Ouida Cox

Ouida Hutto Cox passed away in Little Rock on October 13, 2021. Born December 3, 1922, she grew up in Van Buren County attending Southside High School. She graduated from the University of Central Arkansas (formerly Arkansas State Teachers College) with a degree in Home Economics and English. She was an early role model and exemplar of an independent and confident professional woman. Her first job was working for the Arkansas Farm Bureau as a home economist serving and traveling in the rural counties of Southeast Arkansas in the 1940s. In 1949, she joined the newly founded Arkansas Electric Cooperatives. It was here that she met her husband, Jim Cox, who was an electrical engineer with the Department of Agriculture and the Rural Electrification Association.

In 1967, she became editor of Rural Arkansas Magazine (now Arkansas Living), the official publication of the Arkansas Electric Cooperatives, which has the largest circulation of any publication in the state of Arkansas. For many decades, her articles and photographs primarily focused on the people of rural Arkansas providing a unique insight into the lives of farmers, ranchers, business-owners, artists, and small communities in the state. At the time of her retirement as editor of Arkansas Living in 2012, she had won almost every local journalism award as well as receiving national recognition for her work as an editor, writer, and photographer. When asked about her accomplishments, she would always humbly reply, “I was just telling the stories of the wonderful people of Arkansas.” Ouida Cox loved her family and church. She also served as a role model and mentor to multiple generations of young women and journalists.

Ouida is survived by her sons, James Lloyd Cox, Jr. of Little Rock and Dr. Thomas Earl Cox and daughter-in-law, Sandra Osmun Cox of Evergreen, Colorado; granddaughters, Katherine Ann Cox, Corinne Elizabeth Cox and Margaret Nell Cox; nephews, Tommy Hutto and Sam Hutto; nieces, Kathryn Hutto Linn and Suzanne Hutto Clark; sister-in-law, Jane Hartin; and other family members and friends.  She was preceded in death by her father, Dr. Thomas Benton Hutto, mother, Jurda French Hutto Megee, husband, James Lloyd Cox, Sr., brother, Ray Hutto, half-brothers, Ellis Hutto, Jimmy Sam Megee and Albert Megee, half-sister, Alice Hutto Denison, brother-in-law, Earl Cox, and sisters-in-law, Marie Hutto, Betty Reardon, and Sara Cox Todd.

Visitation will be Saturday, October 16th from 10 AM-12 noon at Smith Little Rock Funeral Home, 8801 Knoedl Ct. There will be a private graveside service at Roselawn Cemetery in Little Rock. Memorials may be made to Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, 2200 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock, AR 72205.