LITTLE ROCK — Jon Fitch, director of the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission and a former state senator who worked to improve the state’s agricultural industry for more than 20 years, died Saturday.
Fitch, 60, died at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Medical Center from complications from a stroke.
“He liked people, he had strong opinions, but he was also open to listening,” former Sen. Steve Bryles said. “He made decisions carefully, and I can’t say enough good things about Jon Fitch, the man.”
Whether the former senator was pushing for new agricultural legislation or tending to his 800-acre cattle farm in Madison County, he was always working for Arkansas residents, said his nephew, Bob Edwards.
“He liked making things, whether it was building a farm or making legislation,” Edwards said.
Fitch, a Democrat, made strides in the state’s agricultural industry while serving as a state representative forsix years before becoming a senator in 1985.
“He knew how the government side of agriculture worked and he knew the everyday hands-on work,” Edwards said.
As a member of the Agriculture and Economic Development Committee, he helped establish several agricultural laws, said Bryles, deputy director of the commission.
In 1985, he helped passthe first Brucellosis Eradication Act to prevent the bacterial disease that kills unborn calves. At the time, Arkansas was almost placed on brucellosis quarantine. The act allowed inspectors to test at sale barns and vaccinate cattle for the disease, State Veterinarian George Pat Badley said. The state became brucellosis-free in 1997.
“I think [the law] has safeguarded the industry very well,” Bryles said. “Our law goes beyond federal regulations.”
Fo rmer state SenateChief of Staff Bill Lancaster, a friend of Fitch’s, said “One of the things he was proudest of was leading the fight back in the 1990s to get the press back in the Senate after they had been kicked out for a couple of years.”
Lancaster said some senators were “mean” in reacting to media reports they didn’t like and led an effort that resulted in news reporters being denied the opportunity to cover the Senate from within the Senate chambers, though in-Senate coverage had been going on for decades.
“But Jon thought that was just wrong, so [then-Sen. Mike] Beebe and Jon and some of the others got together and led the push to correct that,” Lancaster said. “That was one of the things he’d always reminisce about when we’d be out to dinner or fishing or playing golf. He was proud of correcting that.”
In January 2007, Gov. Beebe appointed Fitch to serve as director of the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission.
“I met Jon when I entered the Senate in 1983, and weremained close colleagues for the next 28 years,” the governor said in a statement released by his office Sunday. “A dear friend and a dependable ally, Jon jumped at the chance to lead the Livestock and Poultry Commission, and his time there has bolstered both the efficiency and morale of the office. We will miss his warm smile and his dedication to Arkansas, and I will personally miss his friendship.”
Fitch followed in the path of his father, former Rep. Rolla Fitch, who was the firstdirector of the commission in 1963.
During his four years as director, Fitch worked to get more emergency-response equipment and keep livestock inspectors at the sale barns. He also led a group of inspectors about three years ago to eradicate an outbreak of low pathogenic avian influenza that saved the “poultry industry millions of dollars,” Badley said.
His son Jeff Fitch said, “Nobody ever came up and said anything negative about him. He was able to touch so many lives.” Information for this article was contributed by Bill Simmons of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/28/2011