Is it any wonder that artist Mary Sims and writer Bill Earngey relocated from Memphis to an artists’ and writers’ colony called Eureka Springs? That makes about as much sense as Eleanor Lux, Zeek Taylor, Dick Titus and Mary Springer, artists with Memphis accents, randomly ending up living as neighbors on White Street. Go figure!
Eureka has no monopoly on freaky coincidences or ironic contradictions, but if it did the poster child on the t-shirt might as well be Bill Earngey. In a subculture characterized by clichés about drugs, sex and rock-and-roll, Bill easily shunned pot by saying, “It makes me violent.” He didn’t grow his hair down to his ass and found one woman at a time plenty. His first was Mary Sims, and following her death, Terri Weems.
As for rock-and-roll, he was a righteous fan of Wildcat Alexander and frequently quoted Carl Perkins, and Wildcat, when characterizing wayward Eureka citizens by saying, “Rave on children.”
A veteran, Bill volunteered for two tours of duty as a United States Marine Corps helicopter pilot as an alternative to the draft and automatic assignment to Vietnam. Bill got a Nevada divorce from the military by ingesting liberating quantities of LSD on the shores of Lake Tahoe. An excellent marksman with a .22 loaded with “city rounds,” he shared his talents selectively after SWEPCO decided to daylight Eureka’s night with a swarm of mercury-vapor streetlights. His offer: “See stars – $10” was appreciatively accepted by Eureka residents who considered the streetlights visual poison.
Bill’s one shot at getting elected to city council misfired when he was defeated by a former mayor who died after the ballots were printed, and was declared an alderman in a recount procedure which was halted as soon as the deceased led him by a single vote. This allowed council to appoint anyone but Bill.
Although Bill served on the Planning Commission for several years, he was never a favorite with the gang that ran city hall. Bill’s home on East Mountain overlooked a beautiful wooded valley. The good old boys thought it would be good for business to pave it for a parking lot and reopen Water Street which used to be one of the main entries to downtown and just “coincidentally” ran right past an alderman’s shopping center and music hall on US62E. Bill and other visionary preservationists stopped the land rape by forming a state-chartered Parks and Recreation Commission, which wasn’t under city hall’s thumb. The commission preserved the valley, and the existence of Parks and Rec is an important gift from Bill and fellow preservationists to future generations. Another part of his legacy as an Arkansawyer includes two books available at Eureka’s Carnegie Public Library: Arkansas Roadsides and Missouri Roadsides.
Bill led a variety of missions for residents’ rights and walked many a petition to get issues decided by popular vote. He recognized the reluctance of the city’s artists and creative types to get involved in the consciousness-lowering charade of self-government dominated by the chamber-of-commerce-run city council. He recognized the power of initiated referenda in a small town where residents could vote their conscience by secret ballot rather than risk having their next loan application denied because they didn’t agree with the establishment’s current line of pro-tourism thinking.
Born a southerner on March 21, 1943 in Norfolk, Va., Bill sometimes revealed his roots by referring to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression. As a high school football star he played far too long without a helmet and incurred several concussions. Landing on his bare head after dumping a motorcycle on a slippery highway off-ramp didn’t help. About four years ago he bumped his head while walking down a narrow stairway and began having a series of head problems, which culminated in progressively worsening dementia and finally death on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2016.
“He never gave up,” said partner Terri Weems “until the day before he died.”
As a writer and a lover of evocative language, he squirmed and fidgeted while trying to find the right words to express his unique opinions. Over time, the words became so elusive that he adopted a suggestion to substitute the word “chicken” for any name or word whose recall threatened to derail the narrative flow of his creative consciousness. The result, as overheard by eavesdroppers at Myrtie Mae’s restaurant, must have been baffling, but those who loved him always seemed to know what he was talking about.
If politics and preservation were Bill’s hobbies, writing was his art. His love of the past infused his writing with folktales he wove into books and columns, and his anger was stirred when he saw parts of Eureka threatened with destruction for personal profit. The old neon Hi Hat bar sign looks right at home in the living room of a man whose Out of Arkansas newspaper column from the Jan. 10, 2008 Lovely County Citizen posed the following questions: “Where did all our town’s money go? Why do we need an Underground Eureka when we haven’t even fixed the sidewalks above it? Why don’t we have a sewer system? Is our Secret Season really secret? Why don’t we use our own trolley system? Why doesn’t our 950-seat auditorium book a class act every week? (950×4 = 3,800 people.) Does the Planning Commission have a plan? Does anyone on the Historic District Commission actually know anything about architecture or our history? Why do we believe that a thousand roaring motorcycles in our downtown is good for tourism? Why do we have only two signed public bathrooms downtown?
“Why don’t we light the stairways on Spring Street? Should we eliminate the CAPC and just have a Chamber of Commerce? Did you know the entrance to our town cemetery has a very old, tall, faceted, limestone marker inscribed, ‘Visit The Sick, Bury The Dead?’” – Bill Earngey, Out of Arkansas. Vernon Tucker
It was my honor and pleasure to know Bill and serve on the Planning Commision with him. I loved sitting and listening to all his stories. He will be a missed treasure
An excellent tribute to a man I never met, but through his friends I felt what he was all about.
Thank you.