While new, fancy cookbooks with shiny pages and full-color photography remain ensconced on the living room shelves, those old wire- or plastic-combed collections remain closer at hand, at the edge of the counter or in a handy hutch. Their covers are often plainly decorated by someone associated with the book, or a duplicate of other covers offered by one of several fundraising printer companies that served the middle United States over the course of the middle and later 20th century.

Church and community cookbooks have become part of our local culture. Every small town has a sampling, usually from whatever congregations were nearby. They were put together to raise money for functions or buildings and they were bestsellers, in that everyone in town ended up with one. When it wasn’t a church, it was a school or a club or a gathering of friends who put together these tomes that were quick and easy to get printed and which were all but eternal.

Stories in the Recipes

You can tell by some of the entries in these books who the movers and the shakers were. Some cookbooks had a single entry from each person who contributed, but more often there would be one or two superstars that would stand out, proud of their cooking and happy to share. Or, like when my own mom put together Cornerstone Cookery, published by the St. Vincent’s Infirmary Employee Council in 1984, about a third of the recipes ended up coming from my own family when submissions were scarce.

What each and every one of these books did, though, was capture a moment in space and time in a way few other objects could. In an age before the internet, these volumes catalogued the food we all ate from day to day. The more extravagant recipes, usually for desserts or highly regarded holiday entrees, showed what we ate when we were celebrating. The more humble recipes, with their creative instructions on how to assemble a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or what to do while you’re waiting for something to cook, show us humor and the good nature of the people sharing the recipes they know.

Flavors from the Past

In-between, you get a capsule of history particular to the congregation or area in question, the dishes that are most likely to have been served at the table, the things that one generation didn’t want the next generation to forget. Some of those dishes, like the regional Arkansas dish known as Tallerine (usually pronounced TA-lur-EE-nee), all but evaporated by the end of the 20th century. The ground beef and noodles entree usually contained black olives and cheese, along with some sort of additional ingredient, which included everything from small green peas to green bell pepper, diced onions or even sliced tomatoes. It appeared to be a precursor to the commercial Hamburger Helper, and while prevalent under a host of different spellings in mid-century Arkansas cookbooks, all but disappeared by the mid- to late-1980s. 

There were also concoctions, usually salads or side dishes, that were popular back then but would be undesired today, like congealed salads with a base of Jell-O or any variety of pea-and-mayo mixes. Items utilizing SPAM can still be found in cookbooks today, but canned brothers Vienna Sausages and potted meat are frowned upon and excluded in 21st century collections. For young homemakers looking for ways to change up meals in an age when canned foods were on the shelves at their local grocery while convenience foods like TV dinners and frozen pizzas were not, combining what was easily available to create something that stood out was paramount.

A Taste of Arkansas History

Over the past several years, I have been collecting a variety of Arkansas cookbooks, finding them at thrift stores and in the bins at Goodwill, receiving them from families who are rehoming them when loved ones pass, and taking in duplicates from libraries with multiple copies. In my spare time and on days when the weather is too angry to travel, I sit down and read through them, noting common elements to time and regions.

In 2021, I published a cookbook based on these Arkansas community collections, Arkansas Cookery: Retro Recipes from The Natural State. In its 103 recipes gathered from cookbooks from between 1935 and 1985, I hoped to offer a picture of cooking in mid-century Arkansas, what people were eating at home. These were most of the 107 recipes I’d culled from some of those many cookbooks, showcasing recipes that I found through the era. I took them with me to the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, and over the course of 12 days recreated them, redacting recipes with modern equivalents (for instance, noting that the tabs of cream cheese available in the 1950s was three ounces, compared to the 8 ounce block offered today) and photographing them for posterity.

Some items, such as Green Rice, are very popular even today with home cooks in the Arkansas Delta. Others, like Salmon Croquettes and Tomato Aspic, are very rarely seen today. And then there are things like Guacamole Salad, Hush Puppies, and Fried Zucchini that are known worldwide today.

When I research these recipes, I tend to stop at the year 2000. It’s a nice, even point to cut from, and a moment in time when the internet was just really becoming ubiquitous in homes around the world. The combination of the World Wide Web, retailers like Amazon and Walmart, and the sudden availability to anyone, anywhere foodstuffs that had previously been hard to find – like ube sweet potatoes from Japan or besan flour from India – changed our food culture irreversibly, almost overnight. I plan to continue the research and create more compilations as I learn more and open up these veritable time capsules of Arkansas food.

Date Nut Bread

Folks here in Arkansas, particularly in rural communities, would have access to certain foods certain times of the year. When it came to nuts, what you had stored back was usually reliant on what was available close by. The nuts in this recipe could be pecans, walnuts, or hickory nuts. Dates would come dried, like raisins and prunes (dried plums), and could be stored for a long time. Everything in this recipe from Mrs. Jewell Teater, originally printed in a 1954 cookbook by the Women’s Society of Christian Service at Asbury Methodist Church in Little Rock, could conceivably be in the pantry or fridge, ready to whip up – and let me tell you what, it was certainly a wonderful thing to enjoy, with an almost chocolatey consistency and a soft mouthfeel. I love this best the next day, sliced and toasted with butter – and yes, I substitute butter for the margarine.

Green Pea Salad

While it’s not much to look at, this green pea salad was common at gatherings in rural Arkansas when I was a kid in the 1970s. This version appears in Favorite Recipes from Clay County Kitchens (second printing, 1955) and is attributed to Mrs. Otto Elsass, who was part of the Glaub Lone Holly chapter of the Clay County Council of Homemaker Demonstration Clubs.

Kat Robinson is Arkansas’s original culinary traveler, with three PBS programs, thousands of articles, and 13 books on food in The Natural State to her credit. The Emmy-nominated documentary host and food historian is currently working on a history of Arkansas barbecue.

Follow Kat: Facebook | Instagram | www.TieDyeTravels.com

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“My name is Hallie Shoffner. I’m a sixth generation farmer from Newport, Arkansas. I grew up farming alongside my parents, and for the last ten years I’ve been primary operator of 2,000 acres of soybeans, corn, rice, and wheat.

I should say that I used to be a sixth generation farmer. In February, we made the decision to close our farm. We joined many other farm families making the heartbreaking choice to avoid significant financial hardship before it was too late. 

Many more families will face similar hard choices this month. 

You see, the ag economy is the worst it’s been since the farm crisis of the 1980s when the U.S. lost 300,000 family farms. The price we are paid for our crop is so low and the cost to produce our crop is so high that no commodity crop in the state will be profitable this year. 

Because agriculture is a big economic driver and food production is a national security issue, the government steps in to help farmers in tough times like these. They do this with a piece of legislation called the Farm Bill. It’s updated and re-passed every five years. We are now in the second year of an extension of the previous Farm Bill which is, itself, based on benchmark numbers from 2012. 

It is useless to us. Our own Senator Boozman is head of the Agriculture Committee in the Senate. Before that, he was the ranking member. He has been promising a new farm bill for years, and it hasn’t come. We understand it will not come this year. Adding insult to injury, critical funding for soil health programs, land management, and infrastructure development for farmers has been frozen. Sights have been set on key employees of the USDA, the NRCS, and FSA.

You can tell the ag economy is bad by the number of liquidation auctions posted. 

When a farm goes out of business, an auction company lines up the equipment, takes photos, and sells it online to the highest bidder. There have been so many more this spring than in previous years.

Our’s was last week. Yesterday, I watched as strangers hauled away my tillage equipment, drove away my tractors and combines, loaded my power units and fuel tanks on trailers, and carried away the tools in my shop. Today, as I stand here, people are picking up the last pieces of six generations of farming while the people we elected to protect us eat in a ballroom at $7,000 a plate. 

I don’t care whether you have an ‘R’ or a ‘D’ next to your name. I have no use for politicians who play dress up in cowboy boots, claim to care about farmers, and do nothing in our darkest hour.”

Left to Right: Hallie’s mom and dad, John and Wendy Shoffner in their early farm days. A young Hallie in a cotton field on her family’s farm. In 2017, the Shoffner family farm was honored by the Arkansas Department of Agriculture as an “Arkansas Century Farm,” a recognition reserved for families who have owned and farmed the same land for at least 100 years.

Hallie Shoffner is a farmer, advocate, and champion for rural communities. Raised on a family farm, she’s worked with NGOs in India, Peru, and the Amazon, led nonprofits, and regenerative farming efforts, and serves on the Arkansas Foodbank board. As founder of Delta Harvest, she fights for stronger rural economies, family farms, and local food systems. After graduating from Newport High School, Hallie earned a liberal arts degree from Vanderbilt University on a full-tuition Robert Harvest Scholarship and later obtained a Master of Public Service from the University of Arkansas Little Rock Clinton School of Public Service. She also studied at the Universidad de Complutense in Madrid, Spain, furthering her global perspective on public service and rural development.

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You can see it throughout the state in soybean fields, chicken houses, and cattle herds. Approaching more populated areas, agricultural scenery slowly gives way to development. However, even in the urban centers no one is very far removed from agriculture.

For every $7 in the state economy, $1 comes from agriculture. 

Agriculture stands as Arkansas’ largest industry, contributing approximately $20.9 billion annually to the state’s economy. The state is a leading exporter of rice, soybeans, cotton, poultry, and feed grains. Arkansas farmers proclaim with pride such attributes as Arkansas County being the top rice-producing county in the USA, or Lonoke County exporting more baitfish than any nation worldwide. In 2022, agriculture provided 242,487 jobs, with wages amounting to $10,912 million, representing 12.6% of the state’s total. Value-added processing of agricultural products generated $24,341 million, and labor income accounted for $13,295 million. Remarkably, Arkansas is among the few states where average per capita farm income surpasses non-farm per capita income (Miller & Wheeler, 2021).

Agriculture is not merely an industry; it is the cornerstone of life in Arkansas.

The onset of agriculture marked the beginning of civilization, when humanity transitioned from nomadic lifestyles to settled agricultural practices. According to archaeologists and anthropologists, this fostered stability, enabling communities to organize, develop, and grow. Historically, family farms constituted the predominant organizational structure of agriculture. However, with the advent of the industrial revolution, a shift towards efficiency led to the adoption of an industrial model in agriculture. The emphasis on increased yield prioritized financial value as the primary consideration.

Arkansas agriculture is among the most productive and efficient systems in the world; However, Arkansas farmers and ranchers recognize the multifaceted value generated by agriculture, encompassing economic, cultural, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Much of Arkansas’ agricultural practices are rooted in culture and tradition. Many cattle producers continue the legacy of their predecessors, maintaining practices because “that’s what Daddy did.”

Local sale barns and old-fashioned coffee shops where farmers gather support economic activity and also reinforces social cohesion. Conversations about cattle prices or harvest conditions serve as community-building interactions. Farmers’ markets offer quality homegrown produce alongside opportunities for social engagement. Local farmers participate in gleaning programs or raise money to address local food insecurity (Boles, 2023). 

Agriculture in Arkansas provides cultural stability and interconnectedness that can evolve into strength and security.

Arkansas is characterized by its family farming operations, with 49,346 farms statewide, 97 percent of which are family farms (Miller & Wheeler, 2021). Family farms are defined by their organizational structure rather than size (Francis, 1994). Some of the largest farms in Arkansas operate under family ownership. The state’s diverse agricultural landscape is shaped by geography: river bottoms and delta regions are ideal for row crops, rocky terrain supports cattle pastures, and rolling hills are suitable for orchards and fruit production. The cultural fabric of rural Arkansas varies by location, influenced by local agricultural practices. For instance, plantation culture in East Arkansas differs significantly from cattle farming in North Arkansas, poultry production in Northwest Arkansas, or the piney woods of South Arkansas. Order a steak in Stuttgart and more than likely it will come with a side of rice instead of potatoes. Research (Boles, 2023) has shown that local attitudes and definitions of dignity vary across different parts of Arkansas, highlighting the influence of local agricultural cultures. 

Agriculture in Arkansas provides cultural stability and interconnectedness that can evolve into strength and security. Years ago, I heard a story that remains relevant today, a story about Earl Butz, the secretary of agriculture under Jimmy Carter. One time, he had the opportunity to tour a nuclear submarine. Secretary Butz asked the admiral hosting the tour, “This submarine is a nuclear sub, without the need to refuel. It produces its own oxygen. It produces its own water. How long can you stay down?” The admiral replied,  “I can’t believe the secretary of agriculture asked me that. We can stay down until we run out of food.” Food is our limiting factor, and agriculture provides that food. Agriculture in Arkansas contributes not only sustenance but also economic prosperity, cultural identity, and social cohesion. It forms the cultural through-line across the state, shaping the atmosphere and reality of life in Arkansas.

Dr. Jack Boles began his career with the UA Cooperative Extension Service in 1987 where he served in a variety of positions, from County Extension Agent in Independence, Arkansas and Newton counties to serving as the Environmental Management Specialist for agricultural issues. He retired with Emeritus status from Extension in 2013 and served as Executive Director for the State 4-H Foundation. 

After retirement, Jack went back to school and received his doctorate in Interdisciplinary Leadership from the University of Central Arkansas. His research interest in leadership and food security is based on his experiences as a county agent in Arkansas and as a volunteer livestock specialist in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Indonesia. Jack is an advocate for food security, small farms and local farmers; and along with his wife Lisa, works to promote peaceful communities through their organization The Dove’s Nest Project.   

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Stories with deep roots. Just one email a month.

Editor’s Note: March is celebrated nationally as Women’s History Month. Here in Arkansas, we also recognize March as School Breakfast Month. If you’re familiar with Arkansas School Breakfast Month, it’s likely because of the diligent work of a handful of women who have championed the importance of school breakfast for fifteen years. Thanks to their persistence and patience, next year students in Arkansas schools will have access to free breakfast. The importance of this one small meal cannot be overstated, and it will take another decade to fully appreciate how all of Arkansas will benefit. Thanks, ladies!

The best news for Arkansas this year? Free breakfast for all students. This School Breakfast for All story spans fifteen years and three governors—some wins are worth the wait. 

by Patty Barker, No Kid Hungry Campaign Director
Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance

The Historic Milestone: Senate Bill 59

With her signature, Governor Sanders made Arkansas the first Southern state and first conservative-led state to pass universal free school meal legislation. This is a game-changer for a state ranked by the USDA as the hungriest in the U.S. Ensuring every student has a nutritious breakfast will have a significant impact on students’ health and academic success. Here’s how we became part of Arkansas’s school breakfast miracle.

On February 20, 2025, Governor Sarah Sanders signed into law Senate Bill 59, which will make school breakfast available free of charge to all 470,000-plus public school students in Arkansas, regardless of their family’s income level, beginning in the 2025/26 school year. The bill, sponsored by Senators Jonathan Dismang-R and Clarke Tucker-D, and Representatives Zach Gramlick-R, Tippi McCullough-D, and DeAnn Vaught-R, plus 83 more bipartisan members of the Arkansas Senate and House as co-sponsors, was passed with near-unanimous favorable votes in both houses.

The Beginning: Governor Beebe

In 2010, then-Governor Mike Beebe was asked by Share Our Strength, a national hunger relief nonprofit, to make Arkansas a “proof of concept” state for their No Kid Hungry Campaign, offering funding and technical support to develop a locally-led, five-year campaign to end childhood hunger in Arkansas.

Without hesitation, Governor Beebe agreed. He returned home, called together his cabinet-level leaders overseeing child nutrition programming, along with key child health and education advocates. He reminded them that Arkansas was ranked #1 in childhood hunger and declared the Arkansas No Kid Hungry Campaign a top administrative priority. You could hear a pin drop in the Governor’s conference room when he finished his pronouncement.

Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe and his wife Ginger provided much needed support as No Kid Hungry kicked off in Arkansas.

Building the Foundation: No Kid Hungry Arkansas

With significant support from Share Our Strength, the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance was tapped as lead partner in Arkansas. The goals were clear: increase participation in school breakfast, expand access to afterschool and summer meals, and support families with nutrition education and SNAP access.

Research showed that students who ate a healthy school breakfast had improved attendance, fewer trips to the school nurse, and better concentration and behavior in the classroom. Yet, in 2010, only about half of Arkansas students who ate a free or reduced-price school lunch also ate breakfast. Barriers included social stigma, busy schedules, long cafeteria lines, and kids wanting to play or socialize before school.

The Solution: Breakfast After the Bell

The answer was Breakfast After the Bell (BAB)—serving breakfast as part of the school day through programs like Breakfast in the Classroom, Second Chance Breakfast, and Grab-and-Go. The Arkansas No Kid Hungry Breakfast team, led by Vivian Nicholson, a former child nutrition director, and a handful of breakfast advocates, including former school superintendents and teachers, set off across the state to persuade school districts to adopt BAB programs.

By 2022, breakfast participation had increased by 7.3 million meals—a 27% rise—thanks primarily to BAB programs. The results of implementing BAB programs spoke for themselves: improved student attention, fewer nurse visits, better attendance, and increased federal meal reimbursements. The campaign successfully achieved its goal: 70% of eligible students who ate lunch also began eating breakfast.  

Legislative Wins: Governor Hutchinson

Legislative efforts further supported school breakfast advocacy. In the 2013 and 2015 legislative sessions, the Alliance partnered with several legislators and the Department of Education to establish the Arkansas Meals for Achievement program, which designated funds for grants to support BAB programs in schools that agreed to provide universal free breakfast to all students. Although the program was discontinued, increased meal participation rates were reported and the groundwork was laid for future proposals.

Governor Hutchinson attended Alliance events, toured schools, and encouraged eligible schools to participate in CEP.

In 2015,  with support from Governor Asa Hutchinson, the Alliance worked with the Department of Education to suggest changes to regulations that governed state funding for school districts, paving the way for districts to adopt the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), a new USDA meal option which allowed eligible high-need districts to offer universal free school breakfast and lunch to all students, regardless of their family income levels. Since the revision, over 75% of eligible Arkansas schools are participating in CEP.

The Pandemic: Challenges and Silver Linings

By 2019, Arkansas ranked fifth in school breakfast participation in the U.S. But in spring 2020, COVID-19 closed schools, and for the next two school years, the pandemic produced many serious challenges for schools and students. Regarding school nutrition, however, there were a few silver linings.

Child nutrition teams across the state stepped up to the challenge and developed innovative ways to serve nutritious meals to their students. In addition to permitting meal delivery flexibilities during the 2020/21 and 2021/22 school years, USDA allowed all students to receive free school meals, providing essentially a two-year universal free school meal pilot program to all school districts in all states.

During the pandemic, school meal participation increased significantly, and food insecurity rates dropped. However, Congress discontinued universal free meals after the pandemic. As a result, schools had to return to pre-pandemic policies, requiring students to meet income qualifications for free meals once again.

Several states took matters into their own hands and passed legislation to require school districts to continue to provide universal free school meals to all their students, but most states, like Arkansas, did not.

A Step Forward: Eliminating Reduced-Price Copays

Many families in Arkansas, where over 64% of students qualify for free or reduced-price school meals, were hard-pressed to come up with the funds for either the reduced-price meal copay or the full price of a school meal every day. Families that had grown used to the universal free meal policy during the two full school years of the pandemic did not understand why they again had to pay for meals. With schools required by law to provide a meal to any student asking for one, meal debt balances began to reach record levels—in the tens and hundreds of thousands in larger school districts in Arkansas—and meal participation rates dropped below pre-pandemic levels.

In 2023, to address these issues, the Alliance  team worked with Senators Jonathan Dismang and Clarke Tucker to draft legislation requiring the state to cover the cost of the reduced-price meal copay that was charged to the approximately 49,000 students in that school meal income category. Senator Dismang introduced bills requiring the state to cover the cost of reduced-price meal copays, making meals free for 49,000 students starting in the 2023/2024 school year. Senator Dismang used current funding resources, underscoring the need to address student hunger in a state where two-thirds of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. The bills, eventually Acts 656 and 657, passed unanimously in both the Senate and House. Over 55,000 students qualified for those free meals last school year.

A Defining Moment: Governor Sanders

Despite the success of the reduced-price meal measure, Arkansas still was not reaching many of the hungriest students who needed a nutritious start to the school day. And again, in the fall of 2023, USDA released its annual food insecurity report listing Arkansas as the hungriest state in the U.S. 

With that report in hand, then-Alliance CEO Kathy Webb and I requested a meeting with Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders to highlight several legislative and administrative proposals that could, if implemented, help reduce food insecurity in Arkansas. Governor Sanders, who had already stated her interest in tackling childhood hunger, was receptive and agreed that hungry kids struggle to learn and that they need access to nutritious meals every day.

Governor Sanders supported Arkansas’ participation in Summer EBT and volunteered with her family to help distribution.

Governor Sanders directed the state departments of Human Services and Education to adopt USDA’s newly approved summer nutrition program, Summer EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer), to supplement students’ nutrition needs while school is out. Arkansas was the only Southern, conservative-led state to adopt the program in its inaugural year. According to the governor, over 260,000 Arkansas students received Summer EBT benefits in 2024.

Summer EBT and non-congregate meal programs have been a game-changer for reducing summer hunger and learning loss in rural states. Arkansas Senator John Boozman had long-advocated for non-congregate meals, which allows summer meals to be offered by schools and organizations in flexible ways—multi-meal pick-up, delivery to parks and playgrounds, and even home delivery— in qualifying rural communities.

A Dream Realized: Universal Free Breakfast

After 14 years with universal breakfast as a dream goal of the Arkansas No Kid Hungry Campaign, 2025 marked a historic milestone. Hunger relief champions—Senators Jonathan Dismang and Clarke Tucker, along with Representatives Zack Gramlich, Tippi McCullough, DeAnn Vaught, and 83 additional co-sponsors—introduced Senate Bill 59. This bill will provide universal free school breakfast to every public school student in Arkansas, over 474,000 children, beginning in the 2025/2026 school year.

Through years of collaboration with legislators, state agencies, and school districts, school breakfast champions Patty Barker, Kathy Webb, and Vivian Nicholson helped pave the way for the passage of Senate Bill 59, ensuring free school breakfast for Arkansas school students. 

Governor Sanders announced her support for the measure in her State of the State address on January 14, 2025, prioritizing funding from medical marijuana sales and privilege tax revenue, now collected in a Food Insecurity Fund. This fund will cover the costs of hunger relief programs, including Summer EBT, reduced-price meal copayments, and universal free school breakfast. The measure, now Act 123, passed with near-unanimous bipartisan support in both the Arkansas Senate and House.

Those 474,000 Arkansas kids join us in saying, “Thank you! It was well worth the wait!”

The Alliance thanks Governor Sarah Sanders for prioritizing solutions to childhood hunger in Arkansas, the legislative champions who helped us create lasting policy change for the good, and our steadfast No Kid Hungry partners at Share Our Strength, and our many No Kid Hungry stakeholders who have worked with the Alliance to help move the needle toward food security for all Arkansas families. Working together, continued solutions to hunger can be achieved, ensuring that all Arkansas children have access to the nutritious meals they need to thrive.

Patty joined the staff of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance in September of 2012 to serve as the Campaign Director for the Arkansas No Kid Hungry Campaign.  The Campaign is a unique partnership among the Arkansas Governor’s Office, state agencies, hunger relief agencies and nutrition advocates all working together to alleviate childhood hunger in Arkansas by improving access to nutrition programs and educating families about healthy, affordable food choices. She previously served as the Policy Director for the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, supporting a state-wide citizens’ coalition advocating for improved education, environmental and economic policy.  Patty earned her J.D. from the University of Arkansas School of Law and her B. A. from Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College).   

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In the early 2000s, while she worked, my grandparents would pop in whatever VHS tape was handy. My grandparents are extremely proud of their two daughters, so more often than not, the VHS tape they would choose was a recording of either my mom dancing or my aunt singing. My favorite, the one I begged them to play almost every time, was a recording of my mom competing in Miss Arkansas 1992. I vividly remember her walking down a big set of stairs in white beaded gown and twirling her cape to thunderous applause when she tap danced to “William Tell Overture.” 

To my four-year-old self, she was Miss America. 

I may not have seen her perform on stage in real time, but I saw the way people looked at her in the grocery store when she flashed her Julia Roberts smile. I saw the way people naturally turned to her for answers, her confidence filling a room. She wasn’t just reacting to the world—she was shaping it.

When I started to grow up, I was always frustrated that I didn’t have those qualities. I never felt like I had any of the right answers, and I was too shy to even give them if I did have them! I didn’t glide into a room. I looked at the floor when I walked. 

I told her one day, “Mom, I want to be like you. I’m not exactly sure what you do or how you do it, but you’re magic.” She laughed (which, to be honest, miffed me a little). Stroking my hair, she said, “I learned it, honey. And so can you.”

When I started learning about the Miss America Organization, I realized a couple of key things:

1. My mom was not actually Miss America in the ’90s, despite what I had confidently told my elementary school friends (oops).
2. However, competing in the Miss America Organization allowed her to earn over $44,000 in scholarships, covering both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education and making her the most educated person in my family. 
3. That kind of “magic” takes a whole lot of hard work.

Miss America is the nation’s largest provider of scholarships for young women—a mission that dates back to the 1940s, when Lenora Slaughter became the first woman to direct the pageant. She saw Miss America as more than just a crown; it was a launching pad for women’s education, a way to open doors that had been closed to them for generations.

Today, competitors are judged in five categories:

• Private Interview – a deep dive into our personal service initiatives, current events, and future ambitions.
• Talent – a chance to showcase a skill we’ve honed for years.
• Evening Gown – not just about the dress, but about grace and presence.
• Health & Fitness – previously swimsuit, now an activewear segment in partnership with the American Heart Association.
• On-Stage Question – answering tough questions under pressure in front of a live audience.

It was one thing to watch my mom on a VHS tape. It was another to step onto the stage myself.

Chasing Dreams (and Scholarships)

It sounds nerdy, but I always knew I wanted to be in school forever. My first dream was to be a librarian—not because of a deep love for cataloging books, but because I thought it meant I could read Percy Jackson all day without getting in trouble like I did in math class.

In high school, my focus shifted. I became interested in policy—how it shaped people’s lives, especially in rural Arkansas. My grandparents had to drive two hours just to see a doctor. I saw classmates struggle with financial insecurity. I started asking questions about the world around me, and the answers often frustrated me.

College was my chance to learn more, to figure out how I could help fix these problems. But when I started looking at tuition costs, I realized something: without scholarships, this dream wasn’t feasible for my family. Like so many others, the 2008 recession had changed our financial reality.

Miss America became my path forward—the key to unlocking both of my biggest goals:

1. A debt-free education.
2. A little bit of that magic I had admired in my mom.

Becoming Someone New

Competing in Miss Arkansas wasn’t just about winning life-changing scholarships–it transformed me.

Over the past eight years, I’ve grown into someone my younger self wouldn’t even recognize. I went from avoiding eye contact in a room to running a nonprofit.

Through the Miss America Organization, I founded Unite to Fight Poverty, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit tackling poverty in eight states across the country. The skills I needed to lead it—fundraising, relationship-building, public speaking—were all sharpened through my years in competition. When I stand on stage for an interview or an on-stage question, I draw from thousands of hours of practice, speeches, and appearances.

It’s funny—when I first stepped on stage, I thought I was learning how to compete. In reality, I was learning how to lead.

I don’t know if my four-year-old self would recognize me today. I don’t know if I glide into a room, but I definitely don’t stare at the floor anymore. I don’t always have the right answers, but I have the confidence to communicate and the experience to back it up.

More than anything, I think my younger self would be proud.

When I was nine, I wrote a list of my hopes and dreams and framed it. At the top, in my loopy kid handwriting, I wrote: “Get a college degree and the degree that comes after that for free like Mommy.”

That dream came true. I graduated debt-free, and I’m now pursuing a career that not only gives me financial freedom but allows me to create real change in the world.

That kind of economic security—access to education, to opportunity—is something I never thought I’d have. It’s something thousands of young women still don’t have. But thanks to Miss America, it’s something I can now help others find.

And that? That’s real magic.

Ciara founded the nonprofit Unite to Fight Poverty in 2021 after experiencing financial insecurity and seeing it reflected in her community. She is a Masters of Business Administration Candidate at Arkansas State University, and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Alabama with a degree in Political Science and International Studies. Ciara is also an aspiring writer. She’s published essays about identity, power, fashion, guaranteed income, and the wage gap in publications like Her Campus Media, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and Unpublished Magazine. Follow Ciara on Facebook and Instagram. Keep up with Unite to Fight Poverty on Instagram.

The post Discovering Miss America: My Mom and the magic of VHS 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!

Traveling through two historic counties, Ouachita and Phillips, I heard Arkansans share their stories. I heard about what makes residents proud and learned what rips up their souls. Join us as we journey and search for a deeper understanding of life in rural Arkansas.

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. 

Highlighting Community and Culture

Families are the backbone of any community. During our journey, we explored 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 stories provide an understanding of the community’s identity and resilience. 

The local culture of Ouachita and Phillips Counties is a source of immense pride for its residents. Shaped by generations, its unique character should 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

Arkansas has always been a rural state. After my travels, “rural” has a whole new meaning to me. Growing up in rural Southwest Arkansas, I know what it’s like to feel like your home isn’t getting its fair share. I believe uplifting rural voices is not just important, but essential.

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Democracy has always been one of the core values of our country and we have sought to defend it at every turn. Here in Arkansas, we are in a unique position. There are less than twenty states in the entire country that offer direct democracy through ballot initiatives and measures that put power in the hands of the citizens. This power granted to the people truly embodies our state’s motto, regnat populus – the people rule. Despite that, we’re not strangers to attacks on this process. In 2022, Arkansas’ ballot initiative process was put up for a vote; Arkansans overwhelmingly showed up to protect it and rejected an extreme legislature’s attempts to limit it. Here are the main reasons why we should continue to do so:

Encouraging Engagement in Local Elections

Direct democracy empowers Arkansans to have a say in their government. When Arkansans have the power to put issues 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.

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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 Remembering an Arkansas Statesman appeared first on Arkansas Strong.

Rolling hills. Rice fields. Delta mud. 

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. 

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For me, it is the way I was raised. Being country means the outdoors, loving hunting and fishing. It’s being respectful — to your parents and to everyone you meet.

My reckoning with being country came when I was three years old. My mom met the man who would have one of the biggest impacts on my life. They would get married and he would be my stepdad. He took me in like I was his own, started teaching me what it meant to be country and how to be country. He thought me how to hunt, fish, to love and respect nature. This man, my dad, taught me about work ethic. He showed me you never do something halfway, and you don’t quit until it’s finished. 

Hunting and fishing aren’t just sport; they are ways to provide for your family. And hunting is key to sustaining our critical wildlife population. If one species gets to be too big, it could tremendously hurt another species’ population.

Hunting showed me a way to love and respect wildlife, especially the wildlife I choose to kill. Fishing is another provision I cling to. When I was young, I didn’t fully understand what hunting and fishing were all about; I just thought it was for fun, that you kept all fish and killed every animal you saw while hunting. I have since learned to appreciate fun and sport in the context of respecting animals and the relationship between humans and wildlife. This is the way of nature.

Respect, there’s an idea. It’s not very common now days, but I was taught it at a young age. Respect yes ma’am and no ma’am, yes sir and no sir. It’s doing what you’re told, the first time without talking back.

Work, really one’s work ethic, defines what kind of person you are. I whole-heartedly believe that. And work ethic defines the type of person I am; it shows what I am capable of. To me, it means doing your task the right way, the first time you do it. Like my dad says, you don’t do things half way or quit in the middle. You get it done.

To be country is a way of life. It’s your actions. It’s your love for God’s creation. It’s respect and care for others. But that’s not all of is. These elements are really what define us as humans — respect, working hard, not quitting.

I learned it at the beginning of my life, what it means to be country, and it’s how i plan to live out the rest of my days.

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