Dale Alford
Thomas Dale Alford, (28 January 1916 - 25 January 2000) was an American politician from the State of Arkansas and a member of the United States House of Representatives.
In 1916, Alford was born in New Hope in Pike County, Arkansas. He attended public schools at Rector in Clay County, Arkansas.
Alford attended Arkansas State College, the Arkansas State Teachers College, and received his medical degree from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences at Little Rock in 1939. He received some post-graduate training at the University of Illinois.
Alford was an ophthalmologist by trade and served in the United States Army Medical Corps from 1940 to 1946 during World War II. After the war he served as an assistant professor at Emory University College of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia in 1947 and 1948.
Returning to Arkansas he joined the teaching faculty at the University of Arkansas Medical School at Little Rock and remained there from 1948-1958. From 1955 to 1958 he served on the Little Rock School board during the segregation crisis.
Alford was elected to the US House of Representatives in a controversial election that took place during the Little Rock Crisis of 1958 becoming only the second write-in candidate to ever be elected to Congress. Alford jumped into the election against incumbent representative Brooks Hays after Hays endorsed the integration of Little Rock Central High School during the segregation crisis. Alford supporters had thousands of stickers made up with Alford's name printed on them and handed them out in front of polling places. Hays maintained a lead during the counting until an extra 20 ballot boxes arrived bearing ballots with the Alford stickers. He was re-elected in 1960.
Alford's Little Rock-based district was merged with the 2nd District of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Wilbur D. Mills after the 1960 census. Rather than face certain defeat against Mills in the 1962 Democratic primary, Alford instead chose to enter the gubernatorial race against incumbent Orval Faubus. Faubus defeated Alford and Sid McMath with a majority of the vote. Alford ran for Governor again in 1966 and finished fourth, failing to receive more votes than Brooks Hays (who finished finished in the field that year).
In 2000, Alford died of congestive heart failure in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is buried at historic Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock.
Adapted from the article Dale Alford, from Wikinfo, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.