Our Arklahoma Heritage: Clarksville graduate Ralphie May was larger than life...literally and figuratively

n the the late 1980's, when Clarksville was a gowing town of peach orchards, Friday night football, and not much else, a kid named Ralph Duren May learned early that laughter was the best way out of a hard knock life.

Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on February 17, 1972, Ralphie was raised in Clarksville as the youngest of four in a broke, broken home. His mom worked as a florist; his parents fought over child support; and thank goodness for Grandma, who crocheted quilts, kept shoes on their feet, and taught young Ralphie that even white trash could stitch something beautiful out of scraps.

"It was a hard life growing up," Ralphie told the Arkansas Times in 2012. "Similar story to a lot of people in Arkansas."

But Clarksville also gave him his first stage: a Methodist youth rally talent show at age 13. He crushed it—jokes about Vanna White being the dumbest person on TV and the awkwardness of clapping for Def Leppard's one-armed drummer Rick Allen. Reward? His first kiss, from a 14-year-old girl from Alabama.

"I'll never forget it," he grinned.

By 17, he'd won a contest to open for his idol, Sam Kinison, in Fayetteville. Kinison loved the Def Leppard bit so much he told the teen to move to Houston and hone his craft. Ralphie did, graduating Clarksville High School, surviving a horrific car wreck at 16 that broke 42 bones, and never forgetting where he came from.

"Growing up in Clarksville, Little Rock was Tinseltown," he later joked.

He called his hometown "a weird existence," mining it for material about "poor white trash" realizing they're "the lowest rung on the social ladder of America."

Razorback red ran in his blood—he'd never charge for a show in Arkansas because, as his nephew Samson Tamijani remembered, "he identified with the state and the Razorbacks just as anyone else did."

National fame hit in 2003 when Ralphie finished second on the first season of Last Comic Standing, and many fans still swear he was robbed. Suddenly, the 400-pound kid from Johnson County was everywhere: four Comedy Central specials (Girth of a Nation, Prime Cut, Austin-Tatious, Too Big to Ignore), two Netflix hours (Unruly, Imperfectly Yours), standing ovations on Leno, and tours that sold out 3,000-seat venues.

He was vulgar, fearless, racially insensitive on purpose, and hilariously self-aware. "I'm a politically incorrect, culturally controversial comic," he'd say, "but at least I'm self-aware."

Married to fellow comedian Lahna Turner in 2005, he had two kids named April June and August James, and battled weight, health scares, and the road. On October 6, 2017, at just 45, Ralphie died in Las Vegas from hypertensive cardiovascular disease after fighting pneumonia.

He'd just won Casino Comedian of the Year at Harrah's, where he held residency. His body came home to Clarksville; he's buried at Oakland Memorial Cemetery under Arkansas sky.

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Eight years later, pull up any Ralphie special and you'll hear Clarksville in every punchline through the the drawl, the defiance, and the joy in turning pain into belly laughs.

As he once put it, his grandma taught him to quilt a life from scraps. Ralphie May did just that, stitching a small-town Arkansas boy into one of comedy's biggest legends.