Run of the News

Arkansas has a strong tradition of producing talented news- paper columnists. Last week, I focused on the men who wrote the Arkansas Traveler column for the Arkansas Gazette through the decades. I so loved newspapers that I would race to the driveway of our home to retrieve the Gazette early each morning while still wearing my pajamas.

My grandparents in Benton took the afternoon Arkansas Democrat, and I would read it each time I visited. When I was in high school, I took some of the money I earned working at Arkadelphia’s radio station and weekly newspaper to purchase a Democrat subscription. I did it because of the columnists. I would laugh aloud as Bob Lancaster described the antics of the Arkansas Legislature and think deeply as James Scudder posted his takes on life. The sports pages featured two fine columnists, Fred Morrow and Jim Lassiter.

I became a Democrat reader too late in life to appreciate the wit and wisdom of Karr Shannon, who spent 27 years writing a daily column. At my home, though, I have a collection of Shannon’s Run of the News columns, Karr Shannon’s Best, published in 1973. Shannon had died at age 69 on Oct. 17, 1971.

Just as interesting as the columns are an introduction by famous Arkansas journalist Bob McCord and an account of Shannon’s life by his son, Dr. Robert F. Shannon. They bring to life a man who once was among this state’s bestknown writers.

“Karr Shannon loved words,” McCord wrote. “As bullets are to a soldier, words were tools for Karr, The analogy is fairly accurate, too. He used the words like bullets to puncture pomposity, to bushwhack wild schemes of change for change’s sake, to wound bureaucrats and politicians whom he distrusted and to drill into his readers’ minds the necessity for hewing to the verities he learned while growing up in Izard County and never found any reason to change. These maxims were a peculiar mixture of the works of H.L. Mencken, the Ten Commandments and Andrew Jackson’s first inaugural address, in which the old general (who Karr never would have failed to note was president when Arkansas became a state) said ‘the federal Constitution must be obeyed, state rights preserved, our national debt must be paid, direct taxes and loans avoided, and the federal union preserved.’”

Shannon produced between 600 and 700 words a day, seven days a week, 50 weeks a year from December 1944 until August 1971. That’s about 7 million words. His son said he was “praised and cursed by as many people as any other writer in Arkansas history. He was called a reactionary, an arch conservative, a simplistic thinker, a stick in the mud, a holdover from the 19th century, a hick. … But he was also honored by foundations, organizations and colleges for his constructive influence. Whatever he was called, he probably had a wider readership than any journalist in Arkansas, and to a writer being read is the most important thing.”

Shannon was born in March 1902 in Lunenburg. His mother died when he was 5, and his father when he was 8, both of tuberculosis. Shannon was raised by a widowed aunt. He completed high school and took some junior college courses at an unaccredited school in Mountain Home. He trained in Little Rock to be a pharmacist and was licensed in 1924. After discovering that he was allergic to many of the compounds used at the pharmacy, he turned to teaching.

Shannon took a correspondence course in law and passed the bar exam in 1928. He never practiced law, however. He later obtained his bachelor’s degree from what’s now Lyon College at Batesville. He taught and was a principal at Melbourne and in 1926 became the state’s youngest county school superintendent. Shannon resigned as the Izard County school supervisor

The Melbourne Times.

“Thus after a decade of searching for a career — first in medicine, then pharmacy, then teaching and law, he arrived at what would be his life’s work — writing,” Robert Shannon wrote. “Writing had long appealed to him, and he had already written feature articles, had authored a history of Izard County in 1926 and a second book titled Hillbilly Philosophy in 1932. All of his interests, training and talents seemed best suited to journalism, and for the next 12 years he poured them into The Melbourne Times.

“The cornerstones of his editorship were thorough reporting, detailed research, getting the facts straight, reliable and well-informed contacts, honesty and integrity in all dealings, and widespread involvement in the social, civic and political activities of the county. He knew everyone in Izard County and the history of everyone in Izard County.”

Izard County was losing population, and World War II totally dried up the labor force. Shannon couldn’t run a newspaper by himself and decided to move to Little Rock in late 1944. When he couldn’t find a buyer, he simply shut it down. His son said Shannon was suffering from fatigue and depression.

“He moved to Little Rock with a pregnant wife, a son in college, an 11-year-old boy, a truckload of rather shabby furniture, a fairly sizable bank account, an excellent credit rating, a body wracked with pain, some upper teeth which would shortly have to be extracted and a job which would pay him considerably less than he had recently been making and which would require of him a daily output of 600 to 700 words,” Robert Shannon wrote.

The Run of the News column previously had been written by Miles Scull and Al Pollard. Karr Shannon would make it his own and in the process gain what McCord described as “the biggest following of any columnist in Arkansas.”