ANDREE ROAF

Andree Yvonne Layton Roaf was born in Nashville, Tenn., on March 31, 1941 to William W. Layton and Phoebe A. Layton. She had two siblings, Mary J. Layton and Serena Davis.

Judge Roaf attended public schools in Columbus, Ohio, and Whitehall and Muskegon Heights, Mich., and graduated from Michigan State University with a B.S. in Zoology in 1962.

In 1975, she took a job with NCTR in Jefferson County as a research scientist. Also that year, she entered the University of Arkansas' School of Law with four children at home. Judge Roaf graduated with High Honors from UALR in 1978 where she was Articles Editor on the UALR Law Journal. She taught at UALR Law School for a year, then had a general practice in a Little Rock law firm for 16 years.

Judge Roaf was a member of the Arkansas Court of Appeals from Jan. 1997 through Dec. 2006. Governor Mike Huckabee (Rep.) appointed her to the Court of Appeals in 1997 after she served two years on the Arkansas Supreme Court as an appointee of Governor Jim Guy Tucker (Dem.).

Judge Roaf was the first African-American woman to sit on both courts, and the second woman to sit on the Arkansas Supreme Court. Judge Roaf became the first African-American female elected to an Arkansas appellate court and one of the first three African Americans elected to the Court of Appeals in 2000.

Judge Roaf retired from the Court of Appeals in December 2006. On May 30, 2007, she was named the Director of the federal Office of Desegregation Monitoring to oversee the desegregation cases in the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski school districts.

Judge Roaf served on the boards of the Arkansas Student Loan Authority, VOCALS, Friends of KLRE (public radio station), Arkansans for the Arts, PTA Boards when her children were in school in Pine Bluff, and the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and CASA Boards of Trustees. She was recognized as one of Arkansas' Top 100 Women for five consecutive years and received both a distinguished alumni award and an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Michigan State University. She was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 1996. Judge Roaf served on the American Bar Association Accreditation Committee. In addition, she published scholarly papers in both legal and scientific journals.

Judge Roaf was a member of the American, National and Arkansas Bar Associations, the W. Harold Flowers Law Society, the Arkansas Bar Foundation and the American Bar Foundation. She was also an active member of Grace Episcopal Church in Pine Bluff. She was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

Judge Roaf received the Gayle Pettus Pontz Award for Outstanding Arkansas Woman Attorney in 1996 and was selected as the Hackley Distinguished Lecturer (Muskegon, Mich.) in 1997.

In addition to her many academic and professional accomplishments, Judge Roaf was an avid reader and amateur genealogist. She also enjoyed traveling and visited countries including England, Ireland, Estonia, France, Canada, Ghana, Senegal, Kenya and South Africa. Notwithstanding her travels to these wonderful places, her destination of choice was her family home in Millwood (Clarke County), Va. Judge Roaf and her husband planned to retire next year to the newly renovated family home in Millwood that had been a haven for six generations of the Layton family.

Survivors include her husband of 45 years, Dr. Clifton Roaf, a Pine Bluff dentist; her mother, Phoebe Layton of Washington, D.C.; one sister, Mary Layton of Washington, D.C.; two daughters, Phoebe Roaf of New Orleans, La., and Mary Roaf of Pine Bluff, ; two sons, William Roaf of Orange County, Calif., and Andrew Roaf of Forrest City; one daughter-in-law, Carla McCoy-Roaf of Pine Bluff; five sisters-in-law, Ophelia Melvin, Maeola Jeffers, and Joetta Edwards of Pine Bluff, Lucille Early of Little Rock, and Eddie Jean Ward of Los Angeles, Calif.; nine grandchildren; cousins, other relatives, many friends and her beloved cat, Scrappy Lou Roaf.

Her father, William Layton, and a sister, Serena Davis, predeceased her.

Her services will be Sunday, July 5, 2009, at Grace Episcopal Church by the Rev. Cheryl Clark at 4 p.m. Visitation will be from 1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the church.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be sent to the Josephine School Community Museum, 303 Josephine Street, Berryville, Va., 22611 and the Jefferson County Humane Society, PO Box 2233, Pine Bluff, Ark., 71613.