Hayes McClerkin, American lawyer and politician, Died at 84

  Politician

Hayes C. McClerkin was born on December 16, 1931, and died on January 6, 2016.
He was an American politician.
His parents were Orlean Malony and Hayes Candour McClerkin.
He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.
Hayes was the 1953 class agent for his alma mater.
Mr.McClerkin received his L.L.B. degree from the University of Arkansas School of Law at Fayetteville, in 1959.
Mr.McClerkin was a member of Delta Theta Phi and the American and Arkansas bar associations.
Hayes served as a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives from 1961–1970 and as Speaker from 1969-1970.
Mr. McClerkin succeeded Speaker Sterling R. Cockrill of Little Rock, who in 1970 switched parties and ran as the unsuccessful Republican nominee for lieutenant governor.
Hayes worked as a commercial and environmental law attorney in Texarkana, Arkansas.
He did not seek a sixth term in the House in 1970.
However, McClerkin ran in the Democratic gubernatorial primary election with the goal of challenging the GOP incumbent Winthrop Rockefeller.
Hayes finished fourth in the primary with 45,011 votes (10.5 percent), and Attorney General Joe Purcell ran third with 81,566 votes (18.9 percent).
During that time, he top two candidates, former Governor Orval E. Faubus of Huntsville in Madison County and Dale Bumpers of Charleston in Franklin County near Fort Smith led the field with 156,578 (36.4 percent) and 86,156 (20.0 percent), respectively.
Following that, McClerkin supported Bumpers for governor and also for the United States Senate, to which Bumpers was initially elected in 1974.
During the gubernatorial campaign, McClerkin challenged Rockefeller’s “list” of college and university campus militants in Arkansas, prepared by a security investigator for the governor.
Hayes McClerkin claimed that the list could be used to discredit persons “who may be guilty of no more than a disagreement with the governor.”
During the 1970 election, Sterling Cockrill switched parties and ran for lieutenant governor on Rockefeller’s losing ticket.
He was married to the former Lillian Riggs (born 1936), a 1958 graduate of the former women’s college, Randolph College (formerly Randolph-Macon) of Lynchburg, Virginia.
Hayes was a member of the board of directors of Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance.
Hayes McClerkin was also the president of the Miller County Abstract Company.
Hayes McClerkin has remained politically active and was a donor to former U.S. Representative Mike Ross, a Democrat from Prescott who is also a native of Texarkana.
Hayes McClerkin passed away at 84 yrs old.