Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Warren native retires from two boards in April

FAYETTEVILLE – Maylon T.  Rice, a native of Warren, who has lived in Fayetteville for the past 25 years, recently was “retired” from two boards due to term limits for service in late April.

Rice has been a member of the Fayetteville Public Library Board of Trustees since April 2010 until April this year.

A city ordinance prohibited Rice from serving more than two consecutive terms. As the 2020 rolled around, Rice was “retired” from the FPL Board. He served one year as secretary of the Board and eight of the last 10 years as Treasurer of the library.

He was awarded a framed color print of the library upon his retirement back in mid-April.

Rice was also retired from the Arkansas Historical Association’s Board of Trustees, where he served two consecutive three-year terms, from 2014 to 2019. He headed the Memorials and Awards Committee; the Finance Committee and was a juror on the recent John G. Ragsdale Book Award committee, selecting the best of Arkansas’s many history books submitted for the award each year and the Walter Brown local history awards committee for several years on the AHA Board.

Rice was only the third Bradley Countain to serve on the Arkansas Historical Association Board of Trustees.

The previous two were: State Senator Lee Reaves of Hermitage and James Paul Beachboard, of Warren.

Reaves was the 6th Congressional District appointee to the history board back in 1948. Senator Reaves was reappointed to a second term in 1951 and served until 1953, when he was term limited by the Arkansas Historical Association’s By-laws.

Beachboard, a graduate of Warren High, was an attorney in Little Rock, when he was appointed to the AHA Board in 1999. Beachboard was reappointed in 2002 and served until he was term limited in 2005.

Rice remains active as a  Life Member of the Arkansas Historical Association.

The Fayetteville Public Library is in the midst of a $52 million dollar, 88,000 square foot addition to the library in Fayetteville. The Fayetteville Public Library was established in two basement rooms in the Washington County Courthouse in 1916.

Rice, as a trustee, has overseen the recent library millage increase to over 3 mills of a library tax, to help fund the new construction as well as maintenance and operations of the city library’s functions. Rice is a Life Member of the Friends of the Fayetteville Public Library.

The Fayetteville Public Library has a collection of almost 300,000 items and a yearly circulation over 1 million a year in recent years.

Prior to the virus pandemic, the Fayetteville Public Library with a staff of 43 full time positions, saw almost 185 patrons each hour the library was open or almost 12,000 patrons per week, using the library. 

The annual budget of the Fayetteville Public Library is in excess of $15 million each year.

The new 88,000 square foot edition is being paid for by the millage or $26 million with a $26 million private campaign to fund the balance. The new addition is expected to open in October with a formal opening in December 2020.

Rice who has served as President of the Washington County Historical Society during this same times period, still serves as Past President of the WCHS.


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