Woody Freeman

Last updated
Elwood A. "Woody" Freeman
Born (1946-12-28) December 28, 1946 (age 72)
Residence Jonesboro
Craighead County
Arkansas, USA
Occupation Businessman
Political party Republican nominee for Governor of Arkansas, 1984
Spouse(s)Lynda Brown Freeman
Parent(s)Elwood A. Freeman and Mildred Hout Freeman
Notes
After his gubernatorial campaign against Bill Clinton in 1984, Freeman founded a computer software company with an initial $3 bank account.

Elwood A. Freeman, known as Woody Freeman (born December 28, 1946), [1] is a businessman in Jonesboro, Arkansas, who was the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1984. He lost to the incumbent Governor Bill Clinton, the Democrat who eight years later was elected President of the United States. Freeman was the third of four Republicans whom Clinton dispatched in his five successful races for governor.

Business Organization undertaking commercial, industrial, or professional activity

Business is the activity of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products. Simply put, it is "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit. It does not mean it is a company, a corporation, partnership, or have any such formal organization, but it can range from a street peddler to General Motors."

Jonesboro, Arkansas City in Arkansas, United States

Jonesboro is a city located on Crowley's Ridge in the northeastern corner of the U.S. State of Arkansas. Jonesboro is one of two county seats of Craighead County and the home of Arkansas State University. According to the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 71,551 and is the fifth-largest city in Arkansas.

Arkansas State of the United States of America

Arkansas is a state in the southern region of the United States, home to over 3 million people as of 2018. Its name is of Siouan derivation from the language of the Osage denoting their related kin, the Quapaw Indians. The state's diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozark and the Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U.S. Interior Highlands, to the densely forested land in the south known as the Arkansas Timberlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River and the Arkansas Delta.

Contents

Freeman is the son of Elwood A. Freeman (born 1918) and Mildred Hout Freeman (born 1919). The couple divorced, and in 1962, the senior Freeman married the former Elaine E. Stanfield (born 1920). [2] Woody Freeman is married to the former Lynda Brown (born 1947). [3]

Political career

Prior to the gubernatorial bid, Freeman served for eight years on the nonpartisan Jonesboro School Board and was the president of the board from 1978 to 1981. Freeman was appointed by Republican Governor Frank D. White to the Arkansas Board of Higher Education in 1981, serving until he resigned to run in 1984 for governor. [4] He won the Republican nomination over Erwin Davis, an attorney from Fayetteville. [5] A political writer described both Freeman and Davis as "articulate and attractive young men who vigorously sought the nomination." [6] Freeman received 13,030 votes (68.4 percent) to Davis' 6,010 (31.6 percent) in a low-turnout primary. [7]

Frank D. White American politician

Frank Durward White was an American banker and politician who served as the 41st governor of Arkansas. He served a single two-year term from 1981 to 1983. He is one of two people to have defeated Bill Clinton in an election, the other being the late U.S. Representative John Paul Hammerschmidt of Arkansas' 3rd congressional district.

Fayetteville, Arkansas City in Arkansas, United States

Fayetteville is the third-largest city in Arkansas and county seat of Washington County. The city is centrally located within the county and has been home of the University of Arkansas since the institution's founding in 1871. Fayetteville is on the outskirts of the Boston Mountains, deep within the Ozarks. Known as Washington until 1829, the city was named after Fayetteville, Tennessee, from which many of the settlers had come. It was incorporated on November 3, 1836 and was rechartered in 1867. The four-county Northwest Arkansas Metropolitan Statistical Area is ranked 105th in terms of population in the United States with 463,204 in 2010 according to the United States Census Bureau. The city had a population of 73,580 at the 2010 Census.

As a Republican nominee, Freeman was a credible candidate when he challenged Clinton who was seeking his third and last two-year term in the office. [6] Clinton claimed that if Freeman were elected the Arkansas legislature would scuttle certain education reforms approved in the fall of 1983. [4] In his autobiography, My Life, Clinton mentions Freeman once as "an appealing young businessman from Jonesboro." [8] In an appearance in Little Rock on November 3, 1984, President Ronald W. Reagan told a rally, "Please send Woody Freeman to the statehouse." [9] Former United States Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger also campaigned for Freeman but seemed to have little of substance to offer the Arkansas candidate. [10] Clinton prevailed with 554,561 votes to Freeman's 331,987. [7] President Reagan easily won Arkansas over Walter F. Mondale, and Democratic U.S. Senator David Pryor defeated the determined bid of Republican U.S. Representative Edwin R. Bethune of the Little Rock-based district. [11] When Clinton won again in 1986, by defeating former Governors Orval E. Faubus in the Democratic primary and Frank White in the general election, and in 1990, over the Republican Sheffield Nelson, he was elected to four-year terms, the latter of which he served for only two years.

Autobiography biography written by the subject

An autobiography is a self-written account of the life of oneself. The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English periodical The Monthly Review, when he suggested the word as a hybrid, but condemned it as "pedantic". However, its next recorded use was in its present sense, by Robert Southey in 1809. Despite only being named early in the nineteenth century, first-person autobiographical writing originates in antiquity. Roy Pascal differentiates autobiography from the periodic self-reflective mode of journal or diary writing by noting that "[autobiography] is a review of a life from a particular moment in time, while the diary, however reflective it may be, moves through a series of moments in time". Autobiography thus takes stock of the autobiographer's life from the moment of composition. While biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents and viewpoints, autobiography may be based entirely on the writer's memory. The memoir form is closely associated with autobiography but it tends, as Pascal claims, to focus less on the self and more on others during the autobiographer's review of his or her life.

<i>My Life</i> (Bill Clinton autobiography) autobiography of Bill Clinton

My Life is a 2004 autobiography written by former President of the United States Bill Clinton, who left office on January 20, 2001. It was released on June 22, 2004. The book was published by the Knopf Publishing Group and became a bestseller; the book sold in excess of 2,250,000 copies. Clinton had received what was at the time the world's highest book advance fee, $15 million.

Little Rock, Arkansas Capital of Arkansas

Little Rock is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. As the county seat of Pulaski County, the city was incorporated on November 7, 1831, on the south bank of the Arkansas River close to the state's geographic center. The city derives its name from a rock formation along the river, named the "Little Rock" by the French explorer Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe in the 1720s. The capital of the Arkansas Territory was moved to Little Rock from Arkansas Post in 1821. The city's population was 198,541 in 2016 according to the United States Census Bureau. The six-county Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, AR Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is ranked 78th in terms of population in the United States with 738,344 residents according to the 2017 estimate by the United States Census Bureau.

After his own campaign, Freeman continued to contribute to Republican candidates, including former U.S. Representative Rick Lazio of New York, the unsuccessful candidate against Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton for the United States Senate in the 2000 general election. In 2002, he donated to the failed effort by Republican U.S. Senator Tim Hutchinson to win reelection in Arkansas. [12] In 1999, he contributed to Hutchinson's brother, U.S. Representative Asa Hutchinson, thereafter the unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2006. [13]

Rick Lazio American politician

Enrico Anthony Lazio is a former four-term U.S. Representative from the State of New York. Lazio became well-known during his bid for U.S. Senate in New York's 2000 Senate election; he was defeated by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Lazio also ran unsuccessfully for the 2010 New York State Republican Party gubernatorial nomination.

United States Senate Upper house of the United States Congress

The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the United States House of Representatives—the lower chamber—comprises the legislature of the United States. The Senate chamber is located in the north wing of the Capitol Building, in Washington, D.C.

During general election all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.

Business career

Just after his race for governor, Freeman co-founded Continental Computer Corporation in Jonesboro, the developer of software which allows funeral homes to upload obituaries to the National Obituary Archive with a single click of the mouse. [14] The archive is the largest repository of obituaries and death records. The company also provides easy access to birth certificates. Freeman's partners are Phil H. Hout and Jesse Stafford, both then of Jonesboro, and Peter Seale of Houston, Texas. [14] Freeman once claimed that he started the company with a $3 checking account. [15] The company was named "Arkansas Business of the Year" in 1992. By that time, company sales had increased tenfold. [15]

A funeral home, funeral parlor or mortuary, is a business that provides interment and funeral services for the dead and their families. These services may include a prepared wake and funeral, and the provision of a chapel for the funeral.

Texas State of the United States of America

Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Geographically located in the South Central region of the country, Texas shares borders with the U.S. states of Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the west, and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the southwest, and has a coastline with the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast.

Freeman has been an advocate of expanding business opportunities in Jonesboro. In 2006, he spoke in favor of allowing restaurants to serve liquor though Craighead County is dry. Freeman said the rejuvenated downtown Jonesboro is "very impressive" for people bringing jobs to the area. [16]

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References

  1. ↑ Internet site: Net Detective and People Search
  2. ↑ "Craighead County, Arkansas, Marriages, 1960-1964". gscca.net. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
  3. ↑ Internet site: People Search and Background Check
  4. 1 2 "Tom Mirga, "Governorships Are Won by 'Education' Candidates; 4 State Chiefs Re-Elected", November 14, 1984". edweek.org. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  5. ↑ "Campaign Notes: Clinton of Arkansas Trying Again for 2nd Term, April 2, 1984". The New York Times . April 2, 1984. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
  6. 1 2 Diane D. Blair, Elazar, Daniel J. (1988). Arkansas politics & government: do the people rule?. University of Nebraska Press. Retrieved 2010-01-03.
  7. 1 2 "Our Campaigns: AR Governor". ourcampaigns.com. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
  8. ↑ Clinton, Bill. My Life. Google Books. p. 317. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
  9. ↑ "Remarks at a Reagan-Bush rally in Little Rock, Arkansas". Reagan.utexas.edu. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
  10. ↑ Robert E. Levin and J. Shawn Landres, Bill Clinton: The Inside Story, p. 166. Google Books. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
  11. ↑ State of Arkansas, Secretary of State, 1984 general election returns
  12. ↑ "Woody Freeman, 72404". watchdog.net. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
  13. ↑ "Jonesboro, Arkansas Political Contributions by Individuals". city-data.com. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
  14. 1 2 "Parent of Arrangeonline.com Adds Entrepreneurs to Board, June 12, 2002". arrangeonline.com. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
  15. 1 2 "Software savvy". highbeam.com. Archived from the original on November 2, 2012. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
  16. ↑ "Carol Griffee, "New Club Permit Approved", December 21, 2006". Jonesboro Sun, Jonesboro, Arkansas . Retrieved December 26, 2009.
Party political offices
Preceded by
Frank D. White 		Republican gubernatorial nominee in Arkansas

Elwood A. "Woody" Freeman
1984

Succeeded by
Frank D. White
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