Frank Durward White (born Durward Frank Kyle Jr.; June 4, 1933 – May 21, 2003) was an American

banker A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

who served as the 41st governor of

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

. He served a single two-year term from 1981 to 1983.

Early years, family, education

White was born on June 4, 1933, in Texarkana in

Bowie County, Texas Bowie County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. Its legal county seat is Boston, though its courthouse is located in New Boston. As of the 2020 census, the population was 92,893. Bowie County is part of the Texarkana metropolitan st ...

, as Durward Frank Kyle Jr. His father, Durward Frank Kyle, died when White was seven, and White's mother, the former Ida Bottoms Clark, married Loftin E. White of

Highland Park, Texas Highland Park is a town in central Dallas County, Texas, United States. The population was 8,864 in 2020. It is located between the Dallas North Tollway and U.S. Route 75 (North Central Expressway), north of downtown Dallas. Highland Park is bo ...

. He took his stepfather's name and became "Frank Durward White". After the death of the stepfather in 1950, the Whites returned to Texarkana. One of his first missions in the Air Force, in 1957, was to fly members of the

101st Airborne Division The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) ("Screaming Eagles") is a light infantry division of the United States Army that specializes in air assault operations. It can plan, coordinate, and execute multiple battalion-size air assault operati ...

from

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

to Little Rock in the

Little Rock Integration Crisis The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering ...

. White was discharged from the Air Force in 1961 with the rank of

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

Business career

During this time, White would serve as the first director of the Little Rock Port Authority from 1972 to 1973.

Campaign 1980

Early in 1980, White switched from Democratic to Republican affiliation to run for governor. First, he defeated former

State Representative A state legislature is a legislative branch or body of a political subdivision in a federal system. Two federations literally use the term "state legislature": * The legislative branches of each of the fifty state governments of the United Sta ...

Marshall Chrisman Marshall Ney Chrisman, Jr. (born May 1, 1933), is a businessman from Ozark, Arkansas, Ozark in Franklin County, Arkansas, Franklin County in northwestern Arkansas, who served from 1969 to 1970 as a Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

, a businessman from

Ozark The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant portio ...

in Franklin County, for the gubernatorial nomination. In a low-turnout

open primary Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the ...

, White polled 5,867 votes (71.8 percent) to Chrisman's 2,310 (28.2 percent). Clinton also faced a stronger-than-expected challenger in his primary from Monroe Schwarzlose, a

turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

er from

Kingsland Kingsland may refer to: Places ;Barbados * Kingsland, Barbados (in Christ Church, Barbados Parish) ;Canada * Kingsland, Calgary, Alberta, a neighborhood ;Australia * proposed alternative name for the Northern Territory in 1912 ;New Zealand * Kings ...

Cleveland County Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...

in south Arkansas. Schwarzlose's 31 percent of the primary vote foreshadowed that Clinton could be in trouble for the upcoming

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

. Despite this, it was widely expected that Clinton would win the election. White hired Paula Unruh of

Tulsa Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the U.S. state, state of Oklahoma and List of United States cities by population, 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. ...

to manage the campaign. She decided to focus upon (1) Clinton's unpopular increase in the cost of automobile registration tags and by (2) the

Carter Carter(s), or Carter's, Tha Carter, or The Carter(s), may refer to: Geography United States * Carter, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Carter, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Carter, Montana, a census-designated place * Carter, ...

administration's sending thousands of

Cuban Cuban may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Cuba, a country in the Caribbean * Cubans, people from Cuba, or of Cuban descent ** Cuban exile, a person who left Cuba for political reasons, or a descendant thereof * Cuban citizen, a perso ...

refugees, some unruly, to a detention camp at Fort Chaffee, outside Fort Smith in Sebastian County in western Arkansas. Her decision paid big dividends, as White won with 435,684 votes (51.9 percent) to Clinton's 403,242 (48.1 percent). White won fifty-one of the state's seventy-five counties. A. Lynn Lowe of Texarkana, Clinton's Republican opponent in 1978, by contrast, had won only six counties. White was the second Republican ever elected governor in Arkansas since

reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...

Two years as governor

White signed a law which required the teaching of

creationism Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...

in Arkansas public schools, along with the

theory of evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation t ...

. The law was subsequently overturned in 1982 in the court case ''

McLean v. Arkansas ''McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education'', 529 F. Supp. 1255 (E.D. Ark. 1982), was a 1981 legal case in the US state of Arkansas. A lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas by various parents, r ...

''. White also created a controversy within his own party in 1981, when he appointed

Orval Faubus Orval Eugene Faubus ( ; January 7, 1910 – December 14, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 36th Governor of Arkansas from 1955 to 1967, as a member of the Democratic Party. In 1957, he refused to comply with a unanimous ...

, a former Democratic governor, to head the Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs.

Re-election loss and later career

White was unable to secure a hold on the governorship. Chrisman and a third candidate, nutritionist Connie Voll of

Lonoke Lonoke () is the second most populous city in Lonoke County, Arkansas, United States, and serves as its county seat. According to 2010 United States Census, the population of the city is 4,245. It is part of the Little Rock–North Little R ...

, challenged him in the 1982 primary. Voll was the first woman to seek the GOP nomination for governor and the second to seek the party nomination for a statewide office since

Leona Troxell Leona is a female given name derived from the Latin word ''leo'' for "lion". People and fictional characters named Leona include: People *Leona (wrestler) (born 1980), Japanese professional wrestler *Leona Aglukkaq, Canadian politician *Leona B ...

. Clinton then defeated him in a rematch of the 1980 contest during the

: 431,855 (54.7 percent) to 357,496 (45.3 percent). White won only nineteen counties in the 1982 rematch, which occurred in a nationally Democratic year when the nation was in a recession. White's loss in this election dramatically damaged his political image, making it very unlikely that he could win the governorship again. He returned to First Commercial Bank in Little Rock after his 1986 defeat as senior vice president until his retirement from the bank in 1998. White declined to seek the Republican nomination for governor again in 1990 and instead supported

Sheffield Nelson Edward Sheffield Nelson, known as Sheffield Nelson (born April 23, 1941), is an American attorney, businessman and politician from the capital city of Little Rock, Arkansas. Originally a Democrat, Nelson in 1990 ran for governor of Arkansas as ...

in his primary race against U.S. Representative

Tommy F. Robinson Tommy Franklin Robinson (born March 7, 1942) is an American businessman, lobbyist, and politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 1985 to 1991. He is a member of the Republican Party. Before he was elected to Congress, Robinson ...

. That year, Clinton won election as governor for the fifth time; two years later he would become President of the United States. Without sufficient support and resources to run for elected office again, White left elective politics but remained active in Republican affairs.

State banking commissioner and death

From 1998 to 2003, White served as Arkansas Banking Commissioner, an appointment from Governor

Mike Huckabee Michael Dale Huckabee (born August 24, 1955) is an American politician, Baptist minister, and political commentator who served as the 44th governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. He was a candidate for the Republican Party presidential nomina ...

. He remained in the post until shortly before his death from a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...

in 2003, about two weeks before his seventieth birthday. White's time in the Banking Department was noted by his practice of visiting all of Arkansas' state-chartered banks at least once a year. White is interred at the historic

Mount Holly Cemetery Mount Holly Cemetery is a historic cemetery located in the Quapaw Quarter area of downtown Little Rock in the U.S. state of Arkansas, and is the burial place for numerous Arkansans of note. It was listed on the National Register of Historic ...

in Little Rock. The

Arkansas Republican Party The Republican Party of Arkansas (RPA), headquartered at 1201 West 6th Street in downtown Little Rock, is the affiliate of the Republican Party in Arkansas. It is currently the dominant party in the state, controlling all four of Arkansas' U.S ...

began hosting the "'Hi, I'm Frank White' Awards Dinner" in 2006. This award is considered to be the highest honor given out by the Arkansas GOP.

References

External links

* ''Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture'' entry
Frank White

Finding Aid, Frank White Papers, UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture