Ouachita Stories

The 1960s and 1970s were a special time to grow up in the Ouachita family. Though I didn't start at Ouachita as a student until 1977, I was part of the family from birth since I grew up in the Ouachita Hills neighborhood. My mother (’47), father (’48) and sister (’72) all graduated from Ouachita.

One member of the Ouachita family in those days was Sonny Jackson. Once a professional middleweight boxer in the Pacific Northwest, Sonny wasn't a Ouachita graduate. He was a Black man, you see, at a time when Ouachita was still a segregated institution. But he was very much part of the family as a member and later the head of Ouachita’s grounds crew from the 1950s (before I was born) until 1989. I grew up with one of Sonny's children, Sumner Jackson, a former Ouachita student.

In 1972, The Ouachitonian yearbook was dedicated to Sonny. One of Ouachita’s great traditions is everyone being part of the family, from students to faculty to those working in maintenance. I’m sure Sonny had bad days like the rest of us, but he never showed it. His smiling face was as much a part of Ouachita in those years as the Tiger statue.

The yearbook dedication read in part: “There are usually many people on a campus who deserve the distinction of a yearbook dedication. The 1972 Ouachitonian, however, saw one person who particularly stood out from among the rest. He is Sonny Jackson. Mr. Jackson came to Ouachita in 1954, left for a two-year period in 1964 and, upon his return, was named head of the maintenance department's grounds crew. ... It is a joy to be around Sonny. He is enthusiastic and concerned with doing his job well. Sonny has often helped students in distress and will always take time to talk to anyone about anything.”

“The way the kids took to me reminded me of time I spent in Vancouver and Portland, when there wasn't so much prejudice,” Sonny once said.

In fact, Sonny was so much a part of the Ouachita family, you’ll find that the short street running through the school’s tennis facility is known as Sonny Jackson Drive. The street was named in 1989, just after Sonny’s retirement and four years after he was given the Purple and Gold Heart Award during Ouachita's homecoming celebration.

I grew up on Carter Road, named after major Ouachita supporter Nick Carter. Nearby Phelps Circle was named for Ouachita President Ralph Phelps. The third street in the neighborhood named after a member of the Ouachita family was Sonny Jackson Drive.

“Sonny Jackson has given all of us the gift of a more beautiful place in which to work and play,” Ben Elrod, Ouachita’s president at the time, said. “This street will be a constant reminder of the man who helped make and keep Ouachita beautiful.”

Sonny died in 2003 at age 75. But his name lives on at Ouachita thanks to Sonny Jackson Drive. For those of us who were lucky enough to be members of the Ouachita family when he worked here, we’ll always have the memories of his broad smile, his enthusiastic greetings and his laugh.

People like Sonny made Ouachita Hills the perfect place to grow up. Mayberry had nothing on us.

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Rex Nelson ’81 is senior editor and columnist at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and is the voice of the Tigers for Ouachita football broadcasts.

 

 

 

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