Insuring success

Springdale native honored for lifetime of giving

GO & DO ‘Springdale’s Original Cowboy’ Honoring Sandy Boone

What: Dinner and entertainment

When: 6:30 p.m. Nov. 15

Where: Rodeo Community Center in Springdale

Cost: $40 per person or $350 for a table for 10

Reservations: 871-1945 or 422-0650

Proceeds benefit Springdale Noon Kiwanis’ children’s proj

ects and the Springdale Benevolent Foundation.

To drive through Springdale is to travel the path of Sandy Boone’s life - from the 40 acres where he was reared north of town to the historic Springdale High School building where he graduated in 1941; from downtown, where he developed many of the commercial buildings, to the rodeo grounds on the east end of Emma Avenue, where he brought entertainment to Springdale; to the hospital he helped found and the tree-lined neighborhood he built around it.

Joseph Sanford “Sandy” Boone will be honored by the community with a dinner at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 15 at the Rodeo Community Center on the grounds of the Rodeo of the Ozarks.

Specifically, the event highlights his 65 years as a member of the Springdale Noon Kiwanis Club and 40 years as a charter member of the Rodeo of the Ozarks Board of Directors. He will celebrate his 90th birthday in February.

“It was just going to be a Kiwanis event, but it seemed a shame to limit it. We wanted to have the opportunity to celebrate him,” said Jeanne Justis Harp, president of the Noon Kiwanis.

“He always wanted for something good to happen to Springdale,” said Tex Holt, a fellow Kiwanian and Rodeo Board member. “That’s how he gave back to the community.”

INSURING SUCCESS

Boone joined other Springdale businessmen, such as John Tyson, J.B. Hunt and Harvey Jones, in building Springdale after World War II, Holt said.

Boone explained that he returned to Springdale in 1946 after serving the Air Force as a drummer in the Air Force Band at Walnut Ridge. He built a community of homes along Maple Drive, part of the first land developed and subdivided for post-war housing, according to the Washington County History Book, published in 1988.

“I dug all the holes for those trees. I poured every sack of concrete and sand into the cement mixer,” Boone recalled proudly. “I planted every maple tree along the street and watered them for two years with a 5-gallon bucket inthe back of my car.”

Boone got his start by contracting remodeling work for friends, and in 1959 this evolved into his company, Original Homes, which could include not only the contracting but also the decorating “from floor to wall to ceiling,”the history book reads. Boone continued development of subdivisions across Northwest Arkansas and commercial buildings on Emma Avenue in the mid-1970s.

“I always liked to draw and build houses,” he said.

Boone also worked for the Ritter Insurance Agency, starting in 1950 under the GI Bill’s on-the-job training program. He opened his own Boone Insurance Agency in 1952 and then added his good friend Jim Ritter as a partner in 1957 to create the Boone-Ritter Insurance Agency.

“He was good at business and had the ability to get people behind him,” said Holt, who works at Boone-Ritter today. “He had the guts and the nerve, and he really, really kept bringing up Springdale.”

‘ RED-BLOODED SPRINGDALIAN’

Walter Turnbow of Springdale worked with Boone on many civic projects. Turnbow also left the Air Force in 1946, and the two men have shared 60-plus years of friendship.

“He was thoughtful and thorough in his jobs,” Turnbow said of Boone.

“He accomplished a lot for Springdale.”

Both men served on the board of Springdale Memorial Hospital (the precursor to Northwest Medical Center) and sought to improve the hospital.

“He worked to bring in doctors in all the different areas the people of Springdale needed,” Turnbow said. “Springdale Memorial Hospital had the first cardiologist in the 1970s and was the first hospital to do heart surgery. It was fast growing when, at one time, all we had was two hardworking doctors.

“He wanted medical service for himself, his family and the rest of Springdale,” Turnbow said.

In the early days of the community, city fathers determined the need for a park. Boone recommended the area where Murphy Park is now, Turnbow said.

“But the land was owned by five brothers, and they wouldn’t sell it to the city,” he continued. “Come to find out, one of them was personal friends with Sandy, and he talked them into selling it if we named it ‘Murphy Park.’

“And many people don’t know this, but the land was purchased for $25,000.

“There were 3,000 people in Springdale at the time,” Turnbow said. “We never dreamed we’d have the 70,000 we have today.”

And Boone helped take care of that growth. He served on the city Planning Commission beginning in 1954 and promoted new industry in town as a member of the Springdale Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. The Chamber honored him with the Community and Civic Award in 1974 and as the Citizen of the Year in 1975. He receiveda mayoral recognition for lifetime and community service in 2005.

“We both grew up in the Methodist Church,” Turnbow said, continuing his recollections. “He had the vision for the (First United Methodist Church leadership) in purchasing property around the church for growth, so we could stay in downtown Springdale. And I think the church has been a real asset for downtown Springdale.”

“(Boone) has been a big asset to this community, but he was quiet and kind of worked behind the scenes,” Holt said. “He had a vision to make Northwest Arkansas a wonderful place to raise a family.

“He’s just a good, good, red-blooded Springdalian.”

SPRINGDALE’S ORIGINAL COWBOY

Boone was born Feb. 15, 1923, on 40 acres just north of today’s Phillips Avenue.

He got his first pony - a paint horse, Mack - for his sixth birthday and rode it to school every day from the first through seventh grades, staking it in the yard of the school superintendent during the day.

“By then, I was so big that my big feet nearly drug the ground,” Boone said.

“That next summer, I got a full-size horse.”

The Boone home - a former barn, “the fanciest horse barn in Springdale,” Boone described - included a combination playroom and tack room. “(My father) would bring her into the playroom to saddle her,” he said of his horse.

The first Rodeo of the Ozarks bucked out in 1944, and Boone joined area citizens to organize the “Cavalcade,” a long-standing goodwill tour to promote the rodeo and Springdale.

They drove 40 miles fromtown to town surrounding Springdale. “We stopped at each town and entertained for 30 minutes,” explained Sandye Graham, Boone’s daughter. Among those original entertainers were Boone’s father Percy Wayland “Doc” Boone and the Hillbilly Band, later known as the Skunk Holler Band.

Boone received special permission from the Air Force to return to Springdale for the first Cavalcade.

“I had a pass to go for that weekend,” Boone said, “but that meant I couldn’t get off again that quick. So that’s why I missed the first rodeo.”

He joined the rodeo board in 1947, after his military service was fulfilled.

Boone’s daughters Koni and Sandye joined him on the Cavalcades, trail rides, play days and horse showing events, while his wife Juanita drove the car through Arkansas and surrounding states. “I was afraid of horses,” Juanita admitted.

“But none of it was near as much as fun as riding through the woods all day,” Boone added.

Through it all, Boone rode his “paints.” He was a member of the Pinto Horse Association of America, when he decided the paint horses (which look like they’ve been splashed with paint) needed their own recognition and registry.

This led him to be known locally as the co-founder of the American Paint Horse Association in 1962.

Similar contacts led him to join the late Lee Zachary, then Springdale Chamber of Commerce president, in promoting the Miss Rodeo America contest in Las Vegas. The two moved the headquarters to the Old Chamber Building in Springdale, and Boone served aspresident of that organization from 1979 to 1981.

“They made Northwest Arkansas something people all over the U.S. know about,” Holt said.

A picture taken by Gene Thompson of Boone, Koni and Sandye lined up on their paint horses carried him all the way to California. The late Gov. Orval Faubus saw the picture in The Springdale News (the predecessor of The Morning News) and asked the family to represent Arkansas in the annual Tournament of Roses Parade. But when parade organizers learned the daughters were only about 6 or 7 years old, they wouldn’t let them ride. So Boone traveled the parade route by himself in a Western suit, custom-madewith red rhinestone Razorbacks emblazoned on it.

“It’s the best horse picture I’ve ever seen, even if it is mine,” Boone said.

“He loved that rodeo board, the horses and the people,” Holt said.

KIWANIS RECOGNITION

“We’re doing this because it should have been done a long time ago,” said Harp, president of the Noon Kiwanis. “We wanted to acknowledge Sandy and all his work in the community and Northwest Arkansas.”

A book marking the 50th anniversary of the club in 1996 records that Boone was introduced as a new member in July 1997, immediately after his discharge from the Air Force.

“I had just come home after I was discharged, and I went into First State Bank,”Boone recalled. “Tom Bain got to me and said, ‘We just formed a Kiwanis club in Springdale, and you’re going to be a charter member.’

“And there’s almost nothing he hasn’t done (for the club), and most of that he’s done three to four times over,” Justice said.

“And he still joins us for lunch every Thursday at Western Sizzlin’.”FAST FACTS Sandy Boone: Enough for a lifetimeSandye (Boone) Graham complied this list of her father’s service and accomplishments: FAMILY Birthdate: Feb. 15, 1923, in Springdale Parents: Percy Wayland “Doc” and Harriet Ewalt Boone Wife: Juanita Ledbetter, married on Nov. 19, 1947 Daughters: Koni Powers and husband Richard, Sandye Graham and husband James Grandchildren: Justin Power, Preston Power and Heather Graham Leclerc Great-grandchildren: Samantha Power, Benjamin Power, Ezrah Power, Evan Power, Amanda Power and Leo Leclerc SCHOOL AND MILITARY Springdale High School graduate, 1941 University of Arkansas, 1941 to 1942, 1946 to 1947, member of Sigma Nu fraternity Only drummer in the UA band Recruited for Walnut Ridge Air Force Band, February 1942 Air Force, 1942 to 1946 BUSINESS Sandy’s Men’s Store, 1947 to 1949 (burned New Year’s Eve 1949) Ritter Insurance Agency, January 1950 Hitchin’ Post restaurant, 1951 to 1953 Boone Insurance Agency, 1952 to 1957 Boone-Ritter Insurance Agency, 1967 to retirement Remodeling, contracting, late 1940s Original Homes, founded May 25, 1949Developed San Jose Manor and downtown mall, mid-1970s MEMBERSHIPS Springdale Riding Club, mid- to late 1940s Jaycees, mid-1940s (before Kiwanis) Rodeo of the Ozarks, 1947 to 1987 Springdale Noon Kiwanis, 1947 to present;

past presidentSpringdale Chamber of Commerce, president 1973 Springdale Planning Commission, 1954; 1961 to 1975 Pinto Horse Association of America, 1950s Northwest Arkansas Home Builders Association, charter member, past president Springdale Mounted Patrol, co-founder, 1950s to 1960s American Paint Horse Association, co-founder 1962; lifetime member, 1982 Springdale Downtowners Miss Rodeo America Pageant, 1972 to 1987, president 1979 to 1981 First State Bank Board of Directors, 1973 to 1988 Springdale Memorial Hospital Board of Directors, 1974 to 1998 Foothills of the Ozarks Antique Car Club, 1978 (25-year award, 2003) National Society, Sons of the American Revolution HONORS AND AWARDS Tournament of Roses Parade, 1957 National Association of Home Builders, Northwest Arkansas chapter: yearlong membership contest winner, 1960 Springdale Chamber of Commerce: Community and Civic Service Award, 1974; Citizen of the Year, 1975 Personalities of the South, 1978 to 1979 Mayor’s Recognition for Lifetime of Community Service, 2005 Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, gold card

Style, Pages 29 on 11/08/2012

Upcoming Events