Two Slaying Victims Top List Of Deaths In Arkansas

Last updated Tuesday, December 30, 2008 6:16 PM CST in News

By Tom Parsons
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Gwatney became wealthy from his auto dealerships, but made his mark in public service. After serving in the state Senate from 1993 to 2002, he became head of the state party in 2007, just after Mike Huckabee ended 10 1/2 years in office as a popular Republican governor.

Gwatney had considered running against Huckabee in 2002, but later backed away from the idea, saying he liked "being a state senator, where I have a forum to criticize him." He also was mentioned as a possible U.S. Senate candidate.

The seriousness he brought to his political maneuvering contrasted with the humor used to advertise his car dealerships. A giant inflatable dragon hoisted atop a showroom in Jacksonville was dubbed "Gwatzilla."

Pressly's early-morning perkiness as an anchor of KATV's "Daybreak" program made her a favorite of many television viewers. They were stunned to learn she had been found at her home by her mother on the morning of Oct. 20, unconscious from a severe beating. She never regained consciousness and died Oct. 25 at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center. She was 26.

No suspect was named until a month later, when police announced on Nov. 26 that Curtis Lavelle Vance, 28, of Marianna, was being sought by investigators in Pressly's death. A little over an hour after Vance's photograph was broadcast by local TV stations, police said a tip led to Vance's arrest at a central Little Rock residence.

A native of Greenville, S.C., Pressly had moved with her family to Little Rock while she was in high school. She graduated from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn.

At a memorial service for Pressly, the Rt. Rev. T.J. Johnston of Mount Pleasant, S.C., recalled the spirited approach that the young woman brought to her life and career.

Pressly, Johnston said, was full of "happiness and energy and cheer. How can you be cheery at that hour of the morning? I don't know. That's just Anne."

Of the two academic leaders who passed away during the year, one was notable for leading the growth of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences as the campus erected building after building, the other for establishing a program that taught people how to design buildings.

Dr. Harry P. Ward led the transformation of UAMS from a medical school with a charity hospital to a major national research center. Ward served as UAMS chancellor from 1979 until his retirement in 2000. He died March 11 at his west Little Rock home at the age of 75.

The current UAMS chancellor, Dr. I. Dodd Wilson, said that when Ward took over as chancellor, the school consisted essentially of four sites -- the hospital itself, an education building, a student dormitory and a modest research building.

The campus now includes a major cancer research center, a radiation-treatment center, a center on aging, an eye-care research and treatment center, a center for spinal and neurological treatment and research, and a biomedical research center.

At Fayetteville, John Gilbert Williams was remembered as the founder of the University of Arkansas' architecture program when he died at his home April 11 at the age of 92.

A native of Van Buren, Williams taught at Arkansas Tech and Oklahoma State before joining the faculty at the University of Arkansas, where he led the architecture program for 20 years. Williams' best-known hire for the school's faculty, Fay Jones, went on to become one of the most acclaimed residential and small-project architects in the nation.

A part of baseball lore was lost when four-time All-Star pitcher Elwin Charles Roe -- better known as Preacher Roe -- died in West Plains, Mo., on Nov. 9. His age was listed by his own Web site as 92, though other reference materials differed by a year or two.

Roe was a graduate of what was then Harding College -- now Harding University -- in Searcy. He went on to a 12-year career in the late 1940s and 1950s as a left-handed pitcher with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals, retiring with a 127-84 record.

Tommy Bolt, 92, of Cherokee Village, the 1958 U.S. Open champion who had one of golf's sweetest swings and most explosive tempers, died Aug. 29. Bolt won 15 times on the PGA Tour, with his lone major championship coming in 1958 by four shots over Gary Player. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2002, which he called the highlight of his career.

Bolt was called "Terrible Tommy" and "Thunder," and he was often fined and suspended by the PGA Tour for slamming clubs and using abusive language. He set up a special fund from his earnings to pay the fines.

"That's been ballooned out of proportion a little bit," Bolt said when he was selected for the Hall of Fame. "Now, I threw a couple of clubs. I'm human, just like the other guys.

"But I threw them at the most opportune time, it seemed like. They always had the camera on me when I was throwing one."

At Pine Bluff, Johnny Arthur Browning was 98 when he died Oct. 6. Browning was the original owner of Arthur's Bar-B-Q, a well-known Pine Bluff restaurant that won the favor of Orval Faubus when he was governor.

Other notable Arkansans who died during 2008 included:

• Former Lt. Gov. Nathan Green Gordon, 92, a Morrilton native whose under-fire rescue of 15 downed airmen in World War II earned him the Medal of Honor. He died Sept. 8.

• Jimmie "Red" Jones, 88, of Hot Springs, a Magnolia native who served for more than 20 years as state auditor and left the post to become adjutant general of the Arkansas National Guard. Jones died Sept. 2.

• Willie Oates, 90, of Little Rock, the colorful "hat lady" of the state Capitol, who served in the Arkansas House of Representatives in 1959-60. Oates had a collection of more than 1,000 hats, which she said added style to her outfits. She often donated hats to raise money for charity. She died March 4.

• Barbara Sears Rockefeller, 91, of Little Rock, who was married to Winthrop Rockefeller before he was Arkansas governor and was the mother of the late former Lt. Gov. Winthrop Paul Rockefeller, whose campaign for governor was aborted so he could undergo treatment for a blood condition that led to his death. She died May 19.

• Walter L. Carruth, 76, of Lexa, the 1970 gubernatorial candidate for the American Independent Party of Arkansas, who died April 6 at his farm in Phillips County. In the race for governor, Carruth finished a distant third, far behind winner Dale Bumpers and Republican incumbent Winthrop Rockefeller.

• Rockabilly musician Bobby Lee Trammell, 74, of Jonesboro, whose gyrating performances excited fans. Trammell, remembered for recording the "Arkansas Twist" in 1962, served in the state House of Representatives. He died Feb. 21.

• Bob King, 83, who owned the King of Clubs nightspot in Swifton, where Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Jerry Lee Lewis and other performers in the early days of rock 'n' roll performed. He died July 14.

• McGehee native Bill Stroud, 65, of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., a longtime journalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer who began his professional career as a reporter at the Pine Bluff Commercial. He died June 6. During his tenure at the Inquirer, Stroud became an expert on the use of computers in newspaper publishing.

• Bob Ginnaven, 71, of Little Rock, an advertising executive and movie small-parts actor with roles in "Steel Magnolias" and Oliver Stone's "JFK." He died Feb. 17.

• Betty Rutherford, 110, of Batesville, who lived in three different centuries and was one of Arkansas' oldest residents. She died Dec. 11. She was the grandmother of Skip Rutherford, dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at Little Rock, who said she stayed current with politics and was proud to cast her ballot for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary in Arkansas.

• Pearl H. Spyres, 109, of Fayetteville, who died Jan. 2 after retiring from a career teaching grade-school youngsters. Early in her career, she rode her horse to a one-room schoolhouse in Washington County to teach every day.

• Maudie White Hopkins, 93, of Lexa, who married Confederate veteran William M. Cantrell when he was 86 and she was 19. She said in a 2004 interview that he offered to leave his land and home to her if she would marry him and care for him in his later years, and she did what she had to do as a young girl from a family of 10 children living a hard-scrabble life during the Depression. Cantrell died three years after they were wed. Hopkins remarried and started a family. She died Aug. 17, survived by three children.

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