Pulaski-Craighead County ArArchives Biographies.....Pettie, Virgil Carpenter 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ar/arfiles.html
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Robert Sanchez http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00027.html#0006574 June 1, 2009, 8:21 pm

Author: S. J. Clarke (Publisher, 1922)

VIRGIL CARPENTER PETTIE.
    Virgil Carpenter Pettie, vice president of the England National Bank and
president of the Arkansas Hydro-Electric Development Company, is one of the most
alert and progressive business men of Little Rock. His activities have ever been
of a character that have contributed to public progress and advancement as well
as to individual success, and the value of his service in connection with the
upbuilding of the capital is widely acknowledged. Mr. Pettie was born in
Eminence, Henry county, Kentucky, November 2, 1878, and is a son of the Rev.
Albert S. and Louella (Tinsley) Pettie, both of whom are Kentuckians. The father
was born in Versailles, that state, in 1851, while the mother's birth occurred
in Eminence in 1857. They were married at the latter place on the 9th of
January, 1878, and they are now residents of Hickman, Kentucky. The father, has
devoted his life to the work of the ministry of the Baptist church and he has
always given his political endorsement to the democratic party. To him and his
wife have been born seven children, a son and six daughters, all of whom are yet
living.

    Virgil Carpenter Pettie, the only son, pursued his early education in the
public schools of Mayfield, Clinton and Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He also attended
the Clinton (Ky.) College and in 1897 he came with the family to Arkansas,
settlement being made in Jonesboro. In the year 1900, however, the father
returned to Kentucky and is now pastor of the First Baptist church in Hickman.

    Remaining in Arkansas, Mr. Pettie has through the intervening years made for
himself a very prominent position in business and financial circles in his
adopted state. When he became identified with the England National Bank of
Little Rock, the Arkansas Gazette said: "Virgil C. Pettie, vice president of the
Bank of Jonesboro, has been elected an active vice president by the board of
directors of the England National Bank. Mr. Pettie is one of the most widely
known bankers in Arkansas. He was president of the Arkansas Bankers Association
in 1917 and was vice chairman and in active charge of the Victory Liberty Loan
campaign in Arkansas in the spring of 1919. He is the president of the Jonesboro
Building & Loan Association and of the Jonesboro Rotary Club and is secretary of
the A. B. Jones Company, the largest wholesale grocery company in eastern
Arknasas. He is likewise interested in other business enterprises." Thus before
coming to Little Rock, Mr. Pettie had had broad experience along business lines
and had become firmly established as a most substantial and progressive citizen,
ready to meet any emergency or to improve any opportunity. Aside from his
connection with the England National Bank as its vice president, he is today the
president of the Arkansas Hydro-Electric Development Company, to which office he
was called in 1920. He is likewise the vice president of the United Insurance
Agency of Jonesboro, Arkansas. One who has long been associated with him in
business said of him: "Virgil C. Pettie is a banker of the new school of
thought; he recognizes the duty a banker owes the public and discharges it. He
is an entertaining speaker and lends this gift as well as his rare judgment
freely and without selfish interests to public work. He has never been connected
with an unsuccessful enterprise. While the bank with which he is connected will
benefit from his services, Little Rock too will also enjoy the advantage of
having as a citizen such a man as Virgil C. Pettie, who not only occupies an
advantageous place in the business circles of the capital, but whose splended
ability, progressive ideas and public-spirited citizenship radiate a larger
sphere of enthusiasm to others in the upbuilding of the state and the
development of Little Rock as its commercial center."

    On the 21st of December, 1901, in St. Louis, Mr. Pettie was married to Miss
Blanche Hawthorne, who was born in Corning, Arkansas, in 1882. They now have one
child, John Hawthorne Pettie, born March 5, 1904. Mr. Pettie is a member of the
Baptist church and his wife of the Methodist Episcopal church, South. He is a
Knight Templar and thirty-second degree Mason and member of the Mystic Shrine.
He also belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, to the Benevolent
Protective Order of Elks and to the Country Club. In politics he is a democrat,
but in times of national crisis partisanship is always made subservient to
patriotism. He served on the County Council of Defense, was county chairman of
War Loan and district manager of the third and fourth Liberty Bond drives, while
in the spring of 1919 he was made vice chairman for Arkansas of the Victory
Loan. He has acted as secretary of the Arkansas state democratic central
committee. He is the president of the Arkansas Advancement Association, and in
that office has done effective work for the welfare and progress of the state.
He is a man of broad vision as well as of marked executive force and he carries
forward to successful completion whatever he undertakes.


Additional Comments:

Citation:
Centennial History of Arkansas
Volume II
Chicago-Little Rock: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
1922


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ar/pulaski/bios/pettie14bs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/arfiles/

File size: 5.8 Kb