Larry Jernigan

THREE RIVERS AREA — Six color wildlife photographs taken by Larry Jernigan decorate the dining room of Chuck’s Steak House, where Jernigan and his wife, Jean, often eat. He took a moment to talk about his favorite photo.

“That is a red-shouldered hawk in her nest,” Jernigan said. “I stood for several hours waiting to get a picture of the mama coming in and feeding the baby.”

Jernigan hardly ventures far from the patio of his home in the Wildflower development to photograph wildlife. Several large feeders draw a variety of birds.

“We’ve got more titmice and chickadees than you can shake a stick at,” he said, laughing - and a nearby lake yields bream, crappie and bass.

Turkey, deer, squirrels and hummingbirds also regularly visit the property.

“We’ll get so many hummingbirds out here it’s dangerous,” he said.

Jernigan retired in April from the Cleburne County Extension Service, for which he coordinated 4-H Club activities. Before building his house in Heber Springs in 2000, Jernigan was a chiropractor in Pine Bluff for20 years and owned a photography studio in that city for 10 years. His goal in working with 4-H members has been to pass along two things: knowledge and practical experience.

“Today’s young people don’t understand the environment,” he said. “They can identify a cardinal, maybe, but not a blue jay or a wren. One of my objectives has been to teach kids about wildlife so they understand what they’re being told they should preserve.”

Jernigan, the son of Nebut and Jewel Jernigan, was born in Bells, Tenn. Larry Jernigan’s mother was a homemaker, and his father was a salesman for Tom’s Roasted Peanuts. The family moved to Dollarway in 1956, and Jernigan graduated from Dollarway High School in 1961.

He has fond memories of growing up near Pine Bluff.

“It was a good town,” he said. “You could go anywhere you wanted, day or night.”

He jokingly called himself a “strong C” student.

“My interest was science and girls,” he said with a laugh. “My real interest was biology. I didn’t have a plan. I grew up on a farm, and since I was 12, I’ve always worked. I’ve been out in the woods since I could walk.”

He graduated from Arkansas College in Batesville - now Lyon College - in 1965 with a degree in biology and was drafted into the U.S. Army at the end of his first year of graduate school at the University of Oklahoma. He took his basic training at Fort Polk, La., and was assigned to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he served as a biological science research assistant.

“I was with a hematology research team at Walter Reed, and at night I worked at Georgetown University,” he said. “I’ve always had one or two jobs all my life.”

After a stint in Alaska, Jernigan did medical research at a military hospital in Osaka, Japan.

“I made five trips into Vietnam,” he said. “We were picking up troops, bringing them back and looking at specific types of injuries.”

Doctors were puzzled by troops who died while being airlifted out of Vietnam. The troops had large wounds or shattered bones and died inflight.

“We were trying to find out why they were dying,” he said.

His team’s research showed that pressurized cabins embolized bone marrow, resulting in death.

“They started airlifting them at lower levels without pressurizing the cabins,” Jernigan said.

He also assisted researchers with “visual recognition of wound infections - how to look at a wound and see what was happening. My job was operating-room photography - I’d go in and photograph the injuries.”

Jernigan turned his passion for photography into a profession when he opened his own studio in Pine Bluff in 1972.

“I taught for a little while in Cave City,” he said, “and one of the teachers there asked me to shoot her daughter’s portrait. I said, ‘That was easy!’”

Managing the studio was “a lot of work, and I worked all the time,” he said. “I did my photography during the day, shot weddings on weekends, and did all my own darkroom work at night.”

He ran the studio for 10 years before deciding to become a chiropractor.

“I remember two of my patients were deaf,” Jernigan said.

“They came to me for two years, off and on, and I learned some sign language from them. I am always curious. I figure today you’d better learn it because tomorrow you might need it.

“If you find me reading, I am looking for information I want to know,” he said, laughing.

Jernigan retired from his practice in January 2005. By then he was already dividing his time between Pine Bluff and Heber Springs.

“It was hard going off and leaving my patients,” he said. “I miss them. Some still come up and go fishing with me.”

Always one to keep busy, Jernigan began working with Cleburne County 4-H clubs in May of that year.

“There are [as many as] 18 clubs in the county,” he said. “My job was coordinating their activities.”

Jernigan organized annual cookouts - such as the Bug Barbecue and Roadkill Roast.

“I was always looking for ways to keep the kids interested and involved,” he said.

The Bug Barbecue was held in an enclosed cooking area lit with black lights, Jernigan said. Insects attracted to the black lights were caught by students and identified.

“We couldn’t have any boring stuff,” Jernigan said with a laugh.

“I had to be daring in order to capture the kids’ interest. They loved it.”

Jernigan also got his Cleburne County 4-H’ers involved in the Cardboard Boat Races held annually in Heber Springs.

“We built our boat out of a four-layer-thick, 8-foot piece of cardboard,” he said, “and raced it four years and won four trophies. One year it was a flat bottomed boat; one year it was a Viking ship; one year it was a Tiki ship.”

During his years as 4-H coordinator, Jernigan gave presentations on nature and photography in classrooms.

“Somebody told me I couldn’t do that,” he said. “Shortly after, I was doing wildlife and etymology programs in the classes. I never let anyone tell me no. I strongly believe where there is a will, there is a way.”

Though still an avid fisherman, Jernigan hunts and shoots animals with a camera more often now than with a gun.

“Most of my photography I learned just by meeting people and finding out how they take pictures,” Jernigan said. “In 12 years, I’ve noticed there are a lot of good photographers up here.”

To facilitate local photography, Jernigan recently started a club - the Cleburne County Shutterbugs.

“We have about 25 members now,” he said.

“Just last month we elected officers. We have short meetings, and members are asked to bring in 10 photographs, and we’ll discuss them. The club is functional for anyone with an interest in photography.”

Jernigan also started a 4-H photography club, as well as an entomology club. His interests sometimes create hair-raising situations for his wife.

“Whenever I hear, ‘Jean, come here for a minute. You’ve got to see this,’ I never know what I’m going to find,” she said with a laugh.

That was when her husband produced a plastic box full of Madagascar hissing cockroaches.

“It’s like the Discovery Channel around here,” he said.

Staff writer Daniel A. Marsh can be reached at (501) 399-3688 or dmarsh@arkansasonline.com.

up close getting to know Larry Jernigan

Birth date: Dec. 30, 1942

Birthplace: Bells, Tenn.

Parents: Nebut and Jewel Jernigan

Family: Wife, Jean; and daughters, Kellie, Jamie and Jennifer

Hobbies: Photography. I also love to fish.

Something I’ve always wanted to do: Visit Germany, Austria and Switzerland