September 4, 1949

Franklin County native Betty Flanagan married future Arkansas governor and U.S. senator Dale Bumpers while he was attending law school at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. The two had dated during their last year of high school, but they had been separated while attending different colleges and while Dale was in the U.S. Marines. Flanagan was teaching the fifth grade before the couple wed, and after Dale graduated from Northwestern, they returned to Charleston (Franklin County), where Betty Bumpers continued to teach elementary school while her husband established a law practice.