The Clark County Historical Association’s annual Meeks Etchieson Lecture will feature Stan Graves of Montgomery County at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, at DeGray Lake Resort State Park Lodge, Bismarck.
Graves retired several years ago after more than four decades with Arkansas State Parks, including a stint as the first superintendent of DeGray Lake State Park in the 1970s. He will share some personal recollections of the early days at DeGray and other parks during an era in which Arkansas’s state parks evolved into one of the nation’s premier state parks systems.
The public is invited to attend this free event.
Graves grew up near Norman in Montgomery County on a small family farm. He graduated from Norman High School and Arkansas Tech University, with a degree in Parks and Recreation. Staying true to his educational background, he went to work for the State Parks Division of the Arkansas Publicity and Parks Commission (now the Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism).
Graves’ career with State Parks spanned the next 42 years and included a variety of assignments in a variety of locations. He served ten years as a park superintendent at three very different parks (Crowley’s Ridge, Buffalo River, DeGray), 10 years as a regional supervisor overseeing operations at multiple parks, and retired after 22 years at the helm of the Arkansas State Parks Planning and Development Section based in Little Rock.
Today, Graves lives in Montgomery County and serves on the Board of Directors of the Heritage House Museum of Montgomery County in Mount Ida as well as the Board of the Norman Historic Preservation Program (Norman High School).
The public is invited and encouraged to attend this free event. The lecture series is named in honor of Meeks Etchieson of Magnet Cove, who died in 2021. Etchieson was a native of Clark County, served multiple terms as president of the Historical Association, and was a prolific author and compiler of historic records for the organization. For more information, visit www.clarkcountyarhistory.org
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