Written by Twila Reed
In 2015, Harding University celebrated its newly completed First Ladies Garden. The walkway rounds off into different sections, each boasting unique flora that represent one of Harding University’s first ladies. The first garden in tribute to Woodson Harding Armstrong contains vibrant forsythias, delicate hydrangeas and intricate crabapples — all flowers popular from Woodson Armstrong’s era. Armstrong’s tenure as First Lady lasted from 1924 to 1936; however, as the daughter of James A. Harding and Pattie Cobb Harding, Armstrong’s connections to Harding run deep.
Born in 1879, faith and education were tenets even in Armstrong’s upbringing as her father was a preacher and evangelist who was a founding member of Nashville Bible School (now Lipscomb University). By 1895, 16-year-old Woodson Armstrong was taking charge of her education, studying Latin, Greek and Hebrew. In an all-male Greek class, she met and eventually fell in love with professor J.N. Armstrong; the couple married a few years later. Pattie Hathaway was the couple’s only daughter and child; however, the family also welcomed the children of J.N.’s late brother.
Early into the couple’s marriage, they left Nashville Bible College, following James A. Harding to the different schools he was helping to plant. After being the president of several different colleges, the Armstrongs eventually settled at a small Bible college founded by James A. Harding in Morrilton, Arkansas. Over time, the school would eventually change places and names, leading to the creation of Harding College (the school would not gain university status until the “70s”) located in Searcy, Arkansas.
During Armstrong’s 12 years as president, Woodson Armstrong took an active role in Harding life, serving as dean of women, teaching speech and drama and sponsoring and chartering Harding’s first social club, Woodson Harding Comrades (WHC). After a prolific career in service and education, Woodson Harding Armstrong died Dec. 1, 1971, at the age of 92. Despite being an early figure in the University’s history, her legacy continues to live on in the lives of those who attend the school that she worked tirelessly to help build.
Continuing the walk down the garden’s path, the next section of the garden blooms with amur maples and weeping cherries — favorites of Sally Hockaday Benson, who was an avid gardener. She was the wife of Harding’s second president, George S. Benson. Sally Benson was born in 1896 in Granite, Oklahoma. She would go on to earn her bachelor’s degree at the University of Oklahoma, where she would later teach. She also taught at Oklahoma Christian University before moving to Morrilton, Arkansas, as a teacher in Latin and math. There, while in a play cast by Armstrong, she met her co-star and future husband George S. Benson, who was a coach and principal at Harding Academy.
After the two married, the couple, both faithful members of the Church of Christ, became the first of their denomination to become missionaries to China in 1925. They would live in China and the Philippines for the next 11 years (with a brief sabbatical in the United States for education purposes). During their missionary years, the couple weathered many challenges and triumphs including escaping war-zone China to British-controlled Hong Kong, welcoming their two children Ruth Crowder and Lois McEuen, and returning to Canton, China, after conflicts died down, acting as a model for other missionaries coming to join them.
Despite being worlds away from Arkansas, the couple still maintained contact with the college; during their first year away, Harding sent the couple $25 for Christmas. Thus, in 1936 the couple made the difficult decision to leave their Bible college in Canton and return to the newly located Harding College as president and first lady.
At Harding, Sally Benson took an active role in campus activities, teaching at Harding Academy, chartering Associated Women for Harding, speaking to students about her missionary work (she kept extensive journals of her time overseas that are now located in Harding’s archives) and supporting the formation of a gardening club. Sally Benson was a beloved wife, mother and grandmother who adored spending time with her nine grandchildren. On Dec. 17, 1981, after an acute illness, Sally Hockaday Benson died, leaving behind a lifetime and legacy of service.
Roses and delicate lavenders adorn Louise Nicholas Ganus’ portion of the First Ladies Garden. Born in February 1922, Louise grew up in Strawberry, Arkansas, and later moved to Searcy, Arkansas, to attend Harding University, where she graduated with a bachelor’s in English. Louise Ganus loved her years as an undergraduate; she was class editor of the Bison, a member of the Alpha Society and a member of WHC. It was there that she met her future husband Clifton L. Ganus. Meeting him in an all-white suit before his first day as a freshman, sophomore Louise Nicholas did not care for him, claiming he was stuck up. However, her disdain would soon blossom into a love that would last for more than seven decades of marriage.
After Clifton Ganus’ graduation, the couple married and moved to Mississippi (they also spent time in New Orleans), where Ganus pastored various congregations, but in 1946 the couple returned to Harding so Ganus could teach Bible and history. The couple spent these next years pouring into the University, and by 1965, Ganus became Harding’s third president. These years were especially busy for Louise Ganus as she acted as the caterer and hostess for many esteemed visitors to Harding, served as a charter member of the White County Medical Center Auxiliary, started the first Boy and Girl Scouts in Searcy, and was an active member of the Associated Women for Harding. Along with all these responsibilities, Ganus was busy raising their children Clifton, Debbie and Charles Ganus — all of whom are still involved with the University today.
Louise and Clifton Ganus were married for 76 years before Ganus passed away in September 2019. This past year, Louise Nicholas Ganus, a beloved mother and wife, turned 100 years old as the University celebrated the decades of work and dedication she offered to Harding.
Flowers like red double knockout roses and flowering quince abound in Leah Ann Gentry Burk’s portion of the garden, but they also abounded in the personal garden she kept in her home, which she so often opened for tours to raise money for the University. These tours are one of the many stories of Burks’s long history with Harding. An Illinois native, Leah Gentry arrived in Searcy, Arkansas, in the early 1960s as a freshman at Harding College (the institution gained university status in the late ‘70s).
For Leah Burks, a member of women’s social club Zeta Rho, club life was a central and favored time of her college experience. In fact, it was through clubs that she met David Burks, who would later become Harding’s fourth president. Both David (a member of men’s social club Phi Theta Kappa) and Leah Burks were respective beau and queen of each other’s club; this connection allowed the pair to grow their friendship and eventually fall in love. The pair married the summer after Leah Burk’s graduation in 1965, then moved to Tennessee to start their new life as a couple. However, wanting to raise their children in Harding’s Christian atmosphere, the couple soon moved back to Searcy as their little family began to grow.
An English major and art minor, Burk taught in several schools around the area including Harding Academy. She retired from teaching to better fill her role as first lady when her husband became president of the University. During her tenure, she welcomed dignitaries like Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, President George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, and First Lady Barbara Bush; she excelled in hospitality and was always ready to open her home. She also stayed involved in student life, serving as a sponsor for Zeta Rho for three decades.
Most important to her, though, was her family. Leah and David Burks raised their two sons Bryan and Stephen Burks imbued in Harding’s faith-filled culture. Both sons attended Harding Academy and University and met and married their spouses there just as their parents did.
In a 2012 interview a year before the pair retired, Leah Burks spoke of wanting to continue to travel and spend time with family. However, she knew Harding would always be an integral part of their life. This assertion was correct as the couple returned to the school in the fall of 2020 as interim President and First Lady upon the retirement of President Bruce McLarty. Leah and David Burks’ dedication to Harding has left an indelible legacy to the University they so cherish.
Renaissance spirea and coral bells azalea finish out the fifth semi-circle of the First Ladies Garden. This section honors Harding’s fifth first lady, Ann Hutson McLarty. She arrived on the campus for the first time in fall 1976, hailing from Ohio. Her dream was to be a nurse, and she would graduate in 1980 as a part of Harding’s fourth nursing class.
Club life was also a special part of McLarty’s years at Harding. In the first semester of her sophomore year, she met Bruce McLarty, a senior and member of King’s Men, the brother social club to her club OEGE. The two maintained a long-distance relationship for the remainder of her time at Harding while McLarty furthered his education at Harding’s School of Theology in Memphis, Tennessee. Ann and Bruce married in 1980 after her graduation. They would make their home in Mississippi, where McLarty would work as a minister and Ann would become the nursing supervisor at Quitman County Hospital.
After their time in Mississippi, they spent some time in Tennessee, where they made the big decision to move their now family of four (the couple had two daughters, Charity and Jessica McLarty) to Kenya to become missionaries for a little over a year. Then, they would spend another six years in Tennessee before settling in Searcy in 1991. While Bruce McLarty worked as a minister, Ann McLarty spent the next two decades as a nurse in Harding’s Student Health Services. She shifted gears in 2013 when McLarty was inaugurated as Harding’s fifth president.
Ann McLarty wanted to make sure that her legacy as a first lady centered around creating a Christ-like community, and she worked hard to do just that, hosting esteemed visitors, attending conferences and dinners, and visiting Harding’s campuses across the globe (one of her favorite responsibilities as first lady). Ann and Bruce McLarty retired in 2020, but the University community will always be thankful for the years of work they poured into it.
With Lisa Williams being the newest first lady — or Ambassador (a term Lisa Williams said is more welcoming) — the garden has yet to add her section. However, the First Ladies Garden as well as the rest of the University are eager to work with her in the coming years. Lisa Williams grew up in West Virginia. She loved playing in the outdoors and often had to be told to come inside as a child.
She came to Harding in the “80s”, wanting to major in interior design but instead settling on elementary education. Like all the other presidents and first ladies, the couple met at Harding. They met through a blind date and became engaged in the winter of ’86 when Mike Williams asked her “if she would marry Santa Claus.” They married that next year and would have two sons Quentin and Cade (’16). Lisa Williams became an elementary teacher for grades three, five and six while also creating Arkansas’ Virtual Education Academy while Mike Williams joined the staff at Harding.
In 2015, they decided to move to Montgomery, Alabama, where they would serve as president and first lady at Faulkner University. They had a prolific career at Faulkner, founding a college of health science and an autism center. In fact, a focus on autism and a better understanding of it is something Lisa Williams said she wants to contribute to Harding’s campus.
In addition, she wants to continue to create more spaces for women to contribute to the University and more opportunities for students to tell the story of their faith — all to create more community. Lisa Williams has already begun these endeavors while serving on the board for the new Women of Faith initiative recently launched in chapel this semester. This advisory is in conjunction with the new Holland-Waller Center, which houses the foreign language, history and political science, international studies and international student programs, ROTC, and the Swaid Institute for International Education. The Harding community is excited to welcome Harding’s newest Ambassador, knowing she is already an invaluable part of it.
