Obituaries

A.J. (Jerry) Payne

Photo of A.J. (Jerry) Payne Photo of A.J. (Jerry) Payne
A.J. (JERRY) PAYNE, age 84, of Little Rock, died on Aug. 4, 2018. He and his wife, Chere Lile Payne, age 71, had operated a photographic studio in downtown Little Rock for more than 20 years. Earlier, he was the first full-time Public Information Officer for the Arkansas National Guard and the first editor of its newspaper. He was an officer on the Division Staff of Major General Sherman T. Clinger, the Adjutant General of Arkansas, when the Guard was place on active duty in 1957 during the Little Rock school crisis. He was born in Little Rock, but spent his early school years living in San Francisco at the Golden Gate Apartments on Golden Gate Avenue, on the same block as the Golden Gate Theater downtown. Returning to Little Rock, he spent two years at North Little Rock High School, before graduating from Little Rock High School in 1951. He worked at the old Arkansas Gazette as a reporter, while attending Little Rock Junior College before entering the Army. After his Army service, Payne joined the National Guard but switched to the Army Reserve, when he attended Oklahoma State University. Following OSU, he joined Capitol Records in Tulsa and was later transferred to Houston, which was the fourth largest record market in the United States. He enjoyed his two years of sales promotion work delivering new record releases to about 20 radio stations and escorting artists appearing in the area to interviews with the deejays. But his newspaper experience and college journalism courses drew him back to writing and photography in Little Rock, where he joined the Arkansas Democrat. His feature stories and photographs led to an offer to be editor of the newspaper of the Arkansas Poultry Federation. After a year, he was hired as a reporter with a national poultry publication headquartered in New Jersey. Payne also continued with his Army Reserve duties and was assigned to the Civil Affairs — Military Government unit in nearby Philadelphia. In less than a year, he received a job offer from an ad agency in Hartford, Conn., where he stayed for five years doing publicity work for several businesses owned by the Rockefeller Brothers Holding Company, and for the Connecticut Opera Association. He returned to Little Rock where he became field editor of Construction News magazine covering highway, bridge and commercial construction. Payne subsequently partnered with Ben H. Hogan in the state's first advertising production company making television commercials and providing audio-visual services for ad agencies. His face and voice became familiar to television viewers during this time, when Payne appeared weekly as spokesman for Safeway grocery stores and for financial institutions in the Little Rock and Memphis markets. He also bought the Camera Center, a retail photo store in downtown Little Rock, which he and his wife operated, in conjunction with their photo studio that also included a stock photo agency and a gallery of their travel photographs which have appeared on calendars, greeting cards and in various publications. Their prints are in private collections in the U.S. and Europe. Among his many jobs, Payne said that the ones he enjoyed most were the part-time teaching during his younger years of ballroom pleasure dancing (that most people could do) and the writing of a series of detective stories for a national magazine. He also enjoyed traveling as he lived in nine states and visited 26 other states and four foreign countries, mostly in his work. Survivors include his wife of 48 years, Chere Lile Payne, and two daughters by previous marriages, Julia Hunt (Bruce) of Redmond, Ore., and Penelope Payne of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Also two brothers-in-law, Greer (Skip) Lile Jr. and Brett Lile Sr., and his two sons, Drs. Brett Lile Jr. (Kristen) and Brendan Lile, all of Little Rock, as well as his uncle by marriage, Maury Riegler of Little Rock. Our grateful appreciation of our VA Home Based Care Team and Arkansas Hospice for their care and compassion. He has donated his body to the University of Arkansas for Medical Science to be used for education and research. His wife will be at home where she can be contacted at 501-554-3103.

Published August 12, 2018

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