He was the eighth of 15 children of Milton Drew "Mitt" Bowers Sr. (1850–1914), a Baptist minister and a native of Palmyra, in Montgomery County near Clarksville in northern Tennessee.
In his two consecutive bids for governor, he was defeated by the Democrats John Ellis Martineau and Harvey Parnell.
Senator Joseph T. Robinson was the vice presidential nominee on the Al Smith Democratic ticket, which won the electoral votes of Arkansas.
After eleven years in that position, also under Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bowers resigned in 1936 to enter private practice.
I recall that we persuaded him on rather short notice one day to go to Stuttgart (in Arkansas County) to try a nongovernment tort damage case in which we had filed a cross complaint for $2,500.
He then arose, handed the gavel to Mr. Bowers, and asked him to preside while he was getting a haircut and attending to some personal matters!
The jury was selected, opening statements were made by counsel, and the plaintiff had called its first witness by the time Judge Waggoner returned.
Mr. Bowers was left-handed and he had the habit of pacing in front of the jury box during argument and flinging his arms to emphasize his remarks.
[6]On October 24, 1974, the U.S. District Court in Little Rock observed "Drew Bowers Day" in honor of the attorney's 88th birthday and his sixty-one years of legal practice.