TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS COME – GREETINGS:
WHEREAS: David Hampton Pryor was born on August 29, 1934, in Camden, Arkansas, and was a former Arkansas State Representative, United States Representative, Governor of Arkansas, and United States Senator. He was a beloved statesman and public servant and passed away April 20th, 2024;
WHEREAS: As the son of a sheriff and the first woman to run for elected office in Arkansas, David Pryor was introduced to government early. After graduating from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, he returned to Camden to start The Ouachita Citizen, a rare newspaper in South Arkansas critical of Governor Orval Faubus;
WHEREAS: Pryor was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives in 1960 at the age of only 26. He joined a group of other reformists opposed to the Faubus Administration called the “Young Turks” and also returned to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville to earn a law degree;
WHEREAS: Pryor was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1966 to represent South Arkansas. He challenged fellow Democrat Senator John McClellan in 1972, though narrowly lost the primary. He successfully ran for Governor in 1974, defeating former Governor Faubus and others;
WHEREAS: As Governor, Pryor created the Department of Heritage and appointed many black Arkansans to senior state government positions. He championed fiscal conservatism and was elected to the United States Senate in 1978. Along with Senator Dale Bumpers and future President Bill Clinton, Pryor was one of the “Big Three” of Arkansas politics;
WHEREAS: In the United States Senate, Pryor focused on taxation and aging, becoming the Chair of the Senate Aging Committee as well as the third-highest ranking senator in the Senate Democratic Caucus. He ended his career in elected office in 1997, though campaigned for his son, Mark Pryor, when Mark successfully sought his father’s old Senate seat in 2002;
WHEREAS: Pryor’s later career focused on academia. He served as director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, as the first dean of the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, and on the Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas; and
WHEREAS: David Pryor’s legacy lives on in Arkansas state government, in federal legislation, at the University of Arkansas, and through the kindness and hospitality of his family.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, Governor of the State of Arkansas, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the laws of the State of Arkansas, in tribute to the memory of David Hampton Pryor and as an expression of public sorrow, do hereby direct that the United States flag and the state flag of Arkansas be flown at half-staff from sunrise April 22, 2024 to sunset on the day of interment.
IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of Arkansas to be affixed this 22nd day of April, in the year of our Lord 2024.