it the first professional team to be named after a state. In addition, five future National Baseball Hall of Famers played for the Travelers: Tris Speaker, Travis Jackson, Bill Dickey, Jim Bunning, and Ferguson Jenkins. The minor league team had many failures in the Southern Association and …

Arkansas Unit, Herb Society of America, Inc. (AU-HSA)

The Arkansas Unit of The Herb Society of America (AU-HSA), founded in Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1966, has approximately forty members spread from the Little Rock area throughout the state. Its logo incorporates a cotton boll, symbolizing the regional historic importance of this herbal plant. AU-HSA is dedicated to promoting the knowledge, use, and delight of herbs through educational programs, research, and sharing the experience of its members with the community, and it lives up to this mission partly through its three gardens. The Territorial Medicinal Garden at the Historic Arkansas Museum features plants used in Arkansas’s territorial days, such as boneset, ground ivy, garlic, native senna, pokeweed, and selfheal, as researched by Mary Worthen. The Garden of Exploration …

Arkansas Waterways Commission

The Arkansas Waterways Commission was established by Act 242 of 1967, and its powers and duties were amended by Act 414 of 1973. It became a division of the Arkansas Department of Commerce in 2019. The mission of the Arkansas Waterways Commission is to develop, promote, and protect the commercially navigable waterways of Arkansas for waterborne transportation and to promote economic development to benefit the people of Arkansas. The navigable waterways in Arkansas include the Arkansas, Mississippi, White, Red, and Ouachita rivers. The Arkansas Waterways Commission is composed of seven commissioners appointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of the Arkansas Senate. Each commissioner serves a seven-year term. Five of the commissioners represent five navigable stream basin areas …

Arkansas Wildlife Federation

The mission of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation (AWF) is “to advocate for the sustainable use of Arkansas’ wildlife habitats and natural resources for future generations.” The nonprofit AWF works to conserve and protect land and water habitat in Arkansas, as well as game and fish. Market hunters of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had hunted much of the native wildlife in Arkansas—such as the buffalo, elk, wolf, and trumpeter swan populations—to extinction, near extinction, or extirpation. Market hunters also decimated most of the native deer, black bear, mountain lion, and turkey populations within Arkansas. To protect the wildlife remaining in Arkansas, the AWF was founded in 1936, the same year as the formation of its parent organization, the National …

Arkansas Wing, Civil Air Patrol

The Arkansas Wing is one of the fifty-two chapters—including all the states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia—that make up the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), which is the civilian volunteer auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force. The Civil Air Patrol was formed on December 1, 1941, for the purpose of conducting emergency service operations including search and rescue, homeland security, and disaster relief missions. Today, the CAP continues to perform those duties, as well as educating the public and its members about the value of aerospace and operating a cadet program for youth leadership development. In late 1941, Arkansas pilots foresaw the need to form an aviation unit to take the place of the Arkansas National Guard’s 154th Observation …

Arkansas Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA)

aka: Arkansas Equal Suffrage Central Committee (AESCC)
aka: State Woman's Suffragist Association
The post–Civil War era saw the beginnings of major social change in Arkansas concerning race relations and civil rights, temperance, and voting rights for women. Female leaders from other states, often with legal backgrounds, came to Arkansas to advocate for women’s suffrage. They helped set up organizations such as the Arkansas Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), which was designed to advocate for suffrage in the Arkansas General Assembly, to encourage related organizations and activities, and to attract press coverage. Two different AWSA organizations, one that existed from 1881 to 1885, and another that began in 1914, were instrumental in promoting women’s suffrage in Arkansas. Because of the suffragists’ work in these and companion organizations, in 1918, Arkansas became the first non-suffrage …

Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame

The Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame supports the accomplishments and achievements of Arkansas women through an annual selection process, statewide ceremony, and traveling exhibit. The Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame began in 2015 through a partnership between the North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce and Arkansas Business Publishing Group of Little Rock (Pulaski County). According to Arkansas News, the chamber’s president and CEO, Terry Hartwick, initiated the partnership and subsequent Hall of Fame after realizing that the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame included mostly men. Both contemporary (living) and historical (deceased) women are eligible for induction, as long as they were born in Arkansas or lived in Arkansas for an extended period of time. According to the criteria for induction, …

Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission

The Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission is a quasi-judicial agency of the executive branch of Arkansas government, charged with the responsibility of administering the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Law. Amendment No. 26 of the Arkansas Constitution, which was adopted by the people of the state in the general election held on November 8, 1938, created and gave constitutional authority for the organization and operation of the commission. The amendment provides that the Arkansas General Assembly shall have the power to enact laws prescribing the amount of compensation to be paid by employers for injuries to or death of employees; to pay restitution to the spouses and children of the deceased workers; and to provide the means, methods, and forum for adjudicating claims …

Arkansas World Trade Club

aka: Arkansas Exporters Roundtable
The Arkansas Exporters Roundtable (AER, now Arkansas World Trade Club) was organized in 1971 by Al Pollard, president of the Brooks-Pollard advertising agency of Little Rock (Pulaski County). He invited a half-dozen community leaders with an understanding of foreign trade and its importance to Arkansas commerce to meet together. The goals were a ready exchange of information and networking opportunities for exporters. From this group, AER emerged. Pollard saw that most Arkansas businesses lacked interest in international markets. At the time, there was little advisory assistance for potential exporters in the state. AER turned to the University of Arkansas, particularly the Industrial Research and Extension Center (IREC). IREC began offering workshops throughout the state and individual counseling through Armand de …

Arkansas Writers’ Conference

aka: Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame
The Arkansas Writers’ Conference (AWC) is an annual two-day conference and workshop that brings together writers and editors of all genres from across the state and beyond. The event was begun in 1944 when the head of the journalism department at Arkansas State Teachers College (now the University of Central Arkansas) in Conway (Faulkner County), Helen Hall, persuaded the department to develop a conference for Arkansas writers. An agreement was reached with the leaders of the Arkansas branch of the National League of American Pen Women to co-sponsor the first conferences, which was held on July 16–22, 1944. Hall became the first executive director of the conference. Bernie Babcock, founder of Arkansas’s first branch of the National League of American …

Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities

Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities (AICU) represents the state’s eleven accredited private institutions of higher education. The organization operates from offices in North Little Rock (Pulaski County), specializing in governmental and public relations for private higher education. As of 2019, the members of AICU are Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock (Pulaski County), Arkansas Colleges of Health Education in Fort Smith (Sebastian County), Central Baptist College in Conway (Faulkner County), Crowley’s Ridge College in Paragould (Greene County), Harding University in Searcy (White County), Hendrix College in Conway, John Brown University (JBU) in Siloam Springs (Benton County), Lyon College in Batesville (Independence County), Ouachita Baptist University (OBU) in Arkadelphia (Clark County), Philander Smith University in Little Rock, the University of the …

ARKids First

ARKids First is a state-run health insurance program for needy children. The program, which is an expansion of Medicaid, provides health insurance coverage for children whose parents’ income was too much to allow them to qualify for Medicaid but who still had significant needs. Since its creation, the program has proven popular and successful. The program had its genesis in an early 1996 state study of Medicaid costs with an eye toward reducing spending. Task force member Amy Rossi, who was director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, proposed to Governor Mike Huckabee that the state increase Medicaid spending to allow children whose parents’ incomes were too high to qualify but too low to afford private insurance to visit …

Assemblies of God

The Assemblies of God is an evangelical, Pentecostal organization that was founded in Arkansas in 1914. It has grown to be the largest Pentecostal organization in Arkansas and around the world. Assemblies of God adherents in Arkansas now number approximately 40,000, while the worldwide count has grown to over 62 million people. The modern Pentecostal revival generally traces its roots to a prayer meeting held at Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas, on January 1, 1901. Thirteen years later, after considerable growth and the phenomenal Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, California, leaders from the churches that had emerged during this time recognized the need to organize in order to ensure doctrinal purity, allow for the formal recognition of ministers, …

Associate Reformed Presbyterians

The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP) was organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1782. It was the result of a merger between most of the Reformed Presbyterians and the Associate Presbyterians who had immigrated to America from Scotland and Ireland in the days before the American Revolution. Historical Background The Reformed Presbyterians in Scotland (also called Covenanters) had objected to the inclusion of non-Presbyterian ministers in the formation of the Church of Scotland. The Covenanters had had few ministers and had been severely persecuted during the “Killing Times” under King Charles II and King James II in the late 1600s, causing many to move to the British colonies in North America. The Associate Presbyterian Church was born in the 1730s because …