Jerry Thomasson

Jerry Kreth Thomasson (October 17, 1931 – April 29, 2007) was a Democratic member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, who in 1966 switched to the Republican Party and ran unsuccessfully for state attorney general in 1966 and again in 1968 on the gubernatorial ticket headed by Winthrop Rockefeller.

Early years
Thomasson was born in Arkadelphia in then staunchly Democratic Clark County in south central Arkansas, to Joseph Baron Thomasson (1889-1966) and the former Lillian Gertrude Dean (1891-1969), who are interred at Delight Cemetery in Delight in Pike County, Arkansas.

He graduated in 1949 from Arkadelphia High School and attended Henderson State Teachers College there. He was a veteran of the Korean War. In 1959, he received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Arkansas School of Law at Little Rock.

Family
In 1960, Thomasson married Dortha Juanita Yates (1937-2010), the director of nurses at the Clark County Memorial Hospital. The couple wed in Bismarck in Hot Spring County and had a son, Bryan Thomasson, and a daughter, Grace Ann Weber. They are interred at DeRoche Cemetery in DeRoach near Bismarck in Hot Spring County.

Legal career
Thomasson was in private law practice for eight years in Arkadelphia with the Huie, Huie & Thomasson firm. He was a referee for the Arkansas Workmen’s Compensation Commission from 1960 to 1961. From 1959 to 1960, Thomasson was the librarian of the Arkansas Supreme Court when James Douglas Johnson of Conway was an associate justice. Thomasson was also a past chairman for the Legal Aid Committee of the Arkansas Bar Association.

Public service career
Thomas served in the United States Army in the Korean War. As a Democratic member of the Arkansas House from 1963 to 1966, Thomasson introduced legislation to add the white safety lines to the outside edges of Arkansas highways. He introduced the 1967 bill to change Henderson State Teachers College to university status as Henderson State College; the change finally occurred in 1985. When Thomasson ran for attorney general in 1966, he had expected to face the incumbent, Bruce Bennett. In the Democratic primary election, Joe Purcell of Benton in Saline County in central Arkansas, unseated the segregationist Bennett, a lawyer from El Dorado. During the campaign, both Thomasson and Purcell ran as reformers.

Despite running on the Republican ticket with the successful gubernatorial candidate, Winthrop Rockefeller, Thomasson lost in the general election. Purcell received 287,983 votes (53.9 percent) to Thomasson's 246,133 (46.1 percent). Thomasson carried 12 of the state's 75 counties, having received more than 60 percent of the ballots in Searcy, Baxter, Sebastian, Benton, and Washington counties. He also won in Crawford County, which Rockefeller lost. His strength was concentrated in the northwestern portion of the state.

In 1968, Thomasson again challenged Purcell. He received 240,725 votes (41.4 percent) to Purcell's 341,233 (58.6 percent). Thomasson won nine counties, again all in northwestern Arkansas, three fewer than he had in 1966. In 1971, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon appointed Thomasson as an administrative law judge of the Social Security Administration, a position that he retained until his retirement in 2000.

Despite his party switch, Thomasson was a friend and supporter of former U.S. President Bill Clinton and is mentioned in Clinton’s autobiography, My Life (on page 231, in which Clinton refers to Thomasson as "a fair-minded Republican").