Willie Kavanaugh Hocker (July 21, 1862 – February 6, 1944) was an American

schoolteacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

and designer of the Arkansas state flag.

Biography

Willie Kavanaugh Hocker was born in

Madison County, Kentucky Madison County is a county located in the central part of the U.S. state of Kentucky. At the 2020 census, its population was 92,701. Its county seat is Richmond. The county is named for Virginia statesman James Madison, who later became the f ...

. Her father was a farmer. She and her family moved to Arkansas in 1870. After obtaining a teaching certificate in 1887, she taught school at Wabbaseka,

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...

. Hocker died at her home in Jefferson County on February 6, 1944, at the age of 81.

Arkansas flag

Hocker was a member of the Pine Bluff chapter of the

Daughters of the American Revolution The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (often abbreviated as DAR or NSDAR) is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a patriot of the American Revolutionary War. A non-p ...

. Her chapter wanted to present the newly commissioned with a state flag; however the chapter was informed that a state flag did not exist at all. Hocker, along with other citizens, sent flag designs to Earle W. Hodges, who was the Secretary of State. She proposed a red flag with a white diamond surrounded by a border of blue, 25 white stars in the blue and three blue stars inside the white diamond. The flag design committee suggested adding the name "Arkansas" to the flag. Hocker agreed; thus the first design of the state flag was born. After some changes to add a fourth blue star to the flag, to represent Arkansas's membership in the

Confederate States The Confederate States of America (CSA), also known as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or Dixieland, was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States from 1861 to 1865. It comprised eleven U.S. states th ...

, the final design was set in 1924.

External links

*
Willie Kavanaugh Hocker
at the ''

Encyclopedia of Arkansas The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) ''Encyclopedia of Arkansas'' is a web-based encyclopedia of the U.S. state of Arkansas, described by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as "a free, authoritative source of information abo ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Hocker, Willie Kavanaugh 1862 births 1944 deaths 19th-century American educators 19th-century American poets 19th-century Methodists 20th-century American educators 20th-century American poets 20th-century Methodists Daughters of the American Revolution people Flag designers Members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy Methodists from Arkansas National Society of the Colonial Dames of America People from Jefferson County, Arkansas People from Madison County, Kentucky Poets from Arkansas Schoolteachers from Arkansas

Biography

Arkansas flag

See also

External links