Norvell Wayne Jordan

8/7/1939 – 9/28/2025

Norvell Wayne Jordan died peacefully at home with loved ones on September 28, 2025, in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was 86 years young. Born in Prague, Oklahoma, on August 7, 1939, he was the third son of Tillman Newton and Doloros Mary (nee Wist) Jordan.

EARLY UNIONS AND CHILDREN

After two earlier marriages as a very young man, Wayne married Rita in 1969 and had three children together: Kim, Scott, and Nickii. He also became stepfather to her two children, Bobby and Brenda Yon (both now deceased). Wayne and Rita were divorced in 1983. Kim eventually married and had her own three daughters and grandchildren (Meagan, who had Aedin; Mansi, who had Gavin and Paisley; and Madison, who had Riley and Jordan), along with her step-grandchildren (Sean, Natalie, Austin, and Ashlynn), whom she adopted.

DEDICATION TO GOD AND MARRIAGE

Wayne surpassed 40 years of faithful service to his God and Creator. In the spring of 1985, after an extensive, four-year study of the Bible, he dedicated his life to Jehovah God and was baptized as one of Jehovah's Witnesses. He joined a worldwide Christian brotherhood, now worshipping in 240 lands, consisting of 9+ million Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide in almost 120,000 congregations. He regularly visited and pointed people to the website, jw.org, available in more than 1000 languages for a worldwide audience of Witnesses and all who want to learn about God. (Matt. 5:3; John 17:3) His Christian ministry was dear to his heart (1 Peter 3:15; Matt. 5:16; John 4:34; Matt. 28:19, 20; Matt 22:37-39), and he never missed an opportunity to praise his Creator and share with others the Bible's message of man's future hope under God's Kingdom. He was known for making stellar use of the jw.org business cards in his personal ministry, sharing one with everyone he met along his way.

As a Christian, Wayne enjoyed sharing the Good News of God's Kingdom with family, friends, workmates, neighbors, and the community. He found a partner in that passion, Teresa, also one of Jehovah's Witnesses. They met at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, being in the same congregation, and after a long friendship he told her, "I would like to court you with a view to marriage." She happily agreed and, after a very brief courtship they were married on April 23, 1988, at their congregation's Kingdom Hall. He became a stepfather and step-grandfather to Teresa's daughters (Jessica, mother of Joshwa, Alexzander, Michael, Nicholas, Benjamin; and Farrell, mother of Zoe, Ashton, Gabby, Mica, and Beckett).

Wayne and Teresa together enjoyed the worldwide brotherhood and public preaching work, and both appreciated the hope of the resurrection and the prospect of being able to live forever on Paradise Earth under God's Kingdom, as promised in God's Word, the Bible. (Matt. 5:5; Psalm 37:29; Psalm 104:5) They eventually built a home of Teresa's design in the middle of the woods, and there enjoyed thoroughly the beauty of God's creation, the local critters, birds, foxes, deer, family and friends, and each other during their last dozen years together in their loving home. He was indeed a keeper, and his absence leaves a hole in the home and family.

EARLY LIFE, EDUCATION, MILITARY, DISABILITY, CAREER

Though born in Oklahoma, Wayne's family soon moved to Northwest Arkansas. His father started a family grocery business for the town of Gentry, where Wayne grew up with a "Mayberry" life among a close-knit group of fast friends who kept in touch throughout the rest of their lives.

He started life as a young lad with a passion for reading and learning, which served him well for his long professional career as a journalist and writer. Beginning as a very young boy and all during his youth, he would scour the local, state, and national newspapers and any other reading material he could get his hands on, always wanting to know what was happening in his locale and the wider world around him – a passion he never lost. While still in school, he was on the staff of both his junior high and high school papers and had his own thoroughly researched essay first published in the Gentry Journal Advance, the town's weekly newspaper, at the tender age of 12 years old.

After being graduated with his small senior class at Gentry High School in 1957, he joined the U.S. Army (1958-1961) and became a Specialist E-4 with Top Security Clearance, assigned to the Top-Secret Lab at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Later, he served a stint on Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands in 1959 as the Personnel Administrator for all the Armed Forces' personnel records connected to the recent hydrogen bomb testing.

While in the army, he took college courses from North Carolina State University and the University of Chicago (IL). After his honorable discharge from the Army in January 1961, he enrolled at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, for one semester, but suffered a brain aneurism on March 30th of that year at the young age of 20 years old, which paralyzed him on the right side and from which he never fully physically recovered.

After an almost three-year recouperation period from his brain aneurism, he studied and successfully tested for a stockbroker's license. He then briefly returned to UAF on the GI Bill to pursue a business degree between 1964-1966; however, he discovered his heart was not in it. During this three-year period, he had been working in advertising for the Rogers Daily News (Rogers, AR), and as a reporter for The Arkansas Traveler and The Arkansas Times (Fort Smith, AR). He found he just wanted to write. Following his passion, he initiated contact with the Arkansas Gazette in Little Rock and was hired as a news reporter in 1966, negotiating a higher-than-usual starting salary for the time. It was the beginning of a satisfying 40-year-long journalism and media career.

After his initial start as a young reporter in Northwest Arkansas, he had an exciting 25-year career with the Arkansas Gazette, working first on the State Desk, then as an investigative reporter, and finally on the City Desk. He interviewed and wrote about people from the homeless to an American President and could adeptly report on any topic and any person from any part of society.

Due to his tenacious spirit and neutral writing style, he quickly became the key Arkansas investigative reporter during the Civil Rights period of the 1960's and 1970's, covering every uprising and controversial event in the State between 1967-1974. As a result, he many times had his life threatened by ones on both sides of the issues he covered because he refused to be biased in his reporting of the facts. He covered all school and state prison riots in the Arkansas and other prison issues, as well as all major crime, murder trials, and desegregation cases in the state. During that period, he more so than anyone developed a close professional relationship with many of the State Police Troop Commanders and troopers, as well as with all county and local law enforcement. Every sheriff's office and police department in the state knew who Wayne Jordan was. His law enforcement connections were a valuable and recognized boon to the newspaper's ability to report the news during those fractious times. Everyone knew his name and who he was and trusted his reporting of events and affairs of the state and local communities. In a personal message to Wayne at the front of the book The Need for Knowledge Based Journalism, Informing the News (2013), the author, Thomas Patterson wrote, "Wayne – With appreciation for your interest in the quality of our news. Best Wishes, Tom Patterson."

During that time, he was dubbed and became known as "Iron Leg" by the Arkansas State troopers he encountered and reported on during those volatile times. His moniker was based on the metal brace he wore on his right leg, as well as his steely tenacity as a determined reporter. He was a brilliant storyteller and would often regale friends and family during his retirement years with detailed stories of his being in the throes of civil unrest while maintaining a neutral stance as a dedicated reporter. He thoroughly enjoyed his decades-long, wide-ranging experience working for "The Old Gray Lady" in downtown Little Rock, and admiringly he remembered and recounted details of many stories long after they had been published.

Wayne's colleague at the Arkansas Gazette and nationally known Arkansas political cartoonist, George Fisher, created an illustration of Wayne as "Iron Leg" in the late 1970's as part of Fisher's host of professional work. Wayne was also one of the stalwart reporters consulted and interviewed during the research of Dr. Donna Lampkin Stephens for her book, If it Ain't Broke, Break It: How Corporate Journalism Killed the Arkansas Gazette (2015). In a 2016 personal message to him, she credited him as being her inspiration and "the reason this book exists." She had been a co-worker of Wayne's in the last almost-seven years of the life of the paper and had also previously helped create the documentary film, "The Old Gray Lady, Arkansas' First Newspaper" in 2006. In addition, he was interviewed and quoted in other professional works of media colleagues, including: "Looking Back at the Arkansas Gazette – An Oral History," by Roy Reed (2009).

Not long after the Arkansas Gazette closed its doors on October 19, 1991, Wayne was hired as a reporter by the state's rival newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat; which had by that time bought the assets of the Gazette and rebranded itself as the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. After a couple of years, he and his wife opened a resume writing business and a temporary agency and ran them until he was personally recruited in 1994 by the Director of the Arkansas State Police (ASP) to fill their newly created position of Media Specialist. He worked in that position for four years before moving to the ASP Crimes Against Children Division as a statistician for eight years. His final retirement from employment was from the ASP in October of 2006.

Due to his long and lively career in journalism, Wayne was selected in 2000 to be interviewed by reporter and author, Ernie Dumas, for the "Arkansas Gazette Project" for The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. His interview and others were collected to preserve the history of the "oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi." They are all still available to the public at the University and online at pryorcenter.uark.edu/project.php?thisProject=2.

DEARLY MISSED AND FUTURE HOPE

Wayne will be fiercely missed every day, and his family and friends look forward to seeing his smiling face and hearing his storytelling (at which he was so very good) when he is resurrected to the Paradise Earth in the coming New System under God's Kingdom. (John 5:28; Isaiah 25:8; Acts 24:15; Psalm 37:11, 29; Rev. 21: 3,4; John 16:33; Matt. 6:10) His faith in Jesus' ransom sacrifice and the reality of Jehovah's Heavenly Kingdom was unwavering, and his hope for the future was, and still is, bright. (John 3:16; John 14:6; Matt. 11:28-30)

His and Teresa's regular last words to each other upon parting were one saying, "I love you. If I don't see you in this system …," and the other answering, "I'll see you in the next. I love you." (Many "I love you" statements followed.) Poignantly and appropriately, these were actually among the very last words they spoke to one another before Wayne fell asleep in death. He died poetically at the end of a special public talk, "An End to War – How?," being given not only at their Kingdom Hall congregation meeting, but also being presented worldwide for all of Jehovah's Witnesses and interested ones attending the meetings. Moments after he died, a song rang out declaring, "Come! Be Refreshed" – a comforting theme for his widow, who looks forward to seeing him "in the resurrection on the last day." (John 11:23-27)

PRE-DECEASED AND SURVIVING LOVED ONES

He was pre-deceased by his parents, both of his brothers, Tillman Newton Jordan, Jr, and Leon Jordan, as well as a stepson and stepdaughter, Bobby and Brenda Yon.

He is survived by his wife of 37 and a half years, Teresa Lynn (nee Farrell) Jordan, five children (*two step) and five spouses, 13 grandchildren (*10 step) and two spouses, nine great-grandchildren (*four step), his previous wife of 14 years, Rita Mae (nee Mack) Yon, and his niece, Mary (nee Jordan) Yates and her family. He loved them all so dearly. CHILDREN: Kim Novella (nee Jordan) Criswell and Steve; Scott Dewayne Jordan and Allison (nee Mathis); Nickii LaReta (nee Jordan) Allen and Josh; *Jessica Lee (nee Fulton) Squirrel and Jim; and *Farrell Elizabeth (nee Fulton) Bearden and Steven. GRANDCHILDREN and spouses: Meagan (nee Crow) Shahan; Mansi (nee Crow) Farr and Logan; Madison Crow with Marty Peoples; *Joshwa Wilson; *Alexzander Wilson; *Michael Wilson; *Nicholas Wilson; *Benjamin Squirrel; *Zoe (nee Wilson) Rogers and Robert; *Ashton Bearden; *Gabby Cates; *Mica Wilson; and *Beckett Bearden. GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN: Aedin Shahan; Gavin Farr; Paisley Farr; Riley Jordan; Jordan Peoples (his namesake, born on his 80th birthday); *Sean Waters; *Natalie Waters; *Austin Waters; and *Ashlynn Davenport.

FUNERAL MEMORIAL ARRANGEMENTS

A memorial talk will be held on November 8, 2025, at 10 a.m. at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses at 14800 Hinson Road in Little Rock, AR 72211. Those unable to attend in person may Zoom in with the following link: https://tinyurl.com/Wayne-Jordan

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