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El Dorado NEWS-TIMES – Sunday, July 9, 2017 – 3
From the merger and beyond: SouthArk’s history through News-Times reports
By Brittany Williams
SStaff Writer
outh Arkansas Community College was formed after a county-wide vote
on March 31, 1992 and vot- ers approved a new tax to support the new institution known as SouthArk.
The merger was official after Governor Bill Clinton signed legislation merging Oil Belt Technical College (OBTC) and Southern Arkansas University-El Dorado Branch (SAU-EB). According to a 1992 El Dorado News-Times report, the merger proposal includ- ed a half-mill tax increase.
Prior to the merger, SAU- EB director Dr. Ben Whitfield said that it was “just a matter of simple logic” in a July 1991 News-Times report. OBTC Billy McGehee director said months later that the merger “would be a dream come true if we could make it happen.”
In a 2012 News-Times Report, current president Dr. Barbara Jones said that SAU-EB focused on getting students enough credits to transfer to a four-year insti- tution while OBTC “focused more on technical, health and workforce type programs.”
Less than a month later, the board of trustees elect- ed Charlie Thomas as board chairman and Whitfield as the college’s first president. McGehee was named the vice president for industry and development.
Other founding board mem- bers appointed by then-Gov- ernor Clinton included vice- chair Bill McCord, secretary Betty White, George Haefner, Joffre Long, Sharon Modica,
Courtesy SouthArk Library Archives and Special Collections
Ceremonial start: Ground is turned to mark the ceremonial start of construction on the Center for Workforce Development on the college’s East Campus. The facility opened in 2003.
Jeff Rogers, David Ross and Corbit White.
SouthArk opened up for business in July and classes that August were housed in four buildings – the 1905 El Dorado High School, West Campus Classroom and East Campus Classroom build- ings and the gymnasium, which was a Works Progress Administration project that was primarily constructed in 1940.
In a 2002 News-Times report, the gym’s original architect, John Abbott, said, “We worked nine months on construction and were work- ing mostly with people who
See HISTORY, Page 4
Courtesy SouthArk Library Archives and Special Collections
Float: Students prepare to line up SouthArk’s float in the El Dorado Christmas parade in 1998.