Ray Thornton

Raymond Hoyt "Ray" Thornton, Jr. (* July 16, 1928 in Conway, Arkansas) is an American lawyer and politician. Between 1973 and 1979 he represented the fourth and from 1991 to 1997, the second election district of the state of Arkansas in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Ray Thornton attended the public schools in Leola and Sheridan in Grant County. From 1945 to 1947 he studied at the University of Arkansas and then to 1950 at Yale University. Then he started at the University of Texas with a law degree. The study was interrupted by the Korean War, attended the Thornton as an officer in the U.S. Navy. After the war, he finished his law studies and was admitted in 1956 as a lawyer. Then he started in Sheridan and Little Rock to work in his new profession. Between 1956 and 1957 he was also deputy district attorney in Pulaski and Perry County.

Thornton joined the Democratic Party. From 1969 to 1970 he was member of a commission to revise the constitution of Arkansas. After that, he was from 1971 to 1973 as Attorney General Attorney General of his state. 1972 Thornton was elected as a candidate of his party in the fourth district of Arkansas in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington. There he took over from the January 3, 1973 David Pryor. After two elections Thornton could implement his mandate in Congress until January 3, 1979. In 1978, he opted not to run again. Instead, he applied unsuccessfully within his party for nomination for election to the U.S. Senate.

In the years 1979 to 1980 Thornton was on the board of the Ouachita Baptist University and Henderson State University Joint Committee. Thereafter, he served from 1980 to 1984 as president of the Arkansas State University. He practiced the same function from 1984-1990 at the University of Arkansas.

In 1990, Thornton was elected to Congress again in the second district of Arkansas, where he Tommy F. Robinson replaced on January 3, 1991. After two re- election he was able to complete a total of three legislative sessions in the House of Representatives. Two days before the expiration of his last term, he resigned on 1 January 1997, after he had renounced in 1996 to another candidacy and a judge of the Arkansas Supreme Court had been appointed. This office he held between 1997 and 2005. In 2009, Thornton was Chairman of the Arkansas Lottery Commission.