Senate candidates discuss UCA ties

District 30 State Senate candidates Gilbert Baker (R-Conway) and Joe White (D-Conway) are waging the most expensive campaign in the state. They've found a few issues on which they differ and are likely to come up with a few more as the race heats up, but they both admit to owing a lot, professionally and personally, to the University of Central Arkansas.

Baker, the incumbent candidate, was hired as a percussion instructor in 1978 at age 22. The university gave him the job at an exceptionally young age, he said, and he considers it a second alma matter.

"During the time I taught I served as an academic adviser and then finally as an administrator, as associate dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications," he said. "This college was created in the late '90s and I was associate dean for a year or two."

He stuck with UCA until, in 2000, he was elected to the Arkansas Senate and retired early.

"I loved teaching, but I felt like I could be a stronger advocate for UCA at the legislature, not still being on the payroll," he said.

"It just was my first professional career. It allowed me to be part of a wonderful community here in Conway and allowed me to serve in a lot of community entities and be part of a community. From there I was able to move into politics and help UCA from a different perspective.

"Since my very first session in 2001, I've tried very hard to follow (former Sen.) Stanley Russ' lead; any discretionary funding that I have influence over I send to higher education in general and UCA in particular because it benefits the state, it benefits our area. It's been a great path to follow and I intend to keep following it."

Joe White says he owes nothing short of his existence in Conway to the institution. His grandfather, William White, and parents Clarence and Mamie White were employed by Arkansas State Teacher's College (later to become UCA) during the Great Depression.

"My grandfather worked on maintenance and grounds at ASTC and my mom and dad worked in the cafeteria there. My father's family lived on the campus for a number of years, and immediately following the Great Depression they had great hardship there."

Joe White attended grades one through six at the Nolan Irby Training School, which was founded at ASTC and staffed with student/teachers, before transferring to the normal Conway public school system. His sister attended the training school through the seventh-grade, he said, and his father through the ninth.

Faculty and staff faced two 10-percent pay cuts immediately after the Great Depression began, UCA archivist Jimmy Bryant said, before ASTC switched to "warrant" pay.

"If you took a $100 warrant in payment from ASTC, you took it to the bank and they gave you $80," Bryant explained.

Not long after, the Bank of Conway went under, taking a great deal of local money with it including $15,000 belonging to the college.

Thanks to ASTC's college-owned farm and the leadership of college president Heber McAlister, Bryant said, the college not only survived the depression but experienced a time of great growth, with 10 major construction projects.

"So the question is, how did ASTC build 10 major buildings during the Great Depression? The answer is, the New Deal," Bryant said. "President Roosevelt's New Deal, came about and MacAllister took full advantage of it and he was able to get low-interest loans and grants."

Had it not been for ASTC's weathering of the Great Depression, White said, his family would likely have had to move west in search of work and might have split up, as did many families "on the road" during the depression.

"It would probably have been something different," White said. "My dad always credited that school for keeping the family together; that was one of the reasons my aunt (Mary Ellen White Crow) gave the bulk of her estate to UCA (in 2007)."

White served on the UCA Board of Trustees from 1984 to 1998, and says if elected, he too will make helping UCA a priority.

(Staff writer Joe Lamb can be reached by e-mail at joe.lamb@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1238. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)