HOPE – “I went with my daddy to talk to the board members of the vo-tech program to put it here in Hope. So, I’m kind of proud of that.” Darwin Hendrix was a young man when he joined his father, then-state Sen. Olen Hendrix, in the push to bring a vocational-technical school to Hope in the 1960s. Today that school is the University of Arkansas Hope-Texarkana. It is one of several things the Hendrix family has helped bring to Hope and southwest Arkansas over more than half a century.
Now Hendrix is adding to that legacy by opening Bank of Delight’s new location in Hope. “We had quite a few customers already here in Hope, and this location just kind of fell into our laps,” Hendrix said. “We were just tickled to death.” Hendrix grew up in Prescott. His father, Olen Hendrix, represented the area in the Arkansas Senate for 24 years and owned the Bank of Prescott, which he sold in 1973. Gov. Orval Faubus had planned to put the school in Magnolia, Hendrix said, until his father told him that Magnolia already had a college. In the end, the school landed in Hope.
Red River Vocational-Technical School opened in Hope in 1965, became Red River Technical College in 1991, and joined the University of Arkansas System in 1996. Today it is the University of Arkansas Hope-Texarkana. Hendrix said his father was also instrumental in establishing Old Washington as a state park and in the development of the diamond mine in Arkansas.
Hendrix started his own banking career in July 1980, joining Bank of Delight in Delight after graduating from college. In 1991 the bank bought a savings and loan bank in Prescott and moved there. Over the years, many Hope residents made the drive to Prescott to do their banking. The new location lets the bank serve those customers closer to home. Hendrix said being locally owned is what sets the bank apart. “We’re hometown, locally owned,” he said. “We’re not owned by somebody in New York or somebody you could never get on the phone if you tried.” For a family that has spent generations working to improve Hope, the new branch continues a tradition.
Photos by Stephanie Harris