As commissioner of the Arkansas Department of Education from 1953 to 1978, Arch Ford served under five governors. His vision was to expand educational opportunities because he believed education was the foundation for improving people’s lives. Throughout his career, he campaigned for increased educational funding, better-qualified teachers, and higher teachers’ salaries. Ford helped lead the state in peacefully integrating its schools and established twenty-three vocational-technical schools across the state. During Ford’s tenure, the Arkansas Children’s Colony was established to provide educational services to the developmentally disabled, and the Arkansas Educational Television Network was set up to provide instructional programming across the state.

The state also expanded educational opportunities to include kindergarten, special education, community colleges, and adult education. His leadership left Arkansas with a strong educational system that continued to advance. This was his legacy.

Cindy Burnett Beckman was a classroom teacher in Conway for thirty years and holds a master of arts in history from the University of Central Arkansas. In 2001, Beckman was named the national Junior Achievement Economics Teacher of the Year. She writes a local history column called “A Look Back” for the Log Cabin Democrat newspaper and is a member of the Faulkner County Historical Society. She is the author of A Taste of Arkansas: Restaurants of Conway, Faulkner, Perry, Pope and Yell Counties and By the Forks of the Cadron: Living in a Place CalledPleasant Valley.