'Twas a couple of prominent businessmen -- Terry Hartwick, the North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce president, and Mitch Bettis, president of Arkansas Business Publishing Group -- who welcomed the hundreds who gathered in the Wally Allen Ballroom at the Statehouse Convention Center on Aug. 27 for the first class of inductees to the Arkansas Women's Hall of Fame.
Eleven women, some native Arkansans but not all, some alive and some dead, entered the hall, which as of yet doesn't have a physical location. They are:
• Hillary Rodham Clinton, Arkansas', then the nation's, first lady through much of the 1980s and 1990s, went on to become a U.S. senator from New York and secretary of state. She is a current presidential candidate.
• Alice Walton, oldest daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam and Helen Walton, opened her Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in 2011.
• Mary Good was a science professor at Louisiana State University before becoming the first dean of the University of Arkansas Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology in Little Rock.
• Dr. Edith Irby Jones was the first black female medical student in the state and first female president of the historically black National Medical Association.
• Johnelle Hunt founded J.B. Hunt Transport with her husband, Johnnie, and is the recipient of state Business Hall of Fame induction and an honorary doctorate from the University of Arkansas.
• Mary Ann Ritter Arnold presided over her grandfather's company, E. Ritter & Co., a multimillion-dollar operation whose name today is synonymous with Marked Tree, where she is mayor.
• Betty Bumpers was an elementary school teacher who used her clout as the wife of then Arkansas Gov. and later U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers to champion childhood immunization.
• Hattie Caraway (deceased) was appointed U.S. senator from Arkansas after the death of her husband in 1931. The next year she became the first woman ever elected a U.S. senator.
• Daisy Bates (deceased) was an advocate and steward for the nine black students who integrated Central High School and in 1963 spoke at the March on Washington.
• Hester Davis (deceased) was a leading archaeologist in the state and a prominent advocate for heritage sites and monuments.
• Roberta Fulbright (deceased), once called the matriarch of Fayetteville, was an early 20th century business owner and newspaper publisher whose political involvement helped get her son, William J. Fulbright, elected to the U.S. Senate.
Each woman received a standing ovation, "and it didn't start in the front. It started in the back of the room and moved up," Hartwick said later.
After expenses, Hartwick said perhaps $10,000 or $15,000 will be put toward creating a permanent exhibit for the hall of fame.
High Profile on 09/06/2015