Tickets on Sale Now!

The 13^th Annual Newport Alumni Hall of Fame Banquet will be held on Thursday, Aug. 10 beginning at 6 p.m. at the Newport High School Cafeteria. Hosted by the Newport School District Charitable Foundation, the event will honor the following outstanding graduates with induction into the Newport Alumni Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame was created to recognize and honor Newport alumni who have made exceptional contributions in their chosen field while exhibiting outstanding leadership, character and service to his/her community. 

Tickets for the event are on sale now at the Newport Area Chamber of Commerce, 201 Hazel Street in Newport, and are $30 per person. Must RSVP in advance. Checks can be made payable to the NSD Charitable Foundation. For more info, call (870) 523-3618 or email newportfoundation@yahoo.com. 

    JULIUS PRUITT - A 2004 graduate, Julius Pruitt was a three-sport athlete while at NHS and was named first-team All-Conference and first-team All-State in basketball, football and track. He was the high point winner at ever track meet during his senior year and Conference Champion in the 110 hurdles. After graduation, Julius attended Ouachita Baptist University where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in kinesiology.  Pruitt set many football records while playing for Ouachita including 1,116 single receiving yards in 2008 (the program’s first and only 1,000-yard receiver), 11 single-season touchdown receptions,

 2,406 career receiving yards, 171 career receptions, 24 career touchdown receptions, 77 single-season receptions which led the Gulf South Conference. He is the only wide receiver in Ouachita school history to average 100 yards or more per game in a single season (2008), and the first African American from Ouachita Baptist University to make an active NFL roster. He was named the Bob Lambert OBU Athlete of the Year, Buddy Benson Team MVP, and was a two-time All Gulf South Conference and All Division 2 Super Region honoree. He was named the Associated Press All-American Team, Daktronic’s All-American Team, Don Hansen’s All-American Team and D2 Football.com’s All-American Team. Pruitt was signed by the Miami Dolphins in 2009 as an undrafted free agent. He worked his way up from the practice squad to the active roster in 2010 and became the team’s “Special Team Ace” in 2011 after being activated mid-season against the Kansas City Chiefs. The Dolphins were 0-7 at the time and bottom half of the NFL in special teams. Pruitt helped spark the biggest one-season improvement, vaulting from 24th in 2010 to second in 2011 under the guidance of ST Coach Darren Rizzi. He supported and participated in dozens of Miami Dolphins team-sponsored events through recurrent engagement to promote team activities, foster community involvement, and market the organization’s brand during his playing days. Since retiring from the game, Pruitt has continued to do the same with the Miami Dolphins Foundation Food Relief Program, which provided a minimum of 1,000 meals each day for up to a 12-month period to the Miami Gardens and surrounding South Florida communities and Dolphins Cancer Challenge with other Miami Dolphin alumni members to either ride and/or raise money for local cancer research.  Pruitt worked with J&M Plastering, Inc. in South Florida since 2013. He came back to Ouachita Baptist University in 2021 as an assistant tight end/fullback coach and assistant strength and conditioning coach. In 2022, he became the team’s running back coach. He is currently pursuing other passions and will be opening a performance center in Arkadelphia called Upfront Performance Enhancement focusing on mobility, agility, speed and wide receiver/running back/tight end training, as well as enhancement services including player evaluations, film analysis, recruiting consultation services, huddle/highlight tape assistance. He also is currently an area Scout group leader for the Reeces Senior Bowl under the guidance of executive director Jim Nagy. Pruitt has been married to his wife Marylen Sevilla Pruitt for eight years. They have four children: Leilani Pruitt (10), Kalei Pruitt (9), Iden Pruitt (7) and Nova Pruitt (5).

 DUDLEY DAWSON - Dudley Dawson is a 1981 graduate of Newport where he was a member of the National Honor Society and an all-state performer in football, basketball and as a pole vaulter in track. He was awarded the Tex Plunkett Scholarship by Arkansas State as the top high school journalist in the state after creating his own school newspaper in the sixth grade and filling in as the sports editor of the Newport Daily Independent during the summer of 1980. Dawson had basketball scholarship offers from Harding, Arkansas College, Arkansas Tech and UCA and football offers from Harding, UCA, Henderson State and Ouachita Baptist. But he chose to attend the University of Arkansas with great friend Charles Balentine and work on the Razorback basketball staff under legendary head coaches Eddie Sutton and later Nolan Richardson. Upon graduation in 1986 with a journalism degree from Arkansas, Dawson worked that summer at the Wynne Progress and a year at the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record. He then returned to Fayetteville in 1987 and has covered Arkansas sports for the past 36 years for the Northwest Arkansas Times and the Arkansas Democrat Gazette newspapers, Hawgs Illustrated magazine, Whole Hog Sports and is currently writing for Hogville.net and FearlessFriday.com. Dawson has been a fixture on sports radio in Arkansas since the late 1980s where he routinely brings up the fact of how proud he is to be from Newport. He is the author of two books on Razorback basketball - one detailing the 1994 hoops national championship and the other entitled Razorbacks Handbook, covering the complete history of the hoops program that began in 1922. Dawson and Laura Beth Horne were married in 1985. They had a pair of kids together, Lindsey and Brooks. Laura passed away in 2000 after a valiant 5-year battle with breast cancer. He married fellow 1981 Newport alum Petra Dotson - his high school sweetheart - in 2011 and added a daughter, Camille, and son, Bennett. The pair currently live in Springdale where she is a retired teacher after 30 years in the profession. Dawson has been active over the years in the American Cancer Society, educational charities, coaching youth sports, and working with the Fayetteville Parks and Recreation Department.

 ROBERT D. CRAIG - Robert D. Craig is the third child of the late Roy and Marilyn Craig. He graduated from NHS in 1980. Following high school he attended Pittsburg State University in Kansas, from which he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1984. While in college, he was very active in the Sigma Chi Fraternity and served as its president. Following graduation, he returned to Newport where he worked with his parents at Craig Printing Company, making him a fourth-generation printer in a family business that lasted 96 years. During this time, he also began an appreciation of local history, an interest that has lasted over forty years. This came naturally to him, as some branches of his family have lived within 25 miles of Newport for over 200 years.

 Upon returning home after college, Dawson became very active in recording local history. He was interested in the preservation of old Jackson County buildings, and as a result, he started writing about them and other local historical stories. Since the early 1990s, he has written over 40 historical stories for the Jackson County Historical Society’s publication, “The Stream of History,” of which he has served as editor since 2010. He has also written several articles for the Independence County Historical Society’s “Chronicle.” Three of Craig’s articles have been recognized as the best of their subject matter at yearly conferences of the Arkansas Historical Association. In addition, in 2020 his special issue of “The Stream of History,” which was dedicated to Jackson County’s largely unreported Black History, and in which he wrote about half of the content, won the award as the Best County Historical Society Publication in Arkansas, the only instance that recognition has been awarded locally. He has had articles printed in newspapers and works written for special historical occasions. He has given historical presentations at various events, including Jackson County and Independence County historical society meetings and the Arkansas Historical Association annual conference. A member of several historical societies, Craig has been recognized with a Lifetime Membership in the Jackson County Historical Society and the Heritage Award from the Independence County Historical Society. He also was a founding board member of the Old Independence Regional Museum in Batesville. 

Craig has authored several articles for the online Arkansas Encyclopedia project and currently serves as a reviewer for articles before they are approved for inclusion in the encyclopedia. He was requested to conduct and submit research for a 2017 episode of the PBS show “Who Do You Think You Are?” about actress Mary Steenburgen, a native of Newport. His interest in the history of Newark, where his family published a newspaper for nearly 60 years, led him to research and in 1999 to publish “A History of Newark, Arkansas.” For the past 15 years, he has been researching and writing the history of Jackson County during World War II. This includes a detailed history of the Newport Army Airfield which was constructed here during that time. More importantly, however, it is a history of the Jackson County men, women and children who, through great sacrifice, helped win the war. He is acknowledging the thousands of local men and women who served in the military during that time, especially paying tribute to the roughly 100 men with ties to Jackson County who died during the war. That 300+ page history, for which he is still searching for related material, will be ready for publication in about a year. As an artist, he used those talents to interpret written descriptions to draw several local buildings and scenarios of which there are no photographs. He also was an exhibitor for and served on the board of the Medical Center Art Gallery in Batesville. Following college, Craig continued his involvement with the Sigma Chi Fraternity, helping to form a new undergraduate chapter at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. He served as chapter advisor to that organization for 22 years and has remained active in years since being advisor. As a result of his dedication to the fraternity, he was honored by Sigma Chi by being named a member of its Order of Constantine, which is the highest award a member of the fraternity can receive. In 1997, Craig and his family moved to Kennett, Mo., where he began working at a new cotton gin owned by his wife’s parents. He has served as manager of that company since it first opened, and in recent years he has served as president of the Missouri Cotton Ginners Association. Robert and his wife, Beth, are the parents of two sons, Stephen Craig, who is married to Dr. Danielle Craig, and Dalton Craig. The Craig family have been members of the United Methodist churches in both Newport and Kennett.

JOHN G. PENNINGTON - John G. Pennington graduated from NHS in 1969. He was class secretary and voted “Wittiest” in Who’s Who. A proud All-Conference member of the 1968 Greyhound undefeated football team and was honored to play in the last Thanksgiving Day game against Newport’s biggest rival, the Batesville Pioneers, in 1968. After graduation, he enrolled at Arkansas State University and in his sophomore year was elected president of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, the youngest in the chapter’s history. He attended college in Madrid, Spain one semester in 1972 and graduated from ASU in 1973. Pennington joined Houston Natural Gas in August 1974 and moved to Houston, Texas. A year later, he and his wife Sue moved to Ft. Stockton, Texas then relocated to Midland, Texas. Two years later they moved back to Newport where John was the office manager at Miller-Newell Engineers. In February 1980, Pennington joined the Brown Jordan Company as assistant credit manager. Ten months later, he was promoted to regional sales manager and moved to Suffolk, Virginia after being promoted to company director. One year later, John became vice president and was responsible for closing the Virginia facility and relocating employees back to Newport. His goal was to consolidate all company facilities to Newport. He then left Brown Jordan and founded The Pennington Group, a manufacturer of patio furniture. Several years later, he began a new career in the automobile industry as a salesman and TV/radio spokesman, where he is today. Pennington served 13 years on the Newport City Council, the Newport Levee Commission and several years as chairman of the Newport School District Charitable Foundation. He and long-time friend, Mike Brand, reestablished the NHS Booster Club and founded the Jackson County Bass Club. He was chosen as the Ambassador of the Year by the Newport Area Chamber of Commerce in 2011. John and his wife, Sue, reside in Newport and have two grown children, daughter Lindsay Tabor and son John Ward Pennington. They have also had the privilege of loving four grandchildren.