State Flower:

Apple blossom

State Bird:

Mockingbird

State Tree:

Pine

State Flag:

The diamond is symbolic of the state's jewel: the only diamond mine in the entire country. The twenty-five stars show Arkansas as the 25th stated admitted to the Union. The blue star on top designates the state as a member of the Confederacy during the Civil War. The three blue stars on the bottom show that Arkansas was the third state to emerge out of the Louisiana Purchase.

Famous Person:

William Jefferson Clinton

"Because of the hard work and high purpose of the American people, these are good times for America. . . . The state of our union is strong. But with barely 700 days left in the 20th century, this is not a time to rest; it is a time to build, to build the America within reach."

--State of the Union Address
January 27, 1998

Clinton was born on August 19, 1946, in a small town called Hope. He was named William Jefferson Blythe III after his late father who died in a car crash three months earlier. Clinton, like so many presidents before him, was fatherless in his early years. (His mother married Roger Clinton when Bill was four years old.) As a high school student, Bill Clinton went to the White House and stood in line to shake President Kennedy's hand. It was that day in the Rose Garden, he claimed, when he decided he wanted to be President. In 1968, he won a Rhodes Scholarship, which allowed him to study government at Oxford University in England. After that, he went to law school at Yale University where met his future wife, Hillary Rodham. They were married on October 11, 1975. That following year Clinton was elected Attorney General of Arkansas, and two years later, the Governor of Arkansas. In 1991 after a tough primary, Governor Clinton was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate. He and his running mate, Senator Al Gore, embarked upon a cross-country bus tour, visiting both quiet towns and clamoring cities, reaching out to common people with a town-meeting style format that focused on one point, "It's the economy, stupid." Many say that's what won him the election.