Entries - Entry Type: Person - Starting with H

Holt, Jack Wilson, Sr.

Jack Wilson Holt Sr. was an eminent Arkansas politician for two decades in the mid-twentieth century. He was attorney general for three terms before World War II but lost three bitter races for governor and U.S. senator to the dominant politicians of the postwar era—John L. McClellan, Sid McMath, and Francis Cherry. Jack Holt, one of eleven children of Bud and Adeline Holt, was born on February 7, 1903, on his family’s farm along Crooked Creek north of Harrison (Boone County). He entered the first grade at a one-room school at Walnut Grove and graduated from Harrison High School, where he was a basketball and track star. He often rode a pony into town to attend high school. Holt received …

Holt, Joseph Frank

J. Frank Holt was a major figure in Arkansas legal and political circles in the 1950s and 1960s. He served in numerous public offices, including two terms on the Arkansas Supreme Court. Joseph Franklin Holt was born on October 22, 1910, in Harrison (Boone County). One of eleven children of Noah Calvin “Bud” Holt and Malicia Adeline Moore Holt, he grew up in Harrison, where he sold newspapers and worked in a garage while in high school before attending the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). He had to drop out of college and return home due to the Great Depression. He worked a variety of jobs, including selling insurance, teaching in the Cotter (Baxter County) school district, …

Holt, Maud Spiller

Maud Spiller Holt was an avid traveler and painter who painted in every American state and throughout much of Europe. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) guide to 1930s Arkansas cited Holt as one of the state’s most accomplished women artists. Today, her paintings are on display at the Arkansas State Capitol, at Historic Arkansas Museum, and in various other public and private collections. Maud Spiller was born in Carbondale, Illinois, on November 1, 1866, the daughter of James W. Spiller and Sarah Patrick Spiller. On December 22, 1886, Spiller married Winfield Scott Holt at Albion, Illinois, and moved to Little Rock (Pulaski County). Winfield Holt became one of the most progressive businessmen of Little Rock and served many years as …

Holtz, Louis Leo (Lou)

Louis Leo (Lou) Holtz is a former football coach and television sports analyst who also became a popular public speaker known for his quips on television talk shows. Along with serving as the head football coach at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) from 1977 to 1983, he also held coaching positions at the College of William & Mary, North Carolina State University, University of Minnesota, University of Notre Dame, and University of South Carolina, compiling a career record of 249–132–7. In professional football, he coached the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL) in 1976, where his record was three wins and ten losses. Holtz is known for successfully leading the 1988 Notre Dame …

Holyfield, Wayland

Wayland Holyfield is a prolific country music writer and recording artist who wrote one of Arkansas’s official state songs, “Arkansas, You Run Deep in Me.” He is a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame. Wayland D. Holyfield was born in Mallet Town (Conway County) on March 15, 1942. He attended grade school in Springfield (Conway County) and Little Rock (Pulaski County) and graduated from Hall High School in Little Rock in 1960—after attending high school in Mabelvale (Pulaski County) during the Lost Year of 1958–59 when Little Rock’s high schools were closed. He attended Hendrix College in Conway (Faulkner County) on a basketball scholarship and then the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville …

Honorable, Colette Dodson

Colette Dodson Honorable is an Arkansas lawyer and public official. A longtime member—and ultimately, chair—of the Arkansas Public Service Commission (APSC), she was appointed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in 2014 by President Barack Obama, beginning her service on January 5, 2015; her term ended on June 30, 2017. She was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2014. Colette Dodson was born in 1970 in St. Louis, Missouri, to Joyce and Harold Dodson. She and her twin sister, Coleen, have three older brothers and a half-sister. The family moved from St. Louis to California when the twins were young. After her parents divorced, Dodson moved to Little Rock (Pulaski County), where she attended Forest Heights …

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, …

Hooper, Philo Oliver

Philo Oliver Hooper has been called the father of Arkansas medicine. He was one of the founders of the Medical Department of Arkansas Industrial University, now the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), a founder and the first president of the Arkansas State Medical Association, a founding board member and director of the Arkansas Lunatic Asylum, and vice president of the American Medical Association. P. O. Hooper was born on October 11, 1833, in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Alanson Hooper and Magdaline Perry Hooper. After obtaining what education was available in the city at the time, he pursued his education at Nashville University in Nashville, Tennessee. Returning home to Little Rock, he found employment as the chief clerk …

Hoover, Dorothy M.

aka: Dorothy Estheryne McFadden Clarke Hoover

Dorothy M. Hoover was a pioneer in the field of aeronautical mathematics and physics. The granddaughter of enslaved people, she overcame the significant obstacles facing African American women in the Jim Crow era of the twentieth century to earn advanced degrees in mathematics and physics. One of her greatest achievements in aeronautical research was her contribution to the development of the “thin sweptback tapered wing,” which revolutionized flight and became the aviation industry standard. Her life story was essentially unknown until she was briefly mentioned in the highly acclaimed book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race (2016), by Margot Lee Shetterly. Hidden Figures, which was made …

Hoover, Theressa

Theressa Hoover worked for human rights and unity through the United Methodist Church for nearly fifty years. Born in Arkansas, she represented those who, in the words of her 1974 monograph, were in “triple jeopardy”: female, African American, and Christian. Hoover worked for justice and empowerment for women and children around the globe. Her influence has been far-reaching, as she provided inspiration for others through her words and actions. Theressa Hoover was born in Fayetteville (Washington County) on September 7, 1925. She was one of five children of James C. Hoover and Rissie Vaughn. Her mother died when Hoover was a small child, and she was reared by her father, who worked for many years at City Hospital in Fayetteville. …

Horn, Robyn Hutcheson

Robyn Hutcheson Horn is a full-time, self-employed sculptor and native-born Arkansan whose work has drawn regional and national recognition and is shown in galleries throughout the United States. Her art is regularly illustrated in craft and woodworking magazines. Horn is the founder and first president of the Collectors of Wood Art, an organization set up in 1997 for the purpose of fostering interest in wood art. She has befriended and supported many craft artists whose work she has acquired while also amassing an impressive collection of wood art, furniture, metal, glass, and ceramics. Robyn Hutcheson was born in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) in 1951 to Bill and Dede Hutcheson; she has a brother, Richard, and a sister, Karen. Her early …

Horner, Elijah Whitt

Elijah Whitt “Lige” Horner served in both World War I and World War II before retiring as a lieutenant colonel. He was instrumental in the first use of Native American languages as military code, selecting the men who eventually became known as the Choctaw Code Talkers in France during World War I. Elijah Horner was born on May 19, 1893, near Mena (Polk County) to James Lafayette Horner, who was a farmer and real estate businessman, and Corah Elfleda Holman Horner. Horner was the youngest of the five children who lived to adulthood. His mother died when he was four years old, leaving him and his brother John to be raised by his older sisters—Mary Belle, Susan, and Oma. After …

Horton, Zilphia Mae Johnson

Zilphia Mae Johnson Horton was an influential educator, folklorist, musician, and social justice activist who collected, adapted, performed, and promoted the use of folksongs and hymns in the labor and civil rights movements, notably “We Shall Not Be Moved” and “We Shall Overcome.” These two, respectively, became labor and civil rights movement anthems. She served as the first cultural director of the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee—the precursor of today’s Highlander Research and Education Center, founded by her husband Myles Horton—until her untimely death in 1956. Zilphia Johnson was born in Paris (Logan County) on April 14, 1910, the second child of Robert Guy Johnson, a coal mine superintendent, and Ora Ermon Howard Johnson, a schoolteacher. She was the eldest of …

Hotchkiss, Sylvester C.

Sylvester C. (S. C.) Hotchkiss was a northern architect turned Monticello (Drew County) resident who designed a number of houses and buildings in southern Arkansas. Hotchkiss’s relocation to Monticello distinguished the community from other small towns of the period for having a resident architect. Many of his structures are still standing in the twenty-first century, and two are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. S. C. Hotchkiss (whose middle name was likely Clifford) was born on January 29, 1842, in Homer, Michigan, to Sylvester Wolcott Hotchkiss and Mary Hotchkiss. Hotchkiss spent his childhood in Michigan and New York before the family moved to Chicago around 1854. He graduated in 1857 from Sloan Commercial College and began working with …

Houser, Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte Houser was a prominent African American physician, owner of the Black Diamond Drug Store, and investor in Helena (Phillips County) from 1901 to 1920. He came to Helena from Charlotte, North Carolina, as the Arkansas Delta’s population and opportunities grew, but returned to the place of his birth following the Elaine Massacre. N. B. Houser was born near Gastonia, in Gaston County, North Carolina, on February 14, 1869. He was the son of William H. Houser, a well-to-do brick mason and contractor, and Fannie Houser, a housekeeper and mother. The youngest of six siblings, Houser attended public schools in Charlotte and worked as a farm hand on his father’s farm until the age of fourteen, when he began …

Houston, Sam

Sam Houston was the governor of Tennessee, twice president of the Republic of Texas, and later senator and governor of the state of Texas. From May 1829 until November 1832, Houston lived in Arkansas Territory among the Cherokee. Sam Houston was born to Samuel Houston and Elizabeth Paxton Houston on March 2, 1793, at Timber Ridge Plantation in Rockbridge County, Virginia. Moving to Maryville, Tennessee, in 1807, Houston cleared land and clerked in a mercantile establishment. As he “preferred measuring deer tracks in the forest to tape and calico in a country store,” Houston went to live with John Jolly’s band of Cherokee and was given the name Colonneh (“Raven”). Subsequently, he taught school and volunteered in the War of …

Howard, George, Jr.

George Howard Jr. was a trailblazing African-American attorney and judge in the second half of the twentieth century. After becoming one of the first black graduates of the University of Arkansas School of Law, he pursued a career dedicated to the expansion and guarantee of civil rights for all citizens. He became the first African American to be appointed to numerous Arkansas judicial posts, including the Supreme Court of Arkansas. He was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 1994. George Howard Jr. was born on May 13, 1924, in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) to George Howard and Sara Howard, who was a public school teacher. He received his early education in Pine Bluff but left home to serve …

Howard, John Miller

John Miller Howard was an African-American artist and arts educator who founded the Art Department and taught at Arkansas AM&N—now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB)—from 1939 until his death in 1980. At AM&N, he worked to provide a top-quality arts education to his students, many of whom came from rural backgrounds and lacked exposure to art. Howard was recognized as a gifted painter and teacher. His life and work form an important chapter in the history of art in Arkansas. John Miller Howard was born in Alcorn, Mississippi, on September 22, 1908, to Lillie Howard, a young single mother who nurtured his early talent for drawing. He grew up in Brookhaven, Mississippi, attending segregated schools. He graduated …

Howe, John David

John D. Howe was a career U.S. Air Force officer who helped establish vital supply and maintenance operations during World War II and the Korean War, ending his career as commander of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. John David Howe was born on July 24, 1906, in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), the son of Charles D. Howe and Lucy Rowland Howe. The family moved to Hot Springs (Garland County) by 1910 and to Conway (Faulkner County) by 1920, where John studied at Arkansas State Teachers College, now the University of Central Arkansas. Howe enlisted in the 153rd Infantry Regiment of the Arkansas National Guard when he was seventeen, leaving two years later to pursue aviation. By 1929, he was …

Howell, James (Jim) Lee

James (Jim) Lee Howell was a professional football player and coach. As head coach of the New York Giants in the National Football League (NFL) from 1954 to 1960, he led the team to appearances in three NFL championship games and won the NFL title in 1956. He retired with a career record of 55–29–4. His career winning percentage is the best in Giants history for head coaches with fifty or more games and is among the best in NFL history. According to All-Pro defensive tackle Roosevelt “Rosey” Grier, Howell was “one of the greatest coaches to ever coach in the NFL.” Jim Lee Howell was born in Lonoke (Lonoke County) on September 27, 1914, the third of four siblings. His …

Howell, Max

William Max Howell was a politician who served in the Arkansas legislature longer than anyone in history, accumulating power that rivaled that of the nine governors with whom he served. In forty-six years in the legislature, forty-two of which were in the Senate, Howell sponsored more than 700 bills, altering the course of higher education and the judicial system and sharply expanding the state’s services for the disabled and mentally ill. Max Howell was born in Lonoke (Lonoke County) on December 22, 1915, the third of five children. His father, Flavius Josephus Howell, operated a rural telephone company but later operated a rice farm. When Howell was about five, the family moved to Little Rock (Pulaski County), where his father …

Howlin’ Wolf

aka: Chester Arthur Burnett

Chester Arthur Burnett, known as Howlin’ Wolf or Howling Wolf, was one of the most influential musicians of the post–World War II era. His electric blues guitar, backing his powerful, howling voice, helped shape rock and roll. Chester Burnett was born on June 10, 1910, in White Station, Mississippi, four miles northeast of West Point, Mississippi, to Leon “Dock” Burnett, a sharecropper, and Gertrude Jones. His parents separated when he was one year old; his father moved to the Mississippi Delta to farm, and he and his mother moved to Monroe County, Mississippi, where she became an eccentric religious singer who performed and sold self-penned spirituals on the street. Burnett got the nickname “Wolf” because his grandfather would scare the youngster by telling …

Huckabee, Janet McCain

Janet McCain Huckabee is the wife of Mike Huckabee (the forty-fourth governor of Arkansas) and was the state’s thirty-ninth first lady. Outside of politics, she became best known for her work with Habitat for Humanity and the American Red Cross. Janet McCain was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on July 16, 1955, to Angus Bouie McCain, who was an oilfield worker, and Pat Potter McCain, who was a homemaker, a businesswoman, and later a politician. She moved to Hope (Hempstead County) as an infant, where her mother raised her and her siblings after her parents’ divorce. Her mother later married Johnny House. She had two brothers, Tal McCain and Mike McCain; two sisters, Susan McCain Hinger and Kathy McCain; and …

Huckabee, Mike

aka: Michael Dale Huckabee

Michael Dale Huckabee served as the forty-fourth governor of Arkansas. His personal visibility helped him to become the first Republican governor elected to two four-year terms in Arkansas, but he did little to promote the growth of a more expanded two-party system in Arkansas. His policy legacies may well be in the areas of education, environment, and health. Mike Huckabee was born on August 24, 1955, in Hope (Hempstead County), the son of Dorsey W. and Mae (Elder) Huckabee. Huckabee’s father worked as a firefighter, and his mother was employed by the Louisiana Transit Company. In 1965, he joined Garrett Memorial Baptist Church and became involved in church activities. His faith continued to play a significant role in his private …

Huckaby, Curt

Curt Huckaby was an attorney and a Craighead County District Court judge. He was also renowned across the country as the driving force behind the nationally ranked rugby program at Arkansas State University (ASU) in Jonesboro (Craighead County), a pursuit he took up on a volunteer basis for fourteen years. His teams were perennially ranked in the Top 25 collegiate teams across the nation, and Huckaby coached sixteen All-Americans and numerous regionally ranked players. In 2016, the ASU rugby pitch was named the Curt Huckaby Field. The Curt Huckaby Cup is a traveling trophy awarded to the winner of two rival teams, ASU and Life University of Marietta, Georgia, who play for it each year. Reflecting Huckaby’s legacy, engraved on …

Huckaby, Elizabeth Paisley

Elizabeth Paisley Huckaby, who served as an instructor of English for thirty-nine years, was vice principal for girls at Central High School in Little Rock (Pulaski County) during the desegregation of Central High School. The author of Crisis at Central High: Little Rock 1957–58, Huckaby documented events within the school as the first black students, the Little Rock Nine, were admitted. Charged with protecting the six female members of the Little Rock Nine, she earned hostility and anger from segregationists within the school and in the community. She wrote her brother in October of that first year, “Things go on peacefully at school, if enforced peace is meant. The force isn’t needed for most of the children… but for the …

Huddleston, John Wesley

John Wesley Huddleston is best known as a struggling farmer who found two diamonds on the surface of his field near Murfreesboro (Pike County) in August 1906 and made himself and his state famous. Soon after the discovery, he was recognized as the first person outside South Africa to find diamonds at an original volcanic source. In the process, he also became the controversial subject of numerous folk tales. A native of Pike County, John Huddleston was born in 1862 to David Fielding Huddleston and America White Huddleston. He had seven siblings before his mother’s death in the early 1870s and gained three step-sisters after his father’s remarriage to Francis Carey. In 1886, Huddleston wed Sarah A. Keys, the mother …

Hudgins, Mary Dengler

Mary Dengler Hudgins was a prolific writer of regional history in Arkansas. Her research and writing led her to amass an exceptional collection of publications and historical materials that document the history of Garland County, its county seat of Hot Springs, and the state of Arkansas. Mary Hudgins was born in Hot Springs on November 24, 1901. She was the only child of Jackson Wharton and Ida Dengler Hudgins. Her father worked in the real estate business, and her mother was a teacher. She attended public schools in Hot Springs and then attended the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington Couny), where she majored in English and served as a reporter for the Arkansas Traveler, UA’s student newspaper. After graduating with …

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 …

Hudson, Joel Carrington

Joel Carrington Hudson was a career diplomat at the U.S. Department of State who served in various posts around the world, including being stationed in Germany on the cusp of World War II. Joel Hudson was born in Ravenden (Lawrence County) on September 4, 1899. Hudson’s father was William R. Hudson, who is referred to at times as “Reverend” and at other times as “Doctor.” His mother was Ida Tanner Hudson, who died before 1910. His parents lived in Lonoke (Lonoke County) with the seven-month-old Hudson at the time of the 1900 census. In 1910, Hudson and his father were each enumerated as “roomer” in Houston, Texas, where Hudson’s father was the founding minister of the Third Baptist Church. Little …

Hudson, John Gardner

John G. Hudson was a Union officer during the Civil War who won distinction for his actions during the July 4, 1863, Battle of Helena and later was appointed as colonel of the Sixtieth U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment, which saw all of its service in Arkansas. John Gardner Hudson was born on May 22, 1832, in East Palmyra, New York, the youngest of six sons of Samuel E. Hudson and Sally Hudson. Hudson attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, and was a farmer and carpenter. He married Mary Sprague in 1854; the couple had a son and a daughter. Hudson moved to Missouri and, at age thirty, mustered in as captain of Company B, Thirty-Third Missouri Infantry Regiment (US) on …

Hughes, David Terry

David Terry Hughes Sr. was a longtime journalist, photographer, and newspaperman from Benton (Saline County). Hughes’s newspaper career began with freelance photography for the Benton Courier at age fourteen. In addition to newspapers in Arkansas, Hughes worked for papers in Texas, Virginia, Florida, Illinois, Saipan, and Guam. He was the grandson of noted Arkansas poet and columnist Anna Nash Yarbrough. David Terry Hughes was born on February 8, 1948, in the Panama Canal Zone to Frank Hughes and Jessie Shaver Hughes. His father served in the U.S. Army; when he was stationed in Panama in 1949, he was killed while crossing the street when Hughes was only a year old. Hughes’s mother remarried but soon separated. His three half brothers …

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 …

Hughes, Simon Pollard

Simon Pollard Hughes typifies the ex-Confederate, personally prosperous, conservative post-Reconstruction Democratic governors of Arkansas as well as several other Southern states. As attorney general and as a two-term governor, he stressed the need for the state to have a good credit rating. Though his political career began in the 1850s, his longest public service was as an associate justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court for sixteen years. Simon P. Hughes was born on April 14, 1830, near Carthage, Smith County, Tennessee, the third son of Simon P. Hughes and Mary Hubbard. When Hughes’s mother died in 1842, the family moved to Bowie County, Texas, but his father died in 1844, leaving the fourteen-year-old Hughes an orphan. (There is no concrete …

Huie, Janice Riggle

Janice Riggle Huie was the first woman to serve as United Methodist bishop in Arkansas and the second female bishop in the eight-state South Central Jurisdiction, which includes Arkansas. Janice Kay Riggle was born on December 15, 1946, in Beeville, Texas, to Frankie Rosalie Luthringer Riggle and James Riggle. She is the eldest of three sisters, all of whom were raised on the family’s farm and ranch. Huie attended First United Methodist Church in Beeville with her family. After graduating cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in English in 1969, Huie enrolled in the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, despite having never encountered a female clergy member. She …

Hull, Alexander C.

Marion County native Alexander C. Hull was a respected businessman and leader in northwestern Arkansas newspaper circles, as both owner and editor, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As a Democrat, he held minor appointed political positions until he was elected to two terms as the state’s sixteenth secretary of state. Alexander C. Hull was born to John E. Hull and Matilda A. Killough Hull on April 20, 1858, in Marion County, Arkansas. His father served in the Arkansas House of Representatives and was a captain in the Confederate army. He was killed in action when Alexander was seven years old. After the war, his mother moved Hull and his brothers to Flippin Barrens in Marion County, where …

Humbard, Alpha Rex Emmanuel

Alpha Rex Emmanuel Humbard was a traveling evangelist from Arkansas who became a well-known gospel singer, pastor, and pioneer in Christian television. Born on August 13, 1919, in Little Rock (Pulaski County), Rex Humbard was one of six children of Pentecostal evangelists Alpha and Martha (Childers) Humbard. In the summer of 1932, young Humbard watched a Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus tent fill with crowds in Hot Springs (Garland County). Although he would not attend such “worldly” diversions, he decided that he wanted to attract crowds like that to share the gospel. At age thirteen, he began broadcasting on KTHS radio in Hot Springs by singing gospel songs and inviting listeners to come hear his father preach at …

Humphrey, F. Nolan

F. Nolan Humphrey was a longtime Arkansas government employee, serving the state for over four decades, spanning the tenures of ten governors. Working primarily in the Department of Revenue (which was later renamed the Department of Finance and Administration), he also served as state auditor. F. Nolan Humphrey was born on August 29, 1918, in Horatio (Sevier County) to J. Oscar Humphrey and Esther Carmel Friday Humphrey. He graduated from Little Rock Senior High School, before going on to Little Rock Junior College (now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock) and then the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), graduating with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. Humphrey served in the U.S. Army for four years during …

Humphreys, Thomas Hadden

Thomas Hadden Humphreys, son of a Confederate army officer, spent some thirty-nine years on the judicial bench, the last twenty-six as a justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court, and held elective political offices for forty-four years without ever having had an opponent. Governor Jeff Davis, the populist orator who later became a U.S. senator, appointed Humphreys, a Fayetteville (Washington County) lawyer, to a new chancery judgeship in the Eleventh District in 1903, and Governor George Washington Hays named him to a vacancy on the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1916 when Justice William F. Kirby was elected to the U.S. Senate. Humphreys’s father, John T. Humphreys, was a lawyer in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) who joined the First Arkansas Light Artillery …

Hunnicutt, Arthur Lee

Personifying the rustic but savvy characterizations of his home state, Arthur Hunnicutt became one of the most sought-after character actors in Hollywood, being nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor in 1952’s The Big Sky. Arthur Hunnicutt was born on February 17, 1910, in Gravelly (Yell County) and attended school in the Yell County area. He attended Arkansas State Teachers College in Conway (Faulkner County), now the University of Central Arkansas (UCA). The Depression forced him to drop out of college when he ran out of funds. Even so, Hunnicutt was already perfecting the ability to project his Arkansas drawl and persona into a character he played in many plays and movies. He began his motion picture career …

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 …

Hunt, Johnnie Bryan “J. B.”

One of the most successful entrepreneurs in Arkansas history, Johnnie Bryan “J. B.” Hunt rose from humble beginnings to found one of America’s largest trucking firms, J. B. Hunt Transport Services. Today, his company is one of the largest employers in the state, with nearly 15,000 employees and a fleet of 9,688 trucks. The firm is consistently listed among Forbes magazine’s largest corporations. The son of sharecroppers, J. B. Hunt was born on February 28, 1927, in rural Cleburne County. He left school after the seventh grade to work at his uncle’s sawmill and eventually found other work picking cotton and selling lumber. In 1952, he married Johnelle DeBusk, and the couple went on to have two children. A year after their marriage, …

Hunt, Silas Herbert

Silas Herbert Hunt was a veteran of World War II and a pioneer in the integration of higher education in Arkansas and the South. In 1948, he was admitted to the University of Arkansas School of Law, thus becoming the first African American student admitted to the university since Reconstruction and, more importantly, the first black student to be admitted for graduate or professional studies at any all-white university in the former Confederacy. Silas Hunt was born on March 1, 1922, in Ashdown (Little River County) to Jessie Gulley Moton and R. D. Hunt. In 1936, his family moved to Texarkana (Miller County), where he attended Booker T. Washington High School; there, he received distinction as a member of the …

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 …

Hunter, Carl Glenn

Conservationist Carl Glenn Hunter achieved prominence in two branches of the Arkansas outdoors—its fauna and its flora. Activities with wildflowers of the state made him a household name in Arkansas and beyond after his retirement as a wildlife biologist. Carl Hunter was born on August 30, 1923, in Little Rock (Pulaski County). He graduated from Little Rock High School (now Central High School) in 1941 and received a bachelor of science in agriculture degree from the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) in 1945. In college, Hunter worked part time for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC); he became a full-time employee in July 1945. He was one of the first hires of the agency after it …

Hunter, Joseph Boone

Joseph Boone Hunter was Director of Human Services at the World War II–era Japanese American Relocation Center in Rohwer (Desha County) and the founding minister of Pulaski Heights Christian Church; in addition, he served on the faculty of Little Rock Junior College (now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock), taught continuing education courses for teachers for the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), and became the first administrator of the Arkansas Council of Churches. He was also an interim minister in twenty-seven churches, mostly in Arkansas. Joe Hunter was born on December 27, 1886, to John W. Hunter and Mary Frances Compton Hunter on a farm near Allen, Texas. He was the ninth of fifteen children and …

Hunter, Torii Kedar

Torii Hunter was considered one of major league baseball’s biggest stars during his career. An elite center fielder, he won nine consecutive Gold Glove awards, was a five-time All-Star selection, and won two Silver Slugger awards as the best offensive player at his position. He also recorded the most home runs by an Arkansan in major league history (353). In 2,372 games, Hunter hit safely 2,452 times—890 for extra bases—for a lifetime batting average of .277. He stole 195 bases, drove in 1,391 runs, and committed only fifty-two errors in center (and later right field). He played for the Anaheim Angels and the Detroit Tigers but ended his professional career on October 26, 2015, with the Minnesota Twins. Torii Hunter …

Hursley, Timothy Joseph

Timothy Joseph Hursley is an architectural photographer whose works have been featured in architectural journals and museums around the world. Tim Hursley was born on July 19, 1955, in Detroit, Michigan, the fifth of nine children, to Frank and Lois Hursley. His father was a tool engineer, and his mother sold women’s shoes. At age sixteen, he began doing yard work for a neighbor, Balthazar Korab, a pioneer in modern architectural photography. Within three months, while still attending Brother Rice High School in Bloomfield, Michigan, Hursley had become Korab’s part-time photographic assistant and apprentice. From 1971 to 1980, Hursley’s apprenticeship taught him the craft of large-format photography and black-and-white photographic printing. As Hursley advanced in photo assignments, Korab’s approach to …

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 …

Hussman, Walter E., Jr.

Walter E. Hussman Jr., who is best known in Arkansas as the publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a third-generation newspaperman whose family acquired a chain of newspapers stretching from Tennessee to Missouri. As publisher of the Arkansas Democrat, Hussman went head to head with the larger Arkansas Gazette and won the so-called Little Rock (Pulaski County) newspaper war in October 1991. He purchased the assets of the Gazette from the Gannett Corp. and began publishing the Democrat-Gazette. Walter Edward Hussman Jr. was born in Texarkana (Miller County) on January 5, 1947, to Walter E. Hussman Sr. and Betty Palmer Hussman and raised in Camden (Ouachita County) with his two older sisters. His parents moved to Camden in 1949 when …