Homer Martin Adkins
Homer Martin Adkins (15 October 1890–26 February 1964) was a Democratic Governor of Arkansas. He was born in Jacksonville near Little Rock. In 1908, he attended Draughon's Business College and graduated from the Little Rock College of Pharmacy in 1911 as a licensed pharmacist.
In 1940, he entered the political arena and was elected Governor of Arkansas. Looking to build a voting base based on his background as a Sunday School teacher and church employee, Adkins campaigned on a platform of reform and ending the practice of bootlegging.
The Adkins administration presided over a doubling of the surplus in the state's treasury. His administration focused on highway construction and financing, electrification, worker's compensation. After being re-elected in 1942, Adkins signed into law the following year a bill that would prevent anyone of Japanese descent from owning land in Arkansas.
Homer Adkins died in 1964 in Malvern, Arkansas and is buried at the Roselawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Little Rock.
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Several global companies are headquartered in the northwest corner of Arkansas, including Wal-Mart (the world's largest public corporation by revenue in 2007), J.B. Hunt and Tyson Foods. This area of the state has experienced an economic boom since the 1970s as a result.
In recent years, automobile parts manufacturers have opened factories in eastern Arkansas to support auto plants in other states. Additionally, the city of Conway is the site of a school bus factory.
Tourism is also very important to the Arkansas economy; the official state nickname "The Natural State" was originally created (as "Arkansas Is A Natural") for state tourism advertising in the 1970s, and is still regularly used to this day.
