Interviewed by Joey Chambers and Mr. Billy Higgins

Conducted by phone from the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith.

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Billy Higgins: This morning is April 26, 2002. Mr. Joey Chambers will be doing an interview long distance [telephone interview] David Lewis: Good morning Joey Chambers: Mr. Lewis this is Joey Chambers. I'm with the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith Oral History Project about Fort Chaffee

David Lewis: Hi George

Joey Chambers: It's Joey

David Lewis: oh Joey

Joey Chambers: Yes sir

David Lewis: OK

Joey Chambers: Mr. Lewis how are you doing today?

David Lewis: I'm fine, a little head cold. I hope it doesn't sound too bad.

Joey Chambers: Yeah, I've got the same thing going on here so I guess we're in the same boat. I've just got a couple of things to ask. To get this started off.

David Lewis: Sure

Joey Chambers: I just need to state a few things. We are at the Multi-cultural center on the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith campus. The time is 8:15[am] We're doing a phone interview. If you could sir please state your name, location, and the tape.

David Lewis: My name is David Edward Lewis. I'm living in West Virginia.

Joey Chambers: OK, thank you very much. Mr. Lewis we're talking about Camp Chaffee and the relocation of the Vietnamese refugees there. Around what time did you arrive at Camp Chaffee?

David Lewis: Oh back I would have to check my exact records but it was around May 11 or 12. ah I first got notice when I was hired by the U.S. Catholic Conference. I was living in Rhode Island and I actually resigned my job in Rhode Island at a private um firm, business firm and um flew to St. Louis, Missouri where I met the agency that had hired me. They were having a meeting for the detainment process. And I arrived at Fort Smith I think it was around May 11th or so could have been the 17th. I'm not real sure.

Joey Chambers: What organization was it that you were with?

David Lewis: Ah the actual organization that hired me was called the Migration Records and Services, a division of the United States Catholic Conference, which was located in Washington, D.C. It was quite interesting because I'm not Catholic. They took a big chance on me. Hired me right off the street. I guess my unique experience was what they were looking for.

Joey Chambers: What type of experience was that?

David Lewis: I had ah been in Vietnam both as a civilian with the agency for International ?????? for 3 years, I was a regional advisor and I also served um with the military, with the Marine Corp ah back in the ah late 60s during the latter end of the war and I had also been in several other organizations overseas. I served with the Peace Corp in Nepal and those experiences evidently led them to believe I might be useful in working with the Vietnamese program.

Joey Chambers: That's fascinating. What type of work did the organization do? What type of work did you do, more specifically, at Camp Chaffee?

David Lewis: The primary purpose of our agency, along with four or five other agencies who were there, was to find sponsorships for the Vietnamese. To help them ah enter into ah the American culture. They literally couldn't leave Fort Chaffee until they had a sponsor. Early arrivals had some relatives there so they were sponsored out by their relatives. Those were very few. The large bulk of the people had no friends or relatives, didn't speak the language. Before they could be processed out into American society there was an agreement that sponsorship would be arranged.

Joey Chambers: You said you were in Vietnam during the war and before that, how do you think the Vietnamese family unit faired in the refugee camp compared to when it was in Vietnam? Did the closeness stay unified within the family unit?

David Lewis: For those families who were able to stay together, absolutely. The family unit becomes the most important to anyone coming into this country, For those who were without family, and there were quite a few, they're literally isolated, very scared, even the families were probably very scared, because you had for most people a language barrier as well. You had two problems; language barrier and cultural barrier. The way, in which they arrived, we did get some families but by and large a lot of people were separated from their loved ones and they had escaped in chaos. So people were still trying to relocate, trying to locate their friends and relatives. In many cases they had no idea were their immediate family was.

Joey Chambers: Were many people very successful in locating other family members who had gotten out? That you know of?

David Lewis: Well, the process began immediately ah but it wasn't until years afterwards that ah because our program at Fort Chaffee was relatively quick. It was 6 months or so in duration. Everything was being done to speed the closure of the camps. The camps emergency operation cost a lot of money, required a lot of coordination. A tremendous effort was to find people sponsors and most of the sponsors were Americans who had never had experience with Vietnam before so it was quite a challenge, I mean, in one point of time a lot of people said it couldn't be done.

Joey Chambers: How would you rate the success of finding sponsors?

David Lewis: Ah, looking back on the program ah it was an amazing success. Ah literally surprises ourselves. What happened was that in the beginning ah people were preparing for long range ah problems. We had to overcome a lot of problems along the way. The biggest one was the language barrier. And in the beginning we found a lot of people sponsors very easily because some of the Vietnamese had skills. Some of them were highly educated and they were able to work with us together in a joint capacity. I had a staff of 100 people at my disposal. Lots of them were Vietnamese that I hired who were bilingual. They had been working with Americans in Vietnam. Were highly educated. Some of my staff were province governors, lawyers, a bank heads of banks so we grabbed up the highly educated to help us actually communicate with the Vietnamese in the camp. And then we began contacts with our sponsor programs throughout the United States. And we set up a program that uh that literally was the savior of that camp. That was called The Parish Sponsorship Program. The Catholic Church was um very um wonderfully designed to act immediately to a crisis because there were like uh over 100 dioceses in the United States and some of them were in very major cities. Little Rock, for example, had a diocese and they sprung immediately into action. The Little Rock diocese organized parishes, each parish to take a family that was their motto. Every parish take a family. And amazingly, when that program got going, it took about 3 or 4 months to get it on line, ah it overwhelmed us with sponsorships and uh surprisingly by December we actually had more sponsors then we needed. So we spent six months uh my particular program, which dominated uh the voluntary group. We located over half of the Vietnamese who were at Fort Chaffee. That's over 21 thousand ah Vietnamese.

Joey Chambers: Other than the parishes who would you say the sponsors were?

David Lewis: Well, anybody could be a sponsor aside from our organization you could have individual families that could be agreed to in fact in most of the cases it would be a family in a parish that would offer to take a family or an individual or groups and ah some people would offer to take a single person. There were a lot of singles. A lot of former military soldiers from Vietnam were by themselves they ran away because they were afraid of being killed right away and so we had a lot of single males and we had to find sponsors for them. Anybody that could be a sponsor would have to literally be sort of given a little check by the agency to make sure that's legitimate, that they had the resources to handle a person living ah ah for as much as six months or more. And the screening process was to be done by the ah archdiocese director or their staff. Then they would send literally a document to us. Either over the phone or um through the mail and we would then match uh uh an assignment offer with a person or a family and we would sit down and counsel them ah to how it was going to happen. One thing you've got to remember is these Vietnamese were scared. They didn't know literally where they were. They had never been outside of Vietnam. They had no idea what the United States was like and some of these people were very poor people some of them were fisherman who had no education and a big problem arose from the other camps. There were three other camps. Indian Town Gap in Pennsylvania. Adron? Air Force Base in Florida and Camp Pendelton in California. And those camps got stuck with what they call groups of unrefundable people. These were the poor fisherman and the people who didn't speak any English. They were literally afraid to go anywhere and many of the agencies didn't know quite what to do with them. I set up a program and I gotta tell yah I'm very proud of a couple things that happened. Many of the people, some of these people would never be able to live or adapt to the United States. We're talking about 20 thousand people now. These were the leftovers when everybody else had been sponsored that was like family or were educated. Than there were these people who had no education, no knowledge of anything. What we did was we got permission for an idea we had in our own group. We built a radio station at Fort Chaffee. This radio station, I had to fly to Washington, D.C. to get permission to build a radio station on military grounds [laughs] religious group, imagine. This radio station, we broadcast in Vietnamese on little transmitters we would hand out to the people in the camp and we overcame the language and the culture barrier of sponsorship by convincing these people that they would be well taken care of and uh that they shouldn't be afraid and we'd actually have to explain to them step by step what was going to happen to them. Some of them, for example were being sponsored to North Dakota. In the winter. You had to sit down with a Vietnamese family and explain to them that they would be going into a cold climate. That we would prepare food and warm clothing for them. It was a very slow, drawn out process, but it worked.

Billy Higgins:: Well Mr. Lewis I've been listening in too. I'm Billy Higgins and I talked with you on the telephone the other day. I'm the instructor.

David Lewis: Good day.

Billy Higgins: Good day. How are you? We're really impressed with the information you're giving us for it's historical value. We're very happy for this interview to occur. And you're answering some key questions for us. I just wanted to let you know that I'm listening in as well.

David Lewis: Thanks. Incidentally I have been kind of busy at my house trying to locate some old memoirs and stuff. What I've found is a couple of the tapes. One was a tape of the dedication of the radio station and the other is a tape done, I think by the federal government, and I would be willing to forward both of these tapes, these cassettes, to you ah so that you could use them of any value.

Billy Higgins: We would certainly welcome those as additions to our archives here about the relocation here and we did get an interview with one of the D.J.s from the radio station, as well, earlier. Those cassette tapes would be wonderful.

David Lewis: Yeah I was, it's funny, I haven't listened to them in, what has it been? 75, gosh this has been 27 years ago. I haven't listened to these tapes until today. I sat here with my earphones on and it's like going back in history.

Billy Higgins: I imagine

David Lewis: Some of it is very interesting. I had forgotten a lot of it and I was writing some stuff down this morning before you called so I could get some of my facts and figures straight.

Billy Higgins: Let me give you a mailing address here. It would be in care of Billy Higgins, The Center for Local History and Memory, located in Gardner building 221, University of Arkansas - Fort Smith, Box 3946, I believe, I'll check before this interview is over, Fort Smith, Arkansas, 72913.

David Lewis: OK. Yeah I'll package these up and send them off and the only thing I would ask is that if you want to retain them just make copies so I can at least have something back.

Billy Higgins: Absolutely, we will copy those tapes and return them to you.

David Lewis: And um I couldn't find another copy of the booklet, but I will send it so you can Xerox it and ah use it for whatever it's worth too.

Billy Higgins: The ah pamphlet you were talking about?

David Lewis: Yeah the pamphlet I was talking about.

Billy Higgins: Entitled?

David Lewis: "We've Run Out of Refugees"

Billy Higgins: Yes [laughter]

David Lewis: and ah it's ah probably, some of my colleagues from way back there I remembered the name of ah the person who is still at Fort Smith. Terry Shaw her husband did the training at Fort Smith ah Frank Shaw. And I'm gonna to call Terry just to see if she has a copy that she can get over to you but in the event she can't I will forward mine.

Billy Higgins: We'll do the same thing. We'll copy that and return the original to you.

David Lewis: And ah I might even find some other stuff. I'll just send whatever I've got to you.

Joey Chambers: Mr. Lewis

David Lewis: uh huh

Joey Chambers: We were talking about the sponsorship.

David Lewis: Right

Joey Chambers: Was there a contract signed or any length of time specifically stated?

David Lewis: Ah, there was no legal obligation involved. Ah, the contract, basically, was a promise to do the best you could for as long as was necessary. That was a very big part and nobody really knew what it meant but it basically meant until the person became self-sufficient. In some cases that meant the person spoke English and the had ah, had ah background working with something that was compatible with our culture like teaching or or business, something like that. Those people could become self-sufficient rather quickly. But in most cases it involved providing housing, food, and clothing until that person was able to get a job. And the key was the job. And in most cases the Vietnamese were very, very resilient. And it was very heart warming to know that former Generals would become janitors. Uh, you would have people that didn't have the language of our country. And in their country they were very highly respected. Over here because of the language they would have to literally start over again. Ah, our government set up good ESL programs and I think Fort Smith was a classic example. The groups in Fort Smith were probably one of the top groups that set up ESL classes and that's why you have such a vibrant community in Fort Smith still. Is that the people from Fort Smith turned out to be remarkably receptive and ah did more than their share in helping this group of people.

Joey Chambers: Would you be able to say what was the average length of stay for a refugee? Maybe not of an educated, but of an uneducated person?

David Lewis: I would say ah guessing from my experience. Usually 3 to 6 months. Ah, and then the people, you know, would find an apartment somewhere or they would sort of move off. I'd say within 3 to 6 months. Some probably lasted longer, some shorter. Ah, not everything worked out perfectly so ah the Vietnamese started moving around and they would start doing a lot of ah communicating amongst themselves and they started relocating themselves in groups, in cities and in countries, you know, L.A. had a big community, Los Angeles. Some of the cities in the United States became focuses for larger groups of the groups of people, mostly the fisherman who eventually did work their way down to Louisiana, New Orleans. Where they became self-supportive within their own communities. Ah, so some of it worked out very well. Some of it took longer. But I say within a year, or so, it was considered a remarkable success. The Vietnamese suffered emotionally much more than they ever let on. And it wasn't for 2 or 3 years later that the getting of the boat people started and that was when the families left behind started leaving Vietnam to join their relatives here in the United States. We now have over a million Vietnamese in this country. When that first evacuation came you're only talking 150 thousand. So you can see that there was a long process of family reunification involved. It took ten, twenty years for that to really resolve itself.

Joey Chambers: Was your organization able to help any with the boat people? Or were you shut down by then?

David Lewis: The main thing was, that uh we really didn't have much of a vision of what to do after the program halted because it came so suddenly and ah after the celebration happened we were sitting around and we literally devised a follow up program. The U.S. government had given us grants. I think it was like $500 dollars for each refugee to the agency and ah having sponsored 20,000 Vietnamese out of Chaffee ah my agency literally had a bunch of money we were obligated to help spend on the refugees. What we did is we devised a follow up program and ah supported the on going activities for a while. And then it was we became aware that many of these people were trying to get in touch with their families and we had affidavits of support submitted to us, ah I'm sorry, affidavits of relationship saying, my brother has escaped to ah ah the Philippines. My brother or sister has escaped to Hong Kong and that's when a long range of ah resettlement began. Which lasted another twenty years. I stayed with the Catholic Conference for thirteen years. I mean I took the job right off the street for whatever length of time that the program was going to go at the camp and I stayed with them for fourteen years all over the world. I even went to South East Asia to ah set up the programs in the various American Embassies in South East Asia where the boat people were stuck having landed ah say like in Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia. We set up a program for eventually getting them to the United States.

Billy Higgins: In those days the reigning government in Vietnam was it hostile to these people who had become refugees and fled to, the initial wave, the ones who left during the fall of Saigon?

David Lewis: You've hit on a very important statement. What the United States had feared would be a blood bath. The North Vietnamese were much too clever for that. What they did was they put many of these South Vietnamese who had been with the government, who had fought against the north, they put them in what the called reeducation centers and thousands and thousands of former Vietnamese government officials and their families. Anybody who had had anything to do with the United States or the effort against the North Vietnamese were sent to reeducation centers. They were basically concentration camps and they were in remote areas of the country and ah we didn't know what was going on and and what happened was that these people were treated horribly. They were starved, they were literally punished and they began leaving Vietnam literally to save their lives and that's what started the Boat People Movement. Ah in 1998 ah I ah I was working with my present employer The Immigration and Naturalization Administration and I was able to take an opportunity to go back to Vietnam for a special program it had took, taken 20 years to get going. And this was the program where ah the people who had fled Vietnam to the various countries of South East Asia and weren't able to get into the United Nations program, or be screened into the American program. They were sent back to Vietnam. And one of the agreements with the North Vietnamese before we before they were sent back was that the United States would be able to allow allowed to interview them one more time. And I went back with a team of ah officers and I spent three months in Saigon interviewing many of these people and I was shocked. I was shocked because I had thought that many of these people were called economic refugees. They were just leaving because they couldn't make as much money in Vietnam as they could in the United States. It turns out that these people once they had been returned to Vietnam were punished again. They were jailed. They were stripped of their right to work. They were treated as non-people and we we were able to sponsor, finally, these people on to the United States. It's one of the most heart rendering programs I've ever been in. these people had suffered for twenty years.

Billy Higgins: That's an amazing story and one that's often overlooked.

David Lewis: I had become ah weary. There was a period of time that they called it compassion fatigue that set in with the American resettlement effort. This is after ah ten, twenty years of working with the Vietnamese and I, I was there thinking it was just going to be an interesting experience and a chance to see Vietnam again and after I interviewed, I interviewed 10 families a day, 5 days a week, for one month. And each of these families ah brought to me stories I couldn't believe. They had been denied the opportunity for resettlement say in Hong Kong, or the Philippines because, you know, the program had just shut down and when they were returned to Vietnam ah they were treated as criminals and so uh fortunately we got most of those people out and I've heard word that there's another program, one coming up this year and I hope I get into that.

Joey Chambers: Mr. Lewis I wanted to ask you about Camp Chaffee again if I could.

David Lewis: Sure.

Joey Chambers: How would you say Camp Chaffee, being a military base, it's ability to give the refugees a sense of a normal day-to-day routine? Would you say it was rated good?

David Lewis: Well, this was the first experience of its kind and uh I was a little leery of several things. I had never been to Arkansas. I had never been to an Army base. I'd been in the Marine Corp but I'd never been to an Army base but it turns out that all my fears were overcome. Arkansas turned out to be a wonderful place for the Vietnamese. The climate was moderate. The people turned out to be ah ah very considerate after initial skepticism. And ah an amazing thing happened. A man who used to work in Vietnam with the Agency for International Development. The agency that I actually worked for for a while. His name is Donald McDowald? He became the senior administrator for that program. And he had authority over the military. The military were very good. They got things organized. It was very efficient. The Vietnamese were housed, clothed, and fed and initially the food was not very ah appetizing for the Vietnamese.

Billy Higgins: We heard tuna and noodles.

David Lewis: [laughs] I think over a period of time they adopted to the needs of Vietnamese and they were able to do a great job but the military does a wonderful job over all the key things was this administrator, Donald McDowell. He hired people in that were very sensitive and that worked very closely with the military and ah he coordinated the the very interesting combination of all the civilian and military people that were there.

Joey Chambers: These people that he hired, were they local people?

David Lewis: Actually, a lot of Fort Smith people were hired. A lot of openings for jobs to supplement ah the federal people who were brought into that camp and ah ah some of the people who are still in Fort Smith ah I know ended up staying in, I can think of a friend that I know right now uh Pat Hudson. Good friend of Fred Hudson who both live in Fort Smith. She worked for me in my program then she went on to work with the ah Civil Service after that. Is an official there still with the, I think the Social Security Administration. So a lot of the Fort people, people supplemented ah the ah what the feds brought in and it worked out very well.

Billy Higgins: Do you happen to know where Donald McDowell is today?

David Lewis: You know as you were saying that I was thinking about it because ah he's gotta be in his eighties now and ah I know I'm gonna try to find out ah because I used to stay in touch with him about ten years ago but I, I will do my best to hunt him up. I know that a couple of other people that have worked there have since died um and um so that's a very interesting ah question and I will get back to you on that.

Joey Chambers: What kind of jobs were the people hired for?

David Lewis: Ah clerical I think. The size of that operation was bigger than the military could handle. So I think everything from cooks to bottle washers to ah I hired all my staff were either Vietnamese or from Fort Smith, Arkansas. Now a few people came from outside. We had a lot of students that were coming to us from all over the country but ah most of the people that I hired were from Fort Smith and they did everything from uh they were administrators. We had to hire accountants. We had to hire clerks. We had uh the people who ran the radio station were all from Fort Smith. So you had a lot of technical people that that wanted to do something unique with their lives and it motivated them to get out there and some of them changed their lives forever.

Joey Chambers: What would you say the over all spirits were with the refugees? When they got there and did you see a transformation in their spirits as time went on?

David Lewis: Ah, it was incredible. In the beginning, Vietnamese are very ah subdued people. They aren't a demonstrative people. Ah so they carried within themselves the fear and heartbreak, you know, of losing their country and in most cases their family. And so a lot of this went unnoticed. I learned a lot about it from the priests who came to minister to the Catholics. A large contingent of the Vietnamese at Fort Chaffee were Catholic. They literally were 10% of the population of Vietnam, but they were 40% of the population of the refugees because most of the Catholics fled Vietnam during, as they had done in 1949 from the north. The Catholics fled from the communists in the north to Saigon and the Catholics fled again in large numbers. So, I used to talk to the Catholic priests who were sent to Fort Chaffee. Most of them were military Chaplains and they would tell me of the heartbreak and these people would talk to these priests because that's the first person they could ever say anything to. Now as time went by and the Vietnamese ah got their ah bearings ah a lot changed. They had a lot of opportunity to express their culture and music and of course getting sponsored out that was the best thing of all. So, you know, for years afterwards I would visit various cities where they were celebrating the anniversary of Fort Chaffee and the people would would become emotional. It would be like remembering September 11th. And to this day there are still celebrations every time they have a Vietnamese New Year. They still remember those days.

Billy Higgins: Wow, that's impressive.

Joey Chambers: Yes, it is. They celebrate the time they had at Chaffee or leaving Chaffee?

Billy Higgins: That's a milestone I guess.

David Lewis: I think it's like, it's like a remembrance of like ah just like a survivors remembrance and they do it at their New Years. Now there are some people who do it at the anniversary of the fall of Vietnam, which is April 25th, I think. There's a lot of celebrations around the country ah to commemorate the fall of Vietnam and that's when a lot of this, ah they have a lot of ceremonies ah I betcha if you asked around in Fort Smith you'll you will find this coming April there will be some kind of a celebration somewhere.

Billy Higgins: Wow. Did I give you Box 3649? That's the correct one.

David Lewis: You said 3946.

Billy Higgins: It's 3649. I thought I had that mixed up [laughter]

Billy Higgins: I know we are running out of time here David. There's a couple other little things. We were wondering, was there a contract signed between, you asked him that?

Joey Chambers: Yes

Billy Higgins: OK and one other student here asked your opinion on today's worldwide refugee problem.

David Lewis: Well, ah that's ah ah

Billy Higgins: Big subject

David Lewis: That's a big jump but let me tell you ah I think we're facing a, there's always a new horizon and right now ah I'm an asylum officer. I interview people everyday who come from every part of the world mostly Africa right now. Being on the East coast we get the heavy input from the ah African countries ah and there is no end of lying from people who want to escape ah the problems of their, on going in their own country. Either political or religious persecution ah so there's a continuing problem of refugees throughout the world ah I would say the bigger dilemma right now facing us is the dilemma of the Middle East. That's the one that's gonna be ah a real hard one to figure out. When we are so ignorant of the Arab civilization and the Muslem culture and right now if there's any challenge facing our country it's going to be to figure out where our relationship is with the ongoing crisis in the Middle East.

Joey Chambers: Mr. Lewis while we are wrapping it up here I just wanted to ask is there any questions that I didn't ask that are relevant to the project?

David Lewis: I just wrote down some notes earlier that I think you pretty well covered. Let me just summarize it by saying that ah there were key things involved. A lot of the recognition of Fort Chaffee, the program itself was to take care of the people and their emergency needs. But, nobody really had a vision of what to do and fortunately our government enabled a lot of people to get together that had experience from being in Vietnam. Having the experience overseas and that experience was allowed to be creative and the funding of these private, voluntary agencies by the Federal government and allowing them to take the initiative and do these things was really a miracle and they allowed people from all walks of life to come together to help these people overcome the language and cultural barriers and people who had the highest motivations gravitated towards these camps and people helped out the best they could and they didn't ask for salaries. We did end up getting paid but I volunteered to take the job literally for a lot less money than the one I had and a lot of the people who were working there were not working because of the money. They were working because they found an experience that was fulfilling and it was sort of a way to relate to the Vietnam situation that nobody had been able to relate to before. So, I think it allowed an amazing experience to happen there that was never duplicated. It was not duplicated in the Cuban program ah for different reasons. It was a remarkable event and a lot of wonderful agencies there. Church World Service, the Lutherans, the Hebrew immigration service ah IRC, Southern Baptists. They all worked together and did what they could. And a lot of unique people were there that ah individual effort made it a success. So many people it's just amazing.

Billy Higgins: I was just going to mention to you David that 25 years later. A generation later as we've explored the Vietnamese community in Fort Smith I can say that. I can echo your remarks that that was an amazing success story there because these are great contributors to the society in Fort Smith now and have a lot of those virtues that you mentioned that were nurtured instead of exterminated by this whole program and so congratulations to that and we really liked the story that you have given us today. There's a lot of things to follow up. We may be calling you back.

David Lewis: That would be my pleasure. It's the first time I've had a chance to talk about this in many years and ah it's one that's close to my heart and it's so unique that at the time we didn't understand it. And looking back on it now it's just one of those events that ah would happen that you could never duplicate.

Joey Chambers: Mr. Lewis I want to thank you it's been really educational and kind of inspiring to me too. I would mention to you that we will be sending you a release form for us to be able to post this conversation on our website.

David Lewis: Great. Joey what's your last name?

Joey Chambers: Chambers

David Lewis: What year are you there?

Joey Chambers: This is my first year

David Lewis: What's your major?

Joey Chambers: Education

David Lewis: Well, I think it's wonderful that you people are involved in this program.

Joey Chambers: It's been fascinating

David Lewis: My daughter lives in Fort Smith. She's a speech pathologist and I went back to Fort Smith for the first time in many years in December and ah so Fort Smith remains very dear to my heart.

Billy Higgins: The next time you speak to her give her our best wishes as well.

Joey Chambers: Thank you very much sir.

David Lewis: Thank you