{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/g44hm54h3d/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Carla Coleman"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/246/original/CenterForHistoryFamilyMedicine_2c_RGB.png?1773344256","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis item is protected by U.S. copyright and related rights. It is being made available by the Center for the History of Family Medicine as its rights-holder for noncommercial use, including sharing and adapting the work. No permission is required for noncommercial use so long as attribution is provided. All other uses require permission from the Center for the History of Family Medicine.  Disclaimer:  The views presented in this broadcast are the speaker’s own and do not represent those of CHFM or the AAFP Foundation. The information presented is for general, educational, or entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal, health, financial, or other advice. \u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2019-12-17 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["Oral History"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Sam Taggart (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["Video File"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Arkansas","Family Medicine","Rural Medicine","Arkansas Academy of Family Physicians"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Carla Coleman (personal name)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}}],"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis item is protected by U.S. copyright and related rights. It is being made available by the Center for the History of Family Medicine as its rights-holder for noncommercial use, including sharing and adapting the work. No permission is required for noncommercial use so long as attribution is provided. All other uses require permission from the Center for the History of Family Medicine. \u0026nbsp;Disclaimer: \u0026nbsp;The views presented in this broadcast are the speaker\u0026rsquo;s own and do not represent those of CHFM or the AAFP Foundation. The information presented is for general, educational, or entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal, health, financial, or other advice.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Center for the History of Family Medicine"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Center for the History of Family Medicine"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/246/original/CenterForHistoryFamilyMedicine_2c_RGB.png?1773344256","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/293/488/small/CarlaColemanDVD.mp4_1759341166.jpg?1759341171","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161646/file/293488","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Carla_Coleman_DVD_.mp4"]},"duration":5648.70975,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/293/488/small/CarlaColemanDVD.mp4_1759341166.jpg?1759341171","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161646/file/293488/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161646/file/293488/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/293/488/original/Carla_Coleman_DVD_.mp4?1759341150","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":5648.70975,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161646/file/293488","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161646/file/293488/transcript/84908","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Carla Coleman Interview Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161646/file/293488/transcript/84908/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Interview with Carla Coleman\n\nGood afternoon….My name is Sam Taggart and we are in the office of the Arkansas Academy of Family Practice on Rahling Road in Little Rock, Arkansas, Suite 27.  We are here in the office to interview Carla Coleman.  Ms. Coleman is the executive Vice President of the Arkansas Academy of Family Physicians and has been here since most of us can remember.  I think it is important to remember that this is your interview.  This is not, in fact, that sheet of questions that I sent you is nothing more than a starting place.\n\n“Ok, I have two corrections for you already.”\n\nOk\n\n“It is Arkansas Academy of Family Physicians.”\n\nOk.\n\n“And we are 27 C- Rahling Road.”\n\nOk, good; alright, that is in the record.  This is your interview.  Take notice that we can talk about anything you want to; there is no such thing as rambling and if you want to tell a bunch of stories that’s fine.\n\n“Ok.”\n\nBut the best place to start is at the first;    \n\nWhen and where were you born or what were the circumstances of your birth?…..you can just take off…...\n\n“I was born November 9, 1950 in Searcy, Arkansas at Porter Rogers Hospital.”\n\nReally?\n\n“I was delivered by Dr. T.L. Adair and I was the second of two kids, two girls.”\n\nDid you live in Searcy itself?\n\n“No, actually I lived in a small community north of Bald Knob called Russell; a population of a little over 200.”\n\nDo you know one of the famous physicians from Arkansas was from Russell, believe it or not; Dr. Addington.  He was a ……….\n\n“You have got to be kidding.”\n\n\n\nNo, he was from and Beebe and there.  There were two brothers and one was a legislator and a doctor and the other was just a physician.  He’d moved from Beebe to Russell; anyway so, he was from Russell or the Russell-Bradford area out there.  You know, of course, I’m from Augusta.  \n\n“No.”\n\nI’m from Augusta and so, we are …..\n\n“Well, maybe I did….”\n\nYeah right.\n\n“Ok, so we are from the same neck of the woods.”\n\nThat’s right; same exact area of the woods……what kind of work did your family do? \n\n“My daddy was a school teacher.  He taught at Bradford High School.  He taught civics and history and he farmed in the summer.  His real passion was farming, but he couldn’t make a living at it.  And, he couldn’t make a living at teaching; so, he did both.”\n\nWhat kind of farming did he do?\n\n“We had rice.  We had some acreage out from between Russell and Bald Knob; a beautiful place out there.” \n\nDown in the river bottoms.\n\n“Yeah, daddy called it “The Place.” He also farmed soy beans and cotton.  I used to pick cotton.”\n\nSo how far were y’all from the river?  You couldn’t have been very far from the river.\n\n“Uh, we were a couple of miles.  Now, I have some cousins that live out there that are right on the river.”\n\nLet’s talk about your family….how did your family…..what was your maiden name?\n\n“Mayfield.” \n\nMayfield, ok.\n\n“I still have a lot of Mayfield cousins that live there and they were all school teachers as well and farmers.  Some of them actually taught in Augusta and so, you might have known them….John Mayfield, Paul Mayfield…..”\n\nDo you remember when……I left Augusta in 1964; I graduated from Augusta High School in 1964.  So, how did your family end up in the Russell-Bradford area?\n\n\n“Well, you know my grandparents or actually my great grandparents settled there many, many, many years ago.  Daddy’s family was Irish.  His mother was German; she was very dark with very dark hair, but that’s where she had always lived. So, I don’t know when they actually immigrated from where they came from; but the house that we grew up in, that my mother still lives in, was built by my granddad over 200 years ago.  It’s been remodeled 100 times; the floors have fallen through and the ceiling has fallen through at least three times.  But, my nephew is a carpenter and so, he is able to fix everything for us for free.”\n\nBack a few years ago, I remember you having to do something where the house was doing and going with all that stuff….here 4-5 years ago or 5-6….\n\n“Yeah, it goes on all the time.  It’s constant.”\n\nSo, did you go to school in Bradford?\n\n“No, I went to elementary school in Russell right across the street from our house.  All I had to do was get up and walk across the street.  It was an elementary school through the 5th grade and then Bald Knob consolidated the school and that was the last year that there was an elementary school in Russell.  So, they then started bussing the kids from there to Bald Knob.  I would’ve gone to Bald Knob as a 6th grader anyway and did.  So, I finished school at Bald Knob in 1968.”\n\nHow many brothers and sisters did you say you had?\n\n“I had one sister, Diane. She lives in Russell right behind momma and she divorced when her son was three years old.  Daddy deeded her over some land and she built a home; probably the smartest thing in ways and the not a good thing in a lot of ways.  But, she was there to help them; daddy died of cancer in ’91.  If she hadn’t been there, I don’t know….well, I know what would’ve happened; it would’ve been the same outcome, but different circumstances.  Diane worked at the hospital in Searcy.  She started out at Porter-Rodgers Hospital and then she was at White County Hospital that later became Unity Health.  She retired from there last year.”\n\nWhat did she do?\n\n“She was over medical records and coding. She was one of the, I believe, the first 10 in the state that got her credentials in ICD-10.  She is very good at what she does.”\n\nWho was the first to get into the medical field, you or your sister?\n\n“She was; oh yeah, she has been in it all her life.”\n\n Did that have an impact on you?\n\n“No; nope, that never really had an impact on me.”  \n\n\n\nWhat kind of interests did you have when you were in school?\n\n“Oh my gosh; well, I set the curve in typing.  We used to have like office skills classes; they don’t have those anymore.  We didn’t have computers, but we had typing, calculators, adding machines….and I loved all that.  I was the fastest typer who ever came out that school. I was that fast….”\n\nDid you do well in school?\n\n“Oh yeah, I was an honor student and I was in the Beta Club.  I graduated #4 in the class of 112, I believe. I was an academic scholarship to college.  I was Miss Bald Knob High School.  I was “who’s who best personality as a senior; that is something that is voted on annually.  I was very involved, very active, very popular and I still have lots of friends there.”\n\nDid you have a large group of friends while in school and have you kept up with them?\n\n“Oh yeah, yes absolutely.”\n\nWere you involved in sports, band, or anything else?\n\n “Well now early on, I was…..we didn’t have a band when I was in school.  I think it started the last year, but I used to run track when I was in junior high school and I was pretty fast.  I played basketball, but I was never any good.  I was in the choral group, the Beta Club, and various other clubs at school.  I was very active in a lot of things.  I never missed a ball game there and daddy taught at Bradford, so I never missed a ballgame there either.  I went with him to all of his.”\n\nWhat are some of your earliest memories that you came remember from when you were a kid?\n\n“Riding my bicycle; that is what I did.  I wore out bicycles so fast.  You know, there wasn’t a whole lot to do in a small town, but I didn’t know the difference and I had a good time doing whatever I did.  I had 4-5 friends that lived within two blocks that were my age.  We all had bicycles and we’d just ride; ride the bicycle here and there and yonder.  We’d make mud pies and messes.  We played in the field out at the old school; behind the old school.  I had my own strawberry patch when I was probably 7 years old.  You know, strawberries were big in White County.\n\nOh absolutely.\n\n\n\n“I had my own strawberry patch.  Diane was supposed to half it with me, but she never wanted to do stuff like that; so, it became mine.  We had a cucumber factory in Bald Knob, you may remember it.”\n\nUh huh.\n\n“Daddy planted us cucumbers.  He said, “If you want a cucumber patch, I’ll plant you one and you know, if you harvest cucumbers, you get proceeds.”  The first time we went to pick the cucumbers Diane got a rash and decided that she wasn’t going to do it anymore.”   \n\nSounds like Diane was depositing things on you.\n\n“Yeah, Diane was a wimp. So anyway, that became my cucumber patch.  You know, it was amazing…..you’d get out there and pick cucumbers, and pick cucumbers, and pick cucumbers, and haul them down there to sell them, and you’d leave with like $0.35; you’d wonder “really”.   It was like the strawberries, pick all day long and make a dollar. Now, I used to pick cotton for daddy and I’d have a sack that would go from here all the way down Rahling Road.  I’d pull that thing; me and a friend of mine would get out there.  He’d say, “You want to pick cotton, have at it” and we’d pull that sack all day long.  Then, he would weigh it and we’d make like a dime; but I enjoyed it, you know.  He’d take me out there to the farm every day and I go out and ride the tractor with him and hang out.  I was pretty much a tomboy.”\n\nSo what informed your decision about where you were going to go to college? You said you did well and had scholarships and all that stuff to go to college. \n\n“Yeah.”\n\nWhere did you go to college and what informed your decision?\n\n “Arkansas State University.”\n\nOh you did?\n\n“Yes, I was influenced a lot by daddy and a cousin of mine, Beth, who was still there.  She had offsite housing and daddy didn’t really want me to leave home; he wanted me to commute somewhere and stay home at night.  They didn’t want me to go away and I didn’t want to go away; I wasn’t ready, you know.  I was pretty immature for a graduate of high school and it was ok to live with Beth; so, I lived with Beth.”\n\nDid any of your friends go to Arkansas State?\n\n“Uh huh, yeah.” \n\nSo you started attending Arkansas State just about the time it became Arkansas State University.\n\n\n“That’s right.”\n\nThat was about that time……I was there.  \n\n“Were you really?”\n\nYeah, I was there.  I graduated from there in 1969.  \n\n“Wow.”\n\nDid you work when you were in high school other than picking…….\n\n“I worked at the Bald Knob Bulldog.”\n\nOh really, one of my favorite places in the world.\n\n“Ok; so, that was back when it was at the curb before they expanded the interstate and you know if you got a job, you were lucky; there weren’t that many jobs.  So, I applied at the Bulldog and that was just the best place you could work; you know, if you were in high school.  I worked there in the summers, every summer; but I never even asked what I was getting paid because it really didn’t matter.  You know, it was what it was.  When I got my first check, I think I had worked two weeks without getting a check, and I had put a bathing suit on lay-away. It was $12.00 and when I got my first check…..let me back up, I didn’t get a first check. Everybody else was getting their checks and I said, “Where’s mine?” and he said, “Well” and he pulled out a little notebook and said, “Monday you drank a coke, you ate a fried pie, half of a hamburger, a hot dog, an ice cream cone, and some French fries.  So, you actually owe me $10.00.”  I worked all summer long, you know, for nothing and I was eating my mistakes.  I wasn’t back there just deciding, “Well, I think I’ll have me a hamburger.”  If I screwed something up, I ate it.  I made the fried pies, you know; I got there early in the morning and made the fried pies and we had curly-Qs, you know.  You put them on this device that had a handle and you would, you know, grind those curly-Qs to make those French fries.  I made the curly-Qs every morning, I made the fried pies, I chopped the BBQ…”     \n\nHow did you get to work?\n\n“Momma.”\n\nYour momma took you; so, you didn’t have a car?\n\n“No….oh Lord, no; nuh uh.”\n\nAt what point, either during high school or after, did you start thing about what you wanted to do with your life; or do you remember?\n\n“Well, I always wanted to be a social worker.”\n\n\nReally?\n\n“Yes, I always wanted to help somebody; that was what I wanted.  Then, I decided I wanted to be a nurse, but I wanted it in some field where I could help folks and social work was always in the back of my mind.  I ended up not going in that direction.  I was really good in the business end, you know, and journalism; so, that’s the direction that I took.  I have found my outlet of helping others in other ways.”\n\nYeah; tell me about the journalism.  I know Arkansas State had a good journalism school.\n\n“Actually, it started in high school, my entrance into that.  I had an excellent English teacher who was also a journalism teacher; her name was Betty McLaughlin.  She put me on the Knob staff and also the annual staff; so, I had to write for the Knob, in other words “the Bald Knob,” and that was my entrance into journalism.  I liked it and so, I took some journalism courses and I really enjoyed them.  I found out that I liked to write.  My second job I had, previous to this one, I actually wrote a news letter for South Eastern National Association for Housing Officials that went out monthly.  So, I did that there and then, I came here to a newsletter and later a journal. So, I always had an interest in writing and I still like to write; I may write my own story someday.”        \n\nOh good, that would be a great thing.  Do you have any written memories from your childhood?\n\n“Not any written.  I had lots of pictures.  I have lots of memories and I hope they stay with me….lots of memories.”\n\nAt what point in your young life did you start thinking, “Well, I’d like to get married.  I want to meet somebody, get married, and have children; those kinds of things?\n\n“You know, that was never a priority for me; it was for a lot of my friends that felt like, you know, “you turn 21, you should be married and you should be starting a family.”  That was not in my line of thinking.  I worked at First National Bank in Searcy one summer and ended up staying there for two years; I was only just going to do it for summer and I met Carter, who I am now married to.  He was an examiner with the US treasury Department.  Up until him, I had dated people my age, which is a world of difference to date somebody that is 18, 19, 20, or 21 than to date someone who is 27 and knows how to act; you know, who knows how to call you and ask you out, pick you up, and bring you back home.” \n\n Right.\n\n“Rather than throw their brakes on, your door opens, and “get out.”\n\n Right.\n\n\n“You know that sort of thing.  He was a real gentleman.  When he walked in that bank; of course we were all petrified, we didn’t know what to expect when the examiners came and my boss used to say, “You better get ready for the examiners, Carla; because when they come, you’re in for a rude awakening.  They are going to go through your desk and your desk is atrocious.  They are going to go through every drawer and every single thing you’ve got and they’ll write you up” and I thought, “Oh, my gosh.” So, they come unannounced and they knocked on the door before opening…..there was that knock that morning and he said, “you better be ready because that’s them” and I thought, “oh no.”  Sure enough, it was them; so here they all come in, all professional and dressed up.  They march in and start taking their places; you know, one starts counting money at the teller’s window, one goes to the vault, one goes to the loan department.  I mean, they all knew where they were going. I’m sitting there watching them and I thought, “God, he sure is a good looking guy, I wonder if he’s married.” We can’t talk to them while they are there and they were there for like four weeks.  After they left, the teller back in the back drive through window said, “One of those examiners was kind of struck on you” and I said, “Really; which one?” and he said, “Carter” and I said, “He’s not married?” and he said, “No and I gave him your number, but he can’t call you for another month; they have to be out of here for a month” and I said, “oh, I’ll never hear from him.”  But, I did.  I was 20 and he was 27.”   \n\nHis full name is?\n\n“James Carter Coleman.”\n\nAnd where is he from?\n\n“He is from originally, Refugio, Texas and his family was in the oil business.  His dad was transferred to Jackson, Mississippi; so, he went to high school in Jackson, Mississippi and graduated from there.  He went to college in Mississippi and then was recruited as a bank examiner.  He worked for US Treasury until he went…..he didn’t want to be transferred anymore and they get transferred pretty often; so he went to work for Bank of the Ozarks.”\n\nSo I don’t forget this later, do you have children?\n\n“No, we do not.”\n\nYou do not have children; ok…..when is Carter’s birthday?  When was he born?\n\n“November 17.”\n\nIn what year?\n\n“1944; he is 7 years older than I am.” \n\nHow long did you go to college or how long was your college years for you?\n\n\n“Four.”\n\nAnd you graduated with a degree in?\n\n“In business; general business.”\n\nOk, did you have a minor in journalism or something like that?\n\n“Yes, I did.”\n\nWere you socially active when you were in college?\n\n“Yes, very much; I was very socially active in high school, much more in high school than in college because I was with Beth.  But, I have always been actively involved in anything anywhere I’m at….and am here, like at church, in the community, and stuff like that.”\n\nYou mentioned your job at the Bulldog…..\n\n“Yeah.”\n\n For those of you who don’t know and are watching or reading this, the Bulldog is known for its peach milkshakes and its strawberry milkshakes.\n\n“And strawberry shortcake.”\n\nAnd strawberry shortcake in the spring time…...\n\n“Which, I can make that strawberry shortcake better than they can.”\n\nBut that is real important in that part of the country.\n\n“It is.”\n\nReally, really, very important……did you enjoy college?\n\n“Yes.”\n\nTalk about that a little bit.  You obviously were doing some things that you really wanted to do and was enjoying your courses.  Where there any teachers, wither in high school or college, who had a real big impact on you and changed you one way or another or said, “Carla, you need to be doing this” or “you need to be doing that”?\n\n“Well, probably my daddy; you know, he was a teacher, not my teacher…but I had a lot of respect for him and what he did.  He was in WWII and when he came home, he went to college at Harding on the GI Bill. So, my hat’s off to him; you know for what he went through to get his college degree and they didn’t get paid anything to teach school.  He was a very big influence on me and my sister; he insisted that we go to college.  I mean; absolutely….”\n\n   \n\nSo, that was an expectation?\n\n“It was….there was no question.”\n\nYou were going to college.\n\n“It was not even to be questioned.”\n\nWere there any big crises along the way, either as a little kid, in high school, or college?  Any crises that turned your life in one direction or another or changed things for you?\n\n“Not really; I mean, everything just kind of went along as, you know, I thought it would.  I graduated from high school, didn’t want to; you know, I wanted to stay in high school as I was having way too much fun and I had way too many friends. A lot of my friends got married immediately after high school.”\n\nYeah; yeah\n\n“A lot of them are still there; they never left.  I keep in touch with several.  There is one that lived about a block from me from the time I was a little bitty girl and she lost her mother several years ago; she considers my mother hers and she comes over there all the time.  I have another that lives about three blocks away that if I need anything, all I have to do is call her.  If I need her to go check on my mother, she does.  If we lose a dog, all I have to do is call them and they are out on their 4-wheelers looking.  We are dog lovers and we take in abandoned dogs and _______ dogs.\n\nRescues; yeah.\n\n“Rescues and that’s what Carter and I have always had too.  But, it was expected from my daddy that I would go to college, I would have a good job, I would make a good living, and I would not be dependent on a man.”\n\n How has Russell changed?\n\n“Uh, Russell is half the size of what it used to be.  It used to be a thriving little community of working people.  The church; I can remember growing up and our church was just at the corner of the street and you know, it was not unusual to have over 100 there.  For a small town like that, that was a lot of people.”\n\nWhat religion? \n\n“Methodist and we had a very active youth group that I was involved in.  There are 16 people that go to that church now; there is no youth group as there are no children. It’s really sad; it is a beautiful little church.  There used to be four churches up there and there are now two.  I don’t \n\n\nknow why people don’t go to church any more, but they don’t.  The town is……there are a lot of drugs in that area, as I’m sure you are probably aware of.  I think White County has probably got the highest statistics of drugs. It is just pretty sad.  You don’t leave your doors unlocked anymore and you don’t leave your car unlocked anymore.  My mother’s car has been stolen once.  There has been stuff stolen out of the yard.”\n\n Having been raised in a small town, did you have any inclination to go back to a small town?\n\n“No, I don’t.”\n\nDid you then; right after college? \n\n“Oh, did I then….”\n\n  You still had these friends who lived in Russell, Bradford, and Bald Knob.\n\n“No, I didn’t.  You know, after leaving there and seeing the difference; you know and after I got over being homesick, I knew I could always go home if I wanted to. But, I never wanted to live there again. You know when my mother drew up her will a few years ago after daddy died, she put it in mine and my sister’s names and I said, “You know, mom, I will never live here again” and she said, “you might.” So, I thought about it before, “Would I?”  But, no.”\n\nYeah\n\n“I wouldn’t.”\n\nWas your family religious?\n\n“Yes, yes.”\n\nI think you probably Mike M. from Prescott.\n\n“I do.”\n\nHe told me one time when I was interviewing that when he was a kid he had a drug problem. I said “What do you mean?” and he said, “every time the church was open, I was drugged to church.”\n\n(Laughing) “That is so funny.”\n\nWere y’all pretty regular church goers?\n\n“Oh, we didn’t miss; we didn’t miss, but I wanted to go.”\n\nBut, that was part of your social life.\n\n\n\n“Yeah, I loved to go; that’s where all my friends were.  You know, we had a great time and it is still important to me now.  My real; I call this my greatest feat in life, my husband was Catholic and I got him to turn Methodist and he joined the Methodist Church four years ago.  I thought, “I never would’ve thought it.”  I never would’ve thought it.”  \n\n  You said that when you were a kid, you were involved in the community in all kinds of social things and as an adult, even now, you still are.  What kind of things, like church, social groups, Kiwanis?  \n\n“Ok well, I’ll start out with church; I’m a very active member of Highland Valley United Methodist Church right here on Chenal. I’m a commissioned Stephen ministry.” \n\nTell me what that is?\n\n“What that means is that I went to school, or a class, for about a year and a half and my commissioned Stephen minister is taught to be with those that are dying, those that have suffered grief, divorce; all the things that happen to people.  We go through every scenario and you’re not supposed to get attached to these people; well, of course, I was.   You can’t help it.”\n\nRight\n\n“I was assigned to a lady for five years that had Lou Gehrig’s disease.  When I first met her; they assigned me to her and it’s all secretive, you know, you are not to tell anybody who you are seeing and they are not to tell anybody who they are seeing.  It’s never advertised and when I was first assigned, she was my first one I ever saw.  I was scared to death; you know, I thought, “What do you say to somebody that has Lou Gehrig’s disease.”  But, she made it easy; she made it easy.”       \n\nHow long had she been sick?\n\n“She had been diagnosed for two years and had just started showing some of the really bad symptoms.  She still walked to the door and opened it; so when I met her, she was walking to the door and opening it and we went from there, to seeing her use a cane, to a walker, to a wheelchair, to a motorized vehicle, to not being able to speak, to being bedridden, and to knowing you were there, but she couldn’t communicate.  I could see it in her eyes.  This is someone that can tell you things that they can’t tell their family, because you are not their family.”\n\nHow long did you stay with her?\n\n“Five years; I went every Wednesday and I’d stay about two hours.  If her husband was out of town on the weekends, I’d go over and make sure that she was ok.  Then, she ended up in a long time care facility in Batesville and I used to travel up to Batesville and visit her.  That’s where she \n\n\ndied and she was young; but, I think my calling in the Stephen ministry group is with the dying. I learned a lot; you know what to say and what not to say.  You let them talk.”\n\nYou just keep your mouth shut.\n\n“People want to talk about dying, they want to talk about their fears, they want somebody who will listen and not judge, they want somebody who is not family and won’t get upset and say, “you don’t mean that” or “you really don’t need to say that to me” but they can say it to me and I understood it.  So, she became a special friend.\n\nWhere were you living at that time?\n\n“Here; yeah, Ferndale.  When we first got married, we lived on the Arkansas River.  We bought five acres on the Arkansas River; Carter always wanted to live there.  He was a bass fisherman and he could dock his boat; you know, get in it on a Saturday morning and just fish.  He’d head up that river and fish.  A couple of things happened; there was a lot of work to five acres on the Arkansas River.  The flood of 1991 got us pretty good; not as bad as the flood they just had this year.”\n\nRight\n\n“But, it came pretty close to being that bad.”\n\nWere you on this side of the river, the south side?\n\n“Uh huh; we were….our house was right next to Maumelle Park.”\n\nOk, sure; I know where that is.\n\n “For the flood plain, we had to have, you know, two stories and the bottom had to be finished off a certain way.  We had flood insurance; we were one of the few that did.  The Corp of Engineers told us, “Forget about sand bagging, it’s not going to help.  You need to get out.”  So anyway, we had decided that we would watch it.  They were monitoring it and they were calling us; they were very good about it.  The night that it really started coming, you could hear it coming.  Carter got up and looked out the window and he said, “get the dog and head to your mothers.”  I had a bag packed, I got the dog; we had a stray poodle that ended up at our house from the park that had got displaced from its owner for obviously months as it was in such a horrible shape that we didn’t know if it was a male or female.  That was our first dog; I just happen to have a picture of her.  But after that, you know we had snakes in the house and then, we inherited a bunch of cats from the river; one of them used to come and hunt…..I thought that was pretty smart of him.”\n\nObviously, he had been trained to do that.\n\n\n“Then, I found this dog in the lot at JC Penny’s at Searcy and I was told by the branch bank that she had been dumped; so, I took her home.  When Buffy died, Josh was found in a drainage ditch by a doctor at Arkansas Children’s Hospital that told Dr. Amail Chudy, “I have the cutest little dog if you know anybody that would like it.”  Well, they knew that Buffy had just died and so, they called Carter and said, “We’ve got Carla a dog” and he said, “I don’t think Carla is ready for a dog yet” and they said, “well, we’ll see.”  So, they showed up at the office with this little black poodle that had a big black bow around his neck and Ann said, “We got some errands to run, so we will see you later if you don’t mind if we leave this little dog here with you.”  I said, “Oh me” and they never came back. So, that was Josh and we had him for many, many, years; he died at age 16.”    \n\nSo you said that…..\n\n“I got to rambling there.”\n\nNo, no; there is no such thing as rambling.  You just……you are doing what you are supposed to do.  You said, fresh out of college, you had two jobs.\n\n“Yeah.”\n\nYour first job and then this job; is that right?  Did I get that correct?\n\n“Let’s see; out of college, I worked at the bank and that was like a fill in.  I never intended to be there permanently, but I liked it and I learned a lot.  Also, I met Carter there.”  \n\nAnd you got your husband; yeah, sure.\n\n“My first real full time job was the Little Rock Housing Authority and that was a real eye opener.  I was there ten years and I was the assistant to the Executive Director.” \n\nWho was that at that point?\n\n“It was Bill George; Cliff Giles preceded him.  Actually, I was hired by Cliff Giles and Cliff Giles moved on up to Housing Urban Development and Bill George took his place.  When I left, Bill George was still director.  I was there ten years.  Dr. Tom Honeycutt, I’m sure you remember… ”\n\nYeah, sure.\n\n“Was very instrumental in hiring me; he was on the search committee.  So, they had been advertising and……”\n\nLet’s back up just a second; your primary job responsibilities at the Housing Authority were?\n\n\n\n“Secretary work, I did the minutes for the Board of Directors.  I did the agendas for the Board of Directors.  I did some meetings, pretty big meetings for the Southwest NAHRO (National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials).  So, I was involved in meeting planning, meetings, boards, minutes, secretarial, and then, I dealt with tenants of the housing authorities, which was not a pleasant experience.”   \n\nWhen you started talking about this organization, you said it was “eye opening” to you; what does that mean? What do you mean by that?\n\n“This organization?”\n\nNo, no; the housing organization. \n\n“That organization; uh, I don’t know.  You know, I have always been the type that I feel sorrow for the less fortunate; I would do anything that I could do for those that needed more.  I saw some things that made me realize that some people don’t want to better themselves.  I saw the housing projects as a step up to a higher place, up to a better place; you know, just temporary until we can do better.  But, it became a way of life and you could see generations after generations falling into the same trap of “If I have my own baby, I can get my own apartment”…… and then the next, and then the next, and then the next.  So, there really are no projects anymore, as you probably know.  They have dispersed all of those as they were crime ridden and they have scattered out section 8 properties across different areas of town to mingle with other homes and people more fortunate to maybe let those families build on them to see their neighbors and see how they live.” \n\n What did you learn at that job that you brought to this job?\n\n“I think I learned how to deal with different people, number one.  I had some excellent secretarial skills and interpersonal relationship skills; I have always been outgoing and you have to be, you know, in any job where you met public of any type.”\n\nYeah.\n\n“I really wasn’t looking for a job.  I was making a lot better money than what they hired me in as.  Dr. Honeycutt, Tom Honeycutt, was on the search committee and was looking for office space.  He was in the Tangleqood Office Complex at Cantrell and Mississippi and he wandered up there and found 200 square feet near the March of Dimes.  I had a good friend at the March of Dimes…..”\n\nWhat year would this have been?\n\n“This would’ve been in 1983.  He said, “We are looking for somebody, so if you know of anybody have them contact me.” She said, “I do know of somebody who is perfect for the job” and she \n\n\ngave him my name.  She called me and said, “I gave some Dr. Honeycutt your name for a job” and I said, “I’m not looking for a job” and she said, “No, you are perfect for this; you are perfect.”  I said, “How do you know?” and she said, “You will work right next door to me.”  Ok; so, I didn’t think a whole lot about it and then he called.  He said that they would like to have a resume and so, I thought, “you know, it never hurts to interview for a job; it’s a good learning experience” and so, I submitted a resume.  Then, I was called for an interview and then I was called for another interview ; the second interview I went on…..the first one was with Dr. Rodger’s at his clinic out on University and I assumed I was meeting with him again.  He led me down a hall and opened the door and there was about 40 doctors sitting there.  I thought, “OH….”\n\nYikes.\n\n“ME; what have I gotten into.”  They started firing off questions, one after another, and I’m thinking, “Gosh, I wish I had someone to tell me there was going to be 40 of you folks in here.  It was funny; one of their wives were asked to sit in the lobby and as each one of us came in, there were three of us, she was to see what kind of car we were driving.  Because, if it was a really nice car, you didn’t really need a job”\n\nThat’s kind of…...  \n\n“Obviously, one of the girls was driving a Cadillac……so anyway, they got us down to two, but I didn’t know that and I really didn’t anticipate being offered for the job; I really didn’t care.  But, I got a call that night and they said, “We’d like to hire you” and I said, “Whoa, I didn’t see that coming.”  He said, “So, this is what we are going to offer you…..”   \n\nWhat year was this now?\n\n“1983; he said, “We will offer you $19,000 a year.” Well, I made more than that and I said, “And?” He said, “That’s it” and I said, “I don’t get any benefits?” and he said, “No.”  I said, “Health insurance?” “NO.” “Life insurance?” “ No.” “Vacation?” “After you are there for a year, you get five days and you are off Christmas and Thanksgiving.  You are expected to be at work from 8 to 5.”  I said, “Ok” and I thought about it; I called him back and said, “You know, I’m going to decline.  I can’t take a cut in pay and you have no benefits.  I can’t see how this would better me.”  So, I go back to work and Mr. George, my boss, was an odd character and he used to say to me all the time, “You know, Carla; you don’t have to be like the rest of the girls who work here.  You are the head secretary and so, if you want to take extra for lunch you just do; if you need to take off early, you just go; and if you want to do such and such, just do it.” But, I never did.”  That day, I was gone about 20 minutes longer than normal and when I walked in the door, no one was in the lobby and no one was anywhere.  There was a board room right off the lobby and someone opened the door and said, “Come in here.” I thought, “Uh oh,” and I walked in and the entire staff was in there, there was like 40 people who worked there.  He was \n\n\nstanding there madder than he could be and he said, “you are late.”  I said, “Excuse me?” and he said, “You are late and my phone rang and you did not answer it because you were not here.”  He wouldn’t answer his own phone.  I said, “Then, I will speak to you in your own office.”  So, we went to his office and I said, “Let me tell you where I was; I was at a job interview and I declined it.  But you know what, you just changed my mind and I’m fixing to call and accept it.  I can’t get out of here fast enough for what you just did to me.  You will not humiliate me ever.”  So, I called Dr. Rodgers and I said, “I’ll take the job and I hope that you will add health insurance at some point, because I’m used to it.”  So, I left a job with all kinds of benefits and more money and I walked up to that office the first day and they just handed me the keys, it was up two steep flights of steps, and I walked in and thought, “hm.”  This was there (pointing) and this was the only thing that we had that was decent.  Everything else was given to us.”     \n\nHad there been an executive secretary prior to that?\n\n“No; they had…….”\n\nHow was that organization run?\n\n“Ok; Dr. Honeycutt ran it for years and then they had a Wanda….what was her name….she was a doctor’s wife; Wanda Wade that worked it a few hours out of her home.”\n\nBill Wades’ wife?\n\n“Yes, Bill Wade’s wife.  After Bill Wade’s wife, they had Alta Good-Hall.”\n\nI remember her.\n\n“Alta worked it out of her home and so, it was half or not even half worked at all.  You know, the secretarial skills level was intermedial, like the minutes ran off the pages.  They had given me minute books and you know, you get to the end of the page and you’d fall off in the floor wondering “where’s the rest?” \n\nRight.\n\n“But that was the way it was structured at the time.  Honeycutt kind of was the over-seer of the organization; He was half way retired and he cared.  The rest of them worked all the time.  You know, elected to office and served well.  Shot Rodgers was my first president and so, after I had been there like two weeks, I guess, Honeycutt called and said, “Well, how are you making it?” and I said, “Well, I don’t know what are in these drawers; I’ve gone through all of them. I’ve read everything.  I’ve read every book in here and I don’t know what I am supposed to be doing.  I had a call from a guy that wanted to know why he received a letter about his hours and I can’t answer those types of questions because I don’t know the answer.  He informed me he was a fellow and I told him that I appreciated that, but I didn’t even know what a fellow was.  I said, \n\n\n“So, if you want me to stay, you better get someone in here and you better do it fast.”  He said, “You mean Ms. Good hadn’t been there at all?” and I said, “I haven’t laid eyes on her.”  She was supposed; she was still on payroll and she was supposed to be helping me.  But, she had got married and she could care less. So, Honeycutt started coming about three times a week in the afternoons.  He ran a clinic until noon over on 12th street; he and his wife, Sue.  Then, they went out and started picking up tin cans and going through dumpsters; that was their hobby.  They had one of those long sticks that you poke stuff with and put in the back of his truck.  They’d pull up at the office, he’d come in, and he would have a tumbler, about this high, filled with whiskey.  When he finished his whiskey, he left….and it was time.  But, he was very blunt with me; he knew what he was talking about.  We got every file out and everything was on a 3x5 note cards; everybody’s hours; which is now computerized.  We didn’t have computers then, we didn’t even have a typewriter.  It was all on 3x5 cards……you wrote down Dr. John Jones, Blythville, Arkansas; 3 prescribed hours in June 2010 for _________ and then you’d reverse the card and there would be more; that’s how you reelected people.  It was….well, that’s the only way you could’ve done it back then.”   \n\nRight.\n\n“So, we bought a selectric typewriter and we didn’t have a copy machine, but we had a mimeograph machine. I finally talked him in to buying a copy machine and we had a variety; they just put out a message to all their members.   I just wrote a letter as there were no such things as computers and faxes and anything else; so they wrote letters to all the membership that “if you have anything that you are not using, bring it to the Academy office.”\n\nAn interesting idea.\n\n“Hey, I had like a grey tin file cabinet, a green one, a beige one, a grey tin desk, a black tin desk, a variety of secretarial chairs that were beat up with holes in them, and this (pounding on hard object) that came from Dr. Walter Lane in Dover, Arkansas; (pounding again) and this is a prize piece. Everything else is gone.”\n\nSo the Academy in one form or another has existed since ’48.\n\n“47.”\n\nSo in the intervening almost 40 years, 35-36 years anyway, there was no really permanent or full time staff; there was partial staff.\n\n“No, no ever; the doctors did it, the presidents did it, and Honeycutt did it for years at no fee…”\n\nSo those newsletters that he was composing, I remember reading; I’ve read all or I think I’ve read all the things that he did and it was a wonderful history….\n\n“He wrote them; he wrote the history of the Academy.”\n\n\nYeah; I’m aware of a lot of that and he was doing that just because he wanted to do it.\n\n“Yes.”\n\n When you came on board how many family doctors were there in the state in the organization?\n\n“I believe there was less than 400.  I can remember our 400th member being Doug Owens and that was probably about my third year in when we got our 400th active member.”\n\nAnd I think right now there is 1495 or something like that. \n\n“Uh huh.”\n\nOk; has that number steadily increased or did it increase and then peak off and decrease?\n\n“No, it just steadily.” \n\nSteadily increased.\n\n“Uh huh.”\n\nWhat about the…..we’ll come back to that and I’ll ask that in a few minutes; I want to ask you about the average age of physicians in the Academy and stuff.  What were some things; at this point, you hadn’t had a lot of medical experience except your volunteering…\n\n“Nuh uh.”\n\nWere there some things that surprised you when you got involved with this and with the organization?\n\n“No; uh, it was a learning experience and everybody was very kind to me always.  Of course, the board changed annually, the president changed annually.  Dr. Rodgers was an excellent start for someone new, you know, because he paid a lot of attention to detail to what he was doing and sometimes the Presidents doesn’t; you know, they just kind of float through their year.  But, he was perfect for a president with a new chapter exec.  Les Anderson was the same way and he was the next one.  He had a family with children and his children brought children.  We had lots of young doctors.  We had probably the biggest conventions ever back in the early years.  It was not unusual to have 150 exhibitors; that is 150 exhibits at the State House Convention Center as that’s where we had it.”    \n\nYeah.\n\n“So when I started, I had no idea what I was in for.  There, we had one of the Great Halls as our lecture hall and the next Great Hall was the 150 exhibits, and there I’m sitting there thinking, \n\n\n“This is great” not thinking, “What if a speaker fails to show.”  We didn’t have A-V guys back then, so we just put a slide deck up there and a screen and I’d get doctors to sit up there with a pair of tweezers incase one of the slides got stuck to pull it out and put it back in.  Well, if they failed to show, I was up there doing it.  So, we learned through the years and tweaked a lot of things.  We got our own A-V people and we got our own sound people.  The exhibiters, of course, shrunk when the pharma industry went ca-plunk, you know, and could no longer sell their wares at our meetings.  So, we went from 150 to 32; that makes up a difference in a huge meeting.  So, the Embassy fits us perfectly.  We get about 150 doctors a year at the meeting, about 32 exhibitors, and from what I understand from out of state dignitaries that come; national people, ours is one of the best meetings that they come to. I think the difference in what I was dealing with in previous jobs than when I came here was doctors have a certain….. people think things like, “he is a doctor, so he is this” or “he is that”, “he is rich”, “he is cocky”; not true, most doctors are not rich.  They work for every penny that they get and they are some of the kindest people I have ever met in my life and severely under paid for taking people’s lives in their hands and doing everything from birth to death, like a family doc does.  So, I have learned a lot.  I have a lot of respect for family practice, family doctors, and doctors in general; because, I have seen all of you in action.” \n\nWhat has been the most gratifying part of your work?\n\n“I think the annual meeting.  I put a lot into that and work on it all year long.  In some shape, form, or fashion I start on it the minute the other one is over. I’ve started on next year’s, although I won’t be here.  It’s really nice to see the end result of something that you’ve worked so hard at.  Seeing all your speakers show up and speak about what they said they were going to speak about and go over it really well, you know, with your attendees.  The food is good and the stage looks great; it is just very, very, gratifying to see something that you’ve worked so hard at to come out so well and make a profit.”\n\nLet’s go back to one of the questions I had about a different part of your life then; but, had there been any crises in your years; you’ve been an executive secretary for?\n\n“36 years.”\n\n36 years; ok, over 36 years there has bound to be some crises or change that you went, “oh no, are we going to survive this?” type of things.\n\n“Uh, there have been a couple of things that have happened as with any organization that has members.  You know, you can’t predict what a member might do and might end up on the front page of the paper.  We had a couple of occasions when, unfortunately, officers ended up in the news and it was handled very gracefully with dignity and respect.  I think it was handled right.”\n\n\n\nI’d like for you to talk about a few of the men and women who have been active in the organization and I’ll pick a few out and you can add some more; but, the ones I think I would really like to hear you talk about are Joe Stallings, Mike Moody….what is the guy in Fayetteville…….\n\n“Billy Parker.”\n\nLee Parker, Mark Attwood….\n\n“You know, I never knew Harvey Mark Atwood that well.”\n\nOK\n\n“Because, he didn’t participate; he was a member, but he never really participated.”  \n\nLet’s talk about Joe and Mike Moody…….\n\n“I can talk about Joe Stallings all day long.”\n\nI though you could; tell me some Papa Joe stories.  You do know that by his students, they called him….the people who he has mentored…they called him Papa Joe.  I’m not quite sure where that name…..I do know, it’s because he has that feel about him.  Tell me about him a little bit.  Talk about some of these people.  \n\n“Uh, Joe Stallings is a great doctor.  He is a great man.  He is very sensitive and he can sure have a good time.  He can have more fun than anybody I’ve ever know, especially when he and Moody were together.  He took those residents of his and he took a personal interest in every single one of them.  If you look at our lists of presidents, you will see that more have come from the Jonesboro Program than any other program in the state and that is because of the access to the Academy that was made aware of though Joe Stallings. He involved his residents into the Academy; Lonnie Robinson is one of his residents who became President, Drew Dawson is one that became President, Scott Dickson is one that became President; it just goes on and on and on.  So many have come from Jonesboro; Joe Stallings and Ross _______was under Joe Stallings and Mike Moody both. Well, I guess, practically all of them were if you look back in the ‘80s.”\n\nAll of them, right.\n\n“Uh, but I can remember when both of them were installed; that’s when we were big and downtown.  We would have dances, big dances, and everybody would throw their jackets in the floor and get out there and do all kinds of stuff. I wouldn’t even know what they were doing and they didn’t either. But, it was memorable to say the least.” \n\n\n\nMike has been involved in both family practice politics, nationally and locally, but he has also been involved with just state wide medical activities; Arkansas Foundation for Helping….\n\n“Yeah, AMS.”\n\nYeah, have you had any; again the same kind of comments about him….\n\n“Mike Moody is a fine man; a very smart guy.  I worked very closely with him on Legislative; he used to test me at board meetings.  He’d say, “Carla, why don’t you give a report on such and such” and I would.  Then, he’d say, “that’s not exactly right; this is what happened.”  So, then I’d say, “Why did you just ask me to give it if you were going to do it yourself; this is another test.”  But, he was very, very involved in the political arena, state and nation. With AFMC, of course, he was the CEO there for many years.  I watched his kids grow up; he brought them to everything.  I remember one summer; we used to go to wherever the president wanted to go for our summer meetings.  We’d have a board meeting, just a short weekend meeting, and we’d go to Hot Springs, Fairfield Bay, etc.  Mike Moody wanted to go to Greer’s Ferry; so, we went to Greer’s Ferry and I remember that he had….what is it….rabbit fever…..is there such thing as a rabbit?   Anyway, he was hooked up to an IV, I remember it.  He was in the sun on a folding chair with an IV pole hooked up, enjoying the sunshine, and drinking a beer. I still hear from Barbara and I check in on him pretty often.”  \n\nHow is he; do you know?\n\n“Uh, I have yet to talk to him.  I don’t believe that he wishes to talk and I’m not so sure he feels like it; but, I do talk to her.”\n\nWhat about Lee Parker?\n\n“I love Lee Parker.”\n\nI know.\n\n“Lee Parker is the finest gentleman that I have ever met and at 91 years old, he is still practicing medicine; can you believe that?\n\nYeah.\n\n“When he found out I was retiring; I wrote him and told him and he wrote me back and said, “What is wrong with you?  I am 91 years old and I am still practicing medicine; you have a little further to go.”  I said, “Yeah, I know; I made an error.  I made a mistake and I realize it, but I felt it was time. So, I just did it.”  It’s probably a little premature is what my thoughts are now, but too late to turn back.  I heard from him yesterday; he sent a picture…do you remember CR Ellis from Malvern?”\n\n\nUh huh; yeah.\n\n“Ok, Dr. Ellis’ daughter had sent Lee Parker a picture of Dr. Ellis, Mrs. Ellis, a med student, and his wife; she just found it a couple of weeks ago and said, “By chance, do you have any idea who this is?”  Lee Parker had funded a scholarship for this student in the name of CR Ellis and Lee Parker sent it to me and asked, “Do you know who this is?” and I said, “Gosh, he looks familiar, but I bet I can find out.” So, I sent it to Julie Garner and Julie Garner showed it to Elton Cleveland who said, “His name is Todd.” So, I pulled out some old journals and there a picture was with his name on it.  I tracked him down and he is in Austin, Texas.”   \n\nYou made a connection.\n\n“A great connection; so anyway, I wrote him back and said, “You won’t believe this, I found him” and he said, “I knew you could.”  But, I plan on staying in touch with him.\n\nYeah.\n\n“He’s had some health problems within the last year; but, he is one smart guy and he stays on top of everything.”\n\nTell me about Julia Garner?\n\n“Me and Carter met at the bank….”\n\nNo, Julia Garner; I’m sorry.\n\n“Julie Garner; I’m sorry….Julie Garner and I……I met her when she was a first year med student at UAMS.  We were very active on campus over there; I used to go over and meet with the family medical interest group members.  That is when Harold Hedges was President and he did a lot with the students.  He’d have the students over at his house and he’d cook; you know, we’d go over there and I met her.  I liked her and most medical students that I met didn’t have a penny and couldn’t eat; they worked and very appreciative of a meal.”\n\nRight.\n\n“I fed Julie Garner on many occasions. She’d come over when she was hungry as some did, and she’d say,” I haven’t had anything but rice for three nights, do you think…..” and I’d say, “Yeah, let’s go  to Wendy’s.”  I don’t  think I ever sprang anything bigger than a Wendy’s, but we’d have a chicken sandwich or whatever and I remember one Christmas buying her a sweater and it tickled her to death. You know, her family was not indigent by any means, but she came to go to medical school and I’m sure that they paid for that and that’s about….that’s a lot.  She was doing the best that she could do, but I watched her grow up…..from a med student, to leave the state and go to Pennsylvania and I thought she’d never come back. But, she came back and \n\n\nwent to Jonesboro as faculty.  She left there and wound up at American Academy in the Department of Education.  Then, she came back and opened her own practice; so, I was real proud to see that as that is what we want to see.  We always want our docs to come back home.”\n\nTalk a little bit about Amail Chudy, George Warren, and the guy who was here when you came.\n\n“Tom Honeycutt?”\n\nNo, the one who here when you first came and was running and doing the newsletter.\n\n“Dr. Honeycutt.”\n\nOh yes, talk about those three guys; because they had….a Bruce Schratz.  Those guys had a big impact on family practice in Arkansas.\n\n“Oh yeah, you’re right; Amail Chudy when I came was past President, but was still active on the national scene.  Early on, I think I had this in our last journal, we referred him for national family doctor of the year and he won.  That was quite a feat, you know, cause you go through….you got dozens of people who are nominated, but we had a pile of letters that high from patients of why he should be family doctor of the year.  He was always kind to me; very soft spoken and certainly a leader in family medicine.  George Warren was a force to be reckoned with.”\n\nThat is a great way to say that (laughing).\n\n“When I came…..of course, he was the tallest man I have ever met.”\n\nYeah, right.\n\n“He was always dressed in a suit; I don’t think he ever wore casual clothes.  He was very proper, prim and proper, as his wife was.  We had board meetings a lot in El Dorado, at their home.”\n\nYeah.\n\n“This is funny, or it is to me now; back then, you know, our weekend board meetings started out with a beer, wine, whisky party, and hors d’oeuvres; always, always.  I don’t know how we did that financially, but that was built in and then, we had a board meeting the next day; we were outside of town in El Dorado, or Eureka Springs, or wherever it might have been.  George Warren had his….when I came, I was here less than a year when he decided to run for office of director and I thought, “Oh gees, you know, how do you do that?”  You know, here I am still green and I’m fixing to run a candidate for national office.  So, we ran him for the board and he won and two years later, he ran for vice president and lost.  The vice president for some reason resigned and they put George in; so, he filled an unexpired term for vice president.  I liked Dr. \n\n\nWarren; he was very good to me, but he used to call every…. just about every day at 8 am and say, “Banker’s hours, banker’s hours, you’re not there yet.”  \n\nI knew George real well.\n\n“There haven’t been any that I haven’t liked.  There have been a couple that I have been…..is this on the record?”\n\nAbsolutely (laughing).\n\n“That I have been scared of.”\n\nThat’s ok, that is a good way to say it; let’s just identify the ones you really like.\n\n“Yeah, Tom Honeycutt was everything to me; let me just say that.”\n\nHow long did yawls tenures over lap?\n\n“Well, they gave him the title of associate vice president just because of his involvement with the organization and his help to me; I had no help. I was a one person office.  I didn’t have anybody to train me.  I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know diddly.  At the end of the first month, he came in one day and said, “Well, have you done the taxes?” and I said, “What taxes?” and he said, “Payroll taxes.”  I said, “I don’t even have a checkbook.  I don’t know where the bank accounts are and I have yet to sign an account.” He said, “What?” and I said, “What is wrong with yall?  You throw me in here with a set of keys and tell me to go to work and I don’t have a checkbook.  I can’t pay bills and I don’t know where the mail comes; we don’t get any here.   I don’t know how anybody gets paid because I don’t have a checkbook. I haven’t even got paid and I’ve been wondering about that.”\n\nSo you created your own job.\n\n“Yeah.”\n\nUltimately, you created your own job.\n\n“Anyway, he said, “We’ll get to the bottom of this checkbook business” and so, he called and we rounded up the checkbook.  They swore me down that I was on the …..that I had signed a card as a check signer and I said, “I worked at a bank; it doesn’t happen like that. If they had put me on the account, you have to sign a signature card and I never signed anything.”  Honeycutt ended up going and cancelling the account.  He drew out every cent and deposited it into a new bank and we started out fresh.”\n\nMade sure everything was there; yeah.  \n\n\n\n“He was my biggest ally and he used to be my biggest critic; but, he told me things that I needed to hear.  He used to say, “Do not ever let them intimidate you; ever.  Don’t ever back down.  If you feel right about something, you let them know it.  If they ever catch you at a mistake, you tell them you did it on purpose to see if they were watching.”  I mean he really liked me.”\n\nRight; how long did yawls tenures overlap?\n\n “Um……”\n\nHe died pretty early didn’t he?\n\n“No, actually he died in……about 15 years ago. Um; he was diabetic and he didn’t take care of himself.  When he and Sue divorced, he kind of lost his mind really.  He never learned to be happy; he was never happy.  His happy days were the Academy; that made him happy.  Being involved in the organization made his happy and when I started, he was big time involved.  When….I’m trying to think who…when he stopped coming to board meetings, it would’ve been…2006 or maybe 2008, and I remember him saying, “I’ve done all I can do without alienating myself from the board.” He was beginning to think that he was alienating himself and I didn’t see it that way; he had a lot to add.  He always had a lot to add. So, we were together a good 30 years.”  \n\nWhat has been the most gratifying part of your job?\n\n“You know, I have liked every aspect of it once I got used to it.  It took me about two years to get comfortable with his job and to find out what I was doing or what I was supposed to be doing, which was not actually what I thought I was doing.  All the aspects of the membership; what the academy was about and some of it you have to learn by doing it.  But, I like to meet people and I’ve really enjoyed meeting the members; I like every aspect of it.  I liked the meeting part of it.  I liked putting on the meetings, I liked putting on the events, I liked writing the journal, I liked coming to work; this is like a safe haven for me. It’s like my home away from home.”  \n\nRight.\n\n“About four’s years ago, Carter had a stroke; his first stroke.  A year later, he had his first cancer surgery.  A year after that, he had his second stroke on exactly the same day from when he had his first one.  Then the next year, he had his kidney removed from cancer.  So in that four year period, I stayed home with him when I needed to.  When he came home from the hospital; I stayed with him in the hospital and when he came home from the hospital, I stayed with him until he could be by himself and then, I could run home out there and check on him if I needed to…..but, this is where I could go and get all of the cancers and these strokes out of my mind and do something constructive.”\n\nYeah.\n\n\n“It was my safe haven.”\n\nAt what point did you start thinking, “Well, one of these days’s I’m going to have to retire”?\n\n“Uh……I think after his kidney surgery; I did not think he was going to live and I thought you know, “I probably need to start thinking about this because I’m probably fixing to have to take care of Carter”… not thinking I have to, but I want to.  So, I was thinking about it then, which would’ve been two years ago, and then, so many in my age group at the Academy, Chapter Execs, that I started with…….starting retiring.”\n\nThat’s interesting; I hadn’t thought about that.\n\n“And you start seeing a whole new batch of people….” \n\nSo, all these friends, or acquaintances, of yours who you have known over the years….\n\n“Who I have been with for thirty something years…..”  \n\nYeah; that makes sense.\n\n“I had a really good friend from Maryland that retired two years ago and I was just lost without Ester; you know, we started the same time and went through orientation together.  Another named Virginia, she retired and then one from Kansas retired, and Eleanor retired; all of these were people who were my age that I had been around and replaced by young people……I started looking around and thinking, “This sure is different” and “You know, I probably I need to start thinking about this myself.  I’m not getting any younger and I am retirement age.  My mother is 90 years old and she needs help; I need to help Diane out with her.  Carter’s mother is 104, we need to see her more often.”\n\n104?\n\n“104.”\n\nThat almost got passed me.\n\n“She is 104; it’s amazing.”\n\nOh my….where does she live?\n\n“Ridgeland, Mississippi.”  \n\nThat’s interesting.\n\n“Up until the last two months, she’s had no health problems.  She is sharp as a tack.  She works crossword puzzles constantly. She was a librarian and got her degree at age 59.  Just a very \n\n\nsouthern bell; she is very much a southern bell….very proper and you know, you say the proper words.  She said that I am her favorite daughter in law because I’m the only one who has not been divorced.”   \n\nBut, you did convince your husband to go from being Catholic to being Methodist…\n\n“Do you know she said about that?\n\nNo, but I’m wondering.\n\n“I called her and said, “Ok Mrs. Coleman, I got something to tell you and I’m hoping you’re not mad.  Carter joined my church Sunday and we’re Methodist.”  She said, “Oh, praise the Lord; I don’t care what church he joined as long as he goes….” \n\nAs long as he did something.\n\n“I said, “Boy, we have come a long way.” She used to tell me when we’d go to Mississippi to see her; she’d say, “Now, you can go to Mass with me if you’d like, but you cannot take communion” and I’d say, “Why not? You can take communion at my church” and she’s say, “Because, you cannot” and I’d say, “Well, I think I probably will anyway.” Then Carter would say, “Stop it Carla; why you doing that?” Anyway about two months ago, she started her decline.  She had an apartment in an assisted living place and she’d go down the hall to eat from this big buffet or they’d bring it to her.  She got to where she wasn’t getting around very well and she actually fell out of a chair and they found her not breathing.  They had a DNR on her, but nobody looked.  Now at 104, wouldn’t you already know that?  They resuscitated her back and it has just been really bad since.”   \n\nSo, how is your health?\n\n“My health is fine. I can still outwork people who are 40.”\n\nOk; do you have outside interests? \n\n“I do.”\n\nChurch or social?\n\n“I do a lot at church.  I do a mission that I created 12 years ago for Watson Elementary in South Little Rock.  We had a church split about 12 years ago; our associate pastor went and formed a new church in Ferndale and took half our congregation, all of our youth, all of our staff,  most of the choir, and took our mission.  So, I was called in one day by the preacher who said, “Find us a mission; we’ve got a week until Christmas” and I said “What?” He said, “You can do it” and I said, “It’s a week….”  He said, “I don’t care what you find, we’re going to have a mission for \n\n\n\nChristmas.” So, I called the Little Rock School District and told them who I was and I said, “I know that this is no notice at all, but we’re looking for a mission to do for Christmas; can you lead me in a direction?” and she said, “You are a God send; we have a school that we have been absolutely sitting here praying that somebody would call and ask “can they help.”  She said there are 580 students out there, they are all on the school lunch program, they all on the poverty line….whatever you want to do….”\n\nDo it.\n\n“Do it…..now we didn’t have time to do an Angel tree, so we just went and bought. She told me age groups and we went and bought in bulk, me and another girl.  We just struck out; that was when this Wal-Mart was open and we bought like 150 size 8s, 150 size 10s, 200-12s, boys and girls jeans, tops, toys, games, food, popcorn, pajamas…..we took it out there, spread it out on tables, and had them call the families to come out there and shop.  They came through there crying saying that they had never ever been able to give their kids a Christmas before.”\n\nThat’s great.\n\n“So now we provide school uniforms at the start of school, two complete uniforms, to every kid out there.  We provide them underwear, shoes, socks year round…”\n\nWhat age kids is it?\n\n“Kindergarten through 5th and there is 525 we are preparing right now to distribute and they all get a gift.  We also provide backpacks.”      \n\nWould you, not that just everything in general, your interest in journalism, your writing, the first job that you stayed for 10 years, this job you stayed for 36 years….\n\n“You know time really flies.”\n\n“Would you do it again?’\n\n“Absolutely.”\n\nWould you do it any differently?\n\n“Nope; not a thing.”\n\nWhere do you think we are going with Family Practice? Oh, let’s go back before that for just a second, because I forgot to ask you about this; you’ve obviously developed some friends, other executive directors of other Chapters across the country….\n\n“Right.”\n\n\n\nDo all of the family practice organizations pretty well have the same kinds of problems or deal with the same kind of problems?  \n\n“Uh huh.”\n\nAre any of those problems insoluble where there is just really no solution?\n\n“Oh, I think there are some there that have no solutions for; you deal with the US Government for reimbursement and are at their mercy…you know, you think it s going in the right direction and it’s not.  Really funny, I’ve read back in old journals and old history at the Academy in newspapers …..what was important back then; what y’all we talking about back in 1947, we’re still talking about today: Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement; you know, all that stuff was talked about then and it’s constant.  Now as far as the future of Family Medicine in Arkansas, I see it in the next three years as moving.  With the Osteopathic School in Jonesboro, they are turning out Family Doctors and this is the first time to be in the match; they are gearing toward family medicine. That is what that school is geared for and they have got students from rural areas that plan on going back to those rural areas to practice.  I know Scott Dickson has told me that he has interviewed several for his program.  I think that combined with ARCOM in Fort Smith having their first program; they are a year behind Jonesboro,  but you look at three years from now, you’ll start seeing the results.  We will see the results in May when the batch comes out of how many family practice doctors we are going to produce and they are going to stay here in Arkansas.” \n\nWhat about Julie’s program over in North Little Rock?\n\n“She’s got 12 residents.  She is prime because of where she is at; that is an appealing location.  It kind of takes away from the Little Rock program; if you want to stay in Little Rock and have a spouse or kids, some of them in med school, and you want to stay in Little rock; you have a choice now to stay in Little Rock or go to North Little Rock.  North Little Rock has a brand new building.  You’ve got Conway fixing to open up their first residency program.” \n\nI didn’t know that; is that Baptist or Regional?\n\n“Conway Regional; then, you’ve got Searcy who has been taking osteopathic docs for about two years and is now taking allopathic docs as well for the first time starting in June.  So, you’ve got Searcy, North Little Rock that is new, Batesville that is new, Conway that is fixing to be new, and our existing programs.  Then, Magnolia is opening up, there is another one, I believe, in maybe Russellville or there….Mercy Medical Clinic is opening one up.  I keep thinking, “Where are they going to get all these residents? We’re going to run out.”  But, I think it’s good for Arkansas and Family Medicine and they are gearing it toward family medicine in rural Arkansas.  I think the future is fixing to be bright for medical docs; you now, we were kind of drying up.  The \n\n\n\npool was getting very slim and we weren’t filling our slots in Arkansas. I think we are fixing to see some really big changes this next year.”\n\nNow, I have two questions that are not part of this questionnaire.\n\n“Ok.”\n\n50 to 60 years from now, you will be a picture on the wall.  People are going to say, “Who is she?” and they will say, “Well, she was the executive secretary and then Vice president.” What do you want people to know about you and the work that you committed your adult life to?  And what do you want for them, the people who come behind you that run the organization; not just them, but the country doctors out there? I’m sure you’ve bound to have thought about this.\n\n“Oh yeah; I want them to remember me as someone who was kind, passionate, compassionate, helpful, dedicated, loyal, and I worked my tail off for them and this organization because I liked it.  I enjoyed it and I wanted to see it grow and thrive.  My hope is that whoever follows me sees it the same way I did and they appreciate the opportunity to work for such a wonderful group of people and a great organization that is part of a National thing and they want to see the growth just like I do.  I will be watching as long as I’m alive from afar and will not intrude or get in anyone’s way and I did not have any input into the selection process.  I think they’ve hired a smart guy.  I wanted to see Michelle, of course, get a shot at it and she’s still here and has a good job; she will be a good team member……but I want to see whoever is here for the next ten years, and the next ten years, and the next ten years to see it as I saw it, a great opportunity for a wonderful career to grow family medicine in Arkansas.”       \n\nNow, this next question is one I just forgot because that is where the interview ends. lf you decide you don’t want this as part of the interview, just tell me and I won’t make it part of the interview;  have you been supported by the American Academy to the degree that you needed to be supported by the American Academy?\n\n“Absolutely.”\n\nThat’s all I really needed to hear.  Thank you, I really do appreciate you taking the time to sit and interview with me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/161646/file/293488#t=0.0,5648.70975"}]}]}]}