Obituary of Duval L Purkins, Hempstead Co, AR

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submitted by Barbara Tipton Bast
Aug 19 2001

Arkansas Gazette  Feb. 22, 1972

D.L. Purkins Ex-legislator, Dies at 80

Lake Village -  Duval L. Purkins, aged 80, of Lake Village, formerly of
Warren, a former state representative, senator, and circuit judge, died
Sunday.  Mr. Purkins also was a former publisher of the Warren Eagle
Democrat and served as executive secretary to Govenor J. Marion Futrell
in the 1930's. 
                A native of Hope, Mr. Purkins was the son of William
Irvin Purkins, a Confederate veteran of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg,
and Nannie Delony Purkins.  He was the second person to be named
valedictorian of Hope High School.  
                After graduating from Hendrix College at Conway, he
taught school at Hope and at Fulton.  He enlisted in the Army in World
War I and was sent to France two months before the Armistice.  Mr.
Purkins practiced law after the war at Hope.  He moved to Warren in 1923
and became city attorney the same year.
                In 1924, Mr. Purkins was elected Bradley County
representative and was co-author of the Marineau Highway Bill which gave
Arkansas its first big highway building program.  Mr. Purkins was elected
to the Senate in 1928 and served until 1932.  He was appointed executive
secretary to Gov. Futrell in 1933 and served a year before opening up a
law office at Little Rock.
                In 1935 he was appointed circuit judge and returned to
Warren to live.  He was on the bench until 1942 when he ran
unsuccessfully for attorney general. Mr. Purkins bought the Eagle
Democrat in the late 1920's and sold it in 1946.  He was a former member
of the Boards of Hendrix College, Arkansas A&M at Monticello and Arkansas
State Teachers College at Conway.  He was a Methodist and a member of the
Rotary Club and the American Legion.
                Survivors include his wife Mrs. Nannette E. Akin Purkins;
a daughter, Mrs. Nancy Dingler of Lake Village; four sisters, Misses
Marie and Nannie Purkins and Mrs. Glen L. Williams, all of Hope, and Mrs.
Edward Woodford of Little Rock, and two grandchildren. Funeral will be at
4 p.m. today at Frazer Funeral Chapel at Warren.  Burial will be at
Oakland Cemetary at Warren.