Tag Archives: Butler Center Books

Tailgate Party to celebrate VOICES OF THE RAZORBACKS book on Sept 5

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bc-purvisFans aren’t the only ones who call the Hogs. Voices of the Razorbacks, which has just been released by Butler Center Books, traces the history of the Razorback broadcasters who many fans grew up hearing. Celebrate the launch of this book at a free book signing and tailgate party in the Main Library’s garden and Darragh Center, 100 Rock Street, at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 5. Author Hoyt Purvis will speak and sign books, which will be available for purchase at the event. This event is free and open to the public. RSVP to kchagnon@cals.org or 918-3033.

Established more than sixty years ago, the Razorback broadcasting network was a pioneering effort in collegiate sports. With announcers such as Bud Campbell and Paul Eells at the microphone, it has become an enduring feature of life in Arkansas. The Razorback network, from its modest beginning to its growth into a major force in sports broadcasting, is the basis of Voices of the Razorbacks.

The Razorback broadcasting network helped build interest in the Razorbacks and a loyal following for them as well as forged strong links among Razorback fans and the broadcasters who became “voices” of the Razorbacks. A sense of kinship developed within the audience, and the broadcasts of Razorback sports became an essential part of the state’s culture.

Although an announcer today may say, “This is the Razorback Sports Network from IMG College,” the Arkansas broadcast network is a direct descendant of the Razorback network Bob Cheyne assembled in the early 1950s at the direction of Athletic Director John Barnhill. There had been earlier broadcasts of Razorback sports, including games announced by Bob Fulton in the 1940s, but the Razorback network Cheyne developed help turn broadcasters into cultural icons.

Voices of the Razorbacks traces the history of the broadcasters and the memorable events and highlights over the decades, and it features interviews with many of the key figures in that history. It is hard to find anyone in Arkansas, or Razorback fans anywhere, without special memories of listening to or watching broadcasts of Razorback games. Voices of the Razorbacks brings all those memories back.

Co-author Hoyt Purvis has taught journalism, international relations, and political science at the University of Arkansas (UA) since 1982. He established the first sports journalism course at UA and taught it for twenty-five years. Co-author Stanley Sharp of Booneville, Arkansas, has followed Razorback sports all his life and has a master’s degree in journalism from UA.

Voices of the Razorbacks is available from River Market Books & Gifts, 120 River Market Ave., and from the University of Arkansas Press, Butler Center Books’ distributor. Butler Center Books is a division of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, a department of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS). The Butler Center’s research collections, art galleries, and offices are located in the Arkansas Studies Institute building at 401 President Clinton Ave. on the campus of the CALS Main Library. For more information, contact Rod Lorenzen at (501) 320-5716 or rlorenzen@cals.org.

Hogs Broadcasters focus of new book from Butler Center Books

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bc-purvisRazorback football season is just a few short weeks away.  As thoughts start turning to the gridiron, it is time to think about the legacy of the Arkansas Razorbacks.
Established more than sixty years ago, the Razorback broadcasting network was a pioneering effort in collegiate sports. With announcers such as Bud Campbell and Paul Eells at the microphone, it has become an enduring feature of life in Arkansas. The Razorback network, from its modest beginning to its growth into a major force in sports broadcasting, is the basis of Voices of the Razorbacks, by Hoyt Purvis and Stanley Sharp, which has just been released by Butler Center Books.

The Razorback broadcasting network helped build interest in the Razorbacks and a loyal following for them but also forged strong links among Razorback fans and the broadcasters who became “voices” of the Razorbacks. A sense of kinship developed within the audience, and the broadcasts of Razorback sports became an essential part of the state’s culture.

Although an announcer today may say, “This is the Razorback Sports Network from IMG College,” the Arkansas broadcast network is a direct descendant of the Razorback network Bob Cheyne assembled in the early 1950s at the direction of Athletic Director John Barnhill. There had been earlier broadcasts of Razorback sports, including games announced by Bob Fulton in the 1940s, but the Razorback network Cheyne developed help turn broadcasters into cultural icons.

Voices of the Razorbacks traces the history of the broadcasters and the memorable events and highlights over the decades, and it features interviews with many of the key figures in that history. It is hard to find anyone in Arkansas, or Razorback fans anywhere, without special memories of listening to or watching broadcasts of Razorback games. Voices of the Razorbacks brings all those memories back.

Co-author Hoyt Purvis has taught journalism, international relations, and political science at the University of Arkansas since 1982. He established the first sports journalism course at UA and taught it for twenty-five years. Co-author Stanley Sharp of Booneville, Arkansas, has followed Razorback sports all his life and has a master’s degree in journalism from UA.

            Voices of the Razorbacks is available from River Market Books & Gifts, 120 River Market Ave., and from the University of Arkansas Press, Butler Center Books’ distributor. Butler Center Books is a division of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, a department of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS). The Butler Center’s research collections, art galleries, and offices are located in the Arkansas Studies Institute building at 401 PresidentClinton Ave. on the campus of the CALS Main Library. For more information, contact Rod Lorenzen at (501) 320-5716 or rlorenzen@cals.org.

NATURAL STATE NOTABLES book launched on Monday

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natural_state_notablesSchool-aged children can learn about famous Arkansans in Natural State Notables: 21 Famous People from Arkansas by Steven Teske, a new book from Butler Center Books. Teske will read from the book and sign books, which will be available for purchase, on Monday, March 4, at 4:00 p.m. in the Central Arkansas Library System’s (CALS) Children’s Library and Learning Center at 4800 W. 10th Street.

Biographies on Arkansans including Maya Angelou, Johnny Cash, Bill Clinton, John Grisham, Scottie Pippen, Winthrop Rockefeller, Mary Steenburgen, and Sam Walton highlight the accomplishments and backgrounds of some of Arkansas’s most celebrated sons and daughters. The book features pictures, timelines, and information on each Arkansan.

Natural State Notables author Steven Teske works as an archival assistant for the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. He has also written Unvarnished Arkansas about famous people in Arkansas in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and he co-wrote Homefront Arkansas about life in Arkansas during wartime from the war with Mexico in 1848 to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the twenty-first century. He has worked for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, the Butler Center’s online resource about the state of Arkansas, and he teaches college classes in history and comparative religions for the Arkansas State University-Beebe’s campus on the Little Rock Air Force Base.

Butler Center Books is a project of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, a department of the Central Arkansas Library System. This publishing program was made possible by a gift from John G. and Dora “DeDe” Ragsdale. Butler Center Books publishes volumes that increase knowledge about and appreciation of the history and culture of Arkansas. The University of Arkansas Press in Fayetteville is the distribution agent for Butler Center Books.

The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies was founded in 1997 to promote the study and appreciation of Arkansas history and culture. The Butler Center’s research collections, art galleries, and offices are located in the Arkansas Studies Institute building at 401 President Clinton Ave. on the campus of the CALS Main Library.

The event, which will include a reception and a preview tour of the new facility, is free and open to the public. RSVP to marey@cals.org or 918-3033. The Children’s Library will open on Saturday, March 16.

Escape Velocity Launch Party

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Tonight at 6pm at the Darragh Center of the Central Arkansas Library, the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies will host a launch party for the new book: Escape Velocity.  Edited by Jay Jennings, this collects the works of Charles Portis and represents his first new release in more than 20 years.  The book is published by Butler Center Books.
The evening will include remarks by Jennings, readings by Graham Gordy and music by Mandy McBride.  Last week, another launch event was held in New York City.

The book-which collects Portis’s nonfiction and short stories, as well as a memoir and a play-spans his half-century-long writing career, covering his early journalism from the 1950s when he worked for several newspapers up to more recent magazine stories published in the Atlantic and the Oxford American.

Escape Velocity brings together almost everything Portis has written outside his novels, both never-before-published work and hard-to-find stories that fans have known about for years and that new readers will delight in discovering.

Besides True Grit, Portis is the author of four other novels-Norwood, The Dog of the South, Masters of Atlantis, and Gringos. All of his novels are available from Overlook Press.

About the editor
Jay Jennings, a journalist and humorist, lives in Little Rock, Arkansas. A former reporter for Sports Illustrated and frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review, Jennings is the author of Carry the Rock: Race, Football, and the Soul of an American City (Rodale Press, 2010), a book that focuses on the 2007 football season at Little Rock’s famed Central High School-a half-century after the tumultuous 1957 desegregation of the school.