Sproles’ AGFC appointment turbulent, productive

CATO — At 80 years old, Tommy Sproles remembers Gov. Bill Clinton calling in 1983 to ask him to be the first Black appointment to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. He would later discover that he was the first Black commissioner at any state natural resources agency in the country.

“He said it would be tough for me, and he was right,” Sproles said. “Not only because of me being black, but because of the politics involved in the Commission at the time. Back then, Game and Fish commissioners were referred to as the ‘seven kings’ because of the agency’s independence from the Legislature. It was usually an appointment held by very wealthy, very influential white men, and I didn’t fit that mold.”

Sproles was honored at the AGFC’s March meeting Thursday at Little Rock Central High School, which was postponed from February because of winter weather. The meeting originally coincided with Black History Month.

He was 38 when he was appointed July 26, 1983; his term ended June 30, 1990. His successor was another Black appointment by Clinton, Dr. James E. Moore of Little Rock.

“I first met Clinton in an elevator down at the Union Bank building when he was the attorney general, and we hit it off,” Sproles said. “I grew up in Hot Springs and so did he, you know. I just started supporting him and we sort of became friends after that.”

Sproles, speaking from his home on the Faulkner-Pulaski county line in February, explained that a movement had begun to appoint minorities to key boards and positions in Arkansas government. Clinton was pressed with the fact that there never had been an AGFC commissioner from a minority.

“He said, ‘Find me someone who fits this sort of appointment and I’ll consider them,’ ” Sproles said. “And they said, ‘We already know one. He has a couple of his own businesses and he fishes day and night. His name is Tommy Sproles.’ ”

“Well, I know Sproles,” Clinton responded.

“So, he called me and asked how I would like to be on the Game and Fish Commission, with the warning that it would be tough,” Sproles said. “So, I talked it over with my wife and said OK.”

Sproles said Clinton faced backlash over the appointment because many other names had been circulated, including Mike Cornwell of Danville, who was Clinton’s cousin, and Bill Norman of Greenwood, founder of Norman Lures. Cornwell was a commissioner during 1987-93; Norman never was appointed.

“Later, I got to be best of friends with both of those men,” Sproles said.

Sproles’ appointment was headline news in Arkansas, appearing on the front page of both statewide newspapers, the Arkansas Gazette and the Arkansas Democrat. It made national news in Jet magazine, founded by John H. Johnson, who was born in Arkansas City. Johnson’s company also published Ebony.

Robert “Say” McIntosh, a prominent Little Rock restaurateur and civil rights activist, was quoted as saying in the July 20, 1983, edition of the Arkansas Democrat that Clinton’s choice of Sproles was “one of the best appointments the governor ever made.”

Sproles endured harsh words at the beginning of his appointment for his disruption of the status quo.

“We had Commission meetings and there would be hundreds of people attend back in those days,” Sproles said. “As I would walk in, I’d walk past all these people to get to my place in the boardroom, and you should have heard some of the things people said when I walked by. I’d turn a deaf ear and sometimes I would respond.”

Sproles said tensions were tight even with a few of the commissioners, some of whom had been appointed by Republican Gov. Frank White.

“They thought I was going to be a radical but I really wasn’t,” Sproles said. “I wanted to see some changes. You look around at the paradigm and you could see things weren’t right and you recommend changes.

“After about four or five meetings, the public and Commission began to accept me. I did get some letters not to come to this county or that, but I didn’t pay that stuff any attention. I’d get those letters and that’s the first place I went.”

Sproles is a lifelong angler who was introduced to fishing by a family friend in Hot Springs by the name of Clifton Coleman Sr.

“He would take his own kids fishing and bring me along,” Sproles said. “After a while, he’d take just me when his kids didn’t want to go.”

One of those kids was Clint Coleman, who’s had a long career at the AGFC and is assistant coordinator of the agency’s Family and Community Fishing Program.

It was that love of fishing and mentorship that later became one of Sproles’ most enduring traits on the Commission. He was a huge proponent of introducing minorities and all children in underserved communities to the outdoors, particularly through fishing derbies at local ponds.

Arkansas Democrat Outdoor Editor Steve Bowman acknowledged this passion, writing that Sproles was known as the “urban fishing commissioner.”

His focus led to the AGFC’s first steps toward a dedicated Urban Fishing Program in 1988. Although the program, which became the Family and Community Fishing Program, would not take its current form until 2002, Sproles worked with AGFC fisheries staff and the Little Rock Parks and Recreation Department to develop more fishing access. The first effort, a derby at Little Rock’s MacArthur Park in 1988, drew more than 2,000 young anglers to enjoy freshly stocked channel catfish from the AGFC’s hatchery in Lonoke.

“We didn’t stop with Little Rock,” Sproles said. “We took kids fishing at Wattensaw (Wildlife Management Area’s) pond, at Marianna, we did it all over. At Old Town Lake, we didn’t have a pond to stock so we placed nets out along a part of the lake and made our own pond to concentrate the stocked fish for those kids.”

Sproles says one trip to Mayflower stands out for him when he was vice chairman of the Commission.

“Frank Lyon was the chairman that year, and he and I got some school buses and went to Carver YMCA (in Little Rock),” Sproles said. “We loaded those buses with kids and brought them to the Mayflower (shooting) range and fishing pond for the day. They shot skeet for half the day and fished for half the day, and I’ve had grown men visit me in later years still thanking me for that experience.”

Today’s Family and Community Fishing Program holds events at 50 locations throughout the state each year. Roughly 91,500 catchable-sized catfish and 70,000 catchable-sized trout were delivered from AGFC hatcheries in Fiscal Year 2024 to support year-round angling opportunities. The program also held 19 community fishing events attended by 9,680 people. The goal of these stockings and events is to create new anglers in underserved communities and help get more youngsters “hooked on fishing,” as Sproles likes to say.

Sproles’ passion for angling and drawing urban communities to the outdoors led the Commission to unanimously vote to include his name on a newly completed lake on the edge of Jacksonville in 1990. At 347 acres, Tommy L. Sproles Lake Pickthorne not only is a resting area for migrating waterfowl frequenting Holland Bottoms WMA, but is an easy-to-reach destination for central Arkansas anglers, with ample bank fishing for catfish, bass and panfish.

His vision to embrace minorities in the outdoors wasn’t solely focused on fishing derbies and inner-city ponds. Sproles was revolutionary in his approach to develop more interest in conservation and natural resources management in minority communities. In an article Sproles wrote for the proceedings of the 1989 annual conference of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, he advocated for much more effort in introducing fish and wildlife management career paths as options for students in historically minority-based colleges and universities. He pointed out the disparity of Black college graduates in biology fields and the lack of applicants for natural resources careers with those degrees. In many cases, those men and women were focused solely on the medical field.

“I remember talking to the director of Tennessee’s wildlife agency at the conference and he said he’d hire Black people that were qualified if they applied, so I went out and found him more than 20,” Sproles said. “There they were, working in retail and restaurants with biology and chemistry degrees because they couldn’t find a job that fit their education. He lined up interviews and ended up hiring six of them.”

Throughout his term as commissioner and afterward, Sproles continued to push for wildlife and fisheries degrees to be offered at historically black colleges and universities.

“University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff has a renowned aquaculture program now,” Sproles said.

Sproles said duck hunting season caused the most contentious arguments during his time as a commissioner.

“Duck hunting has always been a big topic of discussion with the Commission,” Sproles said. “You have a lot of people in different parts of the state who belong to this club or hunt that place and they always feel like someone else is shooting their ducks before the birds get to them. I tried to listen to the biologists and do what was best for the future. There were a few votes that would go 3-3 and I ended up being the deciding vote. You can’t escape the politics, but I always made my decision based on the science.”

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CUTLINES:

SPROLES
Tommy Sproles speaks during the March AGFC meeting in the library at Little Rock Central High School. Photo by Mike Wintroath.

CLINTON
Left to right, former AGFC Director Scott Henderson (2003-10), Bill Clinton, Tommy Sproles and former AGFC Director Steve N. Wilson (1979-2000) in the 1980s. Photo courtesy of Tommy Sproles.

FOUR PEOPLE
Tommy Sproles with (left to right) Jane Lyon, Henrietta Sproles and Frank Lyon. Photo courtesy of Tommy Sproles.

ALLIGATOR
Former AGFC employees Sam Barkley (right) and Craig Uyeda help Tommy Sproles wrangle an alligator. Photo courtesy of Tommy Sproles.