Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame: June B. Freeman, Advocate for the Arts

June B. Freeman

June Biber Freeman’s lifelong love for the arts led her to become an influential and supportive member of Arkansas’ growing arts scene. Although she isn’t an Arkansas native, Freeman laid down roots at a young age, and dedicated her life to bettering the state through the arts.

Freeman was born and raised in New Jersey. She attended the University of Chicago where she earned a Bachelor’s of Science. After the first two years of a fixed curriculum, students were allowed to focus on “great books of the Western world.” Freeman took courses in the physical and biological sciences for the remainder of her undergraduate education. On Saturdays, she traveled to the Chicago Art Institute for studio art classes.

After graduation, a friend suggested she consider a Ph.D program in clinical psychology; she applied and was accepted. She completed a year, then married Edmond Freeman. At the end of Freeman’s second year of studies, she moved to Pine Bluff with her husband, which ended her studies.

She took the master’s level exam in Arkansas and earned a Psychological Examiner’s license.

“As a newcomer to Arkansas, I missed [Chicago’s museums],” Freeman said. “The community was like a ‘cultural desert’ from my point of view. [I] decided to do something about it.”

And that she did. Freeman noticed an abandoned Works Progress Administration fire station owned by the city and thought it just might be a perfect fit for an arts center.

“The Junior Auxiliary was looking for a place to hold an art class and I suggested they check to see if the city would allow the use of the station,” Freeman said. “The answer was yes.”

A year later when she became chair of the art class committee, Freeman moved ahead with her idea. She named it the Little Firehouse Community Arts Center (LFCAC) and within a few years, Freeman developed a schedule of public classes in the visual and performing arts, created a gallery in the room where the firemen had slept and curated exhibits. In addition, the LFCAC offered a foreign film series, booked and sold 800 tickets for a traveling puppet theater and more.

In 1966 Freeman was replaced by a paid director and the LFCAC morphed into Southeast Arkansas Arts and Science Center, whose board Freeman later chaired and served.

In 1975, Freeman was hired by Townsend Wolfe as the Arkansas Arts Center’s director of state services — a job she held for the next five years. During her time there, she was responsible for keeping the resources of the Arts Center circulating so that people around the state could enjoy them in their own communities.

“I was responsible for the Artmobile which traveled all 75 counties within a two-year period,” she said. “I curated its onboard exhibits. I oversaw the [traveling children’s theater] Tell-a-Tale Troupe, an art teacher, a dance instructor, travelling exhibits workshops and more. I loved my job.”

She also put together “Person, Space and Place,” a conference which attracted participants from around the state, and visited many communities, helping them develop places for the arts and find ways to fund them. At the time, except for Pine Bluff, there were no other arts centers in the state, Freeman said.

But the arts weren’t Freeman’s only passion. She helped begin Pine Bluff Sister Cities, which joined Iwai City, Japan, with Pine Bluff as sister cities in 1984. She became involved with the initiative after a visit to the Boston Children’s Museum while working for the AAC.

“There, on permanent display, was a merchant’s house from Japan, given to the city by its Japanese sister city,” she said. “Both were members of Sister Cities International. At the time, Pine Bluff had become an international port city and was home to Century Tube, a Japanese firm. I decided that Pine Bluff was prime for a sister city.”

Thanks to Freeman’s efforts, Pine Bluff became the first community in Arkansas to have a sister city. Her involvement didn’t end there; Freeman visited Japan five times, helped to raise money to send a group of city councilmen and the mayor to Iwai, facilitated student exchanges and hosted officials from Iwai in Pine Bluff. Pine Bluff Sister Cities also sponsored a gathering highlighting trade and international friendship featuring Governor Bill Clinton and Senator Dale Bumpers.

“When I expressed interest in developing a Japanese garden at the Civic Center, Iwai’s mayor responded — not with advice,” Freeman said. “Instead, he sent two Japanese gardeners and $50,000 to create one.”

Of Freeman’s many accomplishments, she says launching and directing the Architecture and Design Network lecture series would be high on her list of most rewarding experiences.

“I have worked with some wonderful people,” she said. “I have felt like a member of a community. I am and have been fortunate in many ways. I have a wonderful family — a loving, supportive husband and four children who have have always come first. We have six grandchildren, four of whom have graduated from college and two more who are working on their undergraduate degrees.”

When she isn’t volunteering her time and coming up with ideas to help make life better for others, Freeman enjoys traveling. Her busy life is divided between book club, Aesthetic Club, household chores and spending time in Santa Fe, where she and her husband have had a condo for nearly 30 years.

Discover more about the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame Class of 2017.