Historically Accurate

The Washington County Historical Society will honor Betty Battenfield, David Malone, Mitch Singleton and Susan Young as the Washington County Distinguished Citizens for 2014 during the society's annual membership luncheon Sunday.

The Washington County Historical Society annually honors residents who have made signification contributions to the life of Washington County and to the preservation of the county's rich history.

The luncheon is also the annual general membership meeting of the society, at which officers and board members are elected. All members of the society are encouraged to attend. Annual general membership in the society is $25 and includes a subscription to Flashback, the society's award-winning quarterly historical journal, and Flashforward, a quarterly newsletter.

The society's mission is to preserve the history of Washington County and present that history to the residents of the county. The society offers educational programs, historical lectures and commemorative events throughout the year.

Betty Battenfield

Dr. Betty Battenfield, M.N., Ed.D., R.N., is a University of Arkansas professor emerita of nursing. After graduating from high school in Texas, she went straight into nursing school at Baptist Memorial Hospital School of Nursing. It was wartime, and she served in the Cadet Corps for nurses. With her associate degree in nursing, she then went to the University of Houston and completed her baccalaureate degree. She received her master's degree in nursing from Wichita (Kan.) State University and then her doctorate from the University of Arkansas.

Battenfield worked and taught pharmacology to nurses' aides at Fayetteville City Hospital and taught licensed practical nurses at Northwest Technical Institute in Springdale. She founded and directed the nursing program at the University of Arkansas' Fayetteville campus from its inception in 1970 until she retired in 1991. In total, she has taught some 1,200 nurses during her career, in addition to serving as an officer and member of numerous nursing professional organizations on the local and regional level. She has served as a consultant to, and on inspection teams for, regional and national accreditation organizations, and she's been a longtime volunteer at the City Hospital Thrift Shop and has served as president of the Fayetteville City Hospital Auxiliary.

Battenfield began volunteering with the Arkansas Country Doctor Museum in Lincoln in 1994, working with Dr. Joe B. Hall and Dr. Mitch Singleton to research, conduct oral history interviews and gather information on old country doctors for possible induction into the museum's Hall of Honor, which currently includes 41 doctors, nurses, patients and doctors' families. Other tasks included organizing the collection of video interviews into 92 DVDs and compiling scrapbooks of doctors' information. Battenfield has also regularly researches and gathers oral histories on nursing in Washington County. She volunteers regularly at the museum and does countless hours of volunteer research from her home. Among Battenfield's research is an article on Fayetteville City Hospital's African-American orderly, James Hoover.

In August 2013 she was honored as an "Outstanding Life Learner" by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, based at the University of Arkansas Global Campus building on the Fayetteville square. Battenfield presented the lecture, "The History of the Arkansas Country Doctor Museum," during WCHS's tour of the museum in March 2014.

David Malone

The Honorable David Malone was born in Beebe and graduated from Hall High School in Little Rock. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in business and a law degree from the University of Arkansas.

After engaging in private law practice, he taught both in the College of Business Administration and the School of Law at the University of Arkansas, later serving as an administrator at the School of Law for a number of years and then as executive director and treasurer of the University of Arkansas Foundation Inc.

Malone served four years in the Arkansas House of Representatives and 18 years as a member of the Arkansas Senate. Prior to that, he served as mayor of Fayetteville and served on the Board of Directors of Fayetteville and still earlier was the city attorney for Fayetteville.

Malone has been active in numerous area, state, regional and national civic and professional organizations including serving as a board member and finance chairman of the Washington County Historical Society. He has researched and written many articles for Flashback, the Washington County Historical Society's periodical. He's also well known for authoring "Hattie and Huey: An Arkansas Tour," which tells the story of Huey Long campaigning in Arkansas for Hattie Caraway to become the first popularly elected female U.S. senator.

Mitch Singleton

Dr. E. Mitchell Singleton holds a bachelor's degree in history from Rice University in Houston and a master's degree in history from the University of Arkansas. He attained his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis. Singleton served his fellowship and residency in ophthalmology at Duke Medical Center in North Carolina and was an associate clinical professor in ophthalmology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Area Health Education Center, Northwest. Singleton maintained a private practice in ophthalmology from 1971 to 2005.

Singleton began volunteering with the Arkansas Country Doctor Museum in Lincoln in the 1990s, working with Dr. Joe B. Hall and Dr. Betty Battenfield to research, conduct oral history interviews and gather information on old country doctors for possible induction into the museum's Hall of Honor.

Singleton has presented papers on Arkansas medical history at conferences of the Arkansas Historical Association, and he wrote the Encyclopedia of Arkansas entry for the Arkansas Country Doctor Museum. He and wife Barbara are moving to Texas in November to be closer to their children and grandchildren.

Susan Young

Susan Young, a fifth-generation Ozarker, has been the outreach coordinator for Shiloh Museum of Ozark History since 1994. She earned a bachelor' degree in agriculture from the University of Arkansas, specializing in horticulture and plant sciences, but her love of history led her into service to Shiloh Museum. Her historical interests include religion, cemeteries and traditional folkways of the Upland South.

She has presented historical programs and workshops to community, church, youth and civic groups as well as professional organizations such as the Southeastern Museums Conference, Appalachian Studies Association, National Park Service, Center for Ozark Living Traditions, Arkansas Archeological Society, Arkansas Historical Association and Arkansas Museums Association.

She has served as secretary for the Arkansas Archeological Society, the Heritage Trail Partners and the Arkansas chapter of the Trail of Tears Association. She has also served as a board member of the Arkansas Historical Association, the Arkansas Museums Association, the Washington County Cemetery Preservation Group and the Ozark Folk Cultural Center Commission.

Her publications include the book "So Big This Little Place: The Founding of Tontitown, 1898-1917," "Memories I Can't Let Go Of: Life Stories from Tontitown," numerous articles for the Washington County Historical Society's Flashback, the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture and the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, among others. She was also instrumental in the publication of Wayne Martin's "Pettigrew, Arkansas: Hardwood Capital of the World" in 2010. The Arkansas Museum Association named her the Volunteer of the Year in 1993 and the Staff Member of the Year in 2007.