Tag Archives: Mike Huckabee

LR Women Making History – Ellen Turner Carpenter

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Ellen Turner Carpenter was born on July 30, 1916 on West Ninth Street.  At the time of her death at the age of 93, her life had come full circle.

As a young girl, she was an active participant in the thriving African American life along west Ninth Street in downtown Little Rock. She attended many events at the Mosaic Templars Hall which sat at Ninth and Broadway.

A longtime Little Rock educator, she became the moving force behind preserving the Mosaic Templars building in the 1980s.   In 1992, she became president of the Mosaic Templars Building Preservation Society, which worked to preserve the Mosaic Templars building in Little Rock to create a museum for black history in Arkansas. Mrs. Carpenter served as president of the society until her death.

In the 1990s, the City of Little Rock purchased the building to keep it stable while the Preservation Society sought to raise the funds.  Due to lobbying efforts led by Mrs. Carpenter, the State of Arkansas purchased the building from the City with the intention of turning it into a museum under the auspices of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.  At a ceremony in 2003, Vice Mayor Willie Hinton handed the keys of the building to Governor Mike Huckabee with Mrs. Carpenter nearby beaming.  Governor Huckabee appointed her to the state advisory committee for this new museum.  She would serve as chair of that committee.

On March 16, 2005, tragedy struck.  The building burned to the ground.  That afternoon at a press conference at the State Capitol, leaders expressed their resolve that the project would move forward with a new building following the original design.  One of the speakers that afternoon was Mrs. Carpenter. She started out in her usual quiet voice. But as she recalled her youth spent at the Mosaic Templar’s building, the years melted away. She demonstrated some of the step dancing she had done as a teenager.

On September 20, 2008, she presided over the grand opening of the new Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. It was the culmination of 15 years of official work and many more years of dreaming.  At the ceremonies, she declared “We made it!” “We made it! We made it!”

Mrs. Carpenter remained an active supporter of the MTCC until her death on July 27, 2010, just three days shy of her 94th birthday.

Throughout her life she wore many hats (including numerous ones to church on Sunday). She was an educator, neighborhood organizer, and public servant. Everyone who met her was positively impacted by her.  Due to her vision and endurance, thousands each year are still positively impacted by her when they visit the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center.  Fittingly, the conference room at MTCC is named in her memory.

Poetry Month: Peggy Vining and “Arkansas, The Natural State”

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pviningPeggy Vining is Arkansas’s Poet Laureate.  She was appointed to this position in 2003 by Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Since 1963, Vining has been a member of Poet’s Roundtable of Arkansas (PRA) which is associated with the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.  She attributes her writing success to the “wonderful poets of PRA that mentored, encouraged and inspired me to keep writing”.  Vining has served as state PRA President for three separate terms.  She has been director of the Ozark Creative Writers Conference, the Arkansas Writers Conference and still serves on the official Board of each.  She has also served as state President of Arkansas Penwomen and Arkansas Songwriters Association and is a member of Fiction Writers of Central Arkansas.  Her bio is listed in Who’s Who of Editors, Writers and Poets and several other such books and anthologies.  She is presently compiling a collection of her published works entitled “Tethered to the Moment”.

Loved and appreciated for her artistic abilities and her work with children, Vining has nurtured over 6000 pre-schoolers during her teaching career.  For twenty one years, she was Instructor and Director of the UALR Children’s Center having earned a Masters Degree in Early Childhood Education.  She has also worked with children’s groups at her church for many years.

Married for over 60 years, Vining cherishes her family; She is a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. other of five (four daughters and one son)and grandmother of eleven and Greatgrandmother of eight. Vining is also active in many other community organizations.  A twenty-seven year cancer survivor, she was honored with a “Point of Light Award” from President Bush for her volunteer work with CARTI.

Arkansas, The Natural State

I stood today on top of Petit Jean
And felt a kindredship to all I found,
And I, intrigued by such a lovely scene,
Was grateful for the beauties that abound.
The spirit of a mountain miss was host,
Her phantom figure hovered, light as wind,
And I became enchanted by her ghost,
As we stood on the ledge at river’s bend.
I asked her of her legend and its truth;
Of how she stowed away to sail from France,
Of how she cropped her hair; became uncouth,
To give her love and lover one more chance.
            “It is all truth; the future will proclaim
            My spirit guards this mount which bears my name.”
 
Then, as we talked, my personage subdued,
And I became, as Petit Jean, a ghost,
And with uncanny knowledge I reviewed
Historic deeds of others who could boast,
Of coming to this great green state to live;
To homestead and to plow their plots of land;
To mine the hills; to hunt the woods and give
Their very lives to make it far more grand.
I spoke to men who also came to look
For ways of life upon the river’s road;
They pushed their crafts to every shallow nook
And rounded bends of hardship with each load.
            The Indians told me their tales of woe,
            Of how they battled as both friend and foe.
 
They told me how De Soto searched for gold
And, trudging through the swamps to look for it,
As upward, through the mountains and the cold,
He traded with the natives, matching wit.
La Salle then came to claim the Arkansas
But left to join another group of men,
De Tonty came to start, as did John Law,
A river post where trading could begin.
These men with whom I talked could really boast
Of being first to settle on this land,
Of fighting long and hard to save the Post
Where then was housed the laws and all command.
            My spirit saw the past and lived it through,
            A vision of the old when it was new.
 
As history passes, the seasons came in view,
And time and space and beauty knew no date.
I saw each month in its most brilliant hue
And gazed at it as if I tempted fate.
 I looked at Spring and thought it surely best,
For everywhere the land was newly green,
The pristine white of dogwood seemed to test
The worthiness and beauty of each scene.
Then summer came with nesting meadowlarks,
And I beheld the golden days of fun,
As tourists came with camping gear to parks,
And found their pleasures under shade and sun.
            I watched the summer visitors with awe,
            They loved this state of mine . . .this Arkansas.
 
Perhaps they liked spelunking in a cave,
Or digging for a diamond at the mine,
Or floating trips that made of them a slave
To mountain streams, to setting out trotline.
Perhaps they liked the baths at old Hot Springs,
Or climbing under rushing waterfalls,
Or smelling the sweet air that summer brings,
Or listening to whippoorwills’ faint calls.
I think they surely liked the little creeks,
That tumble down deep-set against tall bluffs.
I think they liked the deer and quail that seeks
New hideouts when invaders find their roughs.
            The eager tourists came to see our state
            Because the opportunities are great.
 
Then suddenly, as Autumn took her turn,
The Ozark Hills became a brilliant hue.
In blazing reds the forest seemed to burn
Across the valleys, up the mountains too.
In delta lands I saw vast cotton crops,
And harvest fields of rice, bowed down with grain.
The short-leaf pines were green with heavy tops,
And muscadines hung heavy down the lane.
Then winter came attired in snowfall white,
And lovely landscapes suddenly seemed bare.
The prairie sky was filled with ducks in flight,
And sounds of happy hunters filled the air.
            O Arkansas, which season is your best?
            Each one seems far more lovely than the rest.
 
What makes you great?  I wondered as I looked.
Is it your timber, standing straight and tall?
Is it your rivers wide and roughly crooked?
Is it your lovely Ozarks in the fall?
Is it your heritage that makes you grand,
Your opportunities . . . yet still unknown?
Is it your rich oil fields, or delta land
That makes men proud to choose you for their own?
O Arkansas, I see your very breath,
In hazy clouds that skim your vast terrain.
I know about your struggling with death
And I have felt your birth with labored pain.
            O land of mine, I find you truly great,
No wonder you are called “The Natural State”.

Black History Month Spotlight – Dr. Erma Glasco Davis

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Photo by Staton Breidenthal for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Photo by Staton Breidenthal for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Erma Lee Glasco Davis was born in Keo, Arkansas and was reared in south central Little Rock, also known as the South End.  She is a product of the Little Rock Public School System, graduating from Dunbar High School in May, 1945.  She received her Bachelor of Science degree from AM&N College (now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff).  A year or so after the Central High desegregation crisis of 1957, she and her husband moved to Detroit, Michigan and the Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Most of Dr. Davis’ professional career was spent in Detroit, Michigan  as a teacher, counselor and administrator.  She retired from an administrative position in the Detroit Public Schools’ Management Academy.  She also taught as an adjunct professor at Marygrove  College in Detroit.  While in Detroit, Dr. Davis has had a wealth of community involvement, serving in leadership positions on boards and committees and in organizations ranging from the NAACP to Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.  In 1979, she co-chaired the Mayor’s Education Task Force for Detroit’s International Year of the Child event.  In 1987, she won the Spirit of Detroit Award, the city’s highest community-service award.

Dr. Davis is a past national president of the National Dunbar Alumni Association, and is co-author of a book about the school, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School of Little Rock.  She has been instrumental in marrying the goals of the association with those of the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, the state-funded museum which showcases the history and achievements of black Arkansans.  A fruit of that marriage is the museum’s Dunbar exhibits on the museum’s first floor.  She is passionate about educating people on Dunbar’s role in the state’s history.

In 1990, Dr. Davis moved back to Arkansas form Michigan.  After her return, she quickly busied herself with community work, sitting on the boards of the Central High Museum and the Arkansas Humanities Council; taking two turns as chairman of the board of the Historic Arkansas Museum Foundation; she also chaired the gala for the opening of the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center.  In addition, Dr. Davis worked nearly four years as a founding volunteer for the Clinton Presidential Central.  In 2005, she was appointed by then-Governor Mike Huckabee to the State Review Committee for Historic Preservation, and reappointed by Governor Mike Beebe in 2007.  In 2009, she was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.

For more on Dr. Davis and other inductees into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, visit the permanent exhibit at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. That museum is an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

 

LR Cultural Touchstone: Ellen Turner Carpenter

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Mrs CarpenterEllen Turner Carpenter was born on July 30, 1916 on West Ninth Street.  At the time of her death at the age of 93, her life had come full circle.

As a young girl, she was an active participant in the thriving African American life along west Ninth Street in downtown Little Rock. She attended many events at the Mosaic Templars Hall which sat at Ninth and Broadway.

A longtime Little Rock educator, she became the moving force behind preserving the Mosaic Templars building in the 1980s.   In 1992, she became president of the Mosaic Templars Building Preservation Society, which worked to preserve the Mosaic Templars building in Little Rock to create a museum for black history in Arkansas. Mrs. Carpenter served as president of the society until her death.

In the 1990s, the City of Little Rock purchased the building to keep it stable while the Preservation Society sought to raise the funds.  Due to lobbying efforts led by Mrs. Carpenter, the State of Arkansas purchased the building from the City with the intention of turning it into a museum under the auspices of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.  At a ceremony in 2003, Vice Mayor Willie Hinton handed the keys of the building to Governor Mike Huckabee with Mrs. Carpenter nearby beaming.  Governor Huckabee appointed her to the state advisory committee for this new museum.  She would serve as chair of that committee.

On March 16, 2005, tragedy struck.  The building burned to the ground.  That afternoon at a press conference at the State Capitol, leaders expressed their resolve that the project would move forward with a new building following the original design.  One of the speakers that afternoon was Mrs. Carpenter. She started out in her usual quiet voice. But as she recalled her youth spent at the Mosaic Templar’s building, the years melted away. She demonstrated some of the step dancing she had done as a teenager.

On September 20, 2008, she presided over the grand opening of the new Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. It was the culmination of 15 years of official work and many more years of dreaming.  At the ceremonies, she declared “We made it!” “We made it! We made it!”

Mrs. Carpenter remained an active supporter of the MTCC until her death on July 27, 2010, just three days shy of her 94th birthday.

Throughout her life she wore many hats (including numerous ones to church on Sunday). She was an educator, neighborhood organizer, and public servant. Everyone who met her was positively impacted by her.  Due to her vision and endurance, thousands each year are still positively impacted by her when they visit the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center.  Fittingly, the conference room at MTCC is named in her memory.