Six men, including two from southeast Arkansas, will be inducted into the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame this spring.
Carl Brothers of Stuttgart and Frank Wilson of Rison are among this year’s inductees. The 37th induction class is scheduled to be honored at 11:30 a.m. March 28 at the Wally Allen Ballroom at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.
Brothers retired as senior vice president and chief operating officer at Riceland Foods in 2018 after 53 years there. His leadership was instrumental in the passage of the 1985 farm bill, also known as the Food Security Act of 1985, according to a news release.
A 1964 Little Rock Central High graduate, Brothers started as a nightshift electric sorter operator without a college degree in 1965 to Riceland’s administrative offices, where he marketed Arkansas rice around the world, according to the release. During his tenure, it was added, Riceland rose to the world’s largest rice miller and marketer, and Arkansas leads America in rice production.
During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Brothers’ work created U.S. Department of Agriculture marketing loans, allowing farmers and cooperatives to place rice into a government loan program and draw the initial loan value while marketing their crops.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“His work crafting the bill allowed farmers and co-ops, holding the loans, to repay at the lower of the loan value or the current world market price for rice,” he said.
Brothers was recognized with the USA Rice Federation Lifetime Achievement Award for major accomplishments benefiting the industry in 2009. He chaired the federation from 1996-98 and Rice Miller’s Association in 1988 and 1997. He also served on the USDA Policy Advisory and Agriculture Technical Advisory committees.
Wilson founded Wilson Brothers Lumber in 1982 along with brothers Grady and Jewel and grew it into an industry giant over the next four decades, according to the release.
He planted trees from the time he was 10 and cut pulpwood with a bow saw as a teen before earning a McCullough Chainsaw scholarship toward a forestry degree at the present-day University of Arkansas at Monticello, where he graduated in 1966. He worked for a wood dealer to International Paper and joined Weyerhaeuser before beginning a weekend sawmill business in 1972 in Rison.
Wilson also created Tri-W Logging in 1985 and A&W Logging, River Ridge Equipment, Cleveland County Auto Parts and 5-Star Machine Shop. Wilson Brothers Lumber constructed a new sawmill in 2017, increasing its annual production to 20 million board feet of hardwood railroad ties and lumber. He also developed a software accounting program called “Timber Tract” in 1999 to assist producers in multiple states and later the “Land Tract” and “Equipment Tract” programs to aid landowners with forest management and financial records.
Individually and with his Frank & Grady LLLP, Wilson owns more than 17,000 acres of timberland in south Arkansas.
Wilson has served on boards for Cleveland County Hospital, Rural Water Users Association and Bank of Rison. He is also known for Log-A-Load for Kids, which has raised $11 million for Arkansas Children’s Hospital and is coordinated by the Arkansas Forestry Association, and the Wilson Family BBQ, an annual community event that draws more than 1,000 people every year.
Other honorees include Aubrey Blackmon of Houston, a founding member of Perry County Cattlemen’s Association; Chuck Culver of Fayetteville, a retired University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture executive; Mike Freeze of Little Rock, co-owner and operator of Keo Fish Farms; and the late Jack Reaper of Albion, a prisoner of war in a German concentration camp who went on to start a 24-acre farm with poultry, cattle and row crops in White County.
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Frank Wilson