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Names Omitted From Hallowed Senior Walk At UA

The famed Senior Walk at the University of Arkansas that contains names of graduates dating back almost 140 is incomplete and will have to be redone.

More than 30 graduates in the class of 2012 who had signed up to be included among the engraved names on the campus sidewalk the university advertises worldwide were inadvertently left off.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports the oversight is attributed to the conversion from paper graduation applications to online submissions.

The applications, completed about a year before the expected graduation date, includes a release form on which prospective graduates can give permission to include their names and state exactly how they want them to appear.

Apparently, collating the paper applications with those done online caused the 334 names to fall through the cracks, so to speak.

The tradition, which is the only one of its kind in the U-S, started when members of the 1905 class scrawled their names in wet cement. Later, all the classes dating back to 1876 were added retroactively.

The process as it’s done these days costs as much as 375-thousand dollars a year. The omission of the names from last year’s class will add an additional 75-thousand dollars to correct.

David Wallace was a reporter and anchor for UA Little Rock Public Radio from 1991 to March 2021.