Faculty Profile: Bill Downs
Professor Emeritus of Mass Communications, 1966-2007
February 03, 2026
- Melinda MayoAs I started my sophomore year at Ouachita, I needed a job. I was assigned to the print shop. On my first day, I met Dr. Bill Downs, head of the Department of Communications. I quickly realized he’d be a tough but enthusiastic teacher.
Instead of working in the print shop, I became Downs’ assistant. I graded papers, helped with lesson plans – anything he needed to juggle all the plates. In addition to teaching, Downs was Ouachita’s public relations director, an Arkansas Educational Television Network commissioner and director of the Arkansas High School Press Association – and that’s the short list!
Downs became my best mentor. We enjoyed a student-teacher friendship that lasted 35 years, until I held his hand as his earthly life slipped away in a Bryant nursing home.
The author with Bill Downs
“Your students always loved you,” I told him. “You were tough, but we loved you.”
It’d be difficult to measure his influence in 41 years at Ouachita.
Starting at Ouachita in 1966, Downs was the only member of the journalism department. By his retirement, Ouachita had one of the country’s strongest programs, including a state-of-the-art television station.
Everyone mattered to him. One day, he stopped by a stone marker on campus for 36 students who fought in World War II – a memorial most walked by without notice. Three years later, Downs released his first book, “The Fighting Tigers,” detailing those soldiers’ lives. A few years later, he published another book about Arkansas farmers who survived the Depression. These stories could’ve been forgotten. Downs made sure they weren’t.
He made sure we could tell stories, too. Assignments came back covered with red pen markings. Every Downs student can recite his mantra for checking sources: “Trust no one, assume nothing.” If he was feeling particularly feisty, he’d add, “If your mother says she loves you, find another source.”
Yet it didn’t take long to sense this former drill sergeant had a softness inside – the family photos around his office, the three sons he adored and the tender wood carvings he crafted showed that.
As his health declined, speech became difficult. On one of our last visits, I told him about an upcoming trip to the Holy Land, and my plans to write about it.
“I hope I’m talented enough to do it,” I said quietly, not even sure he’d heard me.
“You know you will be,” he whispered back.
More than once, bigger universities came calling. He’d show me letters of inquiry, asking, “Melinda, do I want to go to (insert school or city name here)?”
“No, Dr. Downs, I don’t think you do. You love it here.”
“That’s what I thought. See you tomorrow!”
How lucky we are that he came back for so many tomorrows and so many years. Ouachita is who she is today because he did.
Melinda Mayo Melinda Mayo is a certified meteorologist and the host of Daybreak for
KATV in Little Rock. Melinda is a member of the American Meteorological Society and
National Weather Association. After attending Ouachita, she earned her bachelor's
degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
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