Mary Thomas

Mary Jean Thomas was born to Helgha T. and Archie C. Thomas on April 11, 1930, in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. She graduated high school in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and earned a Bachelor of Business Administration at Fort Hays Kansas State University in 1955, a Master’s of Speech Communication at Kansas State University in 1955, and a Doctorate of Philosophy at The Pennsylvania State University in 1967.

She held professorships at the University of Massachusetts and Case Western Reserve University. She chaired the department of Communication at Loyola University of Chicago. Her last appointment in 1977 was as Dean of the newly formed College of Communication at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in which capacity she served for eleven years. She took early retirement from the University in 1992.

She also held positions at the University of South Dakota as Director of the School of the Air and instructor of radio and television in the Speech Department. She hosted a daily radio program at KUSD-AM and, with four of her colleagues established a television station which has expanded to a TV network covering the entire state of South Dakota. During the first month of establishing the TV station, she hosted programs, wrote, directed and operated camera on a rotating basis with her four colleagues.

These experiences in broadcasting altered her academic specialty in later years from Classical Rhetoric to Mass Media studies. She taught a wide range of media courses at Penn State, the University of Massachusetts, Case Western Reserve, Loyola University of Chicago and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

While at the University of Massachusetts, she wrote and presented a 39-week radio series “Issues and Eloquence” which was widely aired in the New England area. In Cleveland, Ohio, she was election night co-host for the NBC owned station WKYC radio. She also created a voter education TV series for WKYC-TV which earned an “Emmy” from the Cleveland chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She was a member of the governing board of that organization for several years. Mary Jean held guest lectureships at the University of Montana in 1963 and Brooklyn College in 1974.

At Loyola of Chicago, she introduced television studies into the Communication Department curriculum and was successful in establishing student internships with the CBS owned TV station.

As Dean of the newly created College of Communication at UALR, she was charged by Chancellor Robert Ross with securing a radio station license—now KUAR. She served on the governing board of the new station for several years.

She and Dr. David Guerra negotiated a package of needed TV studio equipment from Storer Cable which not only improved the teaching facility but made possible ownership of Channel 61 as an outlet for student production, management and performance. Mary Jean taught several production, performance, history and media law classes and hosted a TV talk show on Channel 61 to provide students with live experience.

With the retirement of Dr. James Fribourgh in 1984, there emerged the “Follies” which were staged spasmodically until 1995. Mary Jean was active as a writer, producer and performer for all the Follies. With Margaret Carner and Dot Callanan she assisted with production. She and James Fribourgh wrote most of the skits and scathing lyrics for all the Follies, in return for which she was permitted a solo song and tap dance number in each show.

In her retirement years, Mary Jean returned to Chicago for three years just to play before moving on to New Jersey to spend some years with her family. She became affiliated with a small professional theater in Collingswood, NJ where she served on the governing board and finally realized the ambition she had confessed in her high school year book— “Professional Actress.” Her first and last appearance in that capacity at age 73 was a “small but meaty” role in “The Crucible.” She emailed a copy of her first and last professional paycheck ($135) to all her friends.

In 2010, Mary Jean returned to Little Rock to spend her remaining years with friends who had shared so much history with her. She resided at both Andover and Woodland Heights retirement homes.

Always an avid traveler—even to the extent of owning a Class B motor home which was for 12 years her sole means of transportation—her last major trip was a three-week excursion in China at the age of one month less than 84.

She survives in the memories of friends, colleagues, and students—both those who loved her and those who found her intolerable. All in all, her life had a pretty good run, and she played her part well.