FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - U. S. Senator Dale Bumpers’ public papers represent such a large collection that it had to be split into two deliveries. Trans-States Lines, Ft. Smith, Ark., provided two trucks for courtesy transportation of the papers today and tomorrow to the University of Arkansas’s Mullins Library. The Special Collections Division of the University Libraries expects a total of 1,573 boxes, containing a collection that spans Bumpers’ entire career as a U.S. Senator from 1974 to 1998. He left the Senate in this past January as senior member of the powerful Appropriations Committee and the highest-ranking Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Bumpers announced that he was donating his public papers to the University in December 1998. At that time, he said, "I am proud that the University of Arkansas has accepted these documents, which provide a record of my 24 years in the U.S. Senate. I hope they tell a story of someone who tried to do what was right for his state, his country and his conscience. I am equally proud that the collection of my papers will be alongside those of some of the most important public figures in the state’s history."

The material includes 1,500 linear feet of letters, memoranda, legislative files, photographs, videotapes, sound recordings, printed matter and memorabilia, said Michael Dabrishus, head of the Special Collections at the University. The special collections staff also plans to preserve material from Bumpers’ Internet site, a new element of archival work.

"We are quite pleased that Senator Bumpers has entrusted to us his collection of records, covering his years of service in the U. S. Senate," Dabrishus said. "His work and accomplishments will be placed in perspective by historians and other researchers who will undoubtedly take the opportunity to examine his collection." Dabrishus said, "The size of the collection is such that it will take a minimum of four to six years before it is fully ready for research."

The Bumpers’ collection will join those of former senators Joe T. Robinson, Hattie Caraway, J. William Fulbright and David Pryor. In April of this year, Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty III, former White House chief of staff and a prominent Arkansas business leader, donated his papers to the University.

The University of Arkansas has long benefited from its association with Bumpers. In honor of his strong support for higher education and focus on research programs, the University Board of Trustees named the College of Agriculture, Food and Life Sciences for him. He has been a catalyst for joining state, private and federal forces to position the University of Arkansas in the forefront of research in poultry science and alternative pest control, resulting in the Center for Excellence for Poultry Science and the Rosen Center for Alternative Pest Control. In conjunction with the naming of the school of agriculture, Bumpers received the first Dale Bumpers Lifetime Achievement Award for his many contributions to agriculture, its supporting sciences and rural development in Arkansas, the United States and throughout the world. The Bumpers award is now given annually, on an international basis, with a prize of $15,000.

In 1988, Bumpers helped establish the National Center for Agricultural Law Research and Information at the University’s School of Law in conjunction with the master’s degree program in agricultural law. The Food Safety Consortium, based on the university campus, was the result of his idea of combining research strengths of the University, Iowa State University and Kansas State University. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the consortium was perhaps the most successful research project under federal coordination.

On behalf of rural development, Bumpers has been the champion for the Geographic Information System (GIS) consortium project that allows the University of Arkansas Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies to help local governments use GIS technology for everything from land-use planning to natural disaster readiness.

In the winter and spring of 1999, Bumpers served as Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at the University of Arkansas. He gave a series of public and classroom lectures in an innovative course structure that brought together students from the Bumpers College of Agriculture, Food and Life Science and the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

Bumpers served as governor of Arkansas from 1971 to 1974 and elected to store his gubernatorial papers at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

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