Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Remembering farkleberry Rex Nelson
On this date in 2003, Arkansas political cartoonist George Fisher died of an apparent heart attack at the drawing board in his Little Rock home. He had just completed two cartoons.
The previous day—Dec. 14—had marked the ninth anniversary of the death of former Gov. Orval Faubus. Fisher and Faubus will always be tied together by an obscure shrub known as the farkleberry.
“Although Fisher initially supported Faubus, he quickly concluded that Faubus was an opportunist,” writes John Deering, this newspaper’s editorial cartoonist. “Fisher’s most famous Faubus cartoon showed the governor addressing a Legislature of Faubus look-alikes in a biting commentary on his influence on state government. In 1972, the Arkansas Gazette published Fisher’s cartoons several times a week. By the time he was hired as the paper’s editorial cartoonist in 1976, Fisher’s name was synonymous with the Gazette’s. Many of his cartoon symbols have become icons. He popularized the farkleberry bush in an account of a bizarre meeting of Faubus with state highway workers. As the story goes, Faubus stopped at a site where workers were clearing brush to demonstrate how it should be done. He named all the native plants, including the obscure farkleberry.”
The incident occurred in Franklin County as part of what’s now referred to as a “photo op.” Lou Oberste, a writer and photographer for what later would become the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism, shot photos of the governor, who was dressed in overalls and carrying an ax. Faubus had grown up in Madison County in the Ozarks and claimed to know the identities of all trees and bushes native to Arkansas. Along the highway that day, he pointed out redbuds, dogwoods and other trees he wanted saved. After hearing about the publicity stunt, Fisher decided to draw cartoons associating Faubus with the farkleberry, whose wood is considered worthless.
Skip Rutherford, dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at Little Rock and founder of the Political Animals Club, decided it would be a fitting nod to Arkansas political history to plant four farkleberry bushes on the Clinton School campus. There’s a plaque next to the bushes explaining their significance.
“Inside the Clinton School, we also have drawings from The Farkleberry restaurant that were saved by the late Jack Fleischauer,” Rutherford says. “I gave several drawings to the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, where the Farkleberry Follies collection is housed.”
When banker B. Finley Vinson was planning 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 also wanted a less formal restaurant on the first floor that could serve as a happy-hour watering hole for the downtown business crowd. Public relations executive Ron Robinson suggested to Vinson that it be called The Farkleberry and that the walls be covered with caricatures of well-known Arkansans. The Farkleberry operated from 1975-88. Years later, Fleischauer, who headed Arkansas operations for Regions Bank, found the cartoons in boxes in a storage room. He thought about throwing them away but then called Rutherford.
Last year, when I was chairman of the Political Animals Club, we held a program to mark the 50th anniversary of the first Farkleberry Follies. 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 show that would lampoon newsmakers. The inaugural show was held in 1967, Winthrop Rockefeller’s first year as governor after 12 years of the Faubus administration. What was known as the Farkleberry Follies was held every other year during legislative sessions through 1999.
“We had some great Arkansas political characters to use as script material,” says longtime Little Rock advertising executive Ben Combs, who played Faubus in the show. “These types of programs often are called gridiron shows, but the lawyers were already using that name. We came up with Farkleberry Follies for that first show, and it stuck. We liked to put the politicians up front so the other people attending could see their reactions when we made fun of them.”
Adriving force behind the Farkleberry Follies was Leroy Donald, who died in 2009 at age 73 after a career as a writer and editor at the Gazette and later the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Months in advance of the show, people would gather with Donald for long nights of eating, drinking and script-writing. Combs says the goal was to “skewer the inflated egos of the political class with skits and songs.”
The Farkleberry Follies were 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 to the venue, which was new in 1967. It was owned by Ike Murry, who served two terms as Arkansas 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.
“Fisher had a significant role in formulating, producing and performing in the show, which took the name of the Faubus icon,” Ernie Dumas writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “Fisher usually began the show by caricaturing a few of the figures who would be lampooned.”
Fisher, Faubus, the Farkleberry Follies and the restaurant are gone. But the bushes at the Clinton School remind us of the farkleberry’s place in Arkansas history. Senior Editor Rex Nelson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He’s also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.