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Riley-Hickingbotham Library at Ouachita Baptist University

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WETHERINGTON COLLECTION
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Allen Burton Wetherington first began teaching at age eighteen in a one-room schoolhouse at Round Hill, Arkansas, in 1924. Four years later he married Gertrude. Between the years of 1928 and 1933, he taught at several rural schools in several different counties within Arkansas. In 1935, he received his bachelor’s degree from Henderson State College while serving as superintendent of Laneburg. He attained his master’s degree from the University of Arkansas in 1938. During World War II, he joined the Navy where he taught navigation to an advanced squadron. When he returned to Arkansas, he worked for the Department of Education. In 1946, as Director of School Transportation, he set up a plan to purchase a fleet of school buses and developed a program to train school bus drivers. While serving as director of school finance in 1952, he secured the passage of the Minimum School Budget Law. He received his doctorate in school finance in 1959 from North Texas State College and began teaching at Ouachita Baptist University in 1961. He played a large role in the desegregation of Arkansas schools by establishing the Arkansas Technical Assistance and Consultative Center (ATAC) at OBU in 1969.

This collection contains a number of papers and speeches written or given by Wetherington and others at a variety of workshops.  It also contains a proposal for ATAC; some letters he wrote to his son for several years on his son’s birthday; Sunday School lessons; deacon information from First Baptist Church in Arkadelphia, which contains pictures of the deacons’ families and their names; and many other miscellaneous items including his son’s scrapbooks from church and the Cub Scouts. Of particular interest are the papers he wrote while at North Texas State College; a copy of the manual used for training school bus drivers; copies of the Minimum School Budget Law; and a poll tax receipt.

Contact Us
Jacynda Ammons
OBU Box 3729
Arkadelphia, AR 71998
ammonsj@obu.edu
870.245.5332

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