LITTLE ROCK — Correction: Arkansas Business Hall of Fame inductees are chosen by the Hall of Fame’s board of directors. The selection process was incorrectly described in this story.
Four Arkansas business leaders will be added to the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame tonight at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.
The inductees are: Thomas Boyer, founder of Micro Images; the late W.C. “Buddy” Coleman Jr., former chairman of the board and chief executive of Coleman Dairy; William Cravens, a certified public accountant; and Frank Fletcher Jr., chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the Frank Fletcher Companies.
The inductees will join the58 members of the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame, which is selected by the Sam. M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and the Hall of Fame’s board of directors.
The 15th annual induction ceremony begins at 6:45 p.m.
Boyer of Amarillo, Texas, founded Micro Images, a Kodak Document Imaging Systems broker, in 1989. He started the company after retiring from Eastman Kodak Co., where he was a sales manager.
Boyer, 72, graduated from the University of Arkansas, where he studied business, in 1964. He was vice chairman of the University of Arkansas Foundation board of directors and chairman of the Walton College’s Dean’s Executive Advisory Board from 2003 to 2008.
Coleman, who died in 2011 at age 83, expanded his family’s Little Rock dairy farm into a statewide business. He became president of Coleman Dairy Inc. in 1964 and, in 1971, he was named chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the company.
Coleman served as president of the Quality Chekd Dairy Products Association, the Southern Association of Dairy Food Manufacturers and the Arkansas Dairy Products Association.
He was also a member of the National Dairy Council and the Governor’s Advisory Committee to the Arkansas Grade “A” Milk Program.
Cravens, 78, joined General Electric in 1956 after graduating from the University of Arkansas. He then became a public accountant and partner for Russell Brown & Co. in Little Rock in 1962.
In 1976, Cravens became president and chief executive officer of the First National Bank in Little Rock and director of the Oaklawn Jockey Club. He worked as vice chairman and chairman of Alltel subsidiary Alltel Information Systems from 1994 to 2001.
Fletcher, 70, started Cheyenne/Silverwood Industries, a manufacturer of lamps and distributor of bar stools. He expanded manufacturing into Taiwan and China before selling the company in December 2010.
A graduate from the University of Arkansas, Fletcher is chairman and chief executive officer of Frank Fletcher Co. in North Little Rock. The holding company has interests in 13 auto dealerships, commercial real estate, a hotel, three restaurants and a retail furrier.
Business, Pages 27 on 02/15/2013