Background
Ellis was born in a farmhouse without electricity, and he remembered the trips to the local power company office with his father, who "pleaded with them to build lines into the hill country where we lived. "
(exciting story of rural electrification - photo illustrat...)
exciting story of rural electrification - photo illustrated...
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congressman general manager politician U S Representative
Ellis was born in a farmhouse without electricity, and he remembered the trips to the local power company office with his father, who "pleaded with them to build lines into the hill country where we lived. "
Ellis, the oldest of nine children, worked his way through high school in three years and began teaching in the rural schools near Garfield in 1927.
For three summers he sold Bibles in the eastern states in order to earn tuition for college.
In 1928 and 1929 he studied at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
Ellis was superintendent of schools in Garfield from 1929 to 1934.
He later attributed his lifelong devotion to the rural electrification program to this early struggle with an electric power monopoly.
He was admitted to the Arkansas bar in 1933 and practiced law in Garfield and Bentonville, Arkanas.
In 1938, Ellis defeated the incumbent Claud A. Fuller by 121 votes in the election for the United States House of Representatives.
Ellis represented Arkansas's Third District in Congress for two terms, serving from 1939 to 1943.
He resumed his post at NRECA in 1945.
He often battled private utility companies, accusing them of overcharging their customers and trying to "kill off" the cooperatives.
Ellis suffered a massive heart attack and stroke in the summer of 1965, from which his doctors initially feared he would not recover.
He was also a special consultant to Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Freeman during 1968.
In 1977 he returned to the Department of Agriculture and was employed there until his retirement in 1979.
(exciting story of rural electrification - photo illustrat...)
A Democrat, he was elected to the Arkansas General Assembly in 1932 at age twenty-three.
Quotations: He also criticized the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower and in a speech delivered at NRECA's annual meeting in 1959 said, "This is a Wall Street-oriented big-business Administration through and through and I tell you it's the most powerful enemy any consumer-owned enterprise ever had. "
Quotes from others about the person
On his retirement from the NRECA in 1968, Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey told Ellis, "Every time I see a light in rural America, it is a tribute to you. "
He married Izella Baker on December 20, 1931; they had two children. They were divorced in 1964. He returned to his work at NRECA after his convalescence, however, and on September 23, 1966, he married Camille Waldron Fitzhugh.