Paul Eells, KATV

Paul Eells, KATV

There are so many wonderful memories and stories that keep Jim in my head almost daily. I still think one of the best took place at Oaklawn on Derby Day. Someone had stolen some small TV equipment during the final days of the meeting. As the Arkansas Derby ended and the Oaklawn meeting was to come to a close, Jim asked G.M. Eric Jackson what the press box was going to do with the leftover brownies that had been brought to the box. Eric told Jim he could have them. “Take
some home to Betty, ” he said.

So Jim lined his briefcase with several of the brownies and prepared to head home. The track had a guard stationed at the elevator to check media members as they headed out because of the previous thefts. When the guard asked Jim to open his briefcase Jim sheepishly obliged. And there, stacked like bricks of gold were the brownies. The guard did a double take, smiled, looked at Jim and said, “Mr. Elder, have a good night, and enjoy.”

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Donna Lampkin Stephens, from Arkansas Golfer 1999

Donna Lampkin Stephens, from Arkansas Golfer 1999

Not many people loved golf as much as Jim Elder did.

Elder, the broadcast icon who died in June 1998, was better known for his duties as the voice of the Arkansas Travelers, his role in Arkansas Razorback football broadcasts and for his sportscasts on KARN radio. But one of his greatest loves was golf.

“If he broke 90, it was like the ocean had divided,” remembered long-time friend and fellow golfer Harry King. “I’ve never been around anybody so enthusiastic about the game. He and I played one day when it was 18 degrees. We were the only two people who played that day at North Hills (Country Club).”

KATV sports director Paul Eells was another colleague and golf partner. Eells remembered another December round at North Hills with temperatures below freezing.

“I don’t even know why they let us out on the course,” Eells said. “We played four holes and all of a sudden it got worse — rain, freezing rain, sleet. But none of us was willing to say, ‘It’s miserable — let’s
go in.’ We came back toward the clubhouse and I finally said, ‘Guys, this might be our last chance.’

“We went in, finally. It was the worst conditions I’ve ever played in, but neither Jim nor Harry was willing to say, ‘I give.’ I had to end it. I was just dying.”

King said he, Elder and a couple of other media types used to have a standing 9:15 tee time on Saturdays.

“One Saturday the phone rang and it was Jim,” King remembered. “He said, ‘Where are you?’ I said, ‘Jim, it’s sleeting outside.’ He said, ‘But it’s barely sleeting.’”

Elder, King and Eells were among a group of about 10 golfers who began playing at Longhills in Benton in the late 1970s. The group also included Ron Robinson of Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods advertising agency and the late Jimmy Jones, state editor of the Arkansas Gazette.

“Jim thought it was great that he got to play with guys he thought could play, but if one of us broke 80, it was a big deal,” King said. “Everybody loved having him there. He thought we were so gracious to include him.”

Many of the group eventually joined North Hills. But it didn’t matter where they played. Elder was in his element.

“If you were playing in the group without him, you’d always know how they were doing because he would be whooping and hollering,” King said. “He was always so enthusiastic. You’d have thought they’d made 29 birdies in a row.”

Eells, too, remembered the Elder enthusiasm.

“Jim was like me — he’d lay in bed at night playing the shot,” Eells said. “He’d get so excited about playing, he’d hit a shot and run to the ball. Harry and I would say, ‘Jim, we’ll drive you,’ but he’d be
anticipating the next shot.”

Elder was a big fan of the orange and yellow golf balls when they came out. King said his son Petey, a five-time state amateur champion before turning pro, bought Elder some balls that were half orange and half yellow.

“It made you dizzy to watch them, but Jim thought they were the greatest invention,” King said, chuckling.

Elder was a student of the game, always on the lookout for a tip when he watched pro tournaments on television. King remembered how Elder would see something Davis Love was doing with his putter and try to put it into his own game.

“He’d discover the secret on No. 13 or 14 and hit it good,” King said. “It didn’t take much to make him happy — just being out there.”

Elder wasn’t a long hitter. Eells remembered that Petey King, who thought of Elder as a second father, would out drive him by 200 yards, but that didn’t matter.

“Petey was such a good player, but it didn’t bother Jim to play with him,” Eells said. “Jim would hit 180 yards and Petey 380 and it didn’t bother Jim at all. He wasn’t intimidated.”

Petey King remembered Elder’s “unbelievable left-to-right” accuracy with an old Ping 3-wood while most golfers joined the metalwood craze.

Eells said Elder’s strengths were his bunker play and his putting.

Add encouragement to the list.

King remembered playing scrambles with Elder, who always poor-mouthed his own play.

“He was a fearless putter,” King said. “If it was 20 or 30 feet, it didn’t matter. I’d try to cozy it up; he’d knock it in.

“When his eyes got to bothering him, I’d hit one and it might sound good and he’d say, ‘That’s great.’ I’d say, ‘Jim, that’s like three fairways over, and he’d always say, ‘You know what Lou Holtz would say now — what an opportunity this is.’ We’d be behind a tree with a huge lake and he’d talk about what an opportunity it was. You could not discourage him.”

Eells recalled an annual weekend tournament the long-time group played — five rounds at different courses on a weekend in Hot Springs. Elder won one year; the trophy was one of his prized possessions.

Elder took great pride in the development and career of Petey King from the beginning. Petey qualified for a Junior World event in San Diego several years ago; Elder knocked on the Kings’ door one day with
a dozen new Titleists for the trip.

Elder made his own quiet impact on the young, at times hot-headed Petey King.

“He’d get so mad at me when I’d get mad,” Petey King said. “He would never get onto me, but I knew what he was talking about.”

As Petey King hit the top of Arkansas amateur golf in the mid-1980s, Elder was known to have sneaked through the trees to watch Petey on the sly.

“A lot of times Jim wouldn’t let Petey know he was on the course watching because he didn’t want to be a distraction,” Eells said. “He would stay in the background. I know there was a special relationship
with Jim and Petey and Harry. Jim really appreciated what Petey and Harry meant to each other.”

Petey King said one of the best parts of his winning the 1986 ASGA Player of the Year award was having people like Elder, Eells and Robinson at the awards luncheon.

“I look back, and the people I grew up with were really celebrities, and I didn’t know that,” said King, now 33 and the head teaching professional at the Little Rock Golf Academy. “The older I got, I
realized they were, and that was pretty neat for me. I also saw how hard he worked, and that meant a lot to me, too. You have to work hard to get to where you want to be.”

As diabetes took its toll, Elder played less, but his enthusiasm never waned. One of the last times he played was at Eagle Hill with King and Eells a little more than a year ago.

“It was cold and wet and you would’ve thought he was a kid in the sandbox,” King said. “He lost a shoe in the mud. It didn’t matter if the ball was on the roof — he’d get out and hit it. He played the last
nine holes with one brown shoe and one white one.”

Now, especially on pretty days, King misses his friend. Since Elder finished his morning radio duties by 9 a.m., he and King played whenever King had weekdays off from the Associated Press.

“It didn’t have to be a great day,” King said. “Thirty-eight, 40 degrees; sunshine or maybe not. There have been days (since June) when I’ve thought it wouldn’t take much to get him on the golf course.”

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Donna Lampkin Stephens, Tribute to Jim from Ark. Golfer 1999

Donna Lampkin Stephens, Tribute to Jim from Ark. Golfer 1999

When fans would approach Jim Elder in a grocery story to ask if he was the voice of the Arkansas Travelers or the KARN sportscaster, he would respond, “Oh, you’re the one.”

He couldn’t imagine he had many fans.

“He never thought that thousands of people were glued to that radio,” said the Associated Press’ Harry King, a long-time Elder friend. “He never could understand why they’d want to listen.

“He was as unselfish as anybody I’ve met, and in this business, there are a few egos.”

One of Elder’s favorite pastimes was photographing friends, hanging a copy in his KARN office and often giving a copy to the subject.

“He had pictures of everybody,” King said. “Underneath those hanging would be four or five other ones. He would make them everywhere — in the Oaklawn press box and other places. He made pictures of (jockey) Larry Snyder, (handicapper) Kim Brazzel. He would bring a copy back to them the next week and say, ‘I thought you’d like to have this.’”

This writer was one of the lucky ones. As a young golf writer for the Arkansas Gazette, I was in awe of Jim Elder when I met him in the mid-1980s. But he took my photograph, gave me a copy, and made me feel as if I were the celebrity.

He was a jewel, and I miss him very much.

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Clay Henry, Hawgs Illustrated

Clay Henry, Hawgs Illustrated

Jim Elder was the nicest person on this planet. Of course, I’m biased. He gave me my first job. When I turned 16, he hired me to help him with the recreation broadcasts of the Traveler games. I’d call the press box in the visiting city when the Travs were on the road and get the play-by-play of the game and give it to Jim. He’d be about 20 minutes behind and would do the broadcast as if he was there at the game. It was wonderful fun and really exciting.

I can always remember seeing him at games after the start of Hawgs Illustrated. He’d have the latest copy of the magazine in his hand and greet me with the same line, “Clay, this one is better than the last, just great reading and wonderful stuff. Keep up the good work.” Or, he’d hand me a snap shot of me doing an interview with someone that he’d taken with his small camera. Or, he’d have a snapshot of my father, Orville Henry, doing an interview. He’d say, “Thought you might like to have this.”

Jim was nothing short of a state treasure, both professionally and as a person. He treated everyone like they were the king and never wanted anything for himself.

Of course, he was an avid golfer and enjoyed every game no matter the weather. Of course, he made it fun and you looked forward to playing even in cold, rainy or snowy conditions because you were going to be around a great friend, Jim Elder. If you were around Jim, there were no bad days.

Clay Henry
Publisher, Hawgs Illustrated

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Bill Valentine, Arkansas Travelers

Bill Valentine, Arkansas Travelers

Someone said that I might have a story or two about my ole pal Jim Elder…….after I was fired for organizing the umpires in the American League in 1968 I did three innings of the Travs broadcast with Jim from 1969 thru 1975…we also did a morning and afternoon disc jockey show on KARK Radio…high school football and basketball games…..sports on KARKTV and anything else they need us for around KARK……..

But I will never forget some of the things that happen during the recreation of Trav broadcasts…..someone would call the press box when the Travs were on the road and get information of what each player would do…and Jim would recreate the game…..there were crowd noise tapes…etc…..a roar when a visiting player got a big hit……boos….etc……….we were broadcasting a game when the Travs were in Memphis and the crowd noise tape broke……Jim said that someone in the press box had closed all the windows…….a couple of innings later the tape was repaired…….in order to get the tape back on….Jim announced that we had taken a vote in the press box and agreed to open the windows….so he slowly brought up the sound on the tape and announced how nice it was to have the windows open again……

Anyone who knew Jim will remember that he was not a drinking man……when Jim drank a soft drink, etc…he would turn it up and drink at least half of it at one time……this day a doctor friend invited Jim over before the game to taste some home made wine…..Jim dropped by on the way to the station and tasted four or five wines the same way he would drink a coke……..as the game started the wine caught up with Jim and he started to slur his words…….if you knew Jim you know he would not leave the air…….so he announced that a bee had flown into the press box and bit him on his lip!

The game was in Shreveport…..it was a long, long game and the young man that was taken down the play-by-play over the telephone had to leave and go home since it was a school night…..so in the eighth inning I started calling the press box and getting the information from a reporter for the morning newspaper……Jim would keep the slips turned upside down and would only turn them over for each hitter so that he would not know the out come of the inning……we went into the bottom of the ninth inning with the Travelers leading……I came back with the slips and put them upside down on the desk………Jim had one out and he turned the slips over…..there were two hits….then another out….and that was all I had….I didn’t have the last out of the inning………..Jim wrote me a quick note and I went to the telephone and called the press box in Shreveport……the reporter had already left and gone back to the newspaper and no one was answering the telephone…so I called the newspaper and they said they would have him call me as soon as he arrived…..Jim now had two runners on base…two outs and no other action……so he had the hitter foul off pitch after pitch….he had the pitching coach go to the mound…..he had the third base coach come down to the plate and talk to the hitter…..still no call from the reporter……..so what did he do….he created a light failure!….and we waited for them to work on the lights…….finally the reporter called……Jim had the groundcrew doing a great job of getting the lights back on…..and was relieved to find that the hitter struck out and the Travs won the game.

He was the last announcer to recreate professional baseball games…..a shame he didn’t write a book…….Bill Valentine

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Harry King

Dozens Of Teams Turn Out For Tournament
Tuesday, April 22, 2003

Column By Harry King
Arkansas News Bureau

When the peaches were just so at the pick-and-pay orchard, Jim Elder would drive half an hour to partake.

He plucked pounds with care, gingerly placing them in sacks for the ride home. Once there, he would arrange them on every flat surface available, making certain they did not touch each other and bruise.

Once they had been assigned white sacks from the orchard, he would sometimes drive 100 miles to deliver them to relatives and golfing pals.

Elder did everything that way, the right way, with meticulous devotion to detail. That’s why the Arkansas football statistics he supplied play-by-play man Paul Eells were impeccable and that’s why he was always so prepared while doing unheard of double duty during radio drive time — both in the mornings and the afternoons.

In addition to his numerous sports reports per day, he had a sports talk show long before they became a forum for recruiting speculation and second guessing.

In town for a promotion of sorts, Willie Mays was scheduled to do 20 minutes with Elder but stayed for about 90 minutes. The call-in questions were thoughtful and intelligent — Elder would not tolerate less — and the host was knowledgeable and prepared. It never crossed Elder’s mind that people listened because his expertise, work ethic and love for sports oozed through the radio.

Fastidious about the quality of any product he hawked and unconcerned about talent fees, he went on-site to check out the work of a charitable organization. Convinced that the cause was a good one, he fibbed about his fee so that the group could get more for its money.

Because of his days as a minor league umpire, he was unflinching in his defense of all officials. On a trip to Hot Springs, the son of a friend once got him riled by asking if he had seen the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers the night before. When Elder said yes, the teen-ager set the hook by asking Elder if he thought the NBA refs protected Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. He was more than a minute into a diatribe before he realized he had been set up.

Anybody who was around Elder for any length of time has a favorite story. Like the man who was in the back seat on a return trip from Oaklawn Park. Trying a shortcut, the driver took Westinghouse Road to Highway 70. At the stop sign, a car was reluctant to turn left across a stream of Little Rock-bound headlights. After minutes, Elder got out, and played traffic cop in the middle of the highway, stopping cars so the lead vehicle could turn left and his ride could make a right.

That was years ago, but that memory is one reason the guy in the back seat takes a day off from work and forks over $50 to play in a golf tournament that helps support the Good Sport Fund that bears Elder’s name.

Since Elder’s death in 1998, the fund has given about $200,000 for scholarships and other projects for Arkansas youth.

Material from the fund says “Jim touched all kinds of people every day, always in a positive way. He took great delight in helping others, and even greater pride in their accomplishments.”

Some golfers drove from Fayetteville on Monday, unsure who was on their team for the tournament at Eagle Hill. Like all but a handful of teams, the foursome put together by the man in the car for the Oaklawn trip had no chance to win.

That’s not the reason they played. They played because of Jim Elder.

Copyright © Arkansas News Bureau, 2003 - 2005

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Brady Gadberry, longtime co-worker

Brady Gadberry, longtime co-worker

Jim Elder has always been a part of my life. In many ways he is part of who I am. It was not only my great privilege to have had him as a mentor, colleague, and friend for twenty-three years of Arkansas Traveler radio broadcasts; he also was my uncle. Jim’s beloved wife Betty was one of my late dad’s sisters. I learned about integrity and sportsmanship from Jim as a child. He not only had great stories about his years as a baseball umpire but also about many of the high school football and basketball games he officiated. Jim loved to compete and he loved to win, but winning was never the most important thing to him. The most important thing was just being part of the game itself.

It did not matter that much what kind of game it was. Jim loved card games, board games, and television game shows. Games had structure and rules. If the game had strategy, history or statistics, Jim loved the game even more. This is part of the reason Jim loved all kinds of sporting events. If anything about the game could be quantified, Jim could find a way to analyze it. Numbers, patterns, and trends fascinated him. The tremendous storehouse of information that Jim had in his head came from the combination of loving both games and numbers. He watched or listened to every game he could; he read The Sporting News, the sports magazines, the wire stories, and many sports books and biographies. Then he crunched the numbers-and not just the Travelers or Razorback numbers.

Jim charted whatever he had time to chart. After every Traveler game, Jim would update all of the players’ statistics, including the opponents’, to be prepared for the next game. Often he did it that same night because he had other things to do the next day. Considering that he would get up around 3 to 3:30 the next morning to get to the station to be ready for the morning sports shows, it was a miracle that he ever slept. In the early years, Jim also had to sell advertising for the games during the day and had to go by and check on the clients. By the middle of a homestand, the statistics sheets would often have strange looking wavy lines down the middle of the page because Jim would drag his pen when he fell asleep doing the updates. Often I would try to get Jim to let me take the work home with me to give him a break, but he would rarely let me take it. He was always appreciative but seldom gave in because he believed that it was his responsibility.

Before we had computers, every season Jim had detailed information he put together on the PGA tour, major league baseball, the Razorbacks, the Travelers, and Oaklawn. Everyone marveled at Jim’s knowledge of sports statistics and trivia. Jim did not collect data or quantify anything to impress anyone; he did it because it loved it, and he lived it. He never wanted to retire because his job was his hobby. He would have paid others for the chance to do what he did and he knew he was blessed to have had the opportunity to live it as his career.

Everyone has favorite stories about Jim. He was notorious for losing his glasses. He had a habit of taking them off every few minutes and forgetting exactly where he had laid them. If we were doing a Traveler game, he would take them off and they would quickly get covered with statistics sheets which Jim kept on every player. He left them in a bank once, threw them out with trash on his tray at the Clarksville McDonalds once, and he misplaced them countless other times. Usually someone would find them. Once when Jim got home from picking peaches, he realized that he did not have his glasses. He called the orchard, but they could not find them around the little stand where he paid for the peaches. A few days later the orchard owner called Jim and said that one of the customers who was picking peaches that day had found a pair of glasses stuck between two limbs of one of the peach trees. Jim drove back to the orchard and retrieved his glasses. On the trip home Jim stopped at the golf pro-shop at Burns Park to visit and look at a new putter. When he finally got back home-well you guessed it; he had left his glasses at the pro-shop.

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