Bob Steel: Mr. White, your reaction. Now it is a little later and you are still running very well in this race. In fact, you are in the lead.
Frank White: Well, we’re hanging in there. And like I said, we think we’re going to win. And we think that margin’s holding up across the state of Arkansas right now.
You know, I think what we’re seeing right now is going to be a classic test of what the people of Arkansas want. And I think that they want mature business leadership to run this state.
Steel: Why are you running as well as you are?
White: Because those people out there want me to be governor.
Kyle Kellams: Yeah. Time to go into the Pryor Center archives with Randy Dixon.
Randy Dixon: Well, we pick up this week where we left off last. You just heard Bob Steel and Frank White on election night, which would have been November of 1980. There was a trend he was bucking, and Frank White pulled off the upset, I guess you could say at least of the decade.
Kellams: Yes.
Dixon: Maybe not the century, because there were some upsets.
Kellams: Yes.
Dixon: Over the years. But that was a big, big night. So we’re continuing our look at governors, and this time we’re looking at No. 41, who defeated the one-day president Bill Clinton in 1980 for a single term. It was so close that night. Well, we talked about this a little last week, but ABC at about 8:30 projected Bill Clinton as the winner. And as the night went on, it was so close, it was too close to call. And Frank White had the edge all evening, but everybody went to bed finally, I think about 2:30 in the morning, with no one declaring victory.
It wasn’t until the next morning that Frank White, had his headquarters there at the Hilton Hotel in Little Rock, claimed victory.
White: You know, each individual across the state made his own determination on what was important to him in this race. But I think it did tell me one very clear message. And whatever they speculate on what the issues might have been, I think the state of Arkansas and its people want a governor who is very responsive, who can give them strong leadership and who will guide the state with fiscal accountability.
And I’m very mindful of the problems that we have. And I need to turn to the leadership of this state to help me solve them. I’ll do that, and I’ll be very receptive to the talent that exists in the state of Arkansas to bring it into my administration.
Kellams: All right. Among those in state government, they knew who Frank White was. Most of the rest of people hadn’t really heard of Frank White before the election.
Dixon: Right. He had had a little taste of politics, but had not run for office.
Kellams: So how did he get there?
Dixon: Well, Frank Thomas of KATV sat down just the day before inauguration and talked to the new governor and sort of provided us a little background. We’ll extrude the wire to the entry level for this.
Frank Thomas: When Frank White first surfaced in government, it was in the Democratic administration of then-Gov. David Pryor as the director of the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission in 1978. As Pryor was claiming victory in the race for the United States Senate, it was White the TV cameras captured greeting the senator-elect.
For that reason, some were surprised when White filed as a Republican for governor. But in a recent interview, the governor-elect said the affiliation with the GOP is not all that unusual.
White: Philosophically, I was very attuned to the national Republican platform and totally disagree with some of the things in the Democratic platform. You know, I don’t support the Equal Rights Amendment. I don’t believe that we ought to have national gun control legislation. I don’t believe the government should be the primary hirer in the nation. I think private sector ought to be the primary hirer.
And I think programs should be initiated to get the private sector healthy. I mean, nation’s not served by Chrysler failing. You know, government can’t pick up that employment. So therefore, I decided and I approached Republican Party to see if they were receptive to me running.
Why did I run? I felt an urge to serve. And I felt like at 47, I’ve been successful, but I had this urge and I really wanted to see if I could be successful in campaign for governor.
Kellams: So now you’re the new governor. An upset winner. What do you do?
Dixon: Well, you’re inaugurated in January of 1981. And as Frank Thomas sort of previewed there, he gave his inaugural address first to the legislature and then later that day on the steps of the state Capitol.
White: The next two years will be an era of realism, knowing that our state government cannot fulfill the bureaucratic dream at the expense of the hardworking people of this state. Under my administration, state spending will be responsible, austere and, most importantly, accountable. I am aware that I cannot instill these policies alone.
The executive branch will work hand in hand with the legislature to provide the responsible management for our state, which we must have during these difficult economic times. The Legislative Council has adopted the austere, realistic budgets that I proposed. I have already presented my proposal for lowering the license fees and title transfer fees. This plan has been unanimously approved by the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee.
I reaffirm my opposition to increases in sales or income taxes. I cannot support any proposal which places additional unnecessary taxes on the working men and women of this state at this time. There are serious fiscal problems being passed to this administration, but they are problems which you and I can solve with mature, responsible leadership and the cooperation of the legislature.
The best promise I can make to you is to be a good governor, and to work diligently to better the quality of life for all of us. With your support and prayers, together we can achieve all the goals we have set and deliver a state government Arkansas can be proud of and one that our people can afford.
Kellams: All right. More than a decade later, Bill Clinton would say “It’s the economy, stupid” when he’s running for president. Frank White was all about the economy in his campaign.
Dixon: He was. And he said over and over and over again, hammered it during the campaign that he would run Arkansas like a business. In his State of the State address, the governor, Frank White, had a positive outlook towards, I guess you would say, a nationally bleak economy.
White: Despite America’s recession, Arkansas is in good shape. Our revenue collections are on schedule, and my administration is running a tight fiscal budget trying to give the people a government they can afford. All indications in industrial development and education reflect solid optimism for the future.
I agree with the president. The continued opportunity for the states that federalism offers inspires a great hope that we will return to a more conservative philosophy of government at all levels.
Kellams: OK, so the differences between Clinton and White.
Dixon: Well, we talked last week about the campaign and how Frank White really went after Bill Clinton about Cubans and car tags. There were other differences between the two. I believe we heard in the interview with Frank Thomas that Frank White did not support the Equal Rights Amendment.
Kellams: Right.
Dixon: Was very pro-gun, NRA and was also pro-death penalty, unlike Bill Clinton at the time.
Kellams: Now years later.
Dixon: Right. Clinton sort of changed his tune a little bit, but White made it clear early on that he was for the death penalty.
White: Ten days after the Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence, my office looks at the situation and we set an execution date within 30 days. The policy applies after each of the number of appeals is affirmed. And yes, I have said, I’ve set the date, I believe, 16 execution dates in the state of Arkansas as they go through the appeal process.
Now, I believe very strongly that we need to shorten that process and that if a person walks into a fast food store or a liquor store or a filling station or whatever in a premeditated, violent murder pulls the trigger to kill the attendant, that that person knows that in six to 12 months, they’re going to forfeit their life in the electric chair. It would stop those type of things.
Kellams: All right. Frank White was governor for two years. We probably should bring up creation science.
Dixon: Yeah. And unfortunately, this is kind of what that administration is remembered for. It was a bad move, a bad PR move, bad political move, however you want to look at it.
In case you aren’t familiar or don’t remember, there was a bill that the legislature passed, a questionable bill that Gov. White signed. And he admitted later that he hadn’t read the whole thing, but it was a law that would require public schools to teach the Bible’s version of the existence or creation of mankind, along with Darwin’s evolution. So here’s KATV’s Leslie Doubleday on this bill that became law.
Leslie Doubleday: Senate Bill 482, which mandates balanced treatment for creation science and evolution science, has been signed into law. As far as Gov. White is concerned, the bill’s basis is equality, not religion.
White: I look at it this way, that it is an equal treatment of creation science and evolution science, and my commitment to the members of the House that I talked to and to the Senate was, if they got a substantial vote on it in the legislature, I would sign it. And that’s what I did.
Doubleday: When asked what his beliefs were, the governor said, “I really don’t have a commitment one way or another. I am a Christian,” he said. “I believe in the Bible.”
Just how the Education Department will implement the law, White says, is still unclear. He only had the bill on his desk for a day before signing it, he says, so he hasn’t had time to meet with education officials. But he did say new textbooks would be unnecessary.
White: They can get supplemental material without reprinting the textbooks. They’re using them. The textbooks now teach evolution science. They can create additional material to teach creation science that doesn’t require new textbooks to do it. Nothing is in the bill says they have to create new textbooks.
Doubleday: The scientific creationism theory will be implemented into school curricula in the fall of 1982. Gov. White says it will be up to the state Department of Education to see that it’s complied with. Leslie Doubleday at the state Capitol for News Scene 7.
Kellams: This attracted national attention.
Dixon: It did. And lawsuits. Oh, the plaintiffs lined up, from clergy to educators. There were people from all walks of the state that came and filed suit. Attorney General Steve Clark was tasked with trying that case. It was a federal case. And the law was eventually ruled unconstitutional, and it never went away for Frank White.
Kellams: George Fisher made sure of that.
Dixon: Yes.
Kellams: The editorial cartoonist.
Dixon: He would draw Frank White with a banana in his hand.
Kellams: From that day on.
Dixon: Yes, because the Scopes Monkey Trial the Arkansas version a couple of decades later. I remember some buttons, yellow buttons with a banana on them that, I don’t know would have been pro- or anti-Frank White, but he did take it. Well, yes, he took the ribbing very well. So he did make really good economic advancements in the state. And one huge announcement or event that I came across in the archives was the completion of a new hotel, the Excelsior.
Kellams: Mhm.
Dixon: And an entire convention center that the state had never had. And it was placed in downtown Little Rock. In this report, the project, they called it topping out. They put a giant top hat on top of the building of the Excelsior.
It was covered by KATV’s Greg Hurst. And in this piece you’ll hear first from B. Finley Vincent, who was the Little Rock developer responsible for the construction, and then Gov. Frank White.
Greg Hurst: Little Rock has watched the Excelsior Hotel and the Statehouse Convention Center climb to the sky. It towers 19 floors above the skyline, and it’s ready for christening.
B. Finley Vincent: We will soon be in position. In fact, we’re selling on the basis now that we’re in position, that we cannot be ignored anymore by small national conventions and large regional conventions. That said, have been saying up to this time that you don’t have enough space for us in Little Rock.
Hurst: Promoters say it’s one of the most luxurious in the country, and along with its adjoining convention center, they’re hopeful to attract more tourists.
White: This complex today is not just Little Rock’s complex, it’s for the state of Arkansas. And I can assure you that it’s going to have a tremendous impact on our ability to attract tourists to this great state.
Hurst: The Excelsior Hotel and the Statehouse Convention Center, upon its completion, its developers believe it will be the best in the state. And if it brings in more revenue that’s desperately needed, many Arkansans may begin to support that contention. Greg Hurst, News Scene 7.
Kellams: We must be already kind of into the middle of White’s term here, because we are only two years.
Dixon: Well, yeah. You remember they didn’t start four-year terms until ‘86. So this was a two-year term. So you get through one year, you’ve haggled and dealt with the legislature once, maybe twice if you call a special session.
Kellams: Right.
Dixon: Which White did. But it’s already time to start campaigning again after a year or so. Just before campaign season opened, KATV’s Amy Oliver sort of had a review of White’s first year in office.
White: I, Frank White...
Amy Oliver: From the beginning, the White administration seemed to stress a single thing: austerity.
White: It is time for all of us to draw the line. We have got to live within our means. There just absolutely no more money.
Oliver: White moved quickly, closing the Washington office his predecessor had created, abolishing some of the departments and firing most of the department heads. The Cubans were still around and would be for another year. He kept promising that Washington was promising to get them out soon, and the condemned were still on death row.
Crowd: Burn, baby! Burn!
Oliver: Mr. White had plans for them, too. He began setting execution dates and dismissed critics who found his zeal for capital punishment unsettling.
White: I’m a pretty direct person. I say things the way that I think they ought to be done, and I move very aggressively to do those things.
Oliver: On education, some teachers found Mr. White insensitive. After a pay raise in the first months of his term, he found some teachers ungrateful.
White: The AEA is a very outspoken lobbying group that are only interested in teacher salaries, and they don’t care what tax burden they have to put on people in order to get what they want. And you’ll know that we did get $8 million during the session, and not one person in the AEA thanked me.
Oliver: State legislators would join Mr. White at the Capitol twice in his first year, and with some notable exceptions, like truck weights, they gave him virtually everything he asked for. He didn’t ask for a creation science bill, at least not publicly. But the General Assembly gave him one by a lopsided majority.
Mr. White embraced the bill and held on tightly through a federal court battle, acknowledging along the way that he had not read the entire bill before signing it. He insisted the law was valid. A federal judge disagreed and a substantial judgment against the state is likely.
Mr. White announced his plan to seek a second term even before his first had begun, and within weeks of his inauguration, a rematch with Bill Clinton seemed inevitable. Amy Oliver for news reports.
Kellams: Something tells me the second year of Frank White’s term is next week.
Dixon: It is. And there’s a whole lot of campaigning going on in there. And it gets very, very interesting.
Kellams: It’s a pivotal year in Arkansas and really, by extension, national politics, though we don’t know it yet.
Dixon: That’s true. And, you know, Frank White was elected during the big Reagan sweep in 1980. So he’s riding on Reagan’s national policies. But he was ready to take on Bill Clinton for a... so he could get a second term.
Kellams: Right.
Dixon: Here’s a little preview for next week. Bob Steel again, ace reporter from KATV, caught up with White outside the governor’s office, not long before Election Day approached.
Steel: Governor, you said you were going to win the vote. What is the percentage you think you’ll end up?
White: Well, you know, I predicted seven months ago to you, Bob, and over a cup of coffee one day that I felt it was going to be the same race it was two years ago. It’s going to be 52-47, 52-48, 53-47. And we still see that as a race, and I’m going to win it the same way I did two years ago.
Kellams: OK. Frank White seeks a second term. Bill Clinton seeks redemption. That’s next week.
Dixon: Who’ll win?
Kellams: You’ll have to tune in next week to find out. Randy Dixon is with the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History. So much fun. Thanks.
Dixon: I’ll see you next week.
Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
