LITTLE ROCK — Billy Eugene Elmore was a man of few words, but spoke volumes through his actions, his daughter said. “He led by example,” Kay Loftis said. “What he spent his time doing was important to him — farming, following the Razorbacks and attending church.”
Elmore died Tuesday at his Carlisle home from unknown causes, his family said.
He was 81.
After serving four years in the U.S. Navy, Elmore and his wife, Dorothy, started a family farm in their hometown of Carlisle.
“They worked side by side in the cotton field,” Loftis said. “[In farming] there’s so much togetherness and such a bond. ... They were real soulmates.”
It was a family affair, with his three daughters also tending to the rice, cotton and soybean crops.
“You got up early in the morning and checked all your crops and watered your rice,” Loftis said, adding that the farm is still in the family. “They surveyed, planted and watered their crops and harvested, it was full time.”
When Elmore wasn’t tending to his land, he was at the White River on outings with his family, but always made sure he was in the pew for Sunday morning and night services at the Hamilton United Methodist Church.
Elmore’s unwavering faith may have been the only thing that got him through the deaths of his 13- and 17-year-old daughters in 1970 on Memorial Day while heading to the river, Loftis said.
“My cousin was driving [them], we were right behind them in the car pulling the boat,” Loftis said. “They just hit a slick place in the road from a summer shower ... turned and another car hit” their vehicle.
After that, the family still went to the river, but all of the memories made it difficult, his daughter said.
“That changed their life,” Loftis said. “My dad farmed the whole time ... took it one day at a time.”
Active in the community, Elmore served on various boards, including two terms on the Carlisle School Board.
“He was always thinking of the fortune of others more than his own,” said his grandson, Heath Loftis.
Elmore was a fan of all sports and was eager to give back any way he could to the Carlisle schools, Kay Loftis said.
“My dad was real sportsoriented, and he had three girls — what a disappointment,” his daughter laughed. The high school “had an awesome track program, and he timed all the races.”
However, no one could compare with his Razorbacks.
“When I went up to Fayetteville for school, I really thought they were coming to see me, until I left and they still kept going that much,” Kay Loftis said.
For more than 50 years, the couple had season tickets for Razorback football games, and for more than 30 years for basketball games.
“They were very avid fans,” his grandson said. “They went wherever the team went.”
Whether Elmore was driving the combine alongside his grandsons, who affectionately called him Papa, or in the stands cheering on the Razorbacks, he was always a “steady presence,” Heath Loftis said.
“He wasn’t a loud voice in the community, but his voice was very much heard,” Heath Loftis said. “He was laid-back, but at the same time, he was very diligent in the work he did.”
Arkansas, Pages 12 on 11/29/2012