Lakeport Legacies · October 19 · Influence of Southeast Arkansas in the Arkansas Historical Association · Maylon Rice (Arkansas Historical Association)
Lakeport Legacies · October 19 · Influence of Southeast Arkansas in the Arkansas Historical Association · Maylon Rice (Arkansas Historical Association) [program will start at 5:30 due to an earlier sunset]
The leadership of Arkansas Historical Association, formed in 1941, included many prominent southeast Arkansans. Two former Presidents of the AHA were Desha County Judge J. L. “Jud” Erwin and Dermott native Capt. John C. Hammock, a graduate of West Point. Early board members included oilman Col. T. H. Barton of El Dorado and State Senator Lee Reeves, the first director of AETN.
Maylon Rice, a native of Warren, has worked at newspapers all over Arkansas.
He first ran across an issue of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly there in the Eagle office as the late Bob Newton, longtime editor/publisher of the weekly newspaper told him: “Read this, it will tell you more about Arkansas history than any textbook over at Warren High or any current college textbook in Arkansas.” So his love affair with history and journalism began.
Rice attended Henderson State College in Arkadelphia, majoring in history and journalism. In December 1977, he became one of the youngest newspaper editors at the McGehee-Dermott Times-News serving Desha and Chicot Counties. He has since held newspaper posts at Wynne, Little Rock (working for the iconic John Robert Starr) and later editor of the Benton County Daily Democrat (now the Benton County Record). Even with a career change at age 40, Rice continued to write newspaper columns for The Blytheville Courier and others. After moving back to Northwest Arkansas, Rice, in 1992 re-started his newspaper career at the Northwest Arkansas Times, during that time, Rice was a guest commentator on the AETN Public Affairs program “Arkansas Week.” He was awarded the Arkansas Associated Press’ top correspondents award for his coverage of the University of Arkansas campus for his work at the NW Arkansas Times. Always interested in history, Rice has been a member of the AHA and became a life member in the later 1998. He currently has a newspaper column in the Prairie Grove, Farmington, Lincoln, Siloam Springs and Bella Vista newspapers.
In 2015, Rice was elected to the Arkansas Historical Association Board of Directors. He is currently in his second three-year term on the AHA. He is the present-elect of the Washington County Historical Association in Fayetteville. He is an avid reader of Arkansas books and Arkansas newspapers.
