I watched as hundreds of well-dressed people braved the rain on a Saturday night to enter a tent on the grounds of the Historic Arkansas Museum in downtown Little Rock. The HAM Foundation was sponsoring the 2022 Candelight Gala, designed to support HAM s living craft fund, and fundraising records were about to be set.
It was 1927, the year of the Great Flood that devastated Arkansas' cotton-based economy. The Little Rock School Board decided that year to begin offering junior college classes at Little Rock High School at the urging of John Larson, the school's principal. The University of Arkansas had stopped offering extension courses in Little Rock, and Larson felt the state's largest city should have college courses available.
On the wall of Rob Rash's office in West Memphis are framed photos of presidents of the St. Francis Levee District dating back to 1893. That was the year the district, which became one of the most powerful economic and political entities in the state, was established.