By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Off the porch outside the kitchen at the Governor’s Mansion, a small plaque honors Socks, the pet cat of the Clinton first family.

The one-time stray that adopted the Clintons while they were living at the mansion in 1991 and later moved with them to the White House when Bill Clinton was elected president, was euthanized Feb. 20 after suffering from cancer.

At the time, Socks was living in Maryland with Bettie Currie, Clinton’s former White House secretary.

In March, at Currie’s request, a portion of the cat’s ashes were returned to Arkansas and sprinkled in the flower garden on the west side of the Governor’s Mansion.

“When (the Clintons) lived at the mansion that’s where Socks hung out, on the back porch there,” Ron Maxwell, administrator of the mansion, said Thursday.

Maxwell said the ashes were scattered after a small ceremony attended by a few people, including Linda Dixon of the Clinton Presidential Library and first lady Ginger Beebe, who read a poem she wrote in honor the cat.

The small urn in which the ashes were contained was later taken to the Clinton Presidential Library.

“It’s history, it’s kind of an interesting oddity for kids and whoever is interested in the cat,” Maxwell said.

The plaque notes that Socks was first cat of Arkansas from 1991 to 1993 and first cat of the United States from 1993 to 2001.

Socks was born in 1989 and was adopted by the Clintons in 1991 after he jumped into the arms of Chelsea Clinton while she was leaving the house of her piano teacher in Little Rock.

It was not clear Thursday what happened to the rest of Socks’ ashes. Dixon did not immediately returned calls seeking comment and Currie could not be reached in Maryland.