Q. Byrum Hurst

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Quincy Byrum Hurst, Sr. (September 21, 1918 - December 4, 2006), was a Hot Springs, Arkansas attorney and a Democratic member of the Arkansas State Senate from 1950-1972. He vacated his Senate seat to run unsuccessfully against Governor Dale L. Bumpers, who won the second of his two gubernatorial terms in 1972. Hurst polled 81,239 votes, or 16.4 percent, in the party primary.

Hurst was born in Hot Springs, a resort city in central Arkansas, to Roy Hurst, a minister of the Church of God, and the former Clara Alva (1901-2000). He graduated from public schools there. Hurst was admitted to the Arkansas bar in 1941, having become, at twenty-three, one of the youngest men ever licensed to practice in his state. His extensive legal career took him into all seventy-five Arkansas counties and throughout the United States as well.

In 1943, he entered the United States Army. He served for the duration of World War II. On his return from military duties, Hurst was elected in 1947 as county judge, an administrative post, for Garland County, of which Hot Springs is the seat of government.

Three years later, he won his state Senate seat. He served at one time on nearly every Senate committee, particularly the Legislative Audit Committee. In 1967, Hurst was elected president pro tempore of the Arkansas Senate and served as acting governor whenever Republican Party (GOP) Governor Winthrop Rockefeller or GOP Lieutenant Governor Maurice L. Britt were out of state at the same time.

Hurst was active in the Junior Chamber of Commerce, popularly called the Jaycees, the Optimist International, and the Boy Scouts of America, having served as a scoutmaster. He was a member of the First Church of God in Hot Springs and was later the Sunday school superintendent for the Oaklawn Church of God, also in Hot Springs.

Hurst was married to Hazel E. Hurst (September 10, 1918 - October 27, 1997). The couple had a son, Q. Byrum Hurst, Jr. (born ca. 1949), also a Hot Springs attorney, and two daughters, Lezah H. Stenger (born ca. 1948) of Springfield, Missouri, and Byretta Fish (born ca. 1952) of Bentonville in Benton County in northwestern Arkansas. Hurst also had seventeen grandchildren; twenty-five great-grandchildren; a surviving brother, F.L Hurst of Hot Springs, and surviving sister, Norma Jean Hurst Austin of San Antonio, Texas.

The Hursts are interred in Block 5 of Morning Star Cemetery in Hot Springs.

On February 21, 2007, Hurst was honored by an Arkansas Senate Memorial Resolution for his contributions to the state, Garland County, and Hot Springs.