RISON - Nearly 30 years ago, Kingsland native and country music legend Johnny Cash performed a concert in the parking lot of what was then the new Kingsland Post Office.
Now, Fourth District Congressman Bruce Westerman (RHot Springs) has proposed legislation to rename that post office after the American music icon.
Westerman recently filed a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would rename the post office there as the "Kingsland 'Johnny Cash' Post Office." Kingsland is located within Westerman's Fourth District.
Cash, known as "J.R." to his family, was born Feb. 26, 1932, to Ray and Carrie Rivers Cash in the Cross Roads community about 3 miles north of Kings-land. The Cash Family left Kingsland in March 1935 to farm 40 acres in the Dyess Colony in Northeast Arkansas as part of a Depression-era New Deal farm program.
While the Cash family made trips back to Cleveland County to visit family during Johnny Cash's childhood, Johnny Cash continued to do so even after achieving his great fame. Many of those visits were for private family events but he did make a couple of public appearances after becoming a national and even worldwide figure. The first was in 1976 when he made a stop in Kingsland before taking a train to Rison to perform a concert celebrating America's Bicentennial at the Rison High School football field. He returned to Kingsland in March 1994 to hold a special concert commemorating the opening of the current Kingsland Post Office.
Sarah Henderson, communications director for Westerman, said she did not have a definitive timeline as to when the bill might be addressed in Congress, but noted that such bills typically move relatively quickly through the House of Representatives. "My hope is to see it move in the next month or so," she said.
"Most people know the legendary Johnny Cash, but some don't know that he was born in South Arkansas," Westerman said about the legislation. "This b...
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