Dick Potter

Dick Potter devoted much of his adult life to public service in Blytheville, Arkansas. Serving about ten years with the Blytheville Police Department, he was a familiar, steady presence in the community he patrolled. Though many personal details from his early life and childhood are not readily available in online public records, contemporary accounts identify him as a man who made his life in Blytheville and who left behind a close family connection — he was survived by his wife.

Colleagues and community members would have known Potter as an experienced patrolman whose day-to-day work involved helping neighbors and responding to the kinds of disputes and troubles that come with small-town life. His decade of service speaks to sustained commitment: he rose each day to perform duties that asked for calm judgment and personal courage. While the public record emphasizes his role as an officer, it’s clear that he was also a husband and a local resident whose life mattered to those who knew him.

On March 22, 1942, Potter was shot while responding to a domestic disturbance and died from his injuries the following day. The circumstances of his death were a tragic ending to a life of service; they also affected his family and the wider Blytheville community. Contemporary archival listings and officer memorial records note his End of Watch as March 22, 1942, and that he was 30 years old at the time of his passing.

Because few personal documents appear online, the fuller contours of Dick Potter’s life — his upbringing, friendships, daily habits, and private joys — are sparsely recorded in readily accessible sources. That scarcity does not diminish the human reality of his life: he was a person who worked to protect others, who shared a life with a spouse, and whose loss was felt by family and fellow citizens. Remembering him means acknowledging both his public service and the private relationships quietly left behind.

To honor his memory is to note the steadiness of his service, the role he played in his community, and the family who survived him. Though archival traces are limited, records preserve his name, his years of service, and the date of his death — lasting markers of a life that mattered to a town and to those closest to him.