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Saturday, May 17, 2014

Make that Dr. Mara Leveritt. UALR honors a famous grad

Posted By Max Brantley on Sat, May 17, 2014 at 7:53 PM

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DOC LEVERITT

I was going to wait until morning, but too many fans at UALR demand instant news coverage of UALR commencement today at which Chancellor Joel Anderson awarded an honorary Ph.D. — Doctor of Humane Letters — to Mara Leveritt, who graduated from UALR 40 years ago. Dr. Anderson taught her then.

Mara Leveritt is the co-founder, godmother, senior editor, award-winner and, still, conscience of the Arkansas Times, which itself came to life as a scrappy newsprint magazine 40 years ago this fall. Would we still be here today without her immense contributions? Doubtful.

Thanks and congratulations, Dr. Leveritt.

Mara continues her work on a trilogy of books on the West Memphis 3, her passion and obsession and a key part of the lifeline that saved three wrongly convicted East Arkansas youths. If that story be her fame and glory, be assured that it was really a small part of her legacy of advocacy, compassion and courage here.

UALR put commencement on YouTube. Her segment starts at 1:41:45.

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Marking the twenty-second anniversary of the deaths of Stevie Branch, Chris Byers and Michael Moore, three eight year old boys left in a muddy ditch after being murdered in West Memphis on May 5, 1993, about 30 people rallied on the steps of the Arkansas State Capitol today, asking that the state to reopen the investigation into the boys' deaths. /more/
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