What events in a man’s life determine his value to society? At an early age Lewis E. Epley Jr. accompanied his father, Lewis E. Epley Sr. to his work at the Northwest Arkansas Times newspaper plant where Lewis Sr. worked as a Linotype operator. His dad modeled a strong work ethic for his sons, especially Lewis Jr. Lewis Sr. met Evelyn Wood in Greenwood, Ark. where she taught school. They married and in the course of events, Lewis Jr. was born in Ft. Smith. The family moved to Springdale in 1937, and Lewis Jr. attended all 12 grades in the Springdale public schools.
High school is a formative time for most students. For Lewis, it was truly pivotal and foreshadowed many of the most defining moments of his life. While playing tennis in the summer of 1953 he began to feel especially worn out and unwell and stopped the game. When he got home, he told his mother how he felt and described his symptoms. She had recently read an article in the Springdale News about the onset of polio. She called Dr. Sisco who diagnosed polio and admitted Lewis to the Springdale Hospital. His left arm and leg became partially paralyzed. At night in his room, he could hear a young boy in the next room breathing with the assistance of an Iron Lung. One night the breathing noise stopped. He heard hospital nurses and doctors respond. The boy died. Lewis laid in his bed wondering why God took that young boy but left him.
In high school Lewis had been a member of the Springdale High School Band – The Marching Bulldogs directed by Harry Hinckley and played the clarinet. Polio ended his ability to use his left thumb so he could no longer play his instrument. Lewis was discharged from the hospital and became a patient at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville, Ark. for rehabilitation of his arm, hand and leg. Lewis developed a bad attitude and would not cooperate with the therapists. In other words, he was just taking up space. But soon another person would leave their mark on Lewis and help him have a life after polio. Corinne Wulkan Larson, a registered physical therapist at the Center who had been trying to work with Lewis and had taken notice of Lewis’ lack of effort and bad attitude came into his room one evening at the end of her shift and spoke to him in a very direct way that if he didn’t get with the program he could pack his bag and return home and give up his bed to someone willing to do the work. Lewis recalled that Larson “proceeded to dress me down like a marine drill sergeant dressing down a recruit.” After sleeping on her advice (she was all of 20 years old) he adjusted his attitude and began working hard on recovering strength and coordination and became a role model for the young patients in the facility. Upon discharge Lewis returned to finish his Senior year and was able to graduate with his class in 1954.
Lewis enrolled as a freshman at the University of Arkansas where he earned two degrees, the last one a Juris Doctorate in Law. Even though he could no longer play the clarinet, he still wanted to be in the Razorback Band. He approached the Director, E.J. Marty, about how he could be in the band. Mr. Marty made him the public address announcer for the band performances at football games. Lewis attended the band practices and practiced his announcements. He kept his position for seven years.
During his last year in law school, Lewis met Donna Swopes through his friend and fellow lawyer, Charlie Davis. They were united in marriage which lasted over 60 years. They made their home in Eureka Springs for 40 years and spent the rest of his life together in Fayetteville.
Lewis passed the bar exam and received his attorney’s license from the Supreme Court of Arkansas in the fall of 1961. He opened a solo law practice in Eureka Springs in a self-refurbished burned-out building on Spring Street. It is said that he reduced the average age of the attorneys in the city to 85 years. He and his brother, Alan, practiced law together for 25 years. Lewis also started an Abstract and Title company an hired his youngest brother, Charles, to manage it. Lewis became very involved in community. He was elected City Attorney for one term. He served alongside his great friend, John F. Cross, as director and vice-chairman of the Board of Directors of CS Bank (formerly Cornerstone Bank and Bank of Eureka Springs). He was a member and president of the Eureka Springs Rotary Club. He was elected as the delegate for Carroll and Madison Counties to the Arkansas Constitutional Convention. He was the attorney for the Carroll-Boone Water District that built intake structure on Beaver Lake and a ditribution pipeline which serves Eureka Springs, Berryville, Green Forest and Harrison. In 2006, he was recognized for 35 years of service by the district by the naming of the operations building as the Lewis E. Epley, Jr. Operating Center.
Lewis served on the Board of Directors of the Southwest Energy Company. He was appointed a Special Associate Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. He was appointed by former governor David Prior as a founding member of the Arkansas State Building Council. He served five years on the Council and was chairman for two years. He was also a founding member of the Northwest Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute and served as president in 1989. He was appointed by then governor, Bill Clinton, to a ten-year term (1989-1999) on the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees and served as chairman from 1997 to 1999. He was known to be direct and hands-on at a level that few others matched. After leaving the board he was named a Trustee Emeritus.
When the U of A joined the Southeastern Conference in 1991, Lewis advocated for the expansion and improvement of the Razorback Band and the university’s band building. He made his fellow Trustees count the Tubas in the other SEC bands during football games (the other bands had 24 and the Razorback band had 12). The band building was rebuilt in its location across the street from the Fulbright Arts and Science building. In recognition of his many years of talking to the other trustees about the band, those trustees named the new facility the Lewis E. Epley Jr. Band Hall and dedicated it in 1997. He also served as chairman of the Razorback Bands Committee of the Campaign for the Twenty-First Century and helped raise capital for the band endowment fund. On three separate occasions, the Epley name was spelled out on the football field by the Razorback Marching Band, including during the 2014 Hometown Heroes halftime show. This is an honor afforded only to one fan and champion – Lewis E. Epley Jr.
Lewis also served as a board member of the University of Arkansas Foundation. He was recognized by the Foundation for 25 years of service in 2019. He was honored by receiving the Chancellor’s Award from the U of A School for Medical Sciences. He was a charter member to the Chancellor’s Society and served the university as a member of the 2010 Commission, the Campaign Steering Committee and on the board of directors for the Arkansas Alumni Association and the Razorback Band Alumni Society. In 2000, The Walton Family Charitable Foundation established the Lewis E. Epley Jr. Professorship in Economics in the Sam M. Walton College of Business in recognition of his distinguished leadership and service on the U of A Board of Trustees.
For more than 50 years, Lewis has supported health care and health care facilities in Northwest Arkansas. He and Donna saw a need to enhance facility offerings and made a lead naming gift to the health center on the U of A Fayetteville campus. In 2012, the university renovated the former Richardson Student Health Center on Razorback Road creating a 45,000 square-foot clinic, classroom and laboratory space for students majoring in communication disorders and nursing. It houses the Speech and Hearing Clinic and the Eleanor School of Nursing. The building was aptly named the Epley Center for Health Professions.
Lewis served on the U of A Medical Sciences Foundation Board and was a founding member of the UAMS Northwest Campus Advisory Board. He researched the need for continued physical therapy education in the state and became the catalyst for the establishment of a new physical therapy department on the UAMS Northwest campus in Fayetteville. In 2015, during the new department dedication and welcome of the inaugural class of students to the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program, Lewis was finally reunitedmore than 60 years later with the physical therapist that had made such an enormous difference in his life. A university development employee, Dina Wood, had heard Lewis’s story about his polio rehabilitation, obtained the name of the therapist and at 3 a.m. was able to find her address in Florida. Lewis was reunited with Corinne Wulkan Larson at the dedication ceremony where she addressed the incoming students and the audience. Her words to her young patient are now inscribed on a wall of the department, “What you lost is not important. What you do with what you have left is important.”
Lewis remained dedicated throughout his work to raise awareness and money for Polio treatment and eradication. He participated in Rotary International Polio Immunization Day in 2011, traveling to Chandigarh, India. He was humbled to be one of many Rotarians administering oral vaccine drops into the mouths of unvaccinated children. He has led polio eradication fundraising initiatives with the Fayetteville Rotary Club and almost every Rotary Club in Arkansas.
For his contributions of time, effort and yes, money, Lewis has received many awards. A few of them are The Washington Regional Foundation Eagle award; the Distinguished Service Award from Arkansas Hospital; Andrew J. Lucas Alumni Service Award; UAMS Chancellor’sAward; U ofAFayetteville Chancellor’s medal; Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from the U of A; Outstanding Alumnus award from the Leflar School of Law; the Fred Vorsanger Service Above Self Award from the Fayetteville Rotary Club; made a member of the Golden Society by the Arkansas Alumni Association. In Carroll County, a stretch of highway 23 from the Madison County line to the city limits of Eureka Springs was named the Lewis E. Epley, Jr. Highway by the Arkansas Highway Department. (Before the unveiling ceremony one of his smart-aleck friends put bullet hole decals on the sign.)
He was preceded in death by his parents, Lewis Sr. and Evelyn Epley; his brother, James Epley; and his nephew, Christopher Epley. He is survived by wife, Donna Swopes Epley; his brothers, Judge Alan Epley (Sherry) and Charles (Janet); his nieces, Heather Francis (Mark) and Jennifer Epley; his nephews, Stuart Epley (Mandy) and Curtis Epley. Great-nieces, Paige and Elizabeth Francis, Liberty and Mackenzie Epley and great-nephews, Lewis Epley III, Aro Epley, Crosby and Clark Epley. Also surviving him are his sister- in-law, Mary Epley and his Christopher’s wife, Ashlee Epley.
In lieu of flowers the family requests that memorial contributions be made to the following: Razorback Band Scholarship, 103 Lewis E. Epley, Jr. Band Building, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701 or to the Dept. of Physical Therapy, College of Health Professions UAMS Northwest Regional Campus, 1125 N. College Ave., Fayetteville, AR 72703.
Truly a life of “service above self” – the Rotary Club motto.
