Q. Byrum Hurst

Who was Q. Byrum Hurst?

Quincy Byrum Hurst, Sr., was a Hot Springs attorney and a Democratic member of the Arkansas State Senate from 1950 to 1972. He vacated his Senate seat to run unsuccessfully against Governor Dale L. Bumpers, who won the second of his two gubernatorial terms in 1972. Hurst polled 81,239 votes, or 16.4 percent, in the party primary.

Hurst was born in Hot Springs, a resort city in central Arkansas, to Roy Hurst, a minister of the Church of God, and the former Clara Alva. He graduated from public schools there. Hurst was admitted to the Arkansas bar in 1941, having become, at twenty-three, one of the youngest men ever licensed to practice in his state. His extensive legal career took him into all seventy-five Arkansas counties and throughout the United States as well.

In 1943, he entered the United States Army. He served for the duration of World War II. On his return from military duties, Hurst was elected in 1947 as county judge, an administrative post, for Garland County, of which Hot Springs is the seat of government.

Three years later, he won his state Senate seat. He served at one time on nearly every Senate committee, particularly the Legislative Audit Committee. In 1967, Hurst was elected president pro tempore of the Arkansas Senate and served as acting governor whenever Republican Governor Winthrop Rockefeller or GOP Lieutenant Governor Maurice L. Britt were out of state at the same time.