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MARCH 21, 2003
| Former governor and U.S. senator Dale
Bumpers reminisced yesterday with a crowd
of veteran Arkansas legislators that
"we did some really great
things" in 1971-75 by creating the
Area Health Education Centers (AHECs) as
part of the University of Arkansas for
Medical Sciences (UAMS).
Sen.
Bumpers spoke at a 30th-anniversary
celebration of the Area Health Education
Centers that the 69th General Assembly
established in 1973. UAMS honored Sen.
Bumpers and the members of the 69th
General Assembly at a luncheon in the
Great Hall at the Arkansas Governor's
Mansion.
At least
two dozen former legislators attended the
luncheon, signing an enlarged copy of the
original bill creating the AHECs as they
entered the Great Hall. Dr. Charles O.
Cranford, UAMS vice chancellor for
regional programs, told them and Sen.
Bumpers, "We owe all of you from 1973
so much. It is through the support of the
Arkansas legislature that UAMS has grown
and prospered."
Sen.
Bumpers said the state's health care
delivery system needed improvement when he
became governor in 1971. "I came from
a town that sometimes had one doctor and
sometimes had none," Sen. Bumpers, a
native of Charleston, Ark., said. One goal
of the AHEC program was to increase the
number of physicians in the primary care
specialties of family medicine,
pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and
internal medicine who set up practices in
small towns.
Sen.
Bumpers said the state has made great
progress in guaranteeing access to health
care for all Arkansans, but decried the
lack of health insurance coverage for many
citizens, calling the health insurance gap
"the shame and disgrace of our
nation."
The reunion
of 1973 lawmakers had a nostalgic tone.
"How pleasant it is to see all of you
… old friends I never would have known
if I hadn't gone into politics," Sen.
Bumpers said. The audience, including Gov.
Frank White (1981-83), current and former
legislators, and directors of all seven
AHECs in the state, gave a standing
ovation to Sen. Bumpers and particularly
loud and prolonged applause to UAMS
Chancellor Emeritus Harry P. Ward, M.D.
Lt. Gov.
Win Rockefeller also spoke at the
luncheon, calling the former legislators
"the faces of Arkansas politics"
and praising them for their role in
creating the nationally-acclaimed AHEC
program. "You all spent many hours,
many days, many nights … debating the
shape of what we call AHECs," he
said. "You all had the great vision.
What you did has made a significant,
perceptible difference in Arkansas."
Chancellor
I. Dodd Wilson, M.D., said UAMS has been
praised for having the best outreach
services of any academic health center in
the nation and that the AHEC program is
the "scaffold" that makes the
outreach possible. "There is no doubt
that Arkansas and North Carolina have the
two best AHEC programs in the
nation."
Chancellor
Wilson presented a video about the
establishment of the AHEC program. In it,
former Arkansas Rep. John E. Miller
commented, "the AHEC program has been
one of the best things … that has
happened in the state of Arkansas."
Former Arkansas Rep. Lloyd R. George said
in the video, "We were having trouble
in rural Arkansas … we had to have help
and we got help from the medical school in
Little Rock."
The event
was one of the first in the recently
completed Great Hall. First Lady Janet
Huckabee welcomed the former legislators
and UAMS leaders.
In 1999,
the National AHEC Organization (NAO)
awarded the Arkansas AHEC Program the
prestigious Eugene S. Mayer Program of
Excellence Award. This award is given in
honor of Dr. Eugene S. Mayer, who directed
the North Carolina AHEC Program for 17
years and provided significant leadership
to the national AHEC movement. The award
recognizes programs that exemplify the
"best of AHEC," including the
quality of its programs, the nature and
extent of its community partnerships, the
responsiveness of its programs to
community needs, and the collaborative
nature with which it operates in
addressing health professions education
needs.
These
members of the 69th General Assembly
attended the anniversary luncheon: Milt
Earnhart, Jerry Bookout, George Locke,
Morriss Henry, B.G. Hendrix, Jim Caldwell,
Doug Adams, H. Lacy Landers, Lloyd
McCuiston, Cecil Alexander, Jim Shaver,
John Miller, Lloyd George, Frank Henslee,
John Lipton, Henry Osterloh, Bill Randall,
C.C. Carlton, Albert "Tom"
Collier, Preston Bynum, Bobby Newman, Bob
Traylor, Jodie Mahony and John Paul Capps.
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UAMS Vice Chancellor
Charles O. Cranford (left) and Lt. Gov. Win
Rockefeller (right) at the 30th-anniversary
celebration of the UAMS AHEC program March 20,
2003, in the Great Hall of the Arkansas Governor's
Mansion (Keith Moore) Click on photo for larger
view.
Left to right: Jan S. Richter, Ed.D., of the UAMS
College of Public Health; her husband, UAMS Vice
Chancellor Charles O. Cranford; and Joseph Bates,
M.D., of the Arkansas Department of Health (Keith
Moore) Click on photo for larger view.
Left to right: Sen. Dale Bumpers, UAMS Chancellor
I. Dodd Wilson, and Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller
(Keith Moore) Click on photo for larger view.
Left to right: Jane Guyton; Rick Guyton, Ph.D.,
director of the Northwest AHEC; Lawrence C. Price,
M.D., director of the Fort Smith AHEC; and Michael
G. Mackey, M.D., director of the Northeast AHEC.
(Keith Moore) Click on photo for larger view.
Left to right: Morriss Henry, M.D., of
Fayetteville, greets Carl Johnson, M.D., of Little
Rock, a member of the Board of Trustees of the
University of Arkansas System, and Patricia
Millard of Little Rock (Keith Moore) Click on
photo for larger view.
Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller (left) and UAMS
Chancellor Emeritus Harry P. Ward, M.D., descend
the staircase into the Great Hall of the Arkansas
Governor's Mansion. (Keith Moore) Click on photo
for larger view.
Left to right:Bill Randall of Hot Springs, a
member of the 69th General Assembly; Ann Bynum,
Ed.D., associate director of the UAMS AHEC
program; her husband, Preston Bynum, a member of
the 69th General Assembly; and C.C. Carlton of
Nashville, also a member of the 69th General
Assembly. (Keith Moore) Click on photo for larger
view.
Left to right: Gov. Frank White, Lt. Gov. Win
Rockefeller, John Edwards of Little Rock, and Sen.
Dale Bumpers (Keith Moore) Click on photo for
larger view.
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