LITTLE ROCK — It was only one vote, but it was an important vote to Doc Holladay in his first run to become sheriff of Pulaski County.
He had to choose - would he put “Doc” on the ballot and risk losing that vote? Or would he go with his given name, Charles, and sacrifice the name recognition he had built in Pulaski County as a Little Rock police officer?
For Linda Napper, a North Little Rock marketing and campaign expert, there was no choice.
“During the first [campaign] he told me he was not sure if his mother was going to vote for him if he used the name ‘Doc’ on the ballot,” Linda wrote after she read the column last week about Sheriff Holladay’s nickname. “I explained that we might just have to risk losing her vote to get everyone else’s.”
Speaking of name recognition, both of Doc’s runs for sheriff attracted attention beyond Pulaski County, Linda says.
“We ... received several requests from all over the country for his yard signs,” Linda reports. “Usually they would ask if we really had a man named Doc Holladay running for sheriff. I would say, ‘Yes,’ but explain the difference in the spelling.”
The difference between the spelling of the Wild West Doc’s last name and our Doc is an “I” and an “A.”
Sheriff Charles Edgar Holladay is “double-Lthen-A;” Wild West’s Doc is “double-L-I.”
“That didn’t seem to matter,” Linda says. “Most who called were political junkies or Western fans.
There is no telling where all the signs are displayed.”
You have your Doc Holliday pawnshops, a Doc Holliday steakhouse, Doc Holliday discount boots, Doc Holliday’s saloon.
At Marshall University in West Virginia, Doc Holliday, 54, is head coach of the school’s Thundering Herd football team.
In Bentonville, you have your one-L Doc Holiday travel agency. Get it? A travel agency with that familiar name but spelled to mean time off to take a trip - go on holiday, as the Europeans say.
Don McCarty grew up in Arizona, so, of course, he knew all about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, loved the movie Tombstone.
Mr. McCarty discovered Arkansas in 1977 when he visited to see his father.
“I came over Boston Mountains. ... Compare this to the Sonoran Desert.”
He stayed.
His customers generally call him Doc, which he doesn’t discourage. He posed in a Wild West outfit, complete with fake drooping mustache, for the photo on his business card and on his website, docholidaytravel.com.
And as Sheriff Holladay has pointed out, if you’re a man and your last name is Holliday, no matter how it’s spelled or what you do for a living, chances are you’ll end up as “Doc.”
“Used to be,” Doc the travel agent says, “an investment broker up here named Doc Holliday.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 06/21/2011