It was the Alltel Arena in North Little Rock before it was the Verizon Arena. Looking back, it made sense for the state's grand new sports and entertainment facility, which turns 20 this year, to bear the name of an Arkansas success story.
Alltel grew out of a tiny Arkansas company known as Allied Telephone & Electric Co. to become one of the largest wireless networks in the country, serving more than 13 million customers in 34 states. Most of the company's assets were purchased by Verizon Communications Inc., a telecommunications conglomerate based in Midtown Manhattan, in 2008. The name of the arena changed soon after the purchase.
Verizon never showed much interest in Arkansas, shedding hundreds of jobs and having little involvement in civic affairs. It thus came as no surprise when the company chose not to renew naming rights for the arena. Then Simmons Bank of Pine Bluff, another Arkansas success story, stepped up. Beginning this fall, the arena will again carry the name of an Arkansas-based company--Simmons Bank Arena.
Three generations of the founding family led what became Alltel for almost 65 years.
"Brothers-in-law Hugh Randolph Wilbourn Jr. and Charles Beverly Miller, both of Little Rock, went to work as construction crewmen for Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. in 1934," writes longtime Arkansas journalist Ernie Dumas. "Over time, they received training in the management, engineering and customer-service aspects of the phone business. They went into business on their own in Little Rock in 1943. They helped more than 100 rural telephone companies around the state with everything from setting poles to upgrading switching equipment. In 1945, they opened a storefront in the Hillcrest district of Little Rock, first as Communications Repair Service and later as Allied Telephone & Electric Co. The business sold electrical appliances in front of the building, and the company enabled Wilbourn and Miller to buy telephone equipment wholesale."
Allied maintained the lines and switching equipment for the Grant County Telephone Co. Financier Witt Stephens had purchased that company for $25,000 in 1942 so he could run a line to his family farm in Prattsville and be able to speak with his mother on a daily basis. Allied was hired to maintain the system in exchange for a percentage of the phone company's earnings.
"Tiring of constant complaints from their 275 customers and the meager earnings, Wilbourn and Miller visited Stephens to tell him they wanted to end the arrangement," Dumas writes. "As they were leaving, Wilbourn asked Stephens if he would sell the company. Stephens took them back to his office and wrote the contract. He sold his stock for $40,000 on credit without a down payment and with one condition--that they never raise his mother's monthly bill."
Through the years, owners of small telephone companies across Arkansas sold out to Miller and Wilbourn. Miller died in 1962, and his son took his place. Joe Ford, Wilbourn's son-in-law, joined the company in 1959. It was Ford who led Alltel through a period of constant expansion during the 1980s and 1990s. In 1997, Joe Ford's son Scott became the company president and continued the acquisitions.
Down in Pine Bluff, meanwhile, Dr. John Franklin Simmons founded a bank at the corner of Main and Barraque streets in March 1903 with four employees. Deposits on that first day totaled $3,338.22. Simmons Bank moved outside the state in 2010 with the acquisition of banks in Springfield, Mo., and Olathe, Kan. In 2012, it acquired two more banks in Missouri. In November 2013, Simmons bought Metropolitan National Bank in Little Rock, and the Simmons name went atop the tallest building in the state. The acquisition spree has continued with the purchase of additional banks in Missouri along with banks in Tennessee, Oklahoma and Texas.
Full disclosure: I was a senior vice president at Simmons from 2015-17. The bank's chairman is Pine Bluff native George Makris, whose aggressive acquisition strategy has led to operations in eight states and almost $18 billion in assets. In March 2017, it was announced that Simmons had acquired the 10-story Acxiom Building in downtown Little Rock. It made sense that Makris would want the company's name on the arena. As was the case with Joe and Scott Ford at Alltel, Makris is a proud Arkansan who hasn't forgotten his roots.
For Michael Marion, who has been the arena manager since it opened in 1999, the Simmons deal is a godsend. Alltel paid $7 million on the front end for naming rights. The good news was that it allowed the arena to be completed with no debt. The bad news for Marion was that it provided no annual revenue for improvements. The 15-year deal with Simmons will provide $650,000 per year the first five years, $700,000 per year the next five years and $750,000 per year the next five years. Marion has already been able to put aside $250,000 a year for things such as new seats in the lower bowl. Pulaski County helped out last year with an additional $100,000 to help fund a new scoreboard.
Now Marion will be able to replace the seats in the upper deck, eventually replace the roof and make other changes to keep the arena looking new. The arena already does well as a concert venue. With the modern scoreboard and other planned improvements, Marion believes he's in a position to again attract the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament (which was in North Little Rock for the first two rounds in 2008) along with men's and women's conference basketball tournaments.
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 02/02/2019