William Carl Garner, resident engineer at Greers Ferry Lake for decades and namesake of its visitors center, died Sunday at 99. Funeral arrangements will be by Olmstead Funeral Home in Heber Springs.

The lake construction began in 1959 and Garner became the Army Engineers’ resident engineer in 1962. He won national acclaim for his shoreline cleanup campaign, begun in 1970. He retired in 1996 after 58 years with the Corps.

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He was on the podium with President John F. Kennedy when the president dedicated the dam that created the lake Oct. 3, 1963. It was the last public work the president dedicated before his assassination in Dallas.

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