Keith Ingram: AWest Memphis Icon

By Ralph Hardin

Evening Times Editor

I was a Marion kid, so I did not have as much exposure to the work of Keith Ingram during my early years as many of you reading this probably did.

It might be hard to imagine but back in the 1980s, Marion and West Memphis seemed much further apart. Well, I suppose that actually true, as both cities have expanded and developed over the past 40 years to the point that there’s really not much separating them these days, but back then there really wasn’t as much overlap, to the point that my Little League Baseball team thought it was a big deal when we got to play out at “The Complex” at Tilden-Rodgers Park and a trip to Wal-Mart (no, not that one, no not the other one… the one over on West Broadway) was a big deal.

But it was around my 9th grade year that I first got to see Keith Ingram in person. He was just into his first term as Mayor of West Memphis and a replica of the U.S. Constitution was in town as part of the document’s 200th birthday, and a bunch of us kids in our Civics class got to go down to where it was being displayed and even had a chance to “sign” the Constitution. It was there that we heard some remarks from Mayor Ingram (Mayor Eddie Bigger of Marion was there too, but I got to see him, like, all the time).

Even then, early in his political career, he left an impression on me as a man who understood how to be a leader and as someone worthy of respect. I can’t tell you exactly what he said that day bur from then on, when I saw his picture in the paper or heard his name here or there, I could think, “I know him!” It was, to me, just as cool as when I got that certificate “signed” by President Ronald Reagan for a job well done on some standardized test or something that sixth-graders got back then (and still do… my daughter has one signed by Trump).

I will admit to not really paying a whole lot of attention to Ingram’s work for much of his tenure at the helm of West Memphis city government. I was, after all, really still just a kid (and, again, a Marion kid at that), but by the time he was running for State Representative years later, I was paying attention, and I always appreciated that he really did seem to care. It, of course, helped that he and I lined up pretty well politically as Democrats. Of course, it was a lot easier to be a Democrat back then. In fact, he ran unopposed.

By the time he was seeking his second term in the Arkansas House, I was working at the Evening Times, so it was literally my job to keep up with what Rep. Ingram was up to, and again, I was always impressed with his willingness to get involved. I can’t tell you what all boards, commissions, committees, and nonprofit organizations he either served on, partnered with or leant his support to over the years, but I know he was always involved in championing some group or cause.

I finally got to have a conversation with him during his re-election campaign in 2010, when he stopped in to chat with Alex Coulter, then the owner/publisher of the Times.

He shook my hand and even gave me his cell phone number, which I still have and have used on a few occasions.

He won that election and has won every election since then that he has entered. There was talk at one time about Ingram possibly running for Governor of Arkansas. While there might have been a time for that, it would be a tough ask for any Democrat given the state’s current political alignment, but it’s possible we have not seen the last ot Mr. Ingram in the political arena.

Either way, it has been an honor to cover his work over the past 13 years of my time with the paper and I hope whatever he decides to do he knows he is appreciated.

File photos

Keith Ingram has never been afraid to get hi s hands dirty (above at the Sultana Museum groundbreaking). Ingram got an early preview of the State Capitol thanks to his father W.K. Ingram (below).