The fabulous farkleberry Rex Nelson

The farkleberry is a shrub that can be found from the East Coast to Texas. It can grow to a height of almost 25 feet and has black berries that birds feed on. Curtis Morris writes in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture: “The shrub is nearly unknown today.” So why does it have its own entry in the encyclopedia? If you don’t know the answer to that question, you’re likely not old enough to remember Gov. Orval Faubus or editorial cartoonist George Fisher.

Faubus, who served as governor from 1955-67, was helping clear brush along a state highway in Franklin County one day for what’s now referred to as a “photo op.” Lou Oberste, a writer and photographer for the state Department of Parks and Tourism, was shooting photos of the governor, who was dressed in overalls and carrying an ax. Faubus had grown up in Madison County and claimed to know the identities of most of the trees and bushes native to Arkansas. He pointed out redbuds, dogwoods and other trees he wanted saved. After hearing about the publicity stunt, Fisher decided to draw cartoons showing Faubus with a farkleberry, whose wood was considered worthless.

Fisher grew up at Beebe and died in 2003 at age 80. He has been described by John Deering, this newspaper’s editorial cartoonist, as a man whose work “influenced and helped define Arkansas politics for a generation. He created a series of visual metaphors and themes that were widely associated with the politicians he caricatured and became a part of Arkansas political folklore. … Although Fisher initially supported Faubus, he quickly concluded that Faubus was an opportunist. Fisher’s most famous Faubus cartoon showed the governor addressing a legislature of Faubus lookalikes in a biting commentary on his influence on state government. Many of his cartoon symbols have become icons.”

So it was with the farkleberry, which came to be identified with the Faubus administration. Faubus called the walking path behind his Huntsville home the Farkleberry Trail. When the Arkansas chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists began looking for ways to raise money for college scholarships, it decided to put on a stage show to lampoon newsmakers. The inaugural show was held in 1967 (Winthrop Rockefeller’s first year as governor) and was known as the Farkleberry Follies, and was held every other year during legislative sessions through 1999. Last month, the Political Animals Club of Little Rock held a program to mark the 50th anniversary of that first show. Veteran Little Rock advertising and public relations executive Ben Combs, who played Faubus, was joined by former Arkansas Senate chief of staff Bill “Scoop” Lancaster, who played Congressman Tommy Robinson.

“We had some great Arkansas political characters with which to work through the years,” Combs said. “These types of shows often are called the Gridiron, but the lawyers were already using that name. We came up with Farkleberry Follies for that first show and it stuck.” Combs said the tradition was for local elected officials to be seated up front on Wednesday nights followed by members of the Legislature on Thursday nights, the governor and the other statewide constitutional officers on Friday nights and the members of the state’s congressional delegation on Saturday nights. “We liked to put them up front so the other people attending could see their reactions when we made fun of them,” Combs said.

The driving force was Leroy Donald, who died in 2009 at age 73 after a long career as a writer and editor at the Arkansas Gazette and this newspaper. Months in advance of the follies, people such as Lancaster and Combs would gather with Donald for long nights of eating, drinking and script writing. Combs said the goal was to “skewer the inflated egos of the political class with skits and songs.”

The show was held at what originally was the Olde West Dinner Theatre and is now Murry’s Dinner Playhouse in southwest Little Rock. There was a political connection since the theater was owned by Ike Murry, who served two terms as the state’s attorney general from 1949-53 when Sid McMath was governor. Murry ran for governor in 1952 and finished last in a field of five in the Democratic primary. But he became a regular at the weekday luncheons hosted for years by Little Rock financier Witt Stephens. Politics often dominated the discussions at those luncheons, where cornbread was always on the menu.

When Little Rock banker B. Finley Vinson was overseeing the construction of the skyscraper that’s now the Regions Bank building, he wanted a fine-dining venue on the top floor. That became Restaurant Jacques & Suzanne’s. Vinson wanted a less formal restaurant on the first floor that also would serve as a happy-hour watering hole for the downtown business crowd. Public relations executive Ron Robinson suggested to Vinson that the place be called The Farkleberry and that the walls be covered with political cartoons and caricatures of well-known Arkansans.

The Farkleberry operated from 1975-88. Years later, Jack Fleischauer, who headed Arkansas operations for Regions, found the cartoons from The Farkleberry in boxes in a storage room. He thought about throwing them away but decided to ask Skip Rutherford, the founder of the Political Animals Club, if he wanted them. Rutherford, now dean of the Clinton School of Public Service, saved the cartoons. Some of them are on display at the Clinton School and the others are stored at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. In that sense, the fruit of the farkleberry lives on.