The Preservation Society has announced that Professor James Willis, emeritus historian at Southern Arkansas University, will be the speaker at the meeting at 5:15 p.m. on March 2, at the Newton House Museum in El Dorado. The program is free and open to the public and seating is limited. Willis will be lecturing on the origins and history of Southern Arkansas University.
Willis is the author of Southern Arkansas University: The Mulerider School’s Centennial History, 1909-2009. The book is available from both amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com in hardback or paperback. Royalties from the book benefit Southern Arkansas University through the SAU Foundation.
The 378-page book offers readers an in-depth look at the legacy of SAU. It tells a rich history of the university beginning with its origin as a residential agricultural high school, the Third District Agricultural School, established in 1909 by Act 100.
The book also covers the school’s transition to a junior college, Magnolia A&M, in 1925 and to a four-year institution, Southern State College, in 1951. Its years as Southern Arkansas University since 1976 are dealt with more briefly. It chronicles the activities of students and faculty as well as presidents. Finally, it places SAU’s history in the context of Arkansas’s evolving higher education system during the 20th century.
Willis is an alumnus of Southern Arkansas University, class of 1967. Awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, he attended Duke University where he earned a Ph.D. in 1976. He taught one year at Little Rock University before returning to his alma mater in 1969. He took early retirement in 2005 to research and write SAU’s centennial history. He is also the author of Prologue to Nuremberg: The Politics and Diplomacy of Punishing War Criminals of the First World War (1982, Greenwood Press). He now lives in Little Rock.
The South Arkansas Historical Preservation Society office is located at 411 E. Faulkner in El Dorado. Membership forms in the Preservation Society, the support arm of the SAHPS, are available at www.soarkhistory.com and the East Faulkner office. Tours of the Newton House Museum are available and may be arranged by calling 870-862-9890. Local residents are urged to like the Newton House Museum on Facebook and visit the Newton House Museum Facebook page and the web site for information on past events and upcoming programs.
