Dotty Oliver --the self-labeled "Mistress of the Misunderstood" who pushed boundaries and buttons in Little Rock as the founder of the alternative weekly publication Arkansas Free Press -- died Monday in Little Rock after a long battle with cancer. She was 69.
Oliver, known for her irreverent disregard for authority and society's mores, spent her life in Little Rock, shaking up the political scene with in-your-face stories and promoting alternative lifestyles.
"Dotty was a spark plug; one of those people who can ignite and incite others to do things even they imagined were beyond their ken," said Philip Martin, who first met Oliver during his stint as executive editor of Spectrum magazine. Oliver was the sales manager of the publication at the time.
"She never conceded anything to the powers that be, she never acknowledged their authority to limit or define her," Martin continued. "Her energy and boundless enthusiasm raised whole communities. She was a businesswoman who put people before business. She was sponsor to the crackpot and the mad, she overreached and in her overreaching made her very life a work of art. Our town, our state, is poorer without her."
Holly Vines, one of Oliver's best friends, met her in the early days of the Little Rock Free Press -- which Oliver founded in 1993 and turned into the Arkansas Free Press 12 years later. The publication shut down in 2008 but was relaunched in 2011 as an online venture, boasting millions of visitors today.
Vines and Oliver quickly bonded over their shared love of writing and exploring what life had to offer.
Oliver, who didn't own a car at the time, rode shotgun as she and Vines sported around Little Rock or took road trips, including one to Memphis to check out a "Road Babe" who frequented truck stops to read poetry and erotica to an enraptured audience.
"We hung out with her for the weekend," Vines said of the Road Babe. "We also got to see a lot of bands, and I'd write about the groups. We'd be out past midnight, and she'd call me at 9:30 the next morning asking, 'Are you hungry?'"
Oliver's favorite band was Reverend Horton Heat out of Texas.
"She had a crush on the bass player," Vines laughed. "We'd always have fun with him."
Oliver, using the Free Press as a vehicle, provided a voice and an outlet for "the rest of us," said Jeremy "Skullcrusher" Partin, who wrote Hellametal, a column about central Arkansas' heavy-metal music scene for the paper from 2004 until 2008.
"Dotty gave a voice to the irreverent, the underdog, and the unheard," Partin said. "A sense of community was lost when the paper went under, and I think we all kind of feel now like we've lost our Queen Bee."
For Jennifer Davis Lewis, Oliver gave the young bartender a chance to become the writer she had always dreamed of being. Lewis began writing book reviews for the publication in 2003 which, by 2005, grew into the monthly column Out on the Town with Jen X.
Her payment for her literary efforts? Ad space for her escort service, Bad Mary Jane's.
"Dotty was always supportive," Lewis said. "She'd regaled the tale of her selling weed to start the Freep [the Free Press] many times at her kitchen table in Capitol View. In recent years Dotty did much for the cause of medical marijuana.
"She talked about making brownies for sick folk with cancer and such -- free of charge -- which was Dotty's way in her later years. She was always a cheerleader for a progressive cause, always with a smile and a good story, always forgiving of a debt. I can't tell you how many times she ran ads for free, and well ... She knew what being free meant. From the Free Press to the free advertising to the free special brownies to the free spirit she was. We lost a great gal," Lewis said.
Oliver's longtime friend Bill Jagitsch remembers her as "a ball of energy, always working on some project and trying to right some wrong. She was headstrong, opinionated, often boisterous but never unkind.
"They simply don't make 'em like her anymore," he said.
Aspiring writers flocked to Oliver, who was often the only one willing to take a chance on them.
She met Josh Doering when he was working as a security guard at the bar Sticky Fingerz in 2000. In the conversation he mentioned to Oliver that he was a writer. A few days later Oliver gave Doering his own column.
"She had a way of making everyone feel like they were worth something," Doering said. "There were many times that I felt like absolute crap, and she'd smack me out of it by saying maybe three sentences. She supported everything local, deserved or not, and that left a mighty impression on me. Because of her, I have the confidence I have today."
Eric Francis, who first met Oliver in 1990 while he was working his first journalism job at Spectrum. He remembers her as an "iconoclast. Fearless, unique, a little nutty, and copiously creative."
"She laughed loud and long and frequently," Francis said. "She feared no authority figure, and even if that came back to bite her she just laughed it off looked for her next crusade."
State Desk on 05/31/2017