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100-year-old Arkansas activist dies; Dorothy Davis Stuck remembered as journalism, desegregation pioneer
by
Tess Vrbin
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Today at 3:06 a.m.
Dorothy Davis Stuck, a pioneering Arkansan newspaper publisher, businesswoman and activist, died Thursday in Little Rock at the age of 100.
Her career as an advocate for journalism, the desegregation of schools and the professional advancement of women earned her widespread admiration and honors throughout Arkansas. Dorothy suffered a fall in early June, and while she fought the good fight, she was unable to recover, her longtime friend and business partner Nan Snow wrote to Arkansas Press Women, of which Stuck was a co-founder. At her request, there will be no memorial or burial service. But I know how much she valued the love and friendship you always extended to her. She lived a 100-year beautiful life.
By Ray Cox
Special to The Roanoke Times
An airplane hangar would have been both appropriate and necessary to house the library of newspaper clippings Louise McPhelridge Thaden accumulated for her lifetime aloft.
A statue prominently displayed at an international airport would have worked nicely as well. A suitable model for the sculptor would have been the vintage photograph of Thaden posing with her left hand clutching a biplane wing strut, riding-booted right foot resting comfortably on the hub of the landing wheel assembly as she looked confidently toward the camera.
The press loved Thaden, she of the first generation of daring American women pilots. From east to west and north to south the headlines heralded her flying feats of speed, height, and endurance.