Tag Archives: Cindy Beckman

Teen Town: “Looking Back”

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Reprinted here by special permission of the author, Cindy Beckman, a retired Conway High School history teacher who writes local history.

One of the laments among Conway teens has always been that there is “nothing to do” in Conway. I heard it when I was a teen and throughout three decades of teaching high school students. So I was pleasantly surprised to learn that in the 1940s, parents and teachers successfully collaborated together to provide a place for teens to hang out. It was called Teen Town.

Teen Town was born in the fall of 1943 when the Conway High School PTA set up Continue reading →

I Heard It On the Radio, Part II: “Looking Back”

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Reprinted here by special permission of the author, Cindy Beckman, a retired Conway High School history teacher who writes local history.

When I was growing up in Faulkner County, the two main Conway radio stations were KCON and KVEE. Even though television provided us with visual entertainment, we still turned to our radio stations for local news, coverage of local elections, live local sports coverage and our favorite tunes.

Bill Johnson, who had been a KCON announcer while in college, became the general manager of KCON in 1962 less than a year after James Clayton, the founder, passed away. Johnson purchased Continue reading →

Heard It On the Radio: “Looking Back”

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Reprinted here by special permission of the author, Cindy Beckman, a retired Conway High School history teacher who writes local history.

Conway may have had one of the first radio stations in the state when the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a license to Conway Radio Laboratories on October 2, 1923. KFKW operated at 150 watts on Tuesday and Friday evenings if Ben Woodruff, the owner Continue reading →

Ed Speaker: “Looking Back”

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Reprinted here by special permission of the author, Cindy Beckman, a retired Conway High School history teacher who writes local history.

In the 1940s and 1950s, no one had their finger on the pulse of Conway better than Ed Speaker (1905-1984). Speaker owned Southern Realty, one of the main real estate and insurance firms in Conway and was very involved in state and local politics. As a result, he knew a lot of people and was well known by many.

Richard Edwin Speaker’s parents were Continue reading →