It was an honor to be asked to process Cal Ledbetter’s legislative papers. An honor, but a terrifying one.

Although I was relatively new and had never met Dr. Ledbetter, his reputation preceded him. I knew him to be a gregarious and extremely intelligent man, as well as an important figure in both state and university history. I felt the pressure. But as I would soon learn through my review of his career—and ultimately by meeting with him—I needn’t have worried.

His papers revealed him to be at once a man of passion and of reserve. He was very matter-of-fact; I detected no purple prose in his writings. But his ability to endear himself to anyone was startling. Above all, he was persistent. I found subject-based files that stretched for 10 years, the duration of his tenure in the Arkansas General Assembly. If he believed in something, he apparently fought for it.

My suppositions were confirmed when I finally got to meet Dr. Ledbetter. We had invited him to the center downtown to help identify photographs and to record an interview. My colleagues half-joked that I should bake him some chocolate chip cookies, reportedly his favorite. I took this suggestion to heart and arrived on the morning of the interview with a fresh batch under my arm.

My stomach turned as I waited for him. (As an archivist, you become so absorbed in the life of your subject that you can’t help but become a little star-struck when given the chance to meet him. The one-sidedness of it all is exactly that of the celebrity phenomenon.) But, as I might have guessed, he was so good-natured and open that I felt that I’d known him — really known him, not just archivist-known him — for years. He could have been a favorite former professor. He cannily identified most, if not all, of the photographs I placed before him, and his son, Grainger, was on hand to help. After enjoying a few of the cookies (whew!), he was ready to sit for the interview.

That he is proud to be a ĚÇĐÄĘÓƵlogo native is apparent after the first question. This is not a passing pleasantry. One glance at Dr. Ledbetter’s education history will tell you that he could have landed anywhere, but he chose to return to Arkansas and to give back all that he’d been given (and more). Of course, he is self-deprecating throughout. He provides no grandiose response to my question about why he ran for office in the first place, only the following: “You wonder, why did you [run for office]? And you’re never quite sure […] I don’t want to say there wasn’t ego involved, there is ego involved. But I think there was also the idea, I saw some things I could do, some things that probably needed to be changed, and you can best do this through public service.”

Reform was indeed a central tenet of his career. He takes pride in the work accomplished by the constitutional conventions of 1970 and 1980; although the proposed constitutions were rejected by the public, he feels that they laid the groundwork for constitutional reform, which he believes is still imminent. He touts it as the most important issue the assembly faced during his tenure in the legislature.

Finally, when asked if he has anything to add, Dr. Ledbetter shares two stories. In the first, he recounts driving from Miami back to ĚÇĐÄĘÓƵlogo on his own at the age of 16. He stopped at hotels and service stations along the way, where he was treated like an adult. He likes to tell the story because it shocks people, but I think he also likes to savor those first feelings of individual agency.

He then relates the experience to Cheley Camp in Colorado, where one summer he pursued mountain climbing. By the end of the summer, his group was able to make it to the summit of Longs Peak. He looked down on Pikes Peak and watched cars wind up the side. He remembers it as a “reinforcing” experience.

Clearly, Dr. Ledbetter valued those formative moments of childhood and early adulthood when he was trusted to accomplish a seemingly Herculean task and would emerge victorious, baptized in newfound confidence and capability. I would expect nothing less from a man who devoted so much of his life to the promotion of higher education—a man who placed so much trust, in every sense of the word, in future generations.

Monica Mylonas is an assistant archivist at the UALR Center for Arkansas History and Culture. She got to know Dr. Cal Ledbetter through his papers as well as a long conversation about his life, his time in office, and Pikes Peak.

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The UALR Center for Arkansas History and Culture (CAHC) has announced the opening of the Calvin R. Ledbetter, Jr., Papers to the public.  The collection encompasses the years 1964 to 1988 and is now open and available to researchers.

“The collection contains many interesting items from the life of a man who played a significant role in the political and educational community in ĚÇĐÄĘÓƵlogo and the state of Arkansas” said Deborah Baldwin, associate provost of CAHC and the dean of the UALR College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

In 1960, Ledbetter joined the faculty at ĚÇĐÄĘÓƵlogo University, now the University of Arkansas at ĚÇĐÄĘÓƵlogo, and served as Chair of the Political Science Department, and, later, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, now the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.  After retiring in 1997, Ledbetter became Professor Emeritus of Political Science.

Ledbetter, 84, led an accomplished career.  “He went from the JAG Corps, to a Ph.D. program, to a faculty position, to five consecutive terms in the Arkansas House of Representatives, the list goes on. His dedication to political science in all of its expressions is clear to see, said Monica Mylonas, assistant archivist.

Ledbetter held five terms in the Arkansas House of Representatives from1967 to 1977.  In the course of this political career, Ledbetter served alongside three of Arkansas’s iconic governors:  Winthrop Rockefeller, Dale Bumpers, and David Pryor.  CAHC holds two collections of these three, Rockefeller and Bumpers.

“This collection adds to our gubernatorial holdings.  Ledbetter co-authored, sponsored, or otherwise supported many of the bills that now characterize these governorships,” said Mylonas.

Ledbetter’s papers deal mainly with his political career, documenting the state’s legislative sessions from 1967 to 1977. A portion of the papers represent his academic career with the UALR.

In addition to donating his legislative papers to CAHC, Ledbetter has also established the , founded to promote a better understanding of the state of Arkansas through scholarly study.

This endowment has encouraged the recent donation of state several legislators’ papers to CAHC including: former Representatives Kathy Webb and Johnnie Roebuck, and former Senator Jimmy Jeffress.

To commemorate the opening of the Calvin R. Ledbetter, Jr., Papers, CAHC has launched a digital exhibit that celebrates Ledbetter’s work in several key areas, such as legislative leadership, education, and progressive reform.  The online exhibit highlights the range of resources the papers have to offer, and incorporates a selection of digitized photographs, documents, and audio clips.  

The collection is available in the research room inside the Arkansas Studies Institute building from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. For more information, contact CAHC at 501-320-5780.

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