Attorney General Griffin announces plan to honor Arkansas D-Day "Band of Brothers" hero SSG Denver "Bull" Randleman with statue in Downtown Little Rock using private funds

Griffin: ‘I can think of no better person to sculpt and honor Denver Randleman than Kevin Kresse’

LITTLE ROCK – Attorney General Tim Griffin today issued the following statement announcing plans to erect a statue in downtown Little Rock honoring Arkansas native Staff Sergeant Denver “Bull” Randleman, who participated in the D-Day invasion as a member of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division that was portrayed in the book-turned-miniseries “Band of Brothers:”

Denver “Bull” Randleman - Facebook Image

“It is past time that we honor the selfless service of Staff Sergeant Denver Randleman, and today I am announcing that acclaimed sculptor Kevin Kresse has agreed to sculpt a statue that will honor Staff Sergeant Randleman and be placed in downtown Little Rock near the new home of the Office of the Attorney General. Kevin’s talent for capturing the spirit of his subjects through posture, expression, and countless other details is extraordinary, and his work was recently heralded for his statue of Johnny Cash, which now sits in the United States Capitol. I can think of no better person to sculpt and honor Denver Randleman than Kevin Kresse.

“Preserving Staff Sergeant Randleman’s legacy through this statue will add to the quality of downtown Little Rock, and it will call attention not just to this single man but to all of Arkansas’s military heroes, particularly those who served in World War II.”

Randleman was born in Rector and died in 2003 in Texarkana, Arkansas, where he is buried.

Staff Sergeant Randleman’s service in Europe after the D-Day invasion was immortalized in Stephen Ambrose’s book “Band of Brothers,” which later was developed into an award-winning miniseries by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, in which Randleman was portrayed by actor Michael Cudlitz.

The statue is being funded completely with private funds.

Arkansas Governor Sarah Sanders delivers remarks at the unveiling of the Johnny Cash statue in Emancipation Hall

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivered remarks at the unveiling of the Johnny Cash Statue in Emancipation Hall on Tuesday, September 24th.

The Governor’s remarks as prepared are below:

Johnny Cash - GoodFon Image

It is an honor to be back in our nation’s Capitol to represent Arkansas and honor one of our state’s best-known icons, Johnny Cash. Thank you to Arkansas’ congressional delegation and our congressional leaders for being here.
 
I look out in the crowd and see plenty of friendly faces. Many of you were here last spring when we unveiled Daisy Bates’ statue. I’m glad we’re here again to tell Arkansas’ story.
 
Many of you know that I grew up in politics. But what you may not know is that I also grew up in a musical family.
 
To us – and to just about every other musical family in the South – after God and country came Johnny Cash. Even more than his songs, it’s the image of the man that I remember: the slicked-back hair of his early albums, the seasoned look of his later years. 
 
Perhaps the most iconic: the pictures of Cash at San Quentin and Folsom prisons.
 
Not long ago, my husband and I hosted another Arkansas musician, Zach Williams, at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion. Zach shares some biographical notes with Cash: he too was raised in the Arkansas Delta. He too got his start in rock music before falling into drugs and alcohol.
 
He too found Jesus, quit using, and started writing Christian music. He too now performs in prisons.
 
Zach shared his experience performing with us: looking out in the crowd, seeing inmates with tattoos on their faces and necks. His thought wasn’t, “how am I different from them.” It was, “I could be sitting right there.”
 
Obviously, there are some differences between Zach and Johnny Cash. When Cash visited Folsom Prison, his most famous line was all Man in Black bravado: “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”
 
But Johnny Cash also used to say that he was two people: “Johnny is the nice one. Cash causes all the trouble.” It’s not hard to imagine that he too looked out into that prison crowd and saw a version of himself staring back.
 
Johnny Cash was open about both the struggles and triumphs in his life. He was a hymn-singing Christian. But there were also times when he wrote that he felt like a “walking vision of death.” 
 
That didn’t contradict his image: it was his image. Cash’s first big hit was called “I Walk the Line.” In an era when most musicians’ images were carefully curated, he was open about straddling the border between clean-cut Johnny and cast-down Cash.
 
When so much in today’s world is fake, Johnny Cash was real.
 
Not long ago, I toured Cash’s childhood home in Dyess, Arkansas. I saw the cramped rooms where his parents raised their seven kids. I saw the fields where Johnny and his family worked, picking cotton and singing church music.
 
It was an unspectacular childhood, the same as thousands of other kids in thousands of other little farmhouses in the Delta.
 
But it’s what makes Johnny Cash special. Millions of Americans could look at him, look at his career, look at his success, and still say, “he’s one of us.”
 
Johnny Cash walked the line. It wasn’t a straight line. It was like the Arkansas River: jagged, but always moving forward.
 
We’re a nation of second chances, of constant reinvention, of continuous redemption. Where a singer can start in the cotton fields and eventually perform to stadiums. Where a Christian baptized in the Tyronza River can headline a Billy Graham Crusade.
 
Where a man can defeat his own demons and become a vessel for the Holy Spirit.
 
Johnny Cash was an ordinary man and a superstar, all in one. It’s a story that could only happen in America. And it’s a story that Arkansas – the land of pioneers and patriots – is proud to tell.
 
Thank you to everyone who made this statue and this story possible.
 
May God bless Johnny Cash, and may God bless the great State of Arkansas.

Johnny Cash statue unveiled at U.S. Capitol

by Roby Brock (roby@talkbusiness.net)

Singer, songwriter, activist and Arkansas native Johnny Cash is now represented in the halls of the U.S. Capitol.

A statue of Cash, who was born in Kingsland, Ark., and spent his childhood in Dyess in the Arkansas Delta, was unveiled Tuesday (Sept. 24) in Emancipation Hall at the national capitol complex. Arkansas’ Congressional delegation and Gov. Sarah Sanders joined other dignitaries and artist Kevin Kresse of Little Rock in revealing the 8-foot tall sculpture.

Cash is the first musician in history to be included in the National Statuary Hall Collection and his statue is one of two honoring Arkansas icons. Civil rights pioneer Daisy Bates, whose sculpture was unveiled earlier this year, also represents the state.

Johnny Cash statue unveiled at U.S. Capitol

A statue of Arkansas-native Johnny Cash was unveiled Tuesday (Sept. 24) in the U.S. Capitol.

Bass Reeves portrait to be on display in the Arkansas Capitol

by Michael Tilley (mtilley@talkbusiness.net)

Artists will soon be solicited to paint a portrait of Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves for display in the Arkansas Capitol building. Reeves will be the first African-American and first non-governor to have a portrait in the Capitol, according to the Arkansas Secretary of State’s office.

Reeves was a U.S. Deputy Marshal under U.S. Federal Judge Isaac C. Parker. Reeves was born a slave in Texas in 1838 and died in Muskogee, Okla., on Jan. 12, 1910. Reeves was an African-American and illiterate, but captured more outlaws than anyone else, according to the book, “Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves,” written by Art Burton. Burton wrote that Reeves was an expert tracker and detective, and was able to memorize the warrants for every lawbreaker he was to arrest and bring to trial. Reeves was the first African-American inducted into the Great Westerners Hall of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City in 1992.

A 25-foot tall monument of Bass Reeves was unveiled in downtown Fort Smith in May 2012. It was created by sculptor Harold T. Holden. The larger-than-life statue of Reeves also includes his horse, Blaze, and his trusty dog, named simply “Dog.”

Bass Reeves portrait to be on display in the Arkansas Capitol

Photo of Bass Reeves and his monument in downtown Fort Smith.

UA Chancellor Recommends Moving Fulbright Statue, Keeping Name On College

By MICHAEL TILLEY/ TALK BUSINESS & POLITICS

University of Arkansas Chancellor Dr. Joseph Steinmetz supports the move to rename a main dining hall on the campus and relocate a statue of former U.S. Sen. William Fulbright, but opposes renaming the university’s Fulbright College of Art and Sciences.

Earlier this year a university-sanctioned committee reviewed requests to rename Brough Commons, the dining hall, and address the university’s connection to Sen. Fulbright. The committee voted to remove Charles Brough’s name from the dining hall, remove the Fulbright statue from its location outside Old Main, and rename the university’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Brough was Arkansas’ 25th governor and served from January 1917 to January 1921. Brough is connected to what is known as the Elaine Massacre in the summer of 1919.

https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/post/ua-chancellor-recommends-moving-fulbright-statue-keeping-name-college

The chancellor of the University of Arkansas is recommending the statue of Sen. J. William Fulbright be removed from the Fayetteville campus.

CREDIT CLINTON STEEDS / FLICKR