Author to host book signing here

Sherry Laymon will be signing her book, Pfeiffer Country: The Tenant Farms and Business Activities of Paul Pfeiffer in Clay County, Arkansas 1902-1954, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5, at the Rector Community Museum, located at the back of the Rector Public Library (enter on the east side).

Pfeiffer Country is the compelling story of how Paul Pfeiffer's tenant farming model in Clay County contrasted significantly with similar operations throughout the Mississippi Delta in the early 20th century.

Pfeiffer's generosity allowed his farmers to escape the misery normally associated with the lives of other Delta tenants and sharecroppers. Pfeiffer built stylish, two-story homes for his farm families, provided barns and other farm structures to shelter their farm animals and activities and granted them land to grow a garden for their families and food crops for their livestock. He first purchased property in Clay County in 1902 and eventually owned 63,000 acres -- approximately one-third of the entire county. Laymon's account depicts the fate of tenants following the breakup of "Pfeiffer Country."

Sherry Cooke Laymon was born in Star City, Ark., moved to Heber Springs as a teenager and has lived in Arkansas all her life. She received a bachelor's degree in Political Science and master's degree in Public Administration from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Laymon earned her doctorate degree in Heritage Studies from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, wrote her doctoral dissertation on this topic and was encouraged to convert it into a book because Pfeiffer's farming model contrasted significantly from the prominent sharecropping and tenant farming operations in the South.

She has taught math and history in Arkansas schools and colleges for 18 years. She and her husband, Mark, currently reside in Hot Springs National Park, Ark.

Pfeiffer Country is available in both softcover and hardbound editions. For more information, call (870) 595-2570.