John W. Walker can certainly attest to the incredible difference that one person can make in another's life even if that difference is not readily identifiable as positive.

Following his 1954 graduation from Jack Yates High School in Houston, Texas, Walker was admitted as one of the first six black undergraduate students at the University of Texas. His plans were to major in petroleum engineering, but when one of the other five students announced that his goal was to become a Longhorn football player all six students were promptly dc-admitted.

In a bit of foreshadowing, Walker filed a...(more)

For more than three decades, Johnnie Taylor's soulful sound and trademark delivery have been mainstays of R&B music. In an industry characterized and defined by its fickle nature, Mr. Taylor's distinctive voice has achieved for him consistent popularity and a solidly loyal fan base.

Like many singers, Mr. Taylor's first "audience" was a church congregation; however, his roots grew equally deep in the blues music of that place and time. Born in Crawfordsville, Arkansas and raised in nearby West Memphis, Mr. Taylor was a teenager when he performed and recorded with The Five Echoes, a teen doc...(more)

Vice Admiral Edward Moore, Jr. can describe, from first-hand experience, a long and illustrious Naval career that has timely taken him from sea to shining sea. After attending high school in Little Rock, Moore enlisted in the U. S. Naval Reserve in 1963. Following his graduation from Southern Illinois University in June 1968, he was commissioned as an Ensign. Moore attended Naval Postgraduate School where, in August 1974, he earned a Master's degree in Business Administration.

Since that time, Vice Admiral Moore has progressed steadily through Naval ranks, including Shore Assignment Coor...(more)

Businesswoman, philanthropist, wife, mother author and Christian. No reference to Eliza A. Miller's remarkable life would be adequate without multiple descriptors. During a time when African-Americans endured overt racism, and in a region whose name became synonymous with significant economic challenge, Mrs. Miller's self-taught business acumen helped bring growth and prosperity to the Arkansas Delta.

Eliza Ann Ross was born in 1869 in Arkadelphia. In 1887, she married Abraham H. Miller of Helena and the couple had three children who lived to adulthood. The Millers acquired vast amounts of ...(more)

Gertrude Hadley Jeannette's life has unfolded in such a way that it possesses a theatrical quality of its own. Her life story could play like some of the productions and movies in which she's performed. Hers would be the tale of the spunky heroine who triumphs over adversity and makes it in the big city and while that might sound like the plot of an old movie, it has been Ms. Jeannette's reality.

A native of Little Rock and a 1934 graduate of what was then Dunbar High School; Ms. Jeannette defied her parents' plans for her to enter Fisk University when she eloped with Joe Jeannette, a re...(more)

Try saying Biosteres arisanus to the vast majority of people you encounter, and you're likely to he met with raised brows and quizzical looks. Pot simply however, it's the "Harris strain," a parasitic wasp named for and bred by celebrated entomologist and North Little Rock native son, Ernest James Harris.

Harris, a research entomologist for the U. S. Department of Agriculture, is creator of the most powerful weapon in the world's fruit fly artillery. Harris, work is a model of Integrated Pest Management (1PM), a system that eliminates the need for potentially dangerous insecticides by using...(more)