Former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker will lie in state in the second floor rotunda of the state Capitol building on Friday, and flags have been ordered to be flown at half-staff in recognition of his death.
Tucker, who died Thursday, will lie in state from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.,” according to a news release from Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester’s office. “Friends, family, and the public are welcome to come and pay their respects.”
Beginning at sunrise Wednesday and ending at sunset on Monday, the United States and Arkansas flags will be flown at half-staff “in tribute to the memory of Jim Guy Tucker and as an expression of public sorrow,” Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in an order on Tuesday.
Sanders described Tucker in her order as “part of a generation of Arkansas leaders who left a deep impression on the state and whose legacy lives on.”
Tucker, who was Arkansas’ 43rd governor, died from complications of ulcerative colitis at the age of 81, according to his stepson, Lance Alworth Jr. He was born in Oklahoma City on June 13, 1943, but was raised in Little Rock.
In addition to serving as governor, Tucker was at various times the state’s lieutenant governor, a U.S. congressman, the state’s attorney general and a prosecuting attorney.