Willis Ricketts Papers

Collection

Identifier: MC 1283

Staff Only
Select files to request

Scope and Content Note

The collection contains materials related to Ricketts’ 1962 gubernatorial campaign as well as materials related to the Arkansas and national Republican parties in 1960-1962. Also included are materials related to his involvement with the Jaycees. Materials include political and personal correspondence, newspaper clippings, texts of speeches and miscellaneous campaign documents. The Marlin Hawkins item is an article from The Nation magazine.

Dates

1958-1962

Creator

Ricketts, Willis, 1924-2003 (Person)

Language of Materials

Materials are in English.

Access Information

Please call (479) 575-8444 or email specoll@uark.edu at least two weeks in advance of your arrival to ensure availability of the materials.

Use Information

No Use Restrictions Apply.

No Interlibrary Loan.

Standard Federal Copyright Laws Apply (U.S. Title 17).

Biographical Note

Willis Harvey Ricketts, known by the nickname “Bubs” almost all his life, was born December 14, 1924, in Bentonville to Glenn C. Ricketts and Jewell Broyles Ricketts. He was a quarterback on the football team at Fayetteville High School, from which he graduated in 1942. He subsequently served thirty months during World War II in the South Pacific as a U.S. Navy medical field technologist. Following the war, he was a pre-med student at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He graduated from the School of Pharmacy at College of the Ozarks in 1950. He worked for twenty years in Fayetteville at Ricketts Drug Store, which was owned by his father. A civic activist, Ricketts was national director of the Jaycees in 1958-1959, president of the Arkansas Jaycees in 1960-1961 and a life member of the Junior Chamber of Commerce International. Also, he was a charter member and past president of the Fayetteville Exchange Club for Men, vice president of the Salvation Army in 1961 and a board member of the Arkansas Pharmaceutical Association.

Ricketts was the Republican candidate for governor of Arkansas in 1962. Running unopposed in his own party after the early withdrawal of W. Harold Sadler, he was ultimately defeated in the general election by incumbent Governor Orval Faubus by a vote of 225,743 to 82,349. Following that, Ricketts was statewide organizer for Winthrop Rockefeller’s 1963-1964 gubernatorial campaign.

In 1967, he moved to Benton, Saline County, Arkansas where he became administrator of the Arkansas State Hospital unit there. During 1972-1973, he was administrator of Stella Manor Nursing Home in Russellville, Pope County, Arkansas. He also served as vice president of the Saline County Chamber of Commerce from 1973 until 1985. He was married to Laeuna Broyles Ricketts of Fayetteville. The marriage ended in divorce in the early 1970s. The couple had a son, Glenn R. Ricketts of Benton, and a daughter, Janis Volkamer of Fayetteville.

Ricketts died January 12, 2003, from kidney failure and complications from diabetes at Saline Memorial Hospital in Benton. He is buried at Fairview Memorial Gardens in Fayetteville.