Tag Archives: Hendrix College

CALS Legacy & Lunch explores New Madrid Earthquake at noon today

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Learn about “The New Madrid Earthquakes and Their Aftermath in Quapaw Country, 1811-1833” today (11/6) at 12 noon at the CALS Butler Center’s Legacies and Lunch program.  It will take place in the CALS Main Library.

The New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811–1812 were the strongest earthquakes in the North American interior in the last six centuries. Across the vast expanse of land the seismic events affected, people struggled to address the earthquakes’ religious meaning and material impact. This talk focuses on the earthquakes in Quapaw country, where the events featured in recorded Quapaw oral histories and became a factor in Quapaw territorial dispossession through the New Madrid Relief Act of 1815.

Jonathan Hancock is an associate professor of history and environmental studies at Hendrix College in Conway. He has published work in the Journal of the Early Republic, The Princeton Companion to Atlantic History, and Warring for America: Cultural Contests in the Era of 1812 (University of North Carolina Press, 2017) and has held research fellowships from the Bright Institute at Knox College, the Huntington Library, the Newberry Library, and the University of North Carolina Royster Society of Fellows. He is currently completing a book, Convulsed States: Earthquakes, Prophecy, and the Remaking of Nations in Early America, and beginning research for a new book project, “The Indigenous Lowcountry: A 4,000-Year History of Native Communities near Charleston.”

Legacies & Lunch is a free monthly program of CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies about Arkansas related topics.  Program are held from noon to 1 pm on the first Wednesday of the month.  Attendees are invited to bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided.  A library parking discount is available upon request

Happy Birthday to Buddy Villines

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On this date in 1947, future Little Rock Mayor Floyd G. “Buddy” Villines was born.  A 1969 graduate of Hendrix College, he served in Vietnam in 1970 and 1971. He later graduated from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law School.

Villines’ first interaction with Little Rock City Hall was as an employee in the City Manager’s office.  After joining the private sector, he returned to City Hall in 1985 serving on the Little Rock City Board of Directors.  He was re-elected in 1989.

While on the City Board, he was chosen as Vice Mayor for a two year term in 1987 and 1988.  The following year he was selected as Mayor for a two year term.  In 1990, Villines was elected Pulaski County Judge; he resigned from the City Board in December 1990 to take office.

Villines served as Pulaski County Judge for 24 years, from January 1991 until December 2014.  He is the longest serving County Judge in Pulaski County history.

Anne Frank lecture this evening at Pulaski Tech

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In conjunction with the touring exhibitions, “Anne Frank: A Private Photo Album” and “Anne Frank: A History for Today,” UA-Pulaskii Tech invites the public to join them for a panel discussion in honor of what would have been Anne Frank’s 90th birthday, on June 12 at 6:00pm in The Center for Humanities and Arts Theater.

In partnership with the Jewish Federation of Arkansas and moderated by its Executive Director, Marianne Tettlebaum, panelists will include: Aniko Diamant, Holocaust Survivor, originally from Budapest, Hungary; Dr. Dorian Stuber, Isabelle Peregrin Odyssey Professor at Hendrix College; and Rabbi Yosef Kramer, Program Director, Lubavitch of Arkansas.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information contact Debra Wood at dwood@uaptc.edu or 501.812.2715

Organist Thomas Alexander in concert tonight at Christ Church

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At Eastertide, an organ concert by Thomas Alexander, will be presented tonight (May 17) at Christ Church at 7pm.

The concert will showcase music for the Easter season: organ works by Howells, Scheidemann, Buxtehude, Bach, and Widor, and works for organ and trumpet by recent visiting composer Richard Webster. Jamie Bryant will play the trumpet.

Thomas Alexander is the Associate Organist and Choirmaster of Christ Episcopal Church, helping direct a vibrant music program in downtown Little Rock. A graduate of Hendrix College, he studied organ performance with Timothy Allen and conducting with Andrew Morgan and Gretchen Renshaw James.

Admission is free, but all donations will help support the upcoming 2019-2020 Arts@ChristChurch season. A festive reception follows the concert.

Happy Birthday to Lottie Shackelford, who served as Little Rock’s 68th mayor

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On April 30, 1941, future Little Rock Mayor Lottie Shackelford was born. Throughout her career in public service she has been a trailblazer.

Active in community activities and politics, she ran for the City Board in 1974 and lost.  But she was appointed to the Little Rock City Board in September 1978 to fill a vacancy.

This made her the first African American woman to serve on he City Board, and indeed on any governing board for the City (during Reconstruction, there were at least six African Americans on the City Council, but they were all men.) She was subsequently elected to a full-term on the City Board in 1980 winning 55% of the vote over three male candidates.

She was subsequently re-elected in 1984 (unopposed) and in 1988 (with 60% of the vote).

In January 1987, Shackelford became the first female mayor of Little Rock when she was chosen by her colleagues on the City Board to serve in that position. She was Mayor until December 1988.  During that time, Mayor Shackelford invited the Little Rock Nine back to the City to be recognized for the 30th anniversary of their integration of Central High School.

From 1982 until 1992, she served as Executive Director of the Arkansas Regional Minority Purchasing Council.  She left that position to serve as Deputy Campaign Manager of Clinton for President.  She subsequently served on the Clinton/Gore transition team. She later served on the Overseas Private Investment Corporation from 1993 to 2003. She was the first African American to be in that position.

A graduate of Philander Smith College, she has also studied at the Arkansas Institute of Politics at Hendrix College and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Mayor Shackelford has also served on numerous boards including the Little Rock Airport Commission, Philander Smith College, Chapman Funds (Maryland) and Medicis Pharmaceutical Corporation (Arizona).  She has the longest tenure of any serving as Vice-Chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Mayor Shackelford was in the first class of inductees for the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.  In 2015, she was inducted into the Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail.

Women Making History – Kathy Webb

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While Kathy Webb has had many titles over her career in public service, Advocate for Others probably encompasses all of them.

One of the most important committees at the Arkansas General Assembly is the Joint Budget Committee.  It is chaired by a senator and a representative.  In 2011 and 2012, as a state representative, Kathy Webb became the first woman to chair the committee.  

Considering that the first woman to be sworn in to the Arkansas General Assembly (Erle Chambers) was from Little Rock, and the first woman to chair a standing committee of the General Assembly (Myra Jones) was from Little Rock, it is fitting that the first woman to chair Joint Budget was also from Little Rock.

While women had been chairing committees for two decades, no female had ever led this committee.  During her tenure, Rep. Webb received praise from people in both houses and both parties for her leadership.  She served in the Arkansas General Assembly from 2007 until 2012.  During that time, she was also named the most effective legislator by Talk Business. 

Now, she continues her public service in her second four-year term on the City of Little Rock Board of Directors.  She served as Little Rock’s vice mayor in 2017 and 2018. Director Webb grew up in Arkansas and graduated from Little Rock Hall High. She earned a degree from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and attended graduate school at the University of Central Arkansas. She has also participated in the Senior Executives in State and Local Government program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

After working in political advocacy in Washington D.C. and throughout the U.S. for several years, she spent over 20 years in the restaurant industry in Illinois, Tennessee, and Arkansas.

Her community involvement includes service on the UAMS College of Medicine Board of Visitors, Arkansas Hospice, and First United Methodist Church of Little Rock. She was the founding president of the Chicago-area affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Director Webb has been honored by the Arkansas Kids Count Coalition, Just Communities of Arkansas, Arkansas Judicial Council, National Association of Women Business Owners, Sierra Club, Arkansas AIDS Foundation, Arkansas Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, Pulaski County CASA, Interfaith Alliance for Worker Justice, Arkansas AARP, Arkansas Hospitality Association, Arkansas Municipal League, Hendrix College and Black Methodists for Social Renewal.

She is the Executive Director of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance. The Alliance is the statewide umbrella organization for Feeding America food banks, food pantries and agencies and hunger activists and the education and advocacy clearinghouse on hunger issues in Arkansas. Earlier in 2019, it was named Non-Profit of the Year at the Arkansas Business of the Year Awards.