Joe Edward Purcell (July 29, 1923 – March 5, 1987) was the Acting Governor of Arkansas for six days in 1979 as well as Arkansas Attorney General from 1967–1971 and the ninth Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas from 1975–1981.
Purcell was born in Warren, the seat of Bradley County, in southern Arkansas. He graduated from Little Rock Junior College and the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville. From 1962 to 1967, he served as the municipal judge in Benton in Saline County. He also served as prosecuting attorney in Benton prior to having been elected judge.
Purcell was elected lieutenant governor in 1974. He handily defeated the Rockefeller Republican Leona Troxell of Rose Bud in White County. He was reelected to the post in 1976 and 1978. He served as Acting Governor for six days in 1979, having filled the unexpired term of then senator-elect David Hampton Pryor of Camden.
Purcell was a candidate for governor in 1982, but lost the Democratic nomination in a runoff primary to Bill Clinton in 1982, receiving 46% to Clinton's 54%.
Purcell resided in Benton until his death at the age of sixty-three.
Purcell married the former Helen Hale from Prescott, Arkansas, and the couple had two daughters, Lynelle and Ede. He had three grandchildren: Brian Hogue, David Hogue, and Erin Hogue.
Famous quotes containing the word joe:
“This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than apes. True that we were stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God Himself hated us and ordained us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever, world without end.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)