Here, their way of life is more than geography. The Franklin County way is community, heritage, and a quiet resilience.

But now, this tranquil corner of the River Valley finds itself at the center of a political storm. Plans to build a 3,000-bed prison on an 815-acre site here have stirred something deep within the community: a determination to protect not just their land but their way of life. Residents who might ordinarily wave from across the way now stand shoulder to shoulder, united in a fight they never asked for but certainly cannot ignore.

A Plan Shrouded in Secrecy

The state’s decision to purchase land for the prison blindsided the people of Charleston, a small town of about 2500 people. Announced on a local radio station in late October, residents were shocked to learn the deal had been in the works for months, with no input from the people who would live in its shadow. By the time the public learned of the prison build, nearly $3 million in state money had already been spent to purchase the land. The wheels of big government were in motion.

Residents quickly organized in response. At a contentious town hall meeting, locals voiced their concerns to state officials they had invited to join. Among them was Charleston resident Jonathan Tedford, whose home sits adjacent to the proposed site. “At the very least, we have a prison we have to look at every day,” Tedford said after a recent legislative hearing. He spoke of his grandfather’s legacy, of land passed down through generations now threatened by a specter of towering fences and razor wire.

Other residents of Charleston have echoed his frustration. “A formal public hearing should have been held before the state committed millions of dollars to a project in Franklin County,” said resident Rosemary Underwood during the packed town hall in the town’s high school gym. The lack of transparency stings for folks in Charleston— not just because of what was done but because of how it was done— without the respect of local consultation or the dignity of inclusion. The state’s maneuvering was not the Franklin County way.

A United Franklin County Front

In response, the community rallied and formed the Franklin County and River Valley Coalition, which actively organizes on Facebook and other social media platforms. These neighbors, once bound by simple proximity, are now united by relentless purpose. They’ve held meetings, launched fundraising campaigns, and presented their case to state lawmakers. They’ve raised questions about the prison’s cost—estimated to balloon far beyond initial projections—and its environmental and economic impact on their community.

“This is one of the most un-American things I have heard since I’ve been down here,” said Sen. Gary Stubblefield, who represents the town in the state senate. Like many residents, Stubblefield expressed frustration over being excluded from the process. “The people of Franklin County, including myself, were cut out from even knowing about something this large happening in our county.”

But it’s clear this fight is about more than money or logistics. It’s about preserving the sanctity of place. Residents worry about what the prison represents: a departure from the values that define them. Hard work, family, faith, and community— they’re the threads that weave together the fabric of Franklin County, and its people are determined to keep them from unraveling.

The Power of People

There’s poetry in the way this small town has come together, a reminder of what it means to belong to a place and to one another. “We’ve been denied a voice,” said coalition member Natalie Cadena during her presentation to the Senate Children and Youth Committee. Through their determination, the people of Franklin County are reclaiming that voice, speaking up not just for themselves but for the values they hold dear.

From quiet conversations in living rooms to impassioned speeches in town halls, Franklin County is demonstrating the power of unity. “If it can happen to us, it can happen anywhere,” reads one coalition message on social media. The people of Franklin County aren’t just fighting against a prison—they’re standing for transparency, accountability, and the right to shape their own future.

A Shared Dream

Though the prison outcome is uncertain, one thing is clear: the people of Franklin County have already won something significant. They’ve reminded Arkansans that even in the face of top-down decisions and bureaucratic indifference, a united community is a force to be reckoned with.

If you believe in the power of community and the right to have a voice in decisions that shape our lives, stand with the people of Franklin County. As the sun sets over Mill Creek Mountain, the shadows grow longer, but so too does the resolve of the people who call this place home. They are Arkansas Strong. Tough, resilient, and deeply rooted.

And they remind us that no matter how steep the climb, there is power in standing together.

The post Franklin County’s righteous fight appeared first on Arkansas Strong.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “All politics is local.”

This idea highlights how home and family concerns are at the heart of most voters’ decisions, emphasizes the importance of grassroots organizing, and points to the isolation felt in small towns when national politics dominate conversations.

The “reach out and touch” nature of local politics drives change but sometimes, we lose that unique attribute by drawing connections between national leaders and the local choices that affect our everyday lives. In both Ouachita and Phillips counties, examples of community involvement abound alongside numerous challenges and barriers to political participation. As you read about the state of affairs in these two distinguished places, consider the role of local politics in shaping the future of rural Arkansas and the barriers, both legal and practical, that prevent many Arkansans from fully participating.

Community Action and Engagement

Through my professional work and interviews, I’ve met and listened to people deeply engaged in their communities. From the lush forests of South Arkansas to the rich Delta soil, Arkansans live in the present while confronting the ghosts of the past. Issues such as clean water, housing, and political access are the building blocks of a connected society. Unfortunately, these issues are still at the top of many Arkansans’ minds. Towns like Camden and Helena-West Helena face challenges shaped by race, class, and political access.

Neighbors in Helena-West Helena 

For years, residents of Helena-West Helena have dealt with unsafe water and the issues that come from unsafe water. Most recently, in the cold of winter, earlier this year, they were advised not to use the water running through their pipes due to a systematic water infrastructure failure. The water was no longer potable, requiring boiling before any use and making it unsuitable for cooking.

This wasn’t the first instance of such a crisis but merely the latest. Helena-West Helena residents, like anyone else, were distraught and disappointed. Since then, residents have continued to experience spotty water pressure and discoloration. In conversations with some residents, they mentioned this water crisis as one of the most memorable issues in recent years. One resident remarked, “We can’t trust the water, and we can’t trust the city to fix it.” Other participants nodded in agreement.

These failures significantly damaged the community’s trust. Another resident described the situation: “Years of neglect have piled up, and the lack of confidence in the city to fix it has really seeped into the public perception of what their actions can do.”

Despite the challenges, the community has shown resilience. Residents banded together to distribute bottled water, and local organizations stepped up to provide support, showcasing the strength and solidarity within the community. Some interviewees named other residents who stepped in and “had a big tank. He would fill it up from his house and he’d go around and, if you had buckets or pans, he’d fill it up for you. Plus, give you a case of water!” Even when they felt cast aside by elected officials, community leaders stepped up and helped when they could. 

Neighbors in Camden

When I spoke with residents of Ouachita County, housing and education were top concerns. These issues are quintessentially local politics.

A local pastor and self-described community advocate discussed the relationship between residents and the combined school district. He detailed the perceived results of the 1990 school district merger. From his and other’s accounts, there was an underlying racial current was not resolved by integrating the districts.

On one level, each district was competitive academically and athletically, after the merger, he says, “For example, when these two good schools, same classification, combined, people that saw that combination said, ‘Wow, this is going to be hard on the other schools in the district.’ It has taken over 20 years for state championships to show up, and it’s only been one, in football.”

This quote highlights the uphill battle of students and administrators to commit to and excel in the new normal. He says, “Our schools are the heart of the community. When they struggle, we all struggle. It’s up to us to ensure our children have the best possible education despite the challenges.”

Similarly, a community activist highlighted the housing issues, motivating residents in Camden and surrounding areas to get involved.” Affordable housing is scarce, and many homes are in disrepair. We need policies that support low-income families and improve living conditions,” she emphasized.

Another resident discussed a year-long effort to restore air conditioning to a 74 year old woman. These individual issues pile up on community members and make it difficult to see the bright side. However, there are individuals ready to take up the challenge! 

Challenges and Encouragement

Despite the passion for change, numerous barriers hinder political participation in these communities. A lack of information and resources, coupled with disillusionment and apathy, are significant obstacles.

One resident explained their hesitation: “I don’t deal with politics; they’re all liars. I don’t vote because nothing’s going to change.” Another added, “Nothing ever changes. Same revolving cycle. No matter who’s in office, no matter who’s on the council. Same revolving stool.”

These sentiments are common among residents who feel their voices are not heard, and their votes don’t make a difference. The cyclical nature of local politics, where the same issues persist regardless of leadership changes, fosters a sense of hopelessness.

However, some residents continue to participate, driven by the belief that local politics can bring about change. One resident expressed their cautious engagement: “Yeah, I do participate. I listen, and I vote because that is my voice for who’d be the leader in the community. Now, what do they do? What I want them to do, how I want them to do it, I know that’s not going to happen. But there’s certain people that you sure enough don’t want in the office.”

Civic participation is crucial for community development, especially in rural areas like Ouachita and Phillips counties. Local politics shapes the future of these communities, addressing critical issues like infrastructure, education, and housing.

While significant barriers to participation exist, stories of resilience and dedication demonstrate the power of grassroots efforts. It’s essential for residents to engage in local politics, voice their concerns, and work together to create positive change. By doing so, they can ensure a brighter future for their communities.

The post Beyond the Ballot: Local Challenges and Community Triumphs  appeared first on Arkansas Strong.

As a Hispanic small business owner myself, I can attest to the challenges faced by small businesses. In my role, I am devoted to ensuring that small business owners and entrepreneurs have the tools they need to succeed. I have come across many entrepreneurs whose journeys reflect my own.

The Hispanic community is one of the most entrepreneurial spirited groups in the nation. It lives in the dreams of those who have only just arrived here and in the legacy of families who have been here for centuries. 

The Biden-Harris administration and U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman are committed to the success of Latino communities. More Hispanic individuals than ever before are seizing the opportunity to create new businesses which improve their cities and neighborhoods.

Data shows that five million Hispanic-owned businesses contribute $800 billion each year to our economy. In the past decade, Hispanic entrepreneur growth rates have risen 10 times faster than non-Hispanic business rates. 

SBA Administrator Guzman, the highest-ranking Latino woman in the President’s Cabinet, has made strengthening our Hispanic-owned small businesses a priority. Over the last 44 months we have seen the fastest creation rate of Hispanic-owned businesses in over a decade, which was more than 20 percent faster than pre-pandemic levels. The Biden-Harris administration has also made a goal of increasing by 50 percent the amount of federal contracting dollars going to small, disadvantaged businesses by 2025—which would translate to an additional $100 billion for minority-owned and other underserved businesses. 

SBA is committed to empowering Hispanic businesses as they continue to break down barriers and achieve success in business. As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, let us not only recognize the contributions of Hispanic entrepreneurs but also uplift the next generation of business leaders and build a prosperous business landscape for all. 

For more information about SBA’s programs and services visit www.sba.gov. 

The post OPINION: Hispanic entrepreneurship at the forefront of the American business boom  appeared first on Arkansas Strong.

I grew up here in The Natural State. From my earliest memories cruising in my pawpaw’s classic red and white Ford past cow pastures and waving neighbors to my college years on the hill in Fayetteville and my more recent professional journey through the Delta and other regions, I remain in awe of the way Arkansans take red dirt and make just about anything you can imagine. However, my unique place in our history and society compels me to recognize our complex shared history. No state is perfect, not even the only state (place in the world) where a woman off the street can dig for diamonds, call the Hogs with a rowdy crowd, and shop at one of the most globalized companies all in the same day! In this project, I’ve partnered with Arkansas Strong to shed a little light on some overlooked “gems” of our state.

Through a creative process of listening to Arkansans in two historic counties, Ouachita and Phillips, I heard voters share their stories about the barriers they face in accessing civic processes and engaging with their communities. I heard about the things that make residents proud and some things that rip up their souls. The perspectives shared in this short series will help readers begin a journey to a deeper understanding of life in the Arkansas Delta and South Arkansas and, in turn, validate some overlooked perspectives and generate the urge to learn more.  

On Ouachita and Phillips Counties

Both Ouachita and Phillips counties played crucial roles in making Arkansas the state it is today. Ouachita County, a southern Arkansas gem, boasts a history that stretches back to its establishment in 1842. Its county seat, Camden, was once a Spanish outpost in 1782 before being renamed by American settlers. Today, it stands as a testament to the resilience and innovation of its people, producing influential politicians and cutting-edge defense technology. As described on its website, Camden is a thriving community deeply rooted in agriculture and industry.

Phillips County, situated in the eastern part of the state along the Mississippi River, has been a crucial site in the history of Arkansas as an essential port for hardwood and cotton. Many of us remember Elaine and surrounding areas as sites of racial violence and redemption—namely, the Elaine Race Massacre and, now, the burgeoning grassroots political movements. Music, storytelling, and nearly two dozen National Register of Historic Places represent parts of the county that tell the tale better than more lucrative exports. The county seat, Helena-West Helena, has earned its place as a political hotspot in the Arkansas Delta over the past few years. 

The primary purpose of this project is to highlight the unique histories, politics, and cultures of Arkansans across the state. We chose to begin with residents of Ouachita and Phillips Counties because these two very different counties have similar stories to tell. Documenting and broadcasting narratives and personal perspectives not only sheds light on the specific challenges these communities face, such as failing infrastructure and diminished trust in local leaders and the resilience they demonstrate, but it also provides a starting point for addressing the systemic issues that hinder civic participation and engagement in these and other communities. 

Highlighting Family and Community

Families are the backbone of any community. In our listening sessions, we dove into the rich tapestry of personal stories that comprise the fabric of Ouachita and Phillips counties. From tales of ancestors who fought for civil rights to modern-day struggles and triumphs, these narratives provide a deeper understanding of the community’s identity and resilience and color the current status of communities. 

Civic Engagement

Civic engagement is a critical component of a functioning democracy. However, marginalized communities often face significant barriers to participating in civic processes. Through our listening sessions, we uncovered some specific obstacles that residents of Ouachita and Phillips Counties encounter, such as voter suppression tactics like [specific tactics] and lack of access to information and resources like [specific resources]. By bringing these issues to light, we hope to advocate for meaningful changes that will enable greater participation in civic life.

Local Culture and Community Pride

The local culture of Ouachita and Phillips Counties is not just rich and diverse but a source of immense pride for its residents. Shaped by generations of contributors, this unique character is something to be celebrated. Our project will do just that by highlighting cultural aspects and high points that residents point out as vibrant examples of the place they call home. These high points foster a sense of pride and belonging among residents and showcase the vibrancy of rural Arkansas.

The Importance of Uplifting Rural Voices

We know that Arkansas is a rural state. After a statewide campaign, rural has a whole new meaning to me. Growing up in rural Southwest Arkansas, I know what it’s like to feel like your part of the state isn’t getting its fair share. I believe uplifting rural voices is not just important but essential for creating a more inclusive and representative society. Rural communities often feel disconnected from broader political and social conversations, leading to feelings of neglect and disenfranchisement. This project aims to change that, ensuring that their concerns and perspectives are heard and addressed.

Moreover, political malpractice or injustice that goes unchecked devastates morale. Providing a platform for these voices ensures their concerns and perspectives are heard and addressed. This project aims to bridge the gap between rural and urban areas, fostering greater understanding and solidarity as we briefly examine some less familiar experiences. 

What’s to come

In the upcoming three-part series, readers can expect to read powerful stories from the residents of Ouachita and Phillips Counties. We will share in-depth interviews, personal anecdotes, and reflections on these communities’ unique challenges and triumphs. I hope these entries bring attention to the often-overlooked struggles of these underserved communities and amplify their voices.

We hope you will join us on this journey as we amplify the voices of rural Arkansas and work towards a more inclusive and equitable society. Stay tuned for our first post, where we will dive into civic engagement and community involvement. We can make a difference by listening, understanding, and advocating for change.

The post Voices Across Counties: Amplifying Rural Arkansas appeared first on Arkansas Strong.

The Impact of Arkansas’s Abortion Ban on High-Risk Pregnancies

The room at the end of a long hall in our high-risk pregnancy clinic is often bathed in soft sunlight. Inside, there are comfy chairs, a noticeable lack of technology, beautiful pictures of babies donated by their parents, and boxes upon boxes of Kleenex.  We call it the “quiet room,” but often, the heartbroken cries of families can be heard emanating from it.  It is a room where the most devastating news about a loved pregnancy is shared with Arkansas families.  I am often part of those conversations due to the nature of my job as a genetic counselor.  

Approximately 3% of babies in Arkansas have birth defects and/or genetic diseases, many of which can be diagnosed prenatally.  Some of those conditions are very manageable and treatable.  However, some are not.  They will result in prolonged suffering and even death, regardless of the timing of delivery.   You likely know someone who has received a diagnosis such as this.  Since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, the number of families getting this type of bad news about their pregnancies has not changed.  Now, however, these families cannot receive the same level of care from their trusted providers in Arkansas.  

When a life-limiting prenatal diagnosis is confirmed by our experienced high-risk team, it is common for the family to ask if they can deliver the pregnancy now, rather than wait another 4-5 months for term. Most have no inkling that this change in the law applies to pregnancies with these medical diagnoses; genuine shock registers on their faces when we tell them that Arkansas no longer allows that option.  

Common refrains we hear: 

“How does the state have a say in our medical decisions, when we are facing this unimaginable pain?”  

“What do you mean that Dr. X, who has taken such good care of me in my last three pregnancies, cannot provide me care if we choose to deliver now?”  

“If I do not terminate this pregnancy and deliver now, doesn’t that just prolong the suffering of all of us, including my unborn son?” 

We do provide referrals to other specialists across the country, typically at other high-risk pregnancy institutions for those who wish to deliver early.  But that comes with huge financial costs, additional emotional pain, and even maternal health risks.  I want to be able to offer these families the ability to stay in state, surrounded by their family/support team, their own trusted healthcare providers, and their own religious or spiritual clergy.  Let us help them arrange for funerals and memorials here, get pictures with their baby, and hold their baby for as long as they want to. Working in this field for such a long time, I have repeatedly seen that these things do help make an unimaginably devastating time, just a bit more bearable.  

The emotional toll of not being able to care for these families in all the ways I used to, wears my heart very thin these days.  Regardless, I trust these families can make informed, compassionate, and thoughtful decisions about their pregnancies. It is that trust and experience that gives me the courage to knock on the door of the “quiet room” again and again, entering to provide help.

That’s why I support the Arkansas Abortion Amendment, which will give these families some control back amid despair and chaos. I hope Arkansas will join me in getting the amendment on the ballot and passing it in November, because these families deserve options. 

Shannon Barringer

Genetic Counselor

The post Silent Suffering appeared first on Arkansas Strong.

Encouraging Engagement in Local Elections

Direct Democracy empowers Arkansans to have a say in their government. When Arkansans have the power to put things on the ballot, it gives them a sense of control. This control not only encourages them to be active participants in elections, but also incentivizes them to encourage other people to participate. Active participation in the electorate is crucial for a healthy democracy. In Arkansas, where voter turnout has historically been low, direct democracy can encourage people to get involved and express civic responsibility.

Evolving Legislation

Arkansas is and always will be evolving. Direct democracy allows for our legislation to evolve along with the state. Additionally, when citizens put legislation on the ballot, this is a direct reflection of what the citizens of Arkansas need. This system ensures that the laws and policies reflect the will of the people more accurately and can be adjusted towards the varying needs of different regions of the state.

Empowerment of Rural Communities

In Arkansas we have many rural and small-town communities that often feel disconnected from our legislature and those at the Capitol. Our ballot initiative process provides these communities with a greater voice in Arkansas’ political landscape. Local initiatives and referendums allow smaller communities to address issues that are directly relevant to them, rather than relying on distant representatives who may not fully understand their unique circumstances.

The Purest Form of Democracy

Ultimately, direct democracy is one of the purest forms of democracy we have in Arkansas because it truly represents the will of the people. It’s built on the idea that democracy is not just going out to vote in elections, it’s about being an active participant in your government. For Arkansas, direct democracy aligns well with the values of local empowerment and collective decision-making.

In Arkansas, direct democracy represents an opportunity to encourage engagement, create legislation that represents the needs of our citizens, and give rural communities a larger voice in our government. By embracing direct democracy, Arkansas can practice a healthy democracy and get back to our state’s motto, “regnat populus.”

The post Direct Democracy is One of Arkansas’ Greatest Strengths appeared first on Arkansas Strong.

It was a very much wanted pregnancy. And a tragedy where we had few options. But the fact that we did have options–had some control about what happened–made a huge difference and lessened the suffering for our family.

The option we chose is now illegal in Arkansas. Today, Arkansas families in our situation have no options unless they leave the state. The Arkansas Abortion Amendment, if approved, will correct this situation and allow families like ours the options and medical support they deserve.

Here is our story.

via the Arkansas Democrat Gazette

A few years ago, Greg Adams shared the story of Baby Kerry with us at Arkansas Strong. Syd, Greg’s wife, was pregnant with their second child when the unthinkable happened: they learned their very wanted child would not survive due to a fatal fetal anomaly.

Syd’s had a hard first pregnancy and her second already jeopardized her health. Would she take the risk and carry the pregnancy to term or would they terminate the pregnancy and say goodbye to Kerry sooner rather than later?

The Adams’ story is heartbreaking, but it’s also empowering. Because they had options from which to choose, they were able to decide what was best for their family during that devastating time.

Options, you see, give grieving people a bit of control and stability during untenable circumstances. And agency during heartbreak can often save us from even more dire outcomes.

We encourage you to read their piece in the Dem-Gaz. We also welcome you to read the story he shared with us at Arkansas Strong (part I and part II). Yes, a tale of grief and loss, but also a story of hope and redemption.

The post Revisiting Baby Kerry appeared first on Arkansas Strong.

Like many Arkansans, we needed the help of a fertility specialist to get pregnant. When I got my first positive pregnancy test, I was so excited!

But my hopes were dashed a short while later when I learned through bloodwork that the pregnancy was not viable. There was nothing we could do but wait for my body to start to miscarry naturally. 

Those weeks of waiting were difficult.

My pastor came over, and we sat in our living room and prayed together.

We cried and asked God to be near to us in our pain.

I was swimming in grief, desperate to try again. I eventually started bleeding.

Later, after several attempts, I finally had a viable pregnancy that ended in the birth of my now 7 year-old son. 

When it was time to add another child to our family, I went into the process with a much more guarded heart. I knew another loss was possible, but I was not prepared for what came next.

Not once, but twice, I got pregnant. Not once, but twice, I went in for my first ultrasound, only to see an empty sack on the screen. Not once but twice, I heard nothing but silence as the tech scanned over and over again for a heartbeat. Not once but twice, I was experiencing a non-viable pregnancy.

Each time, my doctor explained the options: wait for my body to miscarry naturally, take a medication to cause my body to expel the non-pregnancy, or have a surgical procedure called a d&c.

I knew how the waiting felt, and it was awful. I was also afraid of the medication causing a painful miscarriage that I would have to manage at home alone.

So, after talking things over with my doctor, my spouse, and my pastor, I elected to have the d&c procedure both times.

Not once but twice, I woke up in the recovery room and cried onto the shoulder of a loving nurse who soothed my battered and broken heart. When I finally held my daughter in my arms 18 months later, I cried tears of joy. 

Today in Arkansas, doctors have to jump through many hoops to offer women in my shoes the medical care I received. Right now, our state has a near-total abortion ban. There are no exceptions for rape, incest, or fatal fetal abnormalities.

Abortion-related and abortion-adjacent procedures are under extreme scrutiny. While the procedure I had was not an abortion, the medical code contains the word “abortion.” As a result, doctors are spending precious time–time they could be treating other patients–meticulously defending their plan of care for women like me, and asking multiple physicians to sign off on their actions. 

These extra steps are not because the care I received is dangerous, controversial or unethical. These extra steps are to keep medical providers from going to prison or losing their medical licenses and being unable to treat patients at all. As a result, what used to be a non-controversial procedure for women experiencing pregnancy loss has become complicated and high-stakes. 

I want my doctor to be free to focus fully on my healthcare needs and the needs of other women like me facing pregnancy loss. I don’t want their judgment impaired with worry about how a judge or team of lawyers with no medical training will interpret their actions. But since doctors’ primary objective is to treat patients, not fight legal battles, their options are limited.

It pains me to know that in a time of immense pain, a provider can’t be wholly focused on their grieving patient, and must also worry about defending their treatment plan to outside parties. 

I am glad I had the option to surgically end my non-viable pregnancies without unnecessary red tape. The procedure allowed me the space to recover and heal, without worrying for weeks about when my miscarriages would start.

The compassionate healthcare I received helped me recover faster, and enabled me to hold my baby girl in my arms more quickly. I want other grieving women to have easy access to that closure, too. 

The current total abortion ban puts politicians between patients and their doctors. When I got devastating news in the ultrasound room–twice–our state’s legislators were not the ones holding my hand and handing me tissues. My healthcare providers and my pastor were. Healthcare providers need the freedom to offer patients expedient options in a tough situation like mine. They need the freedom to rely on their years of medical training and expertise, without worrying about a distant third party calling their care plan into question. They need the freedom to support their patients as they build families in life-giving ways. 

Every pregnancy deserves to be welcomed with tears of joy. Unfortunately, some pregnancies are met with tears of pain and sorrow instead. In those heart-breaking situations, Arkansas women and their doctors deserve access to a range of medical treatment options. We need to trust our doctors and their pregnant patients to make compassionate, loving, and wise choices in difficult times. By taking healthcare decisions out of the courtroom and putting them back where they belong–in the exam room and in the living room–patients and their doctors can work together to assess their particular circumstances, weigh the risks, and make the best of a bad situation. 

The post Navigating Loss: My Journey Through Miscarriage and the Fight for Compassionate Care appeared first on Arkansas Strong.

David Pryor, a natural-born politician who spent thirty-four years in public offices, including governor, the state legislature and both houses of Congress, died April 20, 2024 at his home in Little Rock at the age of 89.

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture called him “arguably the most popular Arkansas politician of the modern era,” although the description might have covered a much longer stretch of history. He ran for public offices 13 times between 1960 and 1996 and lost only once—a 1972 race for the U.S. Senate against Sen. John L. McClellan. 

After McClellan’s death before the end of the term in 1978, Pryor defeated two other rising political stars for the Senate seat—Congressmen Jim Guy Tucker and Ray H. Thornton Jr., both of whom would be elected to other major state offices. Pryor would hold the seat until January 1997, when he retired, owing to heart problems and his dismay over the rising partisanship, wrath and extremism in Congress and national politics.

In 2002, years after he retired from the Senate, Pryor’s son Mark, a former state representative and attorney general, won his seat by defeating Senator Tim Hutchinson and served two terms.

His nearly 35-year career in the state and national capitols were marked by passionate and sometimes lonely efforts for better and affordable medical care for the elderly and poor, peace, public safety in the nuclear age, the direct election of American presidents, reform of the state’s ancient constitution and, perhaps most markedly, for collaboration among political foes and parties.

Former President Bill Clinton, who got his inspiration for politics and public service as a 20-year-old Georgetown University student in 1966 from the “Young Turk” state lawmaker from a couple of rural counties east of him in south Arkansas, said he and his wife, Hillary, were deeply saddened by the death of their friend and collaborator, who was always “honest, compassionate and full of common sense.”

In every office he held, Clinton said, Pryor “fought for progressive politics that helped us put the divided past behind us and move into a brighter future together. He was always one of America’s greatest advocates for the elderly, waging long battles to lower the cost of prescription drugs, and to improve nursing home and home care to help more people live in dignity.”

“David made politics personal—from his famed retail campaigning to his ability to calmly and confidently explain tough votes to his constituents,” Clinton said. Clinton was Arkansas’s attorney general in Pryor’s last two years as governor. He was elected governor in the same election that voters promoted Pryor to the US Senate.

“I first met him and Barbara in 1966 when David was running for Congress and over the next 58 years he would be my mentor, confidant, supporter and, above all, friend. Having him and Dale Bumpers in the Senate when I was president was an extraordinary gift. I never felt far from home, and I always trusted the unvarnished advice he gave, especially when the going got tough. I’ll always be grateful that he served as the inaugural dean of the Clinton School of Public Service, where his very presence embodied the nobility and joy of public service.”

David Pryor lived a mythical life of politics and public service, said his longtime aide in Congress, Carmie Henry—starting with his election as president of the third grade. He defined retail politics in Arkansas as a campaigner and in public office, cementing personal bonds with everybody in both parties and in every executive office, including the security workers all over the Capitol. He became easily the most beloved member of the Senate and also with Arkansas voters.

“If any one person’s career marked the changing of an era in American politics, it was David Pryor’s,” Henry said. “There are no David Pryors in Washington anymore.”

Pryor was a liberal Democrat long before it became a term of opprobrium. He was stirred to enter politics, first as a crusading weekly newspaper editor at Camden and then as a candidate for the legislature, by the rise of racial hatred and discord after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1954 outlawing segregation in the nation’s public schools. A senior and student leader at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Pryor traveled to the Capitol in February 1957 to testify at a dramatic public hearing on a bill creating a state sovereignty commission that would stop racial integration and find and punish people and groups that supported integration—or “race mixing,” as it was commonly called. He thought the bill was a flagrant violation of the federal and state constitutions. He was blocked from testifying, he would learn, at the instigation of university officials, notably the president, who feared a backlash against the school. The passage of a raft of bills to maintain white supremacy and Gov. Orval E. Faubus’s signing them into law in early 1957 and then Faubus’s dispatch of National Guardsmen to prevent nine Black youngsters from entering Little Rock Central High School that fall turned Pryor and his new wife, the former Barbara Jean Lunsford, into crusaders and reaffirmed his notion from early childhood that politics was the best way to spend his life.

David Hampton Pryor was born Aug. 29, 1934, in Camden, the third of four children of William Edgar Pryor and Susan Newton Pryor. His father ran a car dealership, was Ouachita County sheriff for four years and was always politically connected and influential. Governor Ben T. Laney (1945–1949) was a neighbor and family friend, although Laney’s leadership of the Southern white-supremacy  movement and his disloyalty to the Democratic Party in 1948 disturbed young Pryor, whose hero was Gov. Sid McMath from next-door Magnolia and Hot Springs, who had thwarted Laney’s Dixiecrat party and carried Arkansas for President Harry S. Truman that year. Pryor’s mother, who was known as Susie, had been a champion of women’s suffrage, and was the first woman to run for public office in Arkansas, losing a race for circuit and county clerk in 1926. She later won a school board race.

His autobiography, A Pryor Commitment, published in 2008 by Butler Center Books, gave a self-effacing and often humorous account of growing up, pursuing popularity and providential encounters with famous political figures that would shape his destiny. He was an unusually gregarious child who sought friendship with everybody and was attracted to politics almost from the time that he could read, perhaps owing to his father’s engagement in politics and with politicians. (The elder Pryor raised the money in 1942 that kept Congressman John L. McClellan from leaving the US Senate race, which he won in a Democratic runoff primary with Attorney General Jack Holt. McClellan was later shocked and embittered that his patron’s son would run against him. He had expected Pryor to succeed him when he retired.) 

Pryor wrote that he ran for president of Mary Bragg Wheeler’s third-grade class at Camden and that the teacher sent him and the other two candidates into the hall while the class voted.

“Sweating under the tension,” Pryor remembered, “I promised God that if He would let me win this election, I would never again run for political office. Our teacher called us back into the room. I had won! Before I sat down, I was already planning my race for fourth-grade president.”

His boyhood hero was the Razorback and Olympic star Clyde Scott from Smackover, 16 miles down the road from him, to the extent that 50 years later he stuttered trying to talk to the sainted old man, by then a retired insurance executive for Jackson T. “Jack” Stephens. Pryor was a football star for the Camden High School Panthers—a triple-threat tailback who made the all-district team. His memoir, however, confessed that he actually hated football and every minute of practice and the games, but social pressure forced him to stay with it. “Any Camden boy in the 1950s who entertained the slightest interest in peer acceptance—and who could circle the practice field in a heavy uniform without crumpling to earth—went out for football,” he said. Pryor dreaded “the 200-pound linemen” who smashed him to the ground nearly every play. 

Pryor wrote that after seeing the 1950 movie Born Yesterday, starring William Holden and Judy Holliday and set in political Washington, he ran home and sent a letter to Congressman Oren Harris of El Dorado, a family friend, asking if he could be a congressional page that summer. Harris agreed. Pryor drove to Washington, finally found the Capitol and reached the House doorkeeper’s office, where he was rebuked for being late and sent to the Senate, where there was an emergency—an all-night filibuster after all the Senate pages had gone home. When he reached the Senate floor, Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin (the anticommunist conspiracist who was later censured by the Senate) snapped his fingers at Pryor, scribbled a note, fished out a ten-dollar bill and handed him a ring of keys. 

Pryor’s account: “Here, son,” he said. “Get a taxi and go to this address, and on the floor of the closet in the bedroom you’ll find my bedroom slippers. Bring them to me.” It was David Pryor’s first act of public service. 

After Pryor enrolled as a freshman at Baylor University at Waco his father died suddenly and he canceled his enrollment and went instead to Henderson State Teachers College at Arkadelphia, 45 miles up Highway 7. When he arrived on campus late he was greeted by a sign in front of Womack Hall, the men’s dormitory, saying “David Pryor for Freshman Class President.” He was elected. After a year, he transferred to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He took a horse with him and put the colt in a stable at a farm south of town. He wrote that it had been a stupid thing to do because he rarely found time to ride the animal. He figured that he had done it because the last time he had seen his father alive was when the old man was astride a horse in the 1952 Ouachita County Fair parade.

As the spring semester was ending in 1954, Pryor got a note to call Gov. Francis Cherry, who had defeated his hero Sid McMath two years earlier. Cherry wanted him to be his driver while he was campaigning for re-election in the Democratic primaries against Faubus and two other men that summer. In his autobiography and two oral histories late in life Pryor gave poignant accounts of Cherry’s grace and caring and the agonizing dilemmas the governor had faced in the historic confrontation with Faubus in the runoff primary; Cherry had decided to question Faubus’s patriotism by making an issue of his attendance at a socialist self-help school at Mena, Commonwealth College, and subsequently lying about it. It was to be an evening television speech at the KARK studio, which Pryor called “the speech of Cherry’s political life.” Pryor said he waited in the car for Cherry to leave the mansion for the studio and the governor veered into the shrubs next to the car and vomited. After his stumbling and wooden speech, Cherry returned to the car solemnly and said, “How’d I do, kid?” Pryor said he congratulated Cherry but began to realize that the speech had been a terrible mistake.

It occurred while the country, including Arkansas, rebelled against “McCarthyism,” which had been exposed as a fraud the previous month in the Army-McCarthy hearings before a Senate committee, including Arkansas’s John McClellan. It ended with Army attorney Joseph Welch’s famous putdown of Joe McCarthy, whose bedroom slippers Pryor had fetched four years earlier, for relentlessly attacking a young lawyer at the hearing: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough! Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” Pryor concluded that the very decent Cherry had been a poor politician who did not sense the great shift in public attitudes and was unable to rally voters against a smart but unprincipled politician. An even bigger mistake had been the unfortunate campaign line “we’re going to get the deadheads off the welfare rolls.” Faubus made him look cruel. 

After Cherry’s humiliation, a bitter Pryor decided that politics was miserable business and changed his major from political science to business administration. He took courses in accounting, banking and statistics but found them tedious and boring. Then he became violently ill with a strange malady that required multiple surgeries—he withered to 130 pounds and partially lost his eyesight—that cost him a year of school. 

He returned to the university in 1955 as a government major again. From his arrival, he was active in student government, including serving as a senator. Led by Pryor, Ray Thornton and others who would later seek state executive, legislative and judicial offices, the students took a special interest in the conflagration over integration that was growing at Little Rock, which was under federal court orders to desegregate its schools in the fall. A number of punitive bills to head off the desegregation consumed the lawmakers in the January–March session—notably the creation of a state sovereignty commission, which was based on the long-repudiated theory of John C. Calhoun that states could interpose their sovereignty between the federal government and the people. Pryor and one of his many college roommates, Kenneth C. Danforth of El Dorado, the editor of the campus newspaper, The Traveler, and later a journalist for the Arkansas Gazette, Time magazine and The National Geographic, drove to Little Rock to carry the students’ message to the lawmakers and the state that the legislation trampled upon the human rights of American citizens, who would be criminalized for even expressing the view that Blacks and those who might sympathize with them were entitled to equality and free expression and assembly. Pryor was embittered by the experience that day but, according to his memoir, the stayover at the Marion Hotel and association with the legislators and lobbyists, sharpened his understanding that politics and government—in Ouachita County, Little Rock, or Washington, D.C.—did not follow the examples in civics textbooks.

He left Fayetteville with his degree but could not find a job. The Gazette would not hire him, even when he volunteered to work free for a few months to prove his worth. Later, as a lawmaker and law student, he would be the Gazette’s Fayetteville correspondent. He married Barbara Jean Lunsford of Fayetteville, a classmate, and in late 1957 started a weekly newspaper, the Ouachita Citizen, with a printing press acquired from a local businessman. His wife and mother wrote weekly columns and reported, and Pryor sold advertisements and wrote editorials, often criticizing local government officials but mainly Gov. Faubus and legislative houses that went along with everything Faubus sought to do. The city’s daily newspaper, like most others around Arkansas after the school crisis, rarely took issue with the governor and the legislature. Faubus took pleasure in taunting Pryor and his little paper. At a big rally at Camden in his 1958 race against the meatpacker Chris Finkbeiner, whom Pryor supported, Faubus held up copies of Life and Time magazines and Pryor’s little paper, all of which had made Faubus look bad. 

“Life is for people who can’t read,” Faubus said. “Time is for people who can’t see, and the Ouachita Citizen is for people who can’t think.” The crowd roared and Pryor crawled in his car and went home.

But in 1960 Pryor told the county’s representative, a family friend, that if he did not begin to oppose Faubus on legislation he was going to run against him. The representative demurred and Pryor ran against him. He was 26 years old. Pryor’s memoir said he got elected mainly owing to the relentless campaigning of Barbara, carrying their infant son, David, with her as she went door to door across the county asking people to please vote for her husband. The family briefly moved to Little Rock. They sold the newspaper in 1962. He was elected twice more, in 1962 and 1964, while attending law school at Fayetteville when the legislature was not in session. He finished law school in 1964.

Except for his votes, Pryor’s legislative record was unremarkable, which was not unusual for new legislators. A Civil War buff, Pryor read about battles in South Arkansas and at his first session in February 1961 he introduced and passed a bill creating Poison Springs Battlefield State Park about eight miles from his home. It was the site of one of the Confederates’ few big victories in Arkansas, a victory most notable for the slaughter of a Kansas infantry regiment that included former slaves. The Confederates took no prisoners and used wagons to crush the skulls of the captured Black men. 

Pryor became one of a handful of liberals who jousted with Faubus and the legislative “Old Guard” on a wide variety of reforms. Called “the Young Turks” in the media, Pryor, Virgil Butler, Sterling R. Cockrill Jr., Jim Brandon, Hardy W. Croxton, Ray S. Smith Jr. and Hayes C. McClerkin introduced legislation outlawing the poll tax, reforming election laws, overhauling county purchasing and spending (Pryor had been on a grand jury investigating government fraud in Ouachita County), convening a constitutional convention, and overhauling highway administration. They got nowhere with the legislation. In 1961, Pryor introduced a bill to require competitive bidding on county purchases of more than $300, but he could get only few votes for it each year. Faubus had another legislator, Harry Colay of Magnolia, put his name on a similar bill in 1965, it passed, and Faubus signed it.

Pryor opened a law practice in 1964 at Camden with his friend Harry Barnes. He liked to mention a case where he represented a man in a dispute over who owned a coon dog. It was finally resolved by bringing the disputed mutt into the courtroom, which wandered around until it spotted Pryor’s client and put a paw on his knee. The judge immediately awarded him custody. For a different reason, the Arkansas Gazette cartoonist George Fisher later always put a happy coon dog at Pryor’s side. But Pryor never got to practice a lot of law.

Faubus’s enmity toward Pryor took a bizarre turn in the summer of 1965. Late in life, Faubus and Pryor would cement a friendship, and he told Pryor that one of the joys of his life had been setting in motion the events that year which sealed Pryor’s long career. In law school at Fayetteville, Pryor had become a close friend of Faubus’s son, Farrell, a shy, portly and tormented young man who would take his own life in 1977 at the age of 36. Farrell had felt shunned and ridiculed by the other students and some of the faculty. The two students studied, played golf, drank beer and got their law degrees together.

In July 1965, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Congressman Oren Harris to a federal judgeship, creating a congressional vacancy that Faubus was supposed to fill for the last 16 months of Harris’s term by calling a special election. It was Pryor’s dream, but there was no time to put together a campaign organization throughout the large Fourth District. State Auditor Jimmie “Red” Jones, who was known to every voter in the state, would be the automatic winner. Pryor mentioned his dilemma to his friend Farrell. He would learn later that Farrell told his dad that Pryor had helped him get his law degree, was the only person at the university who befriended him and about the only true friend he ever had.

Faubus dawdled about calling the special election for weeks and finally announced that the district did not really need a voting representative for the next year and a half, so he called the special election for the same day as the general election in November 1966. Voters would simultaneously fill the seat for the last two months of the year but also the following two years—two elections for the same seat on the same day. It gave Pryor more than a year to build a campaign organization. Red Jones then chose not to run because he would have to give up his safe lifetime job at the Capitol for a risky congressional election. Pryor won the special election and the general election handily. He defeated Richard S. Arnold of Texarkana, a future federal district and appellate judge, and three other prominent politicians from around the district, John Harris Jones of Pine Bluff, Charles L. “Chuck” Honey of Prescott and Dean Murphy of Hope. 

Pryor’s three terms in the seniority-driven House of Representatives were hardly notable, except for a controversy that he engineered—a crusade over the mistreatment of the elderly and disabled in nursing homes—and his personal dilemma over the Vietnam War, which he eventually came to oppose. 

His mother told him that after visiting friends in nursing homes over the years she had concluded that the warehousing of people in the profit-driven industry had to be a national scandal rather than a local one. Now that her son was a congressman, he ought to do something about it. Having little else to do as a freshman, Pryor started volunteering on weekends as an orderly in nursing homes in the District of Columbia and suburban Maryland and Virginia, and recording the lack of staffing and lapses in medical care that he saw. His mother was right. Nursing homes often were just profitable warehouses for those waiting for the grave. Government inspectors often gave owners notice of their inspections, which rarely found lapses and, when they did, nothing was done about them. The industry had lobbyists who kept Pryor’s congressional colleagues and other government monitors at bay. 

Pryor made a speech on the House floor revealing his secret work. He said he had encountered only two nursing homes where he would put his mother, but he couldn’t have afforded either one on his $42,500 salary. He was attacked by Maryland’s state mental-health director and people in the industry. Pryor called for the House to create a select committee on nursing homes and homes for the aged. A majority of the House voted for his resolution, but it was non-binding and Congress did nothing. The House, led by the 80-year-old Mississippian who headed the Rules Committee, would not provide space or staffing for the committee. Pryor decided to do the work himself, after finding a vacant lot beside a gasoline station near the Capitol. The station’s owner found two house trailers that became the site for Pryor’s investigations and hearings. Pryor tried and failed to set up a permanent Committee on Aging, as the Senate had done in 1959. President Richard M. Nixon joined Pryor’s cause in 1971, deploring conditions in nursing homes and proposing to end payments to substandard homes.

In 1974, two years after Pryor left, the House joined the cause and established the Select Committee on Aging. For the next 50 years, Congress, federal and state administrators and the industry would wage a continuous battle over standards of care for the aged and the degree of regulation that government should provide.

When Pryor went to Washington, the Vietnam War had engaged the United States for ten years. (President Eisenhower sent the first US troops in 1955 and Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson had raised the commitment.) After the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Congress gave Johnson new authority to dramatically expand America’s commitment, still without a declaration of war. By 1968, congressional and public opposition to the war had grown. Vice President Hubert Humphrey asked Pryor to make a short speech to the riotous Democratic National Convention in Chicago—Humphrey was the presidential nominee—in support of the Vietnam plank, an oblique statement that neither endorsed nor opposed the war effort. Pryor went to the convention as an Arkansas delegate and had already alienated other Southern congressmen, especially Mississippians, by voting as a member of the Credentials Committee to seat Mississippi’s Freedom Democrats—Blacks and liberals—instead of the white delegation picked by the party in Mississippi. In his two-minute speech, he urged an end to the war but called for unity and wisdom. Arkansas Sen. J. William Fulbright had already decided America’s war policies were improvident and conducted hearings that began to turn public sentiment against the war.

President Johnson, who had had misgivings about the war from the first, had then made himself the champion of the war against communism after the Gulf of Tonkin incident. He became more and more sorrowful and morose as tens of thousands of Americans a year died, but he could not become the first president to lose a war. In 1967, Johnson asked Pryor to fly to Texas with him for rallies to pump up flagging support in his home state. Pryor would write that Johnson seemed glum and introspective the whole trip. Pryor understood why. As they were flying back to Washington at night in Air Force One, Pryor looked out the window and figured that the lights below were his hometown of Camden. 

“Mr. President,” he said, “it looks like we might be flying directly over Camden, Arkansas. That’s my hometown. If you look straight down at the ground, you might see Jim’s Café on Washington Street.”

The president leaned across him and looked out the window. He slumped back in his seat and shook his head.

“God a’mighty!” he sighed. “I wish I was at Jim’s Café right now.” He was silent the rest of the trip.

For Pryor, the climax to the moral struggle over the war was more personal, as he would recall in A Pryor Commitment and oral histories. On an airline trip from Washington to Arkansas he fell into conversation with a young serviceman from his district who was headed to Vietnam. Many months later, he got on a plane for the same flight back home and recognized the young man, in uniform. He asked the soldier about his tour of duty. The soldier pulled back a blanket across his lap, which showed that he had lost a leg in combat.

 “Congressman Pryor,” the young man said, “I would not have minded losing my leg, if only someone had told me why we were there in the first place.”

Pryor sent constituents a newsletter announcing that he would thereafter oppose any further funding of the war and calling for troops to be brought home. It was not an altogether popular step. At a fishfry at the Carlisle High School stadium soon afterward, a man ran out of the crowd, jumped on Pryor’s back and began hitting him and calling him a traitor. Mayor Bobby Glover, later a state representative and then a senator, pulled the man off Pryor. Two decades later Pryor would write a letter to his son Scott, explaining his dilemma over the war and the consequences. He likened it to the contemporary dilemma over the American invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. 

In 1972, McClellan, by then chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, which had funded the development of the navigation dams on the Arkansas River in Arkansas and Oklahoma, announced he was running for a sixth term. His hearings on labor racketeering had made enemies of organized labor. Unions representing wood, paper, oil, chemical and electrical workers in South Arkansas had supplied much of Pryor’s political strength. He announced that he was running for the seat, too, along with Ted Boswell, a liberal trial lawyer, and Foster Johnson, a book salesman who for the third straight Senate election went around towns wearing clanging metal campaign signs over his shoulders. 

Pryor survived a rough campaign in which he was accused of being a friend of draft dodgers and a supporter of gun control. (As a freshman legislator, he had sponsored a bill making it illegal to carry a loaded weapon in a vehicle inside city limits—a reaction to a neighboring boy accidentally killing himself with a loaded shotgun on a Safeway parking lot.) But Pryor was a close second in the preferential primary and entered the runoff as a heavy favorite, certain to get all the votes that had been cast for the more liberal Boswell. W. R. “Witt” Stephens, the gas baron and investment banker, summoned a meeting of the state’s banking and business leaders with McClellan in the board room of the Union National Bank at Little Rock where everyone ponied up tens of thousands of dollars for McClellan or pledged to collect it.

The two-week runoff ended with the famous televised debate. McClellan, wearing a white suit, taunted Pryor for his support by unions, particularly “labor bosses” from outside the state. Pryor responded that the money reported on his campaign finance forms came from the cookie jars and overall pockets of hardworking men. McClellan responded that Pryor had gotten $79,000 from “bosses” from outside the state. 

“David, David,” he taunted, shaking a finger, “this is no cookie-jar nickels and dimes!”

Pryor’s campaign gifts paled alongside the money from businessmen and bankers in McClellan’s campaign, but McClellan’s commanding performance showed him as anything but a doddering 76-year-old man. But his victory in the election the next week depended more on the massive get-out-the-vote effort by political leaders commanded by Witt Stephens. Pryor got only 20,000 more votes than in the first primary, McClellan 22,000 more. On election night, Pryor faced the TV cameras early, conceded and said the voters had elected the right man, a typical Pryor reflection on his opponents.

Witt Stephens was watching television that night and was struck by the Pryor’s magnanimity. Two years later, when Gov. Dale Bumpers announced he was not running for a third term as governor but instead for the Senate—against Fulbright—Stephens picked up the phone and called Pryor, suggesting that he run for governor. Pryor said he was about to call Stephens and urge him to run (they had served in the House of Representatives together as freshmen in 1961). Stephens said no, he was serious, and promised his full organizational support if Pryor announced. He did, and so did former governor Faubus and Lt. Gov. Bob Riley. Faubus, making his second comeback attempt since retiring in 1966, was shocked to discover that nearly his entire political machine marshaled by Stephens had been diverted to Pryor. Pryor won without a runoff. For the rest of his life, Faubus remained bitter about his old friend and supporter’s betrayal while also warming to the young man whom his son Farrell had asked him to help. 

Providence seemed always to shine on Pryor at election time—but with actual governance, not so much. Bumpers had raised income and motor-fuel taxes and closed tax loopholes. Furious economic growth filled the state treasury so that Bumpers could enhance public schools and higher education, build many state parks, improve highways, expand medical care and build hospitals and college classrooms. Bumpers called a special legislative session to spend the big surplus that had accumulated in the treasury. The moment that Pryor moved into the Governor’s Mansion the nation was hit with a long recession complicated by inflation, and the treasury was depleted. Pryor had to slash budgets and freeze hiring even for filling job vacancies. In his four years, Bumpers had carried out all the reforms prescribed by the liberal group Democrats for Arkansas during the late 1960s—nearly everything but a new state constitution, which became Pryor’s biggest goal. It was never fulfilled.

Pryor proposed a dramatic refashioning of state spending—a 25 percent reduction in state income tax rates and empowerment of local governments to implement the income tax themselves to address all the problems of cities, counties and schools. The Arkansas Plan, as it was called, consumed a legislative session. Pryor traveled the state promoting the plan, explaining to a group at Jonesboro that he was cutting state taxes and allowing people locally to use it in whatever way pleased them—jokingly suggesting that if they didn’t want to levy taxes to build roads and streets they could spend the money on “a new coon dog.” Gazette cartoonist George Fisher labeled it the “Coon Dog Plan” and thereafter always put a grinning mutt at Pryor’s side. The Arkansas Plan failed.

Another passion was litter. Pryor hated the trash along the state’s streets and roads. He started a “Pick Up Arkansas” campaign and proposed a bill levying a small tax on soft drinks, pet foods, newspapers and plastic wrappers to discourage littering; the money would be used for highway and street cleanup. Local governments were encouraged to dispose of solid waste like abandoned cars and refrigerators. The bill passed, but a letter from the state Revenue Department to businesses on how to collect the tax warned that they might go to prison for failing to remit the litter tax. Legislators who had voted for the bill heard from merchants and demanded that Pryor call them back into session to repeal the bill before it took effect on July 1. He did but always regretted it when he saw sandwich wrappers and soft-drink containers strewn along streets and on the roadsides.

Constitutional revision, an obsession with an aging legislator who had been the leader of the Young Turks, was Pryor’s biggest failure. Voters had defeated a liberalized constitution drafted by a popularly elected convention in 1970. Pryor decided to try again after taking office in 1975. The solution had to be to avoid the pitched battles over a few issues such as the state’s antiunion law (the Right to Work Amendment), usury, judicial elections and county-government reform. He offered a bill calling for the appointment, by the legislature and the governor, of 35 delegates who would write a new constitution but leave those and a few other features of the 1874 constitution untouched and then submit the document to the voters in September. On the day the delegates convened, the state Supreme Court voted four to three to abolish the convention because the delegates were prohibited from changing some parts of the constitution. It had to be all or nothing. In 1977, Pryor tried again with a bill that called for the election of 100 delegates in 1978 and a vote on the document in 1980. But voters defeated that new constitution decisively. 

McClellan died in November 1977 and Pryor appointed Kaneaster Hodges of Newport, a lawyer and minister, to finish his term, which ended Jan. 1, 1979. Pryor soon announced that he would run for the seat. So did US Rep. Jim Guy Tucker of Little Rock and Rep. Ray H. Thornton Jr. of Sheridan. It would be a race between three friends and philosophical triplets. A. C. Grigson, a Texarkana accountant, joined the race claiming to be McClellan’s philosophical successor. Pryor barely led in the first primary and Tucker edged Thornton for the second spot. The runoff would also be amiable until its final days when Tucker accused Pryor’s campaign manager of trying to persuade a friend on the state Public Service Commission to approve a rate increase for Witt Stephens’s western Arkansas gas company in exchange for the Stephens family’s support in the runoff. Pryor won by a safe margin. Tucker later shrugged off his defeat. No one, he said, was going to believe that David Pryor did anything even slightly deceitful, and wouldn’t blame him if he had.

The Senate years were Pryor’s most pleasurable. His Arkansas colleague, Dale Bumpers, was a close friend and an ally on most but not all issues. After their retirements, they became a popular team for television and political events, taunting and telling tall tales about each other.

During the eight-year administration of President Ronald Reagan, both senators opposed much of the Reagan program, including the tax cuts for the wealthy in 1981 and later the big binge of military spending. Bumpers, a deficit hawk, publicly opposed the tax cuts, and Pryor finally joined him by voting “present” on the roll call, the same as a no vote. The month after the tax cuts passed the nation fell into a deep 14-month recession with double-digit unemployment, the deepest since the 1930s, although the charming Reagan was never blamed for the longest and deepest recession in modern times or the staggering budget deficits and debt that he ran up for eight years or for the repeated tax increases that the Reagan administration described as “revenue enhancements” instead of taxes.

But Pryor also became a leading critic of Pentagon spending, calling attention to such excesses as the orders for thousands of ball-peen hammers and toilet seats at hugely inflated prices. He also veered from Bumpers and the state’s four congressmen in his opposition to the development of binary chemical weapons. He opposed developing and storing the chemical weapons at the Pine Bluff Arsenal. Vice President George H. W. Bush, a friend who went to Congress the same time as Pryor, went to the Senate to cast the tie-breaking vote for the arsenal.

Even before Reagan’s election, the Pentagon already suspected that Pryor was not a votary, especially after he called attention to the perils of the Titan II missile system after a series of dangerous failures around the country and two catastrophes in Arkansas. When the Defense Department developed the Titan II system—54 underground intercontinental missiles with nuclear warheads—US Rep. Wilbur D. Mills agreed to vote for President Kennedy’s tax cuts if he agreed to put a ring of 18 of the new missiles in Arkansas. A fire in a silo with a nuclear warhead near Searcy in 1965 killed 53 workers who were retrofitting the missile’s fuel system. In January 1978, a fuel transporter at a missile silo at Damascus overheated and sent thousands of gallons of deadly nitrogen tetroxide vapor over the countryside. In 1979, after more such leaks in the Arkansas and Kansas missile networks, Pryor and Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas were regretting having Titan sites in their states and talked about whether they should be anywhere near American citizens. 

After rumors of incidents at the silos, Pryor in the summer of 1980 did his own secret investigation and found nine major incidents in the previous 14 months that could have endangered Arkansas lives around the silos. Clearly, the Air Force had been lying about the safety at the Titan sites in Arkansas, Kansas and New Mexico. Pryor gave the detailed results of investigation of the eight incidents to two Arkansas Gazette reporters, who described the incidents and Pryor’s conclusions. Surrounding residents were never informed about any of them, despite an Air Force vow that residents would always be informed.

Pryor and Dole went to Congress to push an amendment to the Defense Department appropriation that called for an early-warning system around all the silos. The amendment passed. Three days later, on Sept. 18, 1980, the missile in a silo at Damascus exploded, blowing the nuclear warhead and two technicians into the air. One of the men died almost instantly and the other’s health was permanently impaired. Two years later, the Pentagon decided to abandon the Titans for more advanced, and perhaps safer, missile systems. But Pryor’s negativity about defense weaponry and spending took a political toll, at least nationally.

The payoff came in 1984, when the White House and the party leadership persuaded Congressman Ed Bethune of Searcy—the Pryors and Bethunes were social friends—to run against Pryor with the promise of financial backing. More than 20 Reagan administration officials and Republican senators came to Arkansas for fund-raising events for Bethune. Rev. Jerry Falwell, the right-wing leader, came to Arkansas to call for Pryor’s defeat. Pryor eschewed the same strategy, feeling that Democrats from out of the state would hurt rather than help him. Bethune’s ads said Pryor had voted against the popular former movie star, Ronnie Reagan, on 77 percent of the issues in the Senate. The Saturday before the election Reagan, who was approaching a landslide win of his own, made a speech at the packed Excelsior Hotel ballroom. 

“Don’t send me back to Washington alone,” Reagan said with the smiling Bethune beside him. Reagan carried Arkansas with 60 percent of the vote. Pryor got 57 percent.

In 1994, Pryor ran for re-election and no Democrat or Republican opposed him—a rarity in any state. Betty White, a homeless woman, ran as a write-in and got 832 votes. (Pryor’s son Mark also had no opposition, except for a Green Party candidate, in his second race for the same seat in 2008.)

Pryor spent much of his second term fighting for a taxpayer’s bill of rights, to curb abuses by the Internal Revenue Service. Reagan signed Pryor’s bill into law in 1988.

Pryor’s last crusade was against the pharmaceutical industry. In 1990, he introduced the Pharmaceutical Access and Prudent Purchasing Act, which sought to end the spiral of drug prices; it would have allowed Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate with drug makers on prices that would be charged to Medicare and Medicaid patients. The industry fought back. 

Pryor had a massive heart attack on April 15, 1991. The illness hobbled him for the rest of his career. Majority Leader George Mitchell and Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas took up the cause of drug pricing but they never were able to pass a bill. President Joe Biden finally took up Pryor’s cause in 2023.

Another passionate reform effort was to end the electoral college so that the winner of the popular vote would always be the next president. The most important job in the whole democracy was president, but it also was the only political job in the country, from members of the county quorum court to the top, that might go to the loser. In 1992, sensing that the third-party candidacy of Ross Perot could tilt the election of George H. W. Bush over Bill Clinton regardless of the size of Clinton’s election victory, Pryor again introduced a Senate resolution for a constitutional amendment to end the electoral college and assure that election winners always took office. The Senate never sent the amendment to the states for ratification. Only one election loser had ever failed to become president—Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878 —but two subsequent losers, George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald J. Trump in 2016, became president. Trump lost the actual balloting to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million votes.

Like Bumpers, Pryor found the relationships in Congress profoundly different after radio provocateur Rush Limbaugh and Republican House leader Newt Gingrich turned American politics into a war of saintly Republicans vs. evil Democrats. Friendly Republicans departed and were replaced by politicians who called Democrats socialists and radicals who were out to destroy the country. Pryor did not run again in 1996; Bumpers made the same choice in 1998. The Capitol, they said, was no longer an enjoyable place to be.

Pryor’s retirement did not end his engagement with politics and government. In 2000, he was director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He taught courses at the University of Arkansas and gave his unexpended campaign funds to form the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Oral and Visual History at the university. He was the inaugural dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at Little Rock, serving for two years. After the murder of Bill Gwatney in 2008, he was chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party for a spell. In 2009, Gov. Mike Beebe appointed him to a 10-year term on the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees, where he did not enhance his popularity by protesting the lavish spending on athletics and stadium additions. A massive stroke in 2016 curtailed his activities for good.

Survivors include his widow, Barbara; his sons and their wives, David Jr. (Judith), Mark (Joi) and Scott (Diane); his grandchildren, Hampton, Adams, Porter and Devin; and his great-grandson, Raven. 

The post In Memoriam appeared first on Arkansas Strong.

There’s just something about Arkansas’s rural landscapes, where the rhythm of life is measured by the seasons. Here, neighbors still greet each other with a warm smile and a firm handshake. Community is built from shared hardship and triumph. It is a place where the simple pleasures of life take precedence over the clamor of ambition.

Yet it is exactly a clamor that threatens our rural way of life. 

The threat is the insidious, unending hum of technology — crypto mining — which is encroaching upon the sanctity of the Arkansas countryside.

Rural life is when humanity beats in harmony with the land. Despite modern technological advances in agriculture or the expansion of commercialism, rural life in Arkansas is still rooted in simplicity and connection to the earth. It is still a place where the land lives and breathes. 

But now our rural spaces are menaced by crypto mining, which interrupts the balance between humans and the land. 

Crypto mining, with its voracious appetite for energy and its relentless pursuit of profit, has set its sights on our rural spaces. Drawn by the promise of cheap electricity and vast expanses of available land, crypto mining operations — large swaths of computer farms —descend upon our communities like modern-day prospectors, seeking to extract digital gold from the blockchain.

As a result, Arkansas’s rural landscape is turned into fields of digital industrialization. And the noise, the relentless white noise of these computer farms… the tranquility that is rural life is shattered by the ceaseless hum of machinery, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

But perhaps the greatest danger these crypto mines pose is not just the physical transformation of the land, but in the erosion of rural culture itself. In the rush to exploit the resources of Arkansas’s land, we risk losing something more precious — the intangible sanctity of rural space. 

Arkansans are deeply rooted in their rural communities. They understand that the beauty of these places lies not solely in their economic potential, but in their ability to nourish, to abide, and to connect us to something greater than ourselves. They remind us that rural Arkansas is not just a landscape to be exploited, but is rather made up of living, breathing spaces.

As we confront the threat of crypto mining in our rural communities, let us recognize the value of what we stand to lose. 

The post a clamor that threatens Arkansas’s rural life appeared first on Arkansas Strong.