Razorbacks Overstepping Politics

HOG ANNOUNCERS AMONG FALL’S BEST BOOKS

As I occasionally do, I’ll step away and give politics a rest this week and concentrate on whether or not the Arkansas Razorbacks beat the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers last week.

This column was written prior to the Hog Nation’s trip to Piscataway, N.J., home to the State College of New Jersey (Rutgers), so that outcome will not to be reported here.

As the Razorbacks sit now, they are 3-0 going into the Rutgers game and a pile of fall books has gathered along side of my desk.

Two of which, need immediate mention.

First, in keeping with the Razorback theme, a new book, “Voices of the Razorbacks: A History of Arkansas’s Iconic Sports Broadcasters,” by Hoyt Purvis and Stanley Sharp, is hot off the Butler Center Books’ press. The thin 160-page volume, $16.95 in paperback, is being distributed by the University of Arkansas Press in Fayetteville and can be found at local bookstores or at www. butlercenter.org.

The tandem of Purvis and Sharp gives chapter and verse from the earliest days of broadcasting Razorback sporting events, thanks to the longevity and memory of long-time Hog PR guru of yesteryear Bob Cheyne of Bella Vista. Cheyne in the 1950s actually started going station to station to every local radio operation in the state, signing up these small AM stations to a loose-knit network — often against the old Southwest Conferences own radio organization.

Both writers bring Hog fans to the modern trio of booth announcers and chronicle those who have been in the press boxes calling the Razorbacks for the decades in between.

While the book is factual and interesting, the thin volume has very few actual quotes from some of the announcers who are retired or in retirement. The book, an intricate history of the massive press machine the UA now generates for its flagship campus, is a needed historical story. It is written well and factual. Those who for generations have heard Razorback games called over a radio will relish in the names of the late Bud Campbell and Paul Eels as well as Dave Woodman, Big Sam Smith, Mike Nail and others who have had a turn behind the microphone.

Purvis of Fayetteville is a professor of Journalism at UA and is also the current president of the Washington County Historical Society. Sharp of Booneville is a UA graduate in journalism and a long-time watcher of Razorback sports.

A local author who has found her exacting Southern voice through the medium of the short story is Nancy Hartney of Fayetteville.

Through Pen-L Publishing in Fayetteville, she has rolled out her maiden book, “Washed In The Water: Tales From the South,” a collection of seven short stories that are indeed well-written, a joy and delight to read.

Hartney, who is a staff member of the Fayetteville Public Library’s Adult Services Division, reaches back to her Georgia childhood and into other places across the south to find her unique characters and their very southern voices.