Buddy Wray Remembered

Donald E. “Buddy” Wray and Leland Tollett worked together for nearly 50 years at Tyson Foods Inc. Besides Don Tyson — whose father John W. Tyson founded the company in 1935 — they had more to do with the growth and success of the Springdale company than any other two who ever worked there.

“Many, many people left their marks on the company,” said Gerald Johnston, a former CFO of Tyson Foods who retired in 1996 after 26 years. “But if you ask almost anybody who was involved in Tyson Foods, who was the most instrumental in its success, it’s always those three names.”

That’s why Tollett showed up unannounced at Wray’s Springdale home on a Sunday afternoon in January 2009. Tollett, the company’s president and CEO from 1991 to 1995, and chairman and CEO from 1995 to 1998, had just come from the company’s headquarters, where Don Tyson had successfully persuaded Tollett out of retirement to serve as the company’s temporary president and CEO.

Strategic guidance of the old-school variety was needed when Dick Bond abruptly resigned, following a year that saw the company’s stock drop 42 percent in the wake of a mishmash of weaker demand, excessive commodity prices and oversupply.

 “When I was asked to come back and straighten out that company in 2009,” Tollett recalled, “we spent a couple of hours talking in [Tyson’s] office and he finally said, ‘I want you back here in the morning.’ I said, ‘I’ll be here.’”

“I left his office and my very next stop was Buddy Wray’s house. I told him I was going back [to Tyson Foods] and see if we can’t fix this thing and I want you to go down there and help me. He said, ‘Man, count me in.’ We had that kind of relationship. I felt confident that all I had to do was stop at his house and tell him that we were going to meet real early that Monday morning and see if we can’t fix this thing. And we did. In record time.”

After nine months as interim company leader, Tollett retired again for good when the company hired Donnie Smith as president and CEO.

Wray, though, continued to serve the only company he ever worked for as executive vice president and special assistant to Smith until 2014, giving him a career that spanned more than 50 years.

Wray, who joined Tyson Foods in 1961 as a field representative and was its president and chief operating officer when he retired in 2000, died Jan. 18 at Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville. He was 78.

According to his family, Wray battled heart disease for more than 40 years. Hundreds of mourners gathered Jan. 25 for a memorial service at the Robinson Avenue Church of Christ in Springdale, where Wray served as an elder and a deacon.

“In your life, you have lots of acquaintances, but you only have a few friends that are real friends,” Johnston said. “And Buddy was a great friend. I knew it would be tough, but it’s hurting a little bit more than I thought it would. He is going to be missed by a lot of people.”

 

Building a Company

Both inducted into the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame in 2012, Tollett and Wray first met in the summer of 1955 at Southern State College (now Southern Arkansas University) in Magnolia, prior to Tollett’s sophomore year.

Wray was an incoming freshman from the east Arkansas town of Des Arc, who was set to join the college’s football team.

“Me and a friend were walking to the chow hall to have dinner, and here comes this big ol’ boy driving down the street in a car,” Tollett recalled. “Now, in our culture, you were either rich or poor. Rich, you had a car. Poor, you didn’t. Buddy’s father was in the automobile business in Des Arc, and when he came to school, he brought a right nice car with him. So we decided right then that [Wray] would be our friend.”

Wray and Tollett both eventually transferred to the University of Arkansas, where Tollett earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in animal science. He took a job in 1959 as director of research and nutrition for what was then Tyson Feed and Hatchery Inc.

Wray also earned his bachelor’s degree in animal science and was working on his master’s when he accepted a position with Tyson in 1961 as a field representative working with producers, acting as a liaison between the company and contract family farmers to ensure their flocks were healthy and growing well. He later moved into a variety of management positions, initially at the company’s second plant in Rogers, and later as manager of the first processing plant in Springdale.

“We both got there at a period of time where we got to grow the company and be exposed to just about every facet of the business,” Tollett said. “And Buddy was a key player in building the company into a world-class multi-protein company. He was smart and adaptive and very, very loyal. We had senior executives and budding executives with a chance to go other places, but in Buddy’s case, it never got to the point where he thought about leaving.”

Wray was instrumental in acquisitions, product development, sales and marketing, and expanded the company’s offerings from fresh chicken into prepared foods such as chicken nuggets and patties through the 1970s and ’80s.

“I don’t think I ever met anybody that gave more of his time and more of his dedication to Tyson Foods,” Johnston said. “He spent the time to study the numbers and the processes and the operations so that he was prepared. In any meeting that he went in to, he had the facts to back up all the things he said.”

Johnston said Wray’s dedication carried over to everything he did, from his family, to his church and various civic contributions.

It also included Wray’s attendance at Arkansas Razorback football games. Johnston said the two men attended games together at Razorback Stadium for 40 years, and Wray’s devotion to the team was never in question.

“We could be getting beat pretty bad, and Buddy would still be in his seat and I would be telling him goodbye,” he joked. “I never remember him leaving a game early. I can’t say he stayed until the end because I was already gone, but I don’t think he ever left early.”

 

Leading by Example 

Wray was named chief operating officer of Tyson Foods in 1992 and oversaw all operations, including live poultry production, processing and sales. He was promoted to president the following year, and served as a member of the board of directors from 1994 to 2003.

Joe T. Ford, the former chairman, CEO and founder of global communications giant Alltel Corp., was a pledge brother of Wray’s in the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity at the UA. The two remained lifetime friends — and both are members of the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame — and Ford pointed to Wray’s people skills as his best skillset in the business arena.

“I think most people that are successful in business have one trait that is really common, and that is the ability to deal with people properly,” he said. “A lot of people have technical skills and all that, but without people skills, you will not be able to accomplish all the things you would like to accomplish. Buddy had people skills and could deal with any type person, whether you were running the corporation or were [working] on the assembly line. He could get along and blend in with any type person.

“He was just a wonderful person. And a wonderful friend. One of the finest friends that anybody could ever have.”

Wray was well thought of throughout the poultry industry. In 1999, the members of the Arkansas Poultry Federation gave him their highest honor by naming him the organization’s “Man of the Year.”

Gary George, chairman of Springdale-based poultry business George’s Inc., remembered Wray, the businessman, as a fierce competitor, as well as great family man of high integrity.

“That’s how my father [Gene George] and I knew him,” George said. “My father, of course, knew him a lot longer, but he had a great respect for Buddy. My father expressed that to me many times. We just respected him as a person.”

Besides his 50 years of service to Tyson Foods, Wray was also a dedicated community leader in Northwest Arkansas. He was committed to a number of civic endeavors including the Jones Trust, where he was a recipient of the Friends of Bernice Award, the Endeavor Foundation, Arvest Bank-Springdale and the Care Foundation. Other boards benefitting from Wray’s attention included the National Chicken Council, the Arkansas Poultry Federation and the International Foodservice Manufacturers Association.

“Buddy was always generous with his time and energy and finances and friendship,” said Springdale businessman and private investor Dennis Shaw. “Buddy, in my opinion, was one of the best and the brightest in leading by example. He was always one of the first to commit to projects that benefitted others. He is going to be missed in that regard.”

 

A Legacy Left Behind

Wray’s legacy at his alma mater will be enduring in several areas.

In 2004, a gift from Tyson Foods was used to endow the Donald “Buddy” Wray Chair in Food Safety in the Dale Bumpers College of Agriculture.

The Bumpers College named Wray its outstanding alumnus in 2000; the animal science department did the same in 2001.

Wray was also a passionate alumni of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity — or Pike. He was heavily involved in fundraising for the $7.6 million renovation of the Pike chapter house on the UA campus, which was originally built more than 60 years ago.

Wray was Pike president during his senior year at the UA, as was Shaw during his senior year of 1968.

“He helped us coordinate the fundraising effort, and he was the backbone of that project, I always thought,” Shaw explained. “It probably wouldn’t have happened without the reality of what Buddy was able to do and his expertise.”

The UA dedicated the renovated house on Arkansas Avenue last April. Wray was one of six men who cut the ribbon.

“He was a great leader, but didn’t always have to be out front,” said Little Rock advertising executive Shelby Woods, a friend and fraternity brother of Wray’s. Woods is chairman emeritus of what is today known as CJRW, one of the region’s largest advertising, public relations and marketing agencies. “He was just willing to do what was necessary. I would characterize him as a gracious leader.”