Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the late Daisy L. Gatson Bates lead the inaugural class for the Arkansas Women's Hall of Fame announced Monday at the state Capitol.
Clinton, a former Arkansas and U.S. first lady and a former U.S. secretary of state, is joined in the Hall of Fame by former Arkansas first lady Betty Bumpers, Mary Good, Johnelle Hunt, Dr. Edith Irby Jones, Mary Ann Ritter Arnold and Alice Walton.
Bates is among four chosen to be the first women in the Hall of Fame's "Historic Inductees" category. The civil-rights activist is joined by Hattie Caraway, Hester Davis and Roberta Fulbright.
The Women's Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools, later the Women's Emergency Committee, a civil-rights organization created in 1958, will be inducted under the new Hall of Fame's "Organization" category.
"It's a very diverse, very outstanding group of people," said Terry Hartwick, who as president of the North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce initiated the idea to create a Women's Hall of Fame. "Some of these we've had in the state are unheralded, but who have done some phenomenal things. This should have been done a long time ago."
An induction ceremony will be Aug. 27 at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.
The Hall of Fame began as a partnership between North Little Rock's chamber and the Arkansas Business Publishing Group announced in December. There were 70 nominations, Hartwick said, with final inductees chosen by a board of directors.
"We are so pleased with the inaugural class, and we believe their accomplishments are well deserving of this recognition," said Nan Snow, president of the 12-member Hall of Fame board. "These inductees represent what is great about our state, and we are excited about celebrating their accomplishments."
Clinton was elected in 2000 as New York's first female U.S. senator before leaving the Senate. She ran for president in 2008, losing the Democratic nomination to now-President Barack Obama, who asked her to serve as secretary of state. Clinton currently is a candidate in the 2016 presidential election.
Bumpers led a statewide immunization program for childhood vaccinations while the state's first lady.
Good is the founding dean of the George W. Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She previously served in the U.S. Department of Commerce as undersecretary for technology for the Technology Administration.
Hunt is co-founder of J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. of Lowell, one of the country's largest transportation and logistics providers.
Jones, a physician, educator and philanthropist, was the first black student to be accepted to the University of Arkansas Medical School in Little Rock, now the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and in 1952 was the first black person to graduate with a medical degree from the school.
Arnold was elected mayor of Marked Tree in 2013, the first woman to hold that position. She is also the former president of E. Ritter & Co., an agribusiness and communications firm.
Walton, daughter of the late Sam and Helen Walton, is founder and board chairman of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.
Of the historic inductees, Bates played a leading role in the desegregation of Central High School in 1957; Caraway was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate; Davis was the first state archaeologist with the Arkansas Archeological Survey from 1967 to 1999 and a leader in the development of cultural resources management legislation; and Fulbright was a prominent Fayetteville business leader, publisher of the Northwest Arkansas Times and mother of J. William Fulbright, who would become a U.S. senator.
The Women's Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools formed in 1958 in response to Gov. Orval Faubus' decision to close Little Rock's four public high schools and helped lead a successful recall election in May 1959 of three segregationist school board members. After the schools reopened in September 1959, the group changed its name to the Women's Emergency Committee.
More information on the inductees and the Women's Hall of Fame is available at arwomenshalloffame.com.
Metro on 06/23/2015