Don Ralph Foster Hamilton died on September 5, 2024; he was eighty-seven years old and often bragged about how he had out-lived other members of his immediate family. Born in 1937 the fourth son of Edith Foster Hamilton and William Porter Hamilton, Sr., he claimed Robert Burn’s birthday as his own and loved to toast the poet with a bit of single malt every January the twenty-fifth.

Don attended Little Rock Public Schools through eleventh grade and was graduated from Western Military Academy in 1954. He received a degree in business from Vanderbilt University in 1958, minoring in history and philosophy, which remained his two primary areas of intellectual interest his entire life. After being graduated from Vandy (where he pledged Kappa Sigma like many of his friends from Little Rock), he served his country on active duty in the United States Army as a Forward Observer and Platoon Leader with a Howitzer battery on the DMZ in Korea from 1958-1960; he received an Honorable Discharge as a 1st Lieutenant. Don decided on law as a career when he was in the tenth grade, and after military service he returned to Arkansas to attend the University of Arkansas Law School in Fayetteville. An excellent writer, he was chosen as a member of the Editorial Staff of the Arkansas Law Review, and four of his articles were published.

After law school, Don was privileged to clerk for US District Judge Gordon E. Young for two years before joining the revered law firm House, Holmes & Jewell in 1965, where he quickly rose to partner. He loved most of his law partners and remained there for twenty-five years with environmental, commercial, bankruptcy, and ultimately utility law his primary areas of expertise. Thereafter he served as General Council to the Little Rock Wastewater Utility (now euphemistically known as the LR Water Reclamation Authority) from 1990- 2010, after which he retired. Don always said that the most significant case of his career was the complex and extended litigation on behalf the Little Rock Wastewater Utility concerning the faulty design of its $20 million dollar sewage treatment plant. Acting as lead council, he ultimately recovered $4.3 million for the city, and the plant had to be redesigned. (One of his daughters ultimately forgave him for missing her high school graduation because he was so absorbed in preparing testimony for the next day’s jury trial.)

Don was a true believer in the importance of volunteerism and was a leader in many civic and non-profit organizations, more than can be enumerated here. A belief in the importance of quality development and growth led him to serve as a member of the Little Rock Planning Commission which he chaired in 1970. He thought that the voices of all citizens were critical to maintain the quality of life in Little Rock, and he urged citizen participation at all levels of government. Don was one of the first members of the House of Delegates of the Arkansas Bar Association, was chair of numerous Bar Association committees, and was a speaker at several national seminars. He was active in Rotary Club 99 and was the subject of a feature article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 1992 for his volunteerism. He was president of the Civil War Roundtable for several years and was honored with the Patrick Cleburne Award in 1999. He along with others designed ten permanent interpretative panels depicting the 1863 Union campaign to capture Little Rock, placing one in MacArthur Park and another at the Marmaduke-Walker duel site in North Little Rock. He and other volunteers received recognition from the city in 1998 after completion of the project, but little did they know that Don himself landscaped and maintained several of the sites as long as he could carry buckets of water and load his lawnmower into his trusty Subaru.

Don was an active volunteer in numerous conservation groups, beginning with the effort to designate the Buffalo River as the first national river in 1972 and later with the establishment of wilderness areas in both the Ozark and Ouachita National Forests in 1984. As a member of the Arkansas Conservation Coalition, he lobbied and testified both in Arkansas and in Washington, DC, for the passage of the Arkansas Wilderness Act which became law in 1984. This act designated over 90,000 acres within these national forests as protected “wilderness” areas and at the time was the largest such designation west of the Mississippi River. This accomplishment was the result of a true bi-partisan effort led by Senator Dale Bumpers and Congressman Ed Bethune, and included current Congressman French Hill (then on Senator John Tower’s staff), Senator David Pryor, and Congressman Beryl Anthony.

Don continued to advocate for the protection of old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, for the protection of scenic rivers in Arkansas, and for the protection of critical wetlands throughout his life. Metroplan, a council of local governments, saluted him in 1984, and he was honored as Conservationist of the Year by the Arkansas Wildlife Federation in 1991 for his volunteer efforts over three decades. Nationally, he was elected to represent Region 5 on the Board of the National Wildlife Federation, a position he held for eight years. He lost his campaign for re-election because he was simultaneously campaigning for Bill Clinton for President. Bill won, however.

During his long life, Don visited practically every important site related first to the Civil War, then the Revolutionary War, and finally the French and Indian War. In his retirement years he became fascinated with our French heritage and regretted that he never visited France. The books on his table when he died revealed much about the man. He studied the writings of Thoreau, Emerson, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Ed Abbey, and so many more. He loved and supported our state and local museums and conservation organizations as well as national treasures such as Mount Vernon, Williamsburg, and Saint Genevieve.

Don Hamilton was devoted to his family (who called him BBD/ Big Bad Don to his face), to the practice of law “by the book”, to the study of history and artifacts, and to the out of doors. And he treasured the many friends he made throughout the years who stood by him until the end. A walk in the woods was his tonic, and he would advise you to be outside no matter the weather, or if impossible, to sit by a roaring wood fire and meditate on the meaning of life.

He is survived by his wife of fifty-nine years, Suzanne Vinson Hamilton; daughter Ashley Hamilton Honeywell and her husband, Jon, of Little Rock; daughter Sarah Hamilton Corley, and his granddaughter Claire Foster Hamilton Corley, and Claire’s father, Dean, all of Charlotte, NC.

A private celebration of Don’s life is planned for later in the fall. Memorials may be made to the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History where he served on the Foundation Board, to the Historic Arkansas Museum where he also served on the Board, or to the Ozark Society, PO Box 2914, Little Rock, AR 72203.

Arrangements by A Natural State Funeral Service 2620 West Main Street, Jacksonville, Arkansas 72076. 501-982-3400. Online guestbook available at www.anaturalstatefuneralservice.com