Submitted information
For The Arkadelphian

Dr. John W. “Doc” Crawford, of Hot Springs, will be inducted into the Arkansas Writers’ Conference Hall of Fame at their 78th annual meeting held at the Hilton Garden Inn, North Little Rock, on June 4, 2022. Crawford is being honored for his 50-plus years of active membership and for the promotion of writing in the state.

He is a professor emeritus of Henderson State University, with earned degrees from Ouachita Baptist University, Drake University (Iowa), and the Oklahoma State University (Stillwater). He has further study at the University of Iowa Creative Writing Seminar and at the University of Colorado.

Crawford has four academic books on Shakespeare’s women and on varied author studies, and five volumes of poetry carried by several state and regional libraries, as well as the Library of Congress. He has won many poetry prizes since 1963, the most prestigious being three Arkansas Sybil Nash Abrams Awards from Poets Roundtable of Arkansas, the Georgia Narrative Poetry Prize, the Arkansas Haiku Prize, and the Grand Prize of the International Poetry Society of $20,000 and book publication of his 3rd poetry volume, “French Quarter at Eight.”

In 2012 Crawford was honored by the Arkansas State Senate with a Senate Citation for his volunteer work in promoting poetry in the state, and for his work entertaining rest home residents and the sponsorship of international students and his social fraternity, Phi Sigma Kappa.

He is a member of Poets Roundtable of Arkansas, charter member of the Missouri Poetry Society, Kappa Delta Pi undergraduate honorary fraternity in education, Phi Delta Kappa graduate honorary fraternity in education, and a life member of the National Education Association and the national American Legion. He served Post 13 American Legion of Hot Springs for 20 years as both Chaplain and as Publicity Director. In 2018 he was awarded the prestigious Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award by the Marquis Biographical Centre, London, New York.