our SCV camp has 3 real sons of CSA veterans!
free dixie,sw
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
Monday, December 1, 2003
Section B, Page 1
Confederate heritage claim to fame
Benton man says he is state's youngest living son of a Rebel veteran
By Rodney Bowers
Louis Fite never thought much of his father being an army veteran, even though he served the Confederate States of America.
That changed last year after Fite traveled to Arkadelphia for the rededication of a confederate statue damaged by the March 1997 tornado. At the ceremony, he was told he may be Arkansas' youngest son of a Confederate veteran.
"I walked into it blind," the 84-year-old Benton resident said of his reception at the ceremony. "Everybody wanted a piece of me. None of them had seen a true son" of a Confederate veteran.
Danny Honnoll of Jonesboro, Arkansas division commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said Fite may very well be the state's youngest son. "I think he's probably accurate," Honnoll said, noting that the state's last Rebel, William Loudermilk, died in Honnoll's hometown in 1952 at the age of 104. The nation's last Confederate veteran died seven years later, he said.
Ben Sewell, executive direction of the national organization in Columbia, Tenn., figures Fite "is definitely in the top 10" among the nations youngest sons, of which he believes there are only about 100 still living.
[snip]