| Anne Ailene Duran | Hubert Blanchard Jr | George Leonard Berry Pratt | Cresent Lee Brown | Lawrence Ray Hampton |
Ken Salzmann
Along with her numerous contributions to the city she played a key role in founding, and later chronicling, Anne Ailene Duran will be remembered by those close to her as a strong woman whose interests were wide-ranging but for whom family always remained at the core of her life.
"She's one of those people you can talk about all day and never say enough," her grandson, Denny Duran, recounted Monday, as the family gathered in the living room where the City of Sherwood was first imagined more than 50 years ago.
Mrs. Duran, 78, died Thursday, Oct. 7, from complications following surgery.
A native of Conway, she was born Anne Ailene Snell on Jan. 3, 1921 and was raised by an aunt and uncle after the deaths of her parents, he father dying in a oil field accident in El Dorado when she was only 3-years-old and her mother from illness three years later. In 1947, she and her husband, the late Dennis Duran Sr., who would become Sherwood's fifth mayor, moved to the then-unincorporated area of Sherwood, where the two were instrumental in organizing the community of 714 people into a town the following year.
"In January 1948, we called the first meeting incorporation at our home," Mrs. Duran recalled last year when the city was marking its 50th anniversary. "And the backbone of the community showed up."
For the next several weeks, the group went door-to-door collecting signatures and a petition of incorporation was submitted to the county judge by the end of January. The town was incorporated on April 22, 1948.
Twenty-eight years later, when the nation was celebrating its bicentennial, Mrs. Duran added another chapter to her civic involvement when she wrote a history of the city, "The Signs Say Sherwood," at the request of then Mayor Bill Henson. An avid writer who contributed local news to newspapers in Jacksonville, North Little Rock and Sherwood in the 1940's and '50s, she is also credited with co-writing the Sylvan Hills High School's alma mater, and was a two-time Sherwood Woman of the Year in recognition of her role in the city.
A substitute teacher for the Pulaski County School District for 15 years, she also worked for the Sherwood Police Department from 1973 to 1983, touching even more of the people in the commumity, her family recalls.
"She was 'Memaw' to her grandkids and to half of the city," grandson Denny Duran said, noting that when Mrs. Duran retired from the police department she was presented with a plaque "from you kids."
That same personal touch came out Monday when a stream of neighbors paying condolences was joined by a deliver service driver making an unscheduled stop on his route to off the family his sympathy after reading in the newspaper that Mrs. Duran had died.
But as great as her impact on the city was, others will remember that, "She was the hub of her family," son Gerry Duran said, recalling the parties his mother held to mark every holiday, often drawing on her love for arts and crafts in creating the decoration she used.
Evan even when it wasn't a holiday, Mrs. Duran's love for entertaining came throug in a steady stream of amily and friends who passed through her Wildwood Avenue home, seldom without sampling the alway plentiful foods she loved to prepare and share.
"She never did adjust to cooking for just two or three people," her eldest son, Dennis Duran Jr., noted."When you came in the door she didn't start with hello, she said 'Get something to eat'
Mrs. Duran's other interests, Gerry Duran said, ran the gamut from oil painging-she favored idyllic rural scenes-to writing poetry, singing, collecting dolls, bells and angel figurines that numbered in the hundreds, growing flowers and, in her earlier days, camping, travel and, "She loved fishing."
And through it all, he said, she exhibited a level of poise and self-reliance that left family members little surprised to see that she had even prepared for her own funeral in every detail, selecting the songs her grandchildrn would sing at the service and even composing her own obituary, among other things.
"She like to keep things in order," Gery Duran said. Mrs. Duran is survived by her four sons, Denis Duran Jr. of Sherood, Gerry and his wife, Suzanne Duran of Sylvan Hills, Ron Duran and Darrell and Pam Duran, all of Sherwood; six grandchildren, Leslie and Robert My of Houston, Texas Denny and Pam Duran of Sherwood, Sgt. Ron and Kathy Duran of Killeen, Texas, Lynn Duran of Conway, Daniel and Matthew Duran of Sherwood; three step-grandsons, Troy Cobb of Albuquerque, N.M., Joe Dixon of North Little Rock, Jonathan Dunham of Santa Fe, N.M.; six great-grandchildren, James Paul Davis of Arkadelphia, Kassell and Marina Dura of Sherwood, Aaron Duran of Killeen, Texas, Smythd and Chloe May of Houston, Texas; two special persons Wanda Duran of Sherwood and Ruth Ann Duran of Harrison.
Funeral serves were held Saturday, Oct. 9, at the North Little Rock Funeral Home Chapel with the Rev. Jerry Collins officiating. Burial was at Rest Hills Memorial Park.;
The Times - October 14, 1999
HUBERT BLANCHARD JR
Hubert Blanchard Jr. delighted friends and neighbors around North Little Rock and the far reaches of the state with the beautiful roses he grew in his garden in Lakewood and the love with which he tended their every need.
Reared on a small family farm run by his mother while his father, Hubert Blanchard Sr., worked as a construction manager for the Rural Electric Authority in Jonesboro, Mr. Blanchard had leared early the fine points and joy of growing things. And the lessons would stay with him all the rest of his days.
Mr. Blanchard, who over the years cultivated to show precision hundreds of colorful roses as tiny as thimbles and as giant as the Mr. Lincolns, died Monday, March 26, of heart failure at the age of 80.
The oldest of four children, Mr. Blanchard finished first in his class of nine when he graduated from high school in tiny Egypt, Ark.
He would attend the University of Arkansas and graduate during World War II in time to enter the war as a midshipman, rise to the rank of lieutenant and take part in the Solomon Islands invasion, a major campaign in the Pacific theater. He fininshed his service at Pearl Harbor and returned home to the girl he hoped to marry.
"Dad kinda dropped off the screen during the war, as far as dating my mother was concerned," his son Charles Blanchard said. "He didn't want anything to happen to him, then have her hurt badly because of it. But when he got out of the Navy they started dating again." And married in 1946.
By then he was already hooked on roses. "We had two rose bushes in the yard when we got married his wife of 54 years, Janice Blanchard said. "He was already growing them when we first met."
Through the years the number of rose plants in the Blanchard yard increased to more than 200 in beds and pots, and Mr. Blanchard became active in the Central Arkansas Rose Society where he showed his perfect specimens and shared his expertis with other would-be rose lovers.
He was an educator by profesion, spending the first 13 years of their mattiage working as a teacher and administrator in Lawrence County, starting in the classroom teaching veterans and progressing through the ranks to eventually become the school superintendent there.
He would leave that position to become associate executive secretary of the Arkansas Education Association in Little Rock from 1959 to 1977 and then as director of the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System fro 1977 to 1986.
A strong advocate of educators, Mr. Blanchard ended up directing the legislative program of the AEA for some 17 years. He was also an organizer and chairman of the board of Parkview Towers, a housing facility for retired teachers in Little Rock.
Still, family members say, he viewed his crowning accomplishment in life as the solid home and family he had cultivated as carefully and skillfully as he tended his beloved roses.
"It was a loving home," his son Charles Blanchard said. "We had a very close family...His parents both died at relatively young ages. Dad become an anchor for the entire family and kept everyone close after his parents were gone."
But expecially in retirement, Mr. Blanchard seemed to find great satisfaction in the more than 50 varieties of roses that kept his garden in bloom from April to November with flowers for his home, to bring to church for special birthdays and baptisms or to take to a friend in the hospital, when his rule was "nothing less than a near show-quality hybrid tea will do."
He was a past president of the North Little Rock Lions Club and apast president of the Central Arkansas Rose Society, which he joined in 1970, one year after it was founded.
Besides his wife Janive and son and daughter-in-law, Charles and Cynthia Blanchard of Russellville, Mr. Blanchard is survived by another son, Warren Martin Blanchard of Little Rock; two grandchildren, Mary Pat Hardman and husband, John of Little Rock, and Chip Blanchard of Fayetteville; two brothers, Kenneth Blanchard of Jonesboroa nd G. Robert Blanchard of Tampa, Fla.; and one sister Barbara Blanchard of Jonesboro.
A memorial serive was held last Thursday, March 29, at Lakewood United Methodist Church with the Revs. Larry Powell and Don Eubanks officiating.
The family request that memorials be made to Lakewood United Methodist CHurch, 1922 Topf Road, North Little Rock, AR 72116.
The Times - April 5, 2001
GEORGE LEONARD BERRY PRATT
George Leonard Berry Pratt, 70, former president of Arkansas Polytechnic College, now Arkansas Tech, and retired director of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington, D.C., died of pneumonia on Sunday, March 25, at Arlington Hospital in Virginia.
The son of George H.H. Pratt, the administrator of the Veterans Administration Hospital at Fort Roots from the early 1930s to 1941, Dr. Pratt had been residing in Arlington, which is just outside of Washington, D.C., in recent years.
An honor graduate of the Class of 1948 of North Little Rock High School who stood 6 feet 7 inches tall, Mr. Pratt had been a 260 pound tackle on the Wildcat football team and also ran on the tract team.
Classmates said they knew him then as "Berry," and it was clear that he was destined for great things.
"He was well thought of by everybody...big, personable, quiet, very good at sports and very very smart." said classmate Pat Dancy Tyler.
"We called hin "the Brian.' I think he read the whole encyclopedia before he was in the fourth grade, when I was just learning to read," joke Eugene Blenden, who maintained his friendship with Dr. Pratt throughout his life.
After high school, in fact, the two went off together to Arkansas State Teachers College, (Now the University of Central Arkansas) where Dr. Pratt played on the football, track and swim teams and was the Intercollegiate discus champion for two years.
After graduation in 1952, Dr. Pratt briefly played pro-football for the Green Bay Packers. But h dislike the cold weather as much as the grueling regimen of professional ball, Blenden recalled, and would opt instead to go on and get a master's degree in school adminstration from Memphis State and a doctorate in higher education administration from New York University.
Back home for a time, he would serve as membership director of the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce before beginning a career as a physics and mathematics teacher, coach, and principal in West Memphis and then in the Memphis City Schools.
He was an Episcopalian who also worked for a time as the lay representative from the University of Arkansas Department of College Work for the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas.
He then taught physics at Memphis State University, where he was also dean of students and dean of men during a period o integration in the early 1960s. He went on to serve as director of institutional planning at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville before being named president of Arkansas Polytechnic College in 1967.
He served in both the Arkansas and Tennessee National Guards.
He moved to work for the newly formed Environmental Protection Agency as director of the office of education and manpower planning. He later served as the director of the expositions staff of the International Trade Commission.
In the early 1990s he became executive director of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in which regulates hydroelectric dams and interstate commerce in oil, gas and electricity, before his retirement in 1995.
"We had a number of people in our class who turned out to be somebody, and he was certainly one of them," Tyler Siad.
"Others recalled the funny pranks he played in college, the jokes he had a knack for telling and his sense of humor, demonstrated in the short autobiography at age 67 she submitted for the program of his 50th class reunion.
"I know now that aging is mind over matter," he wrote. "If you don't mind, it don't matter."
His marriage to Bobbye Hopkins Pratt ended in divorce. He was precede in death by a sister and a brother.
Survivors include a daughter, Kelly Lee Pratt and a son, Witt Guise Pratt, both of Arlington.
A memorial service was held Wednesday, March 29, in th echapel of the historic Oak Hill Cemetery in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where his ashes were also interred. The chapel was built in 1850 and designed by James Renwick, architact of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City and the Smithsonian Institution's original building.
The Times - April 5, 2001
CRESCENT LEE BROWN
Eric Francis
Soft-spoken and unpretentious, Crescent Lee Brown loved to read and was committed to going to college.
And those who knew her best say that helping people arlready was her trademark, mentoring preschoolers through the North Little Rock High School's STARS program and helping others at her church and at work at Wal-Mart.
Halfway throug her junior year, Ms. Brown died last Tuesday, Feb. 6, at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center of an undiagnosed illness. She was 17.
The fourth of five children and the youngest daughter, Ms. Brown was by nature warm and gregarious, said Ray Gillespie of Little Rock, one of her uncles.
"There were no strangers in that child's life," he said. "Everybody was a friend. She made friends so easily."
But she had a special touch with young children, he said, noting that "she could go to that level in a moment."
And she put those skills to good use through her involvement with the STARS (Serving Today's At-Risk Youth) program at schook, working with preschoolers and kindergartners, said her teacher and STARS advisor Sherry Ratliff.
"When I think of her, what I typically think of is she was very loving, very caring of her little kids," Ratliff said. "She was always about taking care of whatever she needed to do. She wanted to do the right thing." And she did it without fanfare, Ratliff added.
"She was one of those kids who had an impact in a very quiet way." she said.
Classmates, struggling earlier this week to come to terms with the sudden death of their friend, praised her gentle and caring spirit.
"I just remember she had a really sweet face. She was really soft-spoken," said Amy McGhee, also a junior.
"She always was in there, putting her heart into everything," said Macah Carroll, another junior. Then she recalled the day the STARS visited Seventh Street Elementary, and how Ms Brown had scooped up and comforted a littl girl in tears who had been so excited to see them she had fallen out of her chair and hit her head.
Classmate Lindsay Taylor said she was just as thoughtful of her family and friends.
"She worked at Wal-Mart to earn the down payment for the family car.
Gillespie confirmed the story. He said it took his niece six months to save up the $1,2000 needed to get her mother a car.
Outside of school, Gillespie said, Ms Brown was active in her church, which meant a great deal to her.
"She kept [her spiritual side] to herself, very private and personal," he said.
She took Taekwondo for a while, earning a purple belt before deciding it wasn't exactly right for her, he said. She also loved to read and to write, both for personal reasons and to occasional pen pals over the years.
But recently more than anything, Ms Brown was concentrating on making it into college, following the footsteps of one of hr older sisters, Gillespie said. Just last week she had worked on letters to several colleges, he said, including Hendrix and Harding.
"She wanted to stay in Arkansas, [in] a small college atmosphere where people cared," he said.
After learning of her death, Ms Brown's STARS classmates put together a fund drive to raise money to help the family with the funeral expenses, Ratliff said. By Monday more than $400 had been raised.
Crescent Lee Brown is survived by her mother, Rose Brown of Little Rock; father Lee Chester Brown of Boston; grandmother, Trophy Lee Brown of Little Rock; thee sisters, Rachel LaRose Owens, Christina Annette Owens and Melody Geniece Owens and a brother, Jonathan Lydell Brown all of Little Rock; and many aunts and uncles, including Gillespie.
A memorial service was held Monday, Feb. 12, at Union AME Church in Little Rock. Funeral services were held Tuesday, Feb. 13, at Greater Paradise Baptist Church in Little Rock. The family requests that memorials be made to Anderson's Taekwondo Center.
The Times - February 15, 2001
LAWRENCE RAY HAMPTON
Nancy Docter
He was a young boy living in England, Ark., when he first heard the call to be a preacher. He held to that idea through his youth and by his 22nd birthday was, indeed, pastoring a church.
The next year he was licensed by the Assembly of God ministry, and two years later he was ordained.
Over the next 50 years, the Rev. Lawrence Ray Hampton would pastor 12 churches throught Arkansas and Missouri, including three in North Little Rock.
He died Monday, Dec. 18, after a several-year battle with Alzheimer's Disease, at the age of 90.
Rev. Hampton was the third of nine children born to Dora and Adam Hampton, a grocer, farmer and sheriff in the town of England. The very religious family was sure to be at church every Sunday, and it was during a service, when Mr. Hampton was 4, sitting there on the bench that he first had the feeling, an inward affirmation to become a preacher," recalled his wife of 52 years, Noveda Hampton.
Rev. Hampton left high school in his senior year and soon after moved with his family to Russellville, where he worked in the coal mines with his father and also worked in a grocery store.
He would marry Opal Riley, the daughter of the minister at the church he attended. The first child would be a son, born in 1931, who died before his second birthday, an event that deeply touched Rev. Hampton and renewed is intent to become a preacher.
"God dealt with him through that," his daughter Emily Crabtrey noted.
Rather than attending seminary, Rev. Hampton prepared for the licensing exam on his own, and though his weekly wages amounted to just $6, he managed to pay for books and correspondence courses.
At the grocery, he often shared his knowledge of the scripture with customers and son a group from nearby Norris Town Mountain urged him to help establish a church there. For eight months, he walked twice a week to pastor that church, for which he was paid $5 cash each week, supplmented with fruit and vegetables from the gardens of church members, according to a family history.
For the next 20 years, he pioneered churches in Dardanelle, Grapevine, Smackover, Benton and Hopeville, helping to build congregations as well as a number of church buildings and parsonages, before coming to North Little Rock to lead Bethel Assembly at Third and Palm streets. Later he was the minsiter of a church in Rose City, where he ran a grocery store until the congregation was large enough to support him and his family.
He was widowed but remarried in 1948 to a young lady from North Little Rock who played piano at Bethel Assembly. Together they had three children and 52 years together.
For a while, he also had a radio ministry airing every Sunday afternoon from Bethel Assembly, often giving lessons on his favorite subject, the Book Revelation and Bible prophecy.
Known for his compassion and concern for others, he could be counted on to minister to the ill, grieving and troubled.
"He loved people and loved to help them," Mrs. Hampton said. "Anytime he was needed, he'd be there."
Besides his wife, Survivors include three sons, Thomas Hampton of Farmington, Mo., A.G. Hampton of Little Rock and David Hampton of North Little Rock; three daughters, Edith Crabtrey of Grapevine, Ark., Ruby Talley of North Little Rock and Yvonne Spaulding of Springfiled, Mo.; 15 grandchildren; 20 great-grandchildren; four great-great-grandchildren; four sisters, Hazel Cantrel of McGee, Ark., Dora Hedden of Grapevine, Ark., Evelyn Stepherson of Valespiro, Ill., and Mary Nell Mills of North Little Rock.
Funeral services were held Thursday, Dec. 21 at Hedde Chapel in Grapevine, with the Revs. Clinton Carey and Alton Garrison officiating. Burial was in Hedden Chapel Cemetery.
The Times - January 11, 2001