Biography: Anita Baker Reasoner of Little Rock, formerly of Pine Bluff, died May 28, 2006 in Little Rock of complications from a stroke she suffered on May 19. She was born Helen Anita Baker in Shawnee, Oklahoma, September 1, 1909, the daughter of William Earl and Lucille McNeill Baker. She was predeceased by her parents, her husband Houck William Reasoner, her brother Dayle McNeill Baker of San Antonio, Tex., her granddaughters Anita Caroline Reasoner Grafton and Martha Amelia Reasoner and twin grandsons, William Baker Reasoner and Houck William Reasoner III. She grew up in Kingsland, Cleveland County, Ark., and attended Drury College in Springfield, Mo., and Ouachita Baptist College in Arkadelphia She graduated from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles with a music degree and did post-graduate work at Pepperdine College, Occidental College at Glendale and Peabody College, Nashville. Anita married Mr. Reasoner of Delaware, Ark. at First Methodist Church, Fordyce, on her birthday in 1929. They moved with their son from Clarendon to Pine Bluff in 1945 when Mr. Reasoner became principal and coach at the First Ward School. The Reasoners moved to Little Rock in 1967. Anita became involved in a piano repertoire group and joined First United Methodist Church and became a pianist for the Bethell Class. Mr. Reasoner died in August 1980. Mrs. Reasoner taught piano in Dumas, Clarendon, Harrisburg, Pine Bluff and Little Rock. While a resident of Pine Bluff, she taught choral reading, sight reading and music appreciation and was head of the music program for the Pine Bluff public schools. Also, she directed productions, including the "Nutcracker" for primary school students, a Stephen Foster program and several May Day festivals featuring music from different countries. One of her students, Catherine Young Cockrill, has remembered her saying that music was what kept her going in life and kept her in good health. Another one of her students, Chelsea Clinton, was the recipient of the gift from Mrs. Reasoner of a cat she named Socks, who later lived in the White House. For many years she enjoyed annual trips to New York to see Metropolitan Opera productions. Her traveling companions to those and other events were usually her close friends Eloise Smith, Elizabeth Gregg Young, Stella Boyle Smith and Lucy Lockett Cabe. Mrs. Reasoner was a member of the Little Rock Musical Coterie, the Central Arkansas and National Music Teachers Associations, the Arkansas Symphony Society Orchestra Guild, the Little Rock Community Theatre, the Arkansas Opera Theatre Guild (now Friends of Wildwood Park for the Performing Arts), Friends of the Arts at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the Fine Arts Club of the Arkansas Arts Center. She is survived by her son Houck W. Reasoner, Jr. and wife Eleanor Armistead Reasoner of Little Rock; two grandsons, Armistead Marshall Reasoner and wife Teena, of Lynchburg, Va., and Stephen Lawrence Reasoner II and wife Amy of Little Rock; and three great-grandchildren, Laura Katherine Grafton, Sarah Elizabeth Grafton and Jacob Eldridge Reasoner. A memorial service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, June 6, at First United Methodist Church officiated by Reverend Michael Mattox and The Very Reverend Henry Hudson. Interment of cremated remains will follow in Mount Holly Cemetery. Cremation and service arrangements are by Ruebel Funeral Home. www.ruebelfuneralhome.com