XV Men's Club

The XV Men's Club is a fifteen member invitation-only Little Rock group established on January 7, 1904. The founders of the club were Harmon L. Remmel, Carl Voss, Charles Ferguson, and Charles McKee. XV (pronounced "ex-vee") was modeled after a similar club then operating in Pine Bluff.

XV Club members wear tuxedos to fifteen dinners each year, smoke ceremonial cigars, and abstain from alcohol. Each dinner is attended by a speaker drawn from the membership who delivers a well-researched address on a topic of their choice. The event is to be, in the words of one founder, "cultured but not too cultured, literary but not too literary, political but not too political, scientific but not too scientific, funny but not too funny, serious but not too serious." The first educational topic, discussed at an XV meeting on January 18, 1904, was the Panama Canal.

The current members of XV are Fred Harrison, French Hill, Dean Kumpuris, Richard Arnold, Henry Hudson, Haskell Dickinson, Walter Hussman, Henry Thomas, Charles Witsell, Robert Brown, Bobby Tucker, Drew Kumpuris, Phil Anderson, Gus Walton, and Howard Cockrill.

References

• Scott A. Johnson, "A Century of XV: Low-Profile Men's Club Opens Up a Bit to Celebrate its 1904 Founding and Friendship," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, January 18, 2004.