Al Bell, the former head of Stax Records, always planned to be a doctor. His high school biology teacher told him he had the aptitude, and long fingers.
As an underclassman at Philander Smith College he witnessed an open-cavity extraction at a nearby hospital and was shocked to learn the sight of surgery weakened his legs and left him reeling. Just like that, the record hops he staged on weekends gathered entrepreneurial steam that would propel him to the top of the recorded music industry.
A course correction. The turning point. All great success stories have them. Ordinary success stories, too. Sam Walton said "All of us profit from being corrected -- if we're corrected in a positive way."
Friday, the college at the University of Arkansas that bears Walton's name will host its latest induction ceremony for the state's Business Hall of Fame, the 16th of its kind. It takes place at the Statehouse Convention Center. The inaugural one installed the names Walton, Dillard, Murphy and Stephens. The next year, it was Tyson, Reynolds, Jones and Ford.
This year's class includes the music producer, Bell; a meat processing company man, Donald E. "Buddy" Wray; a drugstore entrepreneur, Stephen LaFrance Sr.; and a sales and marketing maven, Millie Ward.
AL BELL
Bell (born Alvertis Bell in Brinkley) graduated from Scipio A. Jones High School in North Little Rock, where he was president of the Audio Visual Aid Society and held record hops on weekends. He once asked KOKY-AM station manager Ed Phelan to sit on a panel of judges for a talent contest between Jones and Dunbar high schools. The talent Phelan spied was Bell's.
The manager asked Bell if he'd be interested in work at the station. Shortly, Bell wasn't only spinning black music but airing news cherry-picked for a black audience from the news wires. Still today Bell can hear the instructions Phelan, who was white, gave him.
"'White people like the music that black people like. So if you know you're playing the music that black people like, you're going to have the black audience, but you're going to have the white audience, also,' he said. 'And if you're playing the black news, you're going to have all the officials listening, the police listening, because they want to know what black people are talking about.' He says, 'So your audience will be black and white, and that's what will make you popular.'"
By the time Stax Records founder Jim Stewart called, he'd become a Washington-area disc jockey and already published music under his own labels De'Voice and Safice.
Under Bell's direction, Stax Records thrived during the decade roughly between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s. He produced Booker T and the MG's, Otis Redding and Isaac Hayes, comedians Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby, even preachers such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. C.L. Franklin. Bell wrote The Staple Singers hit "I'll Take You There."
In 1975 Stax declared bankruptcy and thus began a period of legal parries and ripostes that effectively banished Bell from music. The closest he came to pop influence since then has been the Tag Team hit "Whoomp! (There It Is)" in 1993, a hit single distributed by Bell's Bellmark Records label. (It itself sparked litigation and a $2 million settlement over rights to the song.)
In the 2000s, the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame inducted Bell, and in Memphis he accepted the W.C. Handy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2011, Bell was given a Trustees Award Grammy, the equivalent of a Lifetime Achievement award for nonperformers.
Bell married the former Lydia Mae Purifoy in 1963, and they have two sons, Gregory and Jonathan.
STEPHEN LAFRANCE SR.
LaFrance had a simple strategy for deciding where to operate his first pharmacy.
There were several places where he could have leased his first pharmacy in 1968, including a Gibson Discount Center in Pine Bluff, Stephen LaFrance Jr. said.
"What he needed was a place where he could lease [a pharmacy] and get a several thousand-dollar loan from the local bank," LaFrance Jr. said. "Pine Bluff was the only place he could do both."
LaFrance Sr. knew no one in Pine Bluff, but after getting the $5,000 loan, he started by taking in $26 his first day in business. What became USA Drug grew into a business with about 150 stores in seven states and annual sales of $825 million when it was sold for $550 million to Walgreen Co. in September 2012.
The sale also included SAJ Distributors, named for his children Stephen, Amy and Jason, which was a wholesale drug distribution company.
"From start to finish, he went from negative $5,000 to the largest privately owned drugstore chain in America," LaFrance Jr. said.
His children were involved with the decision to sell the company, his son, Jason LaFrance, said.
"He was ready to take it easy," Jason LaFrance said.
LaFrance Sr. -- who died at 71 in June 2013, less than a year after the sale -- was born in New Orleans and earned his pharmacy degree from Northeast Louisiana State University. He worked four years at a Shreveport pharmacy before moving to Pine Bluff.
LaFrance was jovial and gregarious with friends but otherwise was a private person, his sons said.
LaFrance was involved in many charitable activities but never as a leader of organizations, his sons said. He gave his own money to put friends' children through school and funded treatment for medical problems, among other things.
Stories of his generosity have come out since his death, Stephen LaFrance Jr. said.
"He always swore the people to secrecy," Jason LaFrance said. "For every charitable thing I knew he did, there are probably two or three I don't know of and never will."
MILLIE WARD
Ward, president and co-founder of Stone Ward -- a full-service advertising agency with offices in Little Rock and Chicago -- broke into the business as a copywriter in 1976, just a year after she graduated with a communications degree from Arkansas State University.
From there, she went to Resneck Stone and became partner in 1984. She and co-founder Larry Stone, who also is her husband, linked arms to form Stone Ward in 1991. They had fewer than 10 employees to start and have grown their roster to 54, with more than $47 million in capitalized billings last year, according to a letter that recommended Ward for the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame this year. (The university did not disclose the person who nominated her.)
"In 1984, when few advertising agencies hired women, she was motivated by the opportunity to shine as a young, professional woman in the industry," her nominator said. Ward was out of the country and not available for comment.
The agency's clients include Terminex, Snap-on Tools, Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and others, including some -- such as the U.S. Soccer Federation -- landed by the firm's Chicago office. A mantra of hers -- "Don't confuse effort with results."
Ward also adopted a "Building Good" philosophy for the company, which encourages employees to follow her lead in philanthropic endeavors. Her board involvement has covered a wide range of organizations, such as the Metrocentre Commission, ASU's Chancellor's Cabinet, Baptist Health Foundation, Downtown Little Rock Partnership, Arkansas Women's Foundation and Friends of the Old State House Museum.
BUDDY WRAY
Don Tyson, former chief executive of Tyson Foods, had a plaque behind his desk. It had a saying: "If there's any question about responsibility, it is yours."
Wray had the job of spreading that message to the companies Tyson acquired.
"What he was saying is that I don't want our company to ever get to the point where somebody sitting at one headquarters building is trying to make the decisions that need to be made on a daily, hourly basis at every location," said Wray, a former president and chief operating officer.
"And that's really been the culture of Tyson over the years -- to encourage people to be involved, do the right thing and it's all right to make a mistake."
Wray began his career with Tyson in 1961 when he was 24 years old. He had already graduated from the University of Arkansas, joined the military and started working on a graduate degree when John W. Tyson gave him a call.
Wray worked as a field service technician for the company. He advised producers and knocked on doors, hoping to sign up more contract farmers.
Just two years later, he began overseeing plant and sales operations in Rogers. By 1965, he was in charge of the original processing plant -- off Randall Wobbe Road in Springdale -- as well as the Rogers location.
As Tyson acquired more companies, Wray oversaw sales, processing and marketing at more operations. Big acquisitions, such as Holly Farms and Tastybird, proved challenging.
"The major thing you have to try to accomplish is to change the culture of the acquired company to be more like Tyson's culture," he said. "It required a lot of hand holding, a lot of meeting and greeting and talking to people and encouraging."
Wray retired in 2000, but returned to the company when Don Tyson asked in 2008. The culture was out of whack at the time, Wray said.
When he retired again in 2014, things were running smoothly. Wray said there were difficult days, but he truly enjoyed contributing to the company's success.
"I guess you would say my best day would have been my first day," the 77-year-old said. "I never regretted getting up and going to work every morning."
Brian Fanney, Cyd King and David Smith of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette contributed to this story.
SundayMonday Business on 02/08/2015