Peggy Sue Caudle Vining, whose passion for prose led to an elephant ride down the streets of Little Rock and to being named Arkansas' official poet laureate, died Sunday in a Little Rock hospice. She was 88.
The cause was complications from cancer and Alzheimer's disease, her daughter Vicky Crawley said.
"Arkansas is richer for the life of Poet Laureate Peggy Vining and for the verse she left behind. Two lines in her poem 'Arkansas, The Natural State' capture my feelings about Arkansas: 'O Arkansas, which season is your best? Each one seems far more lovely than the rest,'" Gov. Asa Hutchinson said. "With the passing of Mrs. Vining, Arkansas has lost a wonderful poetic ambassador. I know that her gentle voice, which echoes in the poems she leaves behind, will be a comfort to her family and readers."
Vining was appointed Arkansas poet laureate in 2003 by Gov. Mike Huckabee. She is the sixth to hold the position since it was established by legislative resolutions on Oct. 10, 1923.
A new state poet laureate will be appointed from a list of names submitted to the governor and upon recommendation of a committee comprised of the principal heads of the English departments of all state-supported universities and colleges.
Vining's appointment turned poetry into politics at the time and gave Huckabee a black eye of sorts. Arkansas Code 1-4-114 allows the governor to name a state poet laureate, but tradition -- not law -- says the honorary title is a lifetime one, handed down only after the predecessor's death.
A public uproar ensued after Verna Lee Hinegardner, who was appointed in 1991 by President Bill Clinton, was knocked out of the spot she had filled for 12 years and was still filling.
Vining, who was born in Greenfield, Tenn., in 1929, earned her bachelor's in elementary education from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and taught school until she retired in 1993. She also served for 21 years as director of the Children's Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
From an early age, she "loved the challenge of finding words that rhymed, and I take great pleasure in giving that joy to young children," she is quoted as saying in a biography published on the Arkansas Poet Laureate webpage.
She won numerous awards for her poetry, included the Sybil Nash Abrams Award from the Poets' Roundtable of Arkansas. In 2007, Vining was honored on the Capitol floor for her poem "Arkansas the Natural State."
But it was her poem in 1972 about a camel that earned her a ride on the back of an elephant to the steps of the Capitol.
"She loved to enter contests, so when the circus came to town she entered their poetry contest," Crawley said.
A camel's hump would fit my rump.
But man alive, I'm 45.
I'd rather ride an elephant.
"I was a teenager at the time and I was mortified," Crawley said, laughing.
Vining's husband, Donald Vining Sr., and the couple's son, five daughters and their grandchildren gathered Monday and reminisced about the woman who was the "best wife and mother in the world."
Indeed. In 1982, Vining was named "Arkansas Mother of the Year" by American Mothers Inc.
Vining was known for her passionate faith, her sense of humor, her heart for children and her creativity.
"She did crafts and all kinds of things. Each one of us excels in a talent she possessed," her daughter Suzanne Kunkel said.
Even before the dawn of the do-it-yourself app Pinterest, Vining was turning everyday products into creative projects, like the Easter Bunny baskets she made out of plastic milk jugs for her grandchildren one year.
"She was the best grandmother ever," granddaughter Kari Kunkel Anderson said. "I just remember sitting with her and her singing and reading books. I look back at pictures of my sisters. Times never changed. Forty years later and babies were still sitting at her feet while she was reading books."
Dec. 19 would've been Don and Peggy Sue Vining's 69th wedding anniversary. The couple met at a restaurant in Eudora after Don returned from a tour of duty in the Navy.
"My brother introduced me to her. He had an interest in her as well, but he lost out," he said, laughing. "She was just the best. No one was as good as her in just about all ways. She was the best mother, the best wife, the best Christian."
State Desk on 11/29/2017