"...No, he was not a native either of Camden or Ouachita County, and not even of Arkansas...The Fooks family moved to Camden, Arkansas in 1914, and Tyndle became a student at Camden High School, where he graduated four years later with the Class of 1918...Once he was able to obtain his business education, he was employed as a bookkeeper; however, during the early months of 1919, Fooks returned to Camden to enter into a saw mill and lumber business htat his father had estabished when the family moved to Camden.
However, Tyndle was not satifsfied in that employment and he began to feel as if he was being called to enter the ministry...After some three months of study at the Moody Institute, he decided that a career in the ministry was not something he really wanted...
He also returned to the saw mill and lumber industry where he would work for the next several years...operating out of Memphis, Tennessee...
In 1925 Fooks returned to Camden, where he purchased a service station...he sold to purchase a small soft drink bottling plant, and with that decision he embarked upon a career that would bring him national fame...
He first began to experiment with the manufacture of many different flavors for soft drinks, which he used in his own Camden plant until 1930, when he established the B.T. Fooks Manufacturing Company which was the immediate predecessor of the Grapette Company..."
Excerpts from "Benjamin Tyndle Fooks"
