Warren native Maylon T. Rice left the newspaper business many years ago to enter a profession where he could make more money. He had worked at newspapers in Arkadelphia, McGehee, Wynne, Little Rock and Bentonville. In 1986, he edited The Best of the Arkansas Traveler. It was a collection of Arkansas Traveler columns that ran in the Arkansas Gazette from 1956-86.
That column was published until the Gazette ceased doing business in October 1991. It continued to run for several years in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. In Wednesday's column, I wrote about the first Arkansas Traveler, legendary journalist and educator Ernie Deane. But no account of a column that once informed and entertained Arkansans in all 75 counties would be complete without writing about three men who followed Deane--Bob Lancaster, Mike Trimble and Charles Allbright. They were wordsmiths of the first order; among the best writers Arkansas has produced.
In an introduction to the book, Bill Rutherford, at the time the Gazette's news editor, wrote this: "Bob Lancaster, his nasal twang betraying roots deep in Arkansas, brought to the column thoughts of what is and what should be that sometimes tormented his soul. But for Lancaster the column also brought personal torment. At times it was difficult to put in a column the message he wanted to impart. He honed each sentence, and his style revealed his deep feelings about the subjects on which he wrote."
Lancaster later worked for many years for the Arkansas Times before retiring. Rice wrote of him: "Grant County has produced two sets of brothers that cause people to sit up and take notice. One is the Stephens brothers--Witt and Jack--whose investment banking firm has made waves in financial circles worldwide. The other is the Lancaster brothers, Bill and Bob, both highly respected in Arkansas journalism. Bob Lancaster, a tall, quiet country boy whose serious demeanor belies his formal education as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard and the absolutely sidesplitting humor that marks his writing, was the Arkansas Traveler in the early 1970s.
"Lancaster is a master at his craft. He worked hard writing columns that said something, and that something stayed with his readers until his next column appeared. He left the Traveler spot to be 'a journalistic missionary in the Pennsylvania Heart of Darkness,' he wrote in 1973 when he left to join the staff of the Philadelphia Inquirer. He returned to the state in 1976."
Trimble, meanwhile, composed sentences I can recall years after they were published. Writing once about the taste of the coon at the annual Gillett Coon Supper, he ended a story by noting that "it tastes brown." In 1993, when I was the political editor of this newspaper, we began a Best 10, Worst 10 of the Arkansas Legislature feature in the Sunday Perspective section. Trimble was our main writer on the project and began one sentence this way: "In the House of Representatives, where the shallow end runs the length of the pool ..."
"With the shortest tenure of all the Arkansas Travelers, Mike Trimble filled the gap with his unique, offbeat style of humor," Rice wrote. "A native of Bauxite, Trimble was described by outgoing Traveler Bob Lancaster as 'a young man with a sense of humor and a lively interest in matters pertaining to the real world.' After 11 months as the Traveler, Trimble returned to the Gazette's state desk, where he labored until he went to work for the Arkansas Times in 1984."
Rutherford described Trimble thusly: "Mike Trimble, as clever a mind, as accomplished a writer to ever grace any newsroom anywhere. From hilarious happenings to poignant tales of life and death, of man and beast, Trimble was a master. ... He knew well the blank-stare battle of copy paper and writer. His columns, however, never betrayed that secret battle."
Allbright, the last Arkansas Traveler, had served as a speechwriter for Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller. He wrote the moving statement that received worldwide attention when Rockefeller commuted the sentences of all prisoners on death row in Arkansas as his last act before leaving office in January 1971. Whereas Deane, Lancaster and Trimble had traveled the state, Allbright transformed the Arkansas Traveler into a humor column.
"Allbright is a survivor," Rutherford wrote. "His prose flows, and his feeling for the people who reveal their lives to him is genuine and sincere. But he, too, knows the agony of hours staring at blank paper and empty screens. The hand wrenching, the fingers massaging the tired brow, the frantic gum chewing when the cigarettes had been given up once again, and the nervous trip through the newsroom to the coffee machine. It was all in a day's work. Allbright, as much as any Traveler, has left with the reader thoughts and messages that last long beyond the last word of the column."
Allbright hailed from McGehee in southeast Arkansas, where his father had been a school administrator.
Rice called Allbright "one of the funniest writers in the Mid-South today. Behind his success is an insight, an empathy, an ability to see things in perspective. He cares. That is perhaps his strongest suit. He can make us cry. He can make us laugh. Why? Because he loves people. He loves our state. And he loves being the Traveler."
Allbright told Rice his job consisted of "just taking notes" He said the secret of the column was that "there was no writing to it. Simply hold up a mirror, and the lights of Arkansas become reflected in it. The lights, and the darks as well."
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 04/18/2020