THE SOUTH ARKANSAS DOCUMENTATION PROJECT!

     The Southwest Arkansas Documentation Project is Growing.  We are expending our research focus to include the Delta Region of the state!  We will now be known as the "South Arkansas Documentation Project."   The project will emphasize conservation and preservation of the history of the southern portion of our state.  We will focus on gathering oral histories and continue to work with high school students across the region.  We will also gather documentary material from the region. 

     This year the SADP was awarded a Major Grant by the Arkansas Humanities Council for the continuation of the already successful High School Oral History Project.  The grant was for over $6,000 and will be applied toward equipment and travel expenses.  We are very grateful to the Council for their generous contribution to the cause of history in our area of the state.

 Smackover High School participated for the first time this year!  This fine looking group is part of Mrs. Lowery's history classes at the school.  Mrs. Lowery allowed us to work with three classes and almost 60 students!!!  We are looking forward to the stories this group can find!

Mrs. Lowery with two of her finest!

Once again, Spring Hill High School Produces significant material for our project.  This is a group of history students that are in the auditorium and ready to pursue their projects!  Our thanks to Mrs. Purtle for arranging this for us.

Mr. Schirmer's History class is all smiles after discovering they only have to do summary reports!  This class will be conducting oral histories covering a wide range of topics in American History.

Mrs. Jones has an energetic looking group of students! Their oral history projects will compliment the many projects already finished by students over the last three years.  We will be looking forward to the results from this class!

Project Director Bob Black shows students proper techniques for recording interviews.

Mrs. Jones 2nd. Period English Class

This class will be doing interviews with senior citizens in the community.  The tapes and transcripts will be stored at Ouachita Baptist University in the Archives.

History students from Fountain Lake High School in Hot Springs are given instruction on oral history by their teacher, Mr. Mike Wiles.

Mike is interviewed in our series of September 11th experiences.

Larry Denton's 4th period History class at Hatfield High School poses for their picture after listening to the oral history presentation.

These top  students will be turning in interviews in late Nov. early Dec.

Students at Huttig High School in southern Arkansas who are in Mrs. Blagrave's English class pose after listening to oral history presentation. 

These students will be interviewing senior citizens in their area.

Mr. Leshe's class in Stamps, Arkansas pose after participating in the 2002-2003 oral history project.

One of Mr. Robert's history classes.  These young folks are from Horatio, Arkansas and will be interviewing seniors in their local area.

This fine looking group of young people will be doing oral history interviews in the Wickes area of Western Arkansas.  They are from Mr. Russert's class at Wickes High School.

Mr. Young at Foreman High School is explaining to his 2nd period class how they will do their oral histories and fit them into their current course of study.  We are looking forward to receiving these histories from all throughout the region!

Wednesday, September 25, Students at Rison High School were ready for the oral history presentation. History teacher, Mr. George Holt, allowed us to present over 100 students.  This will be one of the largest collections of historical data ever retrieved from this region.  Thanks to the work of these students and others like them at Rison, many memories from our seniors will be recorded and preserved.  THANKS TO ALL!!!

Students in Mrs. Mason's second period class listen to stories of the past as told by project director, Bob Black.  "Students always seem to respond to stories better than lectures." Mr. Black said.  Stories are used to help motivate students to ask their grandparents and other seniors about stories of their past.

After a long week on the road the project director finished by traveling to Stephens High School in south central Arkansas,  Mrs. Payne's 3rd hour group was ready to pose.  Many in this group participated in the projects first year, so we thank them for bringing us back again!

At this point in the school year we have been in 22 high school across the southern portion of the state and made our oral history presentation to almost 700 young people!  Our thanks to the teachers and students who are participating this year.  And a special thanks to the Arkansas History Commission for their help in sponsoring this years project!

From Capitol to Capitol:

Leaders React to Terror

     On September 11th, 2001 our country was attacked with a ferocity not seen since the attack on Pearl Harbor.  As an Oral Historian, Project Director Robert Black knew that this would be an event that needed to be documented.  Many times in the past attempts have been made to record the memories of those who lived many years ago.  But their memories fail or they have told the story so many times that they leave major portions out of the conversation.  It was Mr. Black's goal to record the thoughts of those who experienced the tragedy first hand.

     To that end the project, "From Congress to the Classroom: Arkansas Reacts to Terror" was begun.  The working title has changed several time, but the goal remains the same: To record the memories Arkansan's have of that day.  Over 40 interviews have been done to date.  Most have concentrated on the Washington D.C. attack and include most of the state's congressional delegation plus Governor Huckabee, Lt. Gov. Rockefeller, Mrs. Janet Huckabee and many others.  There are also interviews with teachers who had to face classrooms.  There will be a publication of the edited interviews released in the future, but Ouachita takes pride in leading the way towards archiving and documenting this tragedy from the Arkansas perspective.

Note:  Many of the interviews have been edited and will be made available to the public on a case by case basis.  For obvious reasons some of these folks will not want their interviews published and Ouachita will respect these wishes.  A complete list of available interviews will be published on this site as soon as possible. It is hoped that we will be able to publish a compilation of these interviews in the near future.  Governor Huckabee has already written a forward for the potential publication.

Ouachita Baptist University • Pete Parks Center for Regional Studies 
410 Ouachita St. • OBU Box 3670 • Arkadelphia, AR 71998
Phone (870) 245-5000