[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 67 (Friday, May 22, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S5465]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     A TRIBUTE TO ROSS PENDERGRAFT

 Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the memory 
of a long time friend, Ross Pendergraft. He was a good and decent man 
who helped make his community and State a better place. I extend my 
condolences to his family and friends, but especially his lovely wife 
Donnie.
  Ross passed away Sunday at the age of 72 in Fort Smith, Arkansas, a 
city he called home and where he was a former executive vice president 
and chief operating officer of the Donrey Media Group, which owns five 
fine newspapers in my State and more than fifty nationwide. Donrey owes 
its great success in a tough business in large part to the efforts of 
Ross Pendergraft.
  I knew Ross long before I entered public life. He was a man of great 
personal integrity and professional accomplishment. He was a man of 
wit, humor, and compassion who made a deep impact on the life of his 
community. He will be terribly missed by those in the newspaper 
business and by the thousands people whose lives he touched not only in 
Fort Smith but throughout Arkansas.
  Born in Abbott, Arkansas, Ross was a World War II veteran, and 
attended Arkansas Tech University at Russellville on the GI Bill, like 
so many of us did. In 1948 he joined the advertising staff of the 
Southwest Times-Record newspaper in Fort Smith, and so began his rise 
through the ranks of the Donrey organization. In 1961 he was named 
general manager of the Times-Record and by 1990 he oversaw all Donrey 
newspapers in the continental U.S. and Hawaii. Three times he was named 
``Man of the Year'' by the Arkansas Press Association.
  But he also found the time and energy to serve his community. He was 
the first vice chairman of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, a 
charitable trust. He was a chairman of the Fort Smith United Way, a 
president of the city's Chamber of Commerce, a former member of the 
Arkansas Highway Commission, and he served on the Arkansas Action 
Committee as well as countless other civic and charitable 
organizations.
  Ross worked tirelessly to get better roads in western Arkansas and to 
promote economic development in Fort Smith, which is now among the 
fastest growing regions in the United States.
  Though Ross was a man who oversaw more than 50 newspapers and bought 
newsprint and printers ink by the ton, he was never one to seek the 
limelight or use his position for personal aggrandizement. So many of 
his good works took place quietly, behind the scenes, out of the public 
eye. He was a man who loved his family, loved his community, and loved 
the newspaper business. And while my State is diminished by his loss, 
it has been and will continue to be enriched by the work that he did, 
the causes he served and the example he set.

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