Ruth Powell

Ruth Hogan Powell, 88, wife of former Arkansas Gazette editorial editor and columnist James O. Powell, passed away on Friday afternoon, March 18, 2011 in Little Rock. She was one of the earliest female managers at the US Department of Agriculture in the 1940s and 1950s, and later was active as a social hostess and did philanthropic work for many years in Little Rock. Ruth Hogan Powell was born in Red Level, Alabama. She began her career at the US Department of Agriculture Rural Development agency during World War II and steadily rose through the ranks at that agency’s regional offices in Montgomery, Alabama. She attended the University of Alabama. USDA Rural Development works on a variety of activities to help middle and lower income people with housing and other issues in rural areas of America. She began her career at USDA when many federal posts had vacancies because many men were in military service during the war. She continued to advance in federal service after the war and eventually became a supervisor of 17 staff members. Her son, Lee Riley Powell, followed in her footsteps at USDA Rural Development as a Clinton administration Presidential appointee in the 1990s. Even as late as the 1990s USDA was still essentially dominated by men and had issues in according equal treatment to women and minorities. The Clinton administration sought to eradicate vestiges of an unfortunate history of being a difficult place for women and minorities to work and the situation has greatly improved since the 1940s and 1950s. So Ruth Powell’s rise to a managerial post back in the 1940s and 1950s was highly unusual for that era. She served as a strong role model for many other women who wanted to work at USDA or elsewhere in the federal government. Her daughter-in-law, Caroline Thorpe Powell, continues the family tradition by working at USDA national headquarters in Washington, DC. today. After marrying James O. Powell, Ruth Powell was an enthusiastic and strong supporter of her husband’s career as Associate Editor of the Tampa Tribune in Florida before they moved to Little Rock later in the 1950s, where James Powell served as editorial editor and columnist at the Arkansas Gazette for the next 30 years. She was proud of her husband’s progressive support for the civil rights movement and other just causes over the years. She enjoyed meeting the major public figures of her era, and was especially fond of the great Arkansas leaders, from Congressman Brooks Hays, J. William Fulbright, Bill Alexander, and Dale Bumpers to Bill Clinton. She recalled many anecdotes from that era: for example, when President John F. Kennedy came to Arkansas in the fall of 1963, she explained to the President that her son Lee, who was very small, would vote for Kennedy if he were old enough to vote and wanted to shake his hand. President Kennedy smiled and then, bad back and all, bent down to shake the little child’s hands and said "Thanks for your endorsement," to the delight and laughter of everyone there. Ruth Powell enjoyed the trips with her husband to the American Society of Newspaper Editors conventions. In 1964, she went to a ball at the White House where President Lyndon Johnson danced with many of the ladies there. As she was leaving, she exclaimed "Mr. President, this was a wonderful event but I was so disappointed that I didn’t get a chance to dance with you." Whereupon President Johnson, who could be a gallant Southern gentleman when he chose to be, told the Arkansas Gazette editor’s wife "Why we’ll dance right here." So they did an impromptu waltz in the foyer, and this charming event made the front page of the Washington Post society section the next day. She also enjoyed traveling with the Arkansas Gazette’s owners and publishers, Hugh and Louise Patterson, on trips throughout much of Europe and Latin America. She was a devoted friend of the Patterson family, including their son Carrick, editor of the Gazette later on, and his wife Pat Patterson, a talented reporter in her own right who later performed remarkably dedicated work and companionship for Mrs. Powell throughout her life, including the final stages of her illness. She was heavily involved in philanthropic work in Arkansas. She did a tremendous amount of volunteer work for the Second Baptist Church in their project in the 1970s and 1980s for the renovation of the former Albert Pike Hotel, which the church bought and turned into a residential facility for low-income senior adults. The pastor at the time, Rev. Dale Cowling, asked her to do this work, and she found it very rewarding to work on a project to help these people who needed help. Mrs.. Powell was active in the Second Baptist Church for 50 years, under the leadership of Rev. Dale Cowling, Rev. Larry Maddox, Rev. Billy White, Rev. Ray Higgins, and the current pastor, Rev. Matt Cook. In later years she was very proud of her son Lee Powell’s work as director of the nonprofit Delta Grassroots Caucus to fight poverty in the Mississippi Delta region in Arkansas and seven other Delta states, and was a regular participant and quite a presence at the Delta Caucus events in Arkansas for many years. She had a longstanding interest in the Delta region, due to her son’s work but also such sentimental ties as the fact that she once danced with her husband on the deck of the famous riverboat, the Delta Queen, in New Orleans. In one of her last conversations with her son she reminisced about that charming episode on the Delta Queen. She was active in the Bayview Reading Club in trying to generate interest in literary appreciation. Senator Fulbright occasionally helped her get books through the Library of Congress for this activity. She was also active in her neighborhood Garden Club. Mrs. Powell had a strong interest in opera, and worked with Louise Patterson and many others to promote opera in central Arkansas, including efforts with the Arkansas Opera Theater. Many nationally acclaimed opera singers came to Little Rock through these efforts. For example, the Metropolitan Opera star Jan Peerce performed in Little Rock and later that evening made a memorable visit to the Powell home. She was proud of her Irish heritage from the Hogan and Cassady families in Alabama, and was also therefore proud of her son’s and others’ work for the Irish peace process through the Irish American Unity Conference, a nonprofit dedicated to peace and justice in Ireland. She is survived by her son, Lee Riley Powell, and daughter-in-law Caroline Thorpe-Powell of Washington, DC; a sister, Betty Sue Mitchell and brother-in-law Jay Mitchell of Marianna, Florida; a brother, C. J. Hogan, of Auburn, Alabama; a sister, Dorothy Bass, of Dozier, Alabama; a niece, G..A. Wildman of Birmingham, Alabama; a niece Kathleen Hogan Ingram of Auburn, Alabama; a niece, Pat Cassidy of Evergreen, Alabama; and a nephew, Abner Powell, Jr., of Andalusia, Alabama and others. She was preceded in death by her husband, James O. Powell; and a son, James O. Powell, Jr., a lawyer in Little Rock. A memorial service will be held, Thursday afternoon, March 24, 2011 at Second Baptist Church in Little Rock at 1 p.m. Rev. Matt Cook, Rev. Ray Higgins, director of the Arkansas Cooperative Baptist Fellowship; and Rev. James Thomasson officiating. In lieu of flowers, please make a contribution either to Second Baptist Church in Little Rock, or to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Arkansas, which does philanthropic work for low-income people in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas, among many other constructive activities. The address of Second Baptist Church is 222 East Eighth, Little Rock, Arkansas, 72202. The address of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Arkansas is 1504 Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, Little Rock, Arkansas, 72202.

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