Townsend was born on July 30, 1914, in West Point, Mississippi, and raised in Earle, Arkansas.
He enlisted in the United States Army during World War II and while serving overseas studied at the University of Nottingham.
(Jerry Jewell, a dentist and fellow COCA member, was elected to the Arkansas Senate that same year.)
He served twelve terms of office through 1997, declining to seek reelection in 1996 on advice from his doctors.
He sponsored bills that led to free kindergarten, minimum wages and benefits for school staff, rescindment of the state tax on prescription drugs for senior citizens, and recognition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a state holiday.
[2] The optometric association named him Optometrist of the Year in 1981 and continues to award an annual student scholarship in his honor.