Longtime Rogers attorney Craig Campbell dies at 72

Longtime Rogers attorney Craig Campbell died at his home on April 28. He was 72.

According to his obituary, Campbell died of complications from progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a rare neurological disease that has no known cause or cure.

For nearly 40 years, Campbell was a senior partner at Matthews, Campbell, Rhoads, McClure & Thompson until he retired at the end of 2018.

Campbell moved to Rogers with his family when he was 5 years old and graduated from Rogers High School in 1969. He attended the University of Arkansas on an Army ROTC scholarship and, upon graduation, served four years in the U.S. Army Signal Corps.

Upon completion of military service, he attended and graduated from the University of Arkansas School of Law in 1979. He immediately entered private practice with his lifelong friend and brother-in-law, David Matthews, who started the practice in 1976.

“In 1963, he and I agreed that we would go to law school and come back to Rogers to start a law firm. And that is what we did,” Matthews wrote in a social media post. “I just didn’t know in 1963 that he would marry my sister in 1978 and that we would raise our kids together. Craig was simply the best at everything he did.

“All of us who knew him are forever blessed by his life. I don’t think he ever had an enemy.”

Campbell was the Benton County Juvenile Referee from 1982 to 1984. He was also a board member for the Benton County Sunshine School, Rogers Public Education Foundation (RPEF), the Adult Development Center (now Open Avenues) and the Rogers Activity Center. He was also an RPEF Wall of Distinction honoree in 2020.

“No one ever loved Rogers more or gave so freely of their time to help make its organizations that serve kids prosper,” Matthews said. “Craig’s fingerprints are all over the good things that have been provided for the youth and disadvantaged in our community for the past 40 years.”

Funeral services were held on May 4 at First Christian Church in Rogers, Campbell’s church for over 60 years.