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EPISODE 93

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:08.8] RR: Welcome to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. Stay tuned until the end of the show to hear how you can get a copy of this program and other helpful documents.

Now, it's time for Kerry McCoy to get all up in your business.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:17.4] KM: Thank you, Roger. Like Roger said, I'm Kerry McCoy and it's time for me to get up in your business. If right now you're sitting at your computer, you might want to watch us live on flagandbanner.com’s Facebook page. It's fun to see what's going on behind the scenes. Today, there's a lot going on.

My usual co-host, you may have noticed, Jesse or Tim are not here. Jesse's had an emergency. He's got four kids and he's on his way to the hospital with one of them, so he's not here. Roger is – what do they call it? Pinch-hitting, pitch-hitting?

[0:00:46.8] SC: That would be pinch-hitting.

[0:00:47.8] RR: Pinch-hitting for him today. You all can feel free to grade him today at the end of the show. We'll see how he does. Roger is a friend – Roger Robinson is a friend of the show he's also an audio/video teacher at what school?

[0:00:59.5] RR: That's Metropolitan Career Technical Center. It's a part of Little Rock School District and we welcome everyone to check it out. If you are a high school aid student in Pulaski County, that's Little Rock, North Little Rock, Bryant Jacksonville you're all welcome.

[0:01:16.5] KM: To go to – It’s Metropolitan Technical School.

[0:01:18.0] RR: Yes. To visit metropolitan and take a class.

[0:01:20.7] KM: I love that. This show Up In your Business with Kerry McCoy began with entrepreneurs in mind, a platform for me, a small business owner and a guest to pay forward our experiential knowledge in a conversational way. As with all new endeavors, it's had some unexpected outcomes. For instance, this show began with entrepreneurs and want-to-be entrepreneurs in mind, but we found it has a much wider appeal because we're all inspired by everyday people's American-made stories.

Another discovery I find interesting is that many, many of my guests have a spiritual bent and a heart of a teacher, and last that business in of itself is creative. My guest today, former Arkansas Attorney General, Mr. Steve Clark doesn't just have the heart of a teacher, he was actually a law professor at both the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and St. Thomas School in Miami.

As far as creativity goes, he scores a 10 having recreated himself and his career many times over until finding the perfect fit as president of the Fayetteville, Arkansas Chamber of Commerce, which we are going to hear all about today. If you're just tuning in for the first time, you may be asking yourself what's this lady's story and why should I listen. Well, Roger is here to tell you.

[0:02:34.9] RR: Over 40 years ago with only $400, Kerry McCoy Founded Arkansas Flag and Banner. During the last four decades, the business has grown and changed dramatically from door-to-door sales, to telemarketing, to mail order and catalog sales and now Flag and Banner relies heavily on the internet including the newest features, live chatting.

With time and experience, Kerry's business and leadership knowledge grew as well as the confidence to branch out into multimedia marketing that began with the nonprofit Dreamland Ballroom, as well as the in-house publication of Brave magazine, and now this very radio show. It was in the fall of 2016 when Kerry found herself mentoring yet another ambitious person and decided in a broader way to pay forward not only her life experiences, but others too.

Each week on this show, you'll hear candid conversations between her and her guests about real-world experiences on a variety of businesses and topics that we hope you'll find interesting and inspiring. If you would like to ask Kerry a question, or share your story you can send an e-mail to questions@upyourbusiness.com.

[0:03:53.6] KM: Thank you. Thank you very much Roger. My guest today is the president of the fast-growing Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce in Northwest Arkansas and former Arkansas Attorney General, who today still holds the record for being the longest-serving Attorney General in Arkansas history, Mr. Steve Clark.

Steve is one of those lucky people who knew at an early age he wanted to be a politician. Born in Leachville, Arkansas watching his father dabble in local politics Steve made the decision to major in political science and later went on to receive a law degree from the University of Arkansas. As assistant dean to the School of Law in Fayetteville, he met a new law instructor, the young Bill Clinton. A year later, met his girlfriend Hillary Rodham and they all became fast friends.

This was a time of young, progressive Arkansas politics. Bill Clinton ran for Attorney General and won. Later, he ran for the governorship leaving the attorney general position open and an opportunity for Mr. Steve Clark who won the vacated seat against Art Givens in the Democratic primary.

Attorney General Steve Clark held the position for 11 years, which is why I said it makes him the longest-serving attorney general in Arkansas history. During this time, he impressively argued eight cases before the US Supreme Court and made national news when Governor Frank White signed a bill later to be found unconstitutional that required the balanced treatment of creationism and evolution in public schools that Steve Clark had to defend. I can't wait to hear that story.

As many of you will remember, Steve had a foolish fall from grace that sent him into near bankruptcy, homelessness and cost him his law license for a time. His story is one of supreme success, humility, redemption and forgiveness. It is a pleasure to welcome to the table the intelligent, hard-working, charismatic, President of Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Steve Clark.

[0:05:56.5] SC: Thank you so very, very much Kerry.

[0:05:59.1] KM: You can tell I've been reading about you.

[0:06:01.5] SC: I’ll be damned. Yes.

[0:06:04.3] KM: That's not even all there is about you. You've done so much. Let's start at the beginning; you grew up in Leachville. How did that affect you and what did your father do for a living?

[0:06:12.5] SC: My father was a farmer a part of his life. Then he worked a couple of years in the Land Commissioner’s Office area in Little Rock, although we didn't move down here. Then the last years, he was in real estate primarily as an appraiser and he worked for the Arkansas Highway Department. Growing up in Leachville was a blessing for me. It's a town of about 1,500 when I was there and it's still about 1500. It has one billboard coming into town says, “Leachville, the cleanest town on Buffalo Island where industry and commerce meet.”

We may have been exaggerating a little bit, but I graduated in a class of 41 and that was the second-largest graduation class in the history of the school. It was a wonderful not exactly a Mayberry life, but pretty close. My life was particularly blessed, because my family just kept encouraging me and I got some extraordinary opportunities as high school, first as a junior I got to go to Boise State, and nobody from Leachville ever gone to Boise State. I didn't know what Boise State was. My father just said you're going to go and I went okay. I don't think I want to.

[0:07:21.3] KM: Well, that's something you and Bill Clinton had in common, right?

[0:07:23.5] SC: He was there as a counselor of the year, I was there as a camper. He was one year ahead of me in school.

[0:07:28.6] KM: Did you meet him there too?

[0:07:29.6] SC: I did not. We never met. The first time we met was when he came off a plane in Fayetteville and I was picking him up and he was interviewing for a job with a law school faculty and I was on the faculty and that's the first time we met. Leachville is a great town, still is today, and I get there occasionally. I have a lot of relatives unfortunately buried in that cemetery, so that's one of the reasons you go up there to visit, but I have several cousins and others in Northeast Arkansas and we grew up. My father farm doing cotton and soybeans. My father decided one year we would have hogs and I begged him never to have them a second year.

[0:08:06.2] KM: Do you have to take care of them?

[0:08:07.0] SC: Yeah, I did. It was not fun.

[0:08:08.2] KM: You’d rather pick cotton.

[0:08:09.1] SC: I’d rather pick cotton. I did and –

[0:08:11.2] KM: You went to school and after, you did pick cotton. I’m amazed how many people on this show have picked cotton. It's weird. I guess, that's Arkansas for you. You decided to go to ASU and you got a degree in political science.

[0:08:23.6] SC: I did.

[0:08:24.2] KM: You were lucky and you actually ended up using your degree towards your career later.

[0:08:29.5] SC: I did.

[0:08:30.0] KM: Then you decided to go to law school in Fayetteville.

[0:08:33.0] SC: Yes.

[0:08:33.8] KM: What happened?

[0:08:35.0] SC: Well, I first thought I was going to go to Hendrix. You said something about a lot of your guests have a spiritual bent. There are ministers in my family. My family you're either a farmer, a preacher, a teacher, or a politician. That's just about it. You don't get to do anything else. I thought I was going to go to Hendrix. None of my family had a college education, but some of them had been in school. My mother been schooled at Hendrix, my grandfather been school at Hendrix.

My father was a no-nonsense guy. When I graduate from high school he said, “Well, if you're going to college are they open for the summer?” I said, “Yes, sir.” He said, “When we starting?” I said, “Next week.” He said, “Are you going?” I said, “No sir.” When you get out of high school, you take the summer off and get your life. He said, “No. If they're open, you're going to go to school.”

I went to school year-round. My father just said, if they're open you can go. You take all the credit hours you can take. In the summer, I took 12 and each semester in the fall of spring I took 18. By the time a year had passed, a full count of year I was already a junior and I'm going. Then the next year went pretty fast and I said, if I can go to law school and I think I can because I had pretty good grades, but I said I want to get out of law school I'm going to be 22-years-old, nobody's going to hire me because I'm a kid. He said, “Well, son, if you got a job to do, you go do it and you do it as best you can, as quickly as you can and move on to the next thing.” Law school for me was a ticket to get into the political arena, because I thought at that time there were a lot of lawyers in the legislature. There are not very many now. It was a means to be able to be better versed on actually the impact of the rule of law, whether it was contracts, or constitutional law, or it was property law, or it was criminal law, I got to study all those subjects.

While I was there, we had a new proposed constitution and I led a group – there's a legal fraternity and I was in that fraternity. We created an organization called LAYPROCON, Learn About Your Proposed Constitution. It was a way for all of us in this group to study the new proposed constitution and then go out to the state to civic clubs and say, “Here's the old one, here's the new one. We're not telling you how to vote, but here's the difference.” It was the first time I ever got my picture in the paper.

I brought some guys down here. We walked into the old Arkansas Gazette office at 10:00 one Friday morning and we said, we've got a new story for you. That's when I met the first governor I'd ever met, which was Governor Winthrop Rockefeller.

[0:11:11.5] KM: That's a great story. How old were you?

[0:11:14.1] SC: Yes.

[0:11:16.0] KM: You see. You’re just overachiever, intelligent. I couldn't connect 18 hours and then take 12 hours in the summer. This is a great place to take a break. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Mr. Steve Clark, the president of Fayetteville Arkansas Chamber of Commerce. We’ll learn about his early days as Arkansas Attorney General and hear some of the stories behind the US Supreme Court cases and last, talk about his current passion, Fayetteville Arkansas and opportunities that may be awaiting you.

[BREAK]

[0:11:44.9] RR: You're listening to up in your business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. If you missed any part of this show, or want to learn more about Up In your Business, go to flagandbanner.com and click on Radio Show, or subscribe through your favorite podcast application. We'll be right back.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]

[0:13:32.4] KM: You're listening to Up In your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. I'm speaking today with Mr. Steve Clark, the president of Fayetteville Arkansas’ fast-growing Chamber of Commerce. Before the break, we were talking about growing up in a small southern town of Leachville Arkansas about being an overachiever in college in high school and going off to Boise State. Now he's 22 years old. You've got a law degree already, no? Surely not.

[0:13:54.4] SC: 23.

[0:13:55.0] KM: 23 you got a law degree. Somehow you’ve landed a job as the assistant dean at – I know there was a law job in there somewhere towards, but we're not going to talk about that because that's not as important. We're going to jump on and we're going to skip a year. You got a job after college working in the field of law. Then you somehow ended up as the assistant dean at back in Fayetteville, the School of Law where you met Bill Clinton. Tell us about that story.

[0:14:22.4] SC: Well, we're practicing law in Brinkley, Arkansas. I got a call from the acting dean of the law school and said, “We've got a job for you if you'd be interested and as assistant dean.” In a sense was just the chief administrative officer. I was teaching one class. I said, I'm ready. I went back, joined the faculty in February of ’73. In April of ’73 the dean said to me and he used to call me Powell and they say, “Hey, Powell.” I don't know why. I was young enough to be his son. I was 25. He'd say, “Hey, Powell. There's a guy coming in tonight and we need to pick him up at the airport. He's gone to law school at Yale and they say he's one of the brightest people they've ever had as a student at Yale. You’re all about the same age, so you go out there and get him.” That's the old great field in Fayetteville. Schedule Skyways was the airline and we sometimes called Schedule Scareways.

[0:15:21.0] KM: Scareways, that’s right.

[0:15:23.2] SC: Yeah. The plane landed and I'm standing there and he's the last one off and we we're the two youngest people there. It's like, “You must be looking for me,” and I go, “You must be looking for me.” We had never met and instantly liked each other, because we both loved politics. I think we both had a little indie of each other.

I was so excited to talk to someone who had seen so much of the world because he’s a road scholar; he lived in London and traveled in England. He had had an opportunity through the help of Senator Fulbright to actually go behind what was then known as the Iron Curtain at one point. He'd seen so much the world and I just hadn't, but I stayed here and I knew so much about Arkansas. He'd say, “Well, down there in Texarkana or over there in Lakeville,” I’d say, well that would be Gibbs Ferguson, or that would be – “How do you know all these people?” I said, “Well, I helped admit them to law school.”

I tease and tell people that we stayed up most of the night talking about how we got to where we were and we both discovered we had been born in a log cabin and we were self-taught as the log using a candle, because there wasn't any electricity. Not all true of course, but we instantly liked each other. Hillary came after we hired him. Hillary came a few months later and that's the first time that I met her. He was moving into his house and we ended off very well. They are two of the brightest and in my heart and in my judgment, best people I've ever known. Working with him was fun and exciting. Then we all wound up in Little Rock working together again, but they were both excellent teachers. Bill and I played intramural basketball, so we had a team of seven or eight people. Some of these people now are judges in Fayetteville, but so we were all law students and we pick up games at the local junior high and I would say that the president and I were not the two best players, but we shot the most often. We both had this dream of being you have last scored 21 points tonight. How about you? I got 31. The other guys were going, “If you all would pass the ball, we might win.”

[0:17:34.0] KM: Because Bill's tall and you're not.

[0:17:35.4] SC: That's right. We jogged together once when he was in the White House. I was up there and I saw him one weekend. He was jogging with a group of Marines and he waved me over and I was – we wound up jogging there on just outside the capital and he said, “When you going to be up here next?” I said, “Next week.” He said, “Well, call me. We'll run together.” I said, “Sure Mr. President. Sure.” He goes, “No. Call me. We’ll run together.”

I call. I said, “Yeah.” “He says he wants to run with you.” I got to the White House about 6:00 in the morning and we're supposed to run it at 6:15, and the president was late, which the president will be late for his own funeral.

[0:18:13.1] KM: That's right.

[0:18:15.0] SC: The young marine said, “Now Mr. Clark, I hope you and the president won't run off and leave us.” I said, “Son, take a look at me and take a look at him. We both have had too many McDonald's fries. We're not going to run off and leave anybody.” I said, “I do have a request.” He said, “What’s that?” I said, “If they shoot at us and miss, don't leave me out here. You’ll just throw him in that limousine. Let me fend for myself. There may be a second bullet.” He started laughing and I said, “If they shoot at us and they hit me, throw me in that limousine and hand me the phone.” He said, “What for?” I said, “I want to call my mother and tell her where I am.” The president has always been extremely generous and gracious to me.

[0:19:00.6] KM: Always. He’s just a great guy.

[0:19:02.4] SC: To my daughters.

[0:19:03.9] KM: That's wonderful. He decides to run for attorney general, and I guess that's when he comes to Little Rock and then he decides to run to beat the governor and you decided to run for attorney general. Did you all talk about that before? He said, “Steve, I'm going to vacate this seat. You want it?”

[0:19:20.6] SC: Well, no and I like that. I came down to be David Pryor’s chief of staff, so I was 29, and he was 29, he was attorney general. It was obvious that he was either going to run for governor, run for congress, run for the United States Senate, or Jimmy Carter was giving some thought to making him attorney general of the United States.

I'm with Hilary one day and I said, “Look, I don't know what your husband's going to do, but if he does any of those things and vacates the Attorney General's Office, I'm going to run.” She said, “That's great. We'd like to see that happen. You'd be great. We'd like to work with you.” I also tease, she said, “I have one favorite.” I said, “What's that?” She said, “Lose a little weight. It's hard for me to ask people to vote for my little fat friend, Steve.”

I said, “Well, don’t hold back. Tell me what you really mean.” We ran and honestly, the reason that I got elected, I worked hard. Both David Pryor and Bill Clinton and their campaign organizations, because David Pryor and Bill Clinton said nice things about me. A lot of those people said, “Well if Bill likes you, or if David Pryor likes you, you must be all right.” I lost three of the four congressional districts. I didn't win by a big margin, but I won and it was a real pleasure to work and serve with him.

[0:20:36.4] KM: That was your first time to hold office?

[0:20:37.7] SC: Oh, yeah. First time I'd ever held office.

[0:20:39.1] KM: That was a big one.

[0:20:39.9] SC: It was. I'd had a couple chances to run for the legislature and it just didn't. My family on my mother side held the same state senate seat out of Mississippi County for just over 52 years, consecutive years. We had that history and had an uncle that was a lieutenant governor, but that didn't – well wasn't where I wanted to serve.

[0:20:59.8] KM: While you were there, you were there 11 years which is a super long time, but what I found fascinating is that you did eight Supreme Court cases.

[0:21:10.8] SC: Yes. ma'am.

[0:21:11.9] KM: In the US Supreme Court. How did that come to be? Nobody does that. Eight.

[0:21:15.6] SC: Well eight. That's correct. That's the I think the most any lawyer in Arkansas has ever done in the history of the state. There very few lawyers get to go to Supreme Court and there's a handful, a couple of hundred that would probably done more than that, but not a lot. Maybe a couple thousand in the history of the nation.

Part of it is being the state's lawyer and their constitutional issues, their issues about liberty and privacy. There were two of those cases that were death cases and I won both of those cases. Both those cases played a role and first, death by injection and I was there for the death by section. The Supreme Court, US Supreme Court's the Super Bowl for a lawyer. As you walk in the chamber, you're as close to the Chief Justice as I am to you, Kerry. I mean, you're just looking him right in the eye, that you get 30 minutes and not a second longer. You don't get to take your notes and outline a speech, because you get a little starting then they just start peppering you with questions.

There are lots of funny little rules. You can't call them judge, you can't say Mr. Justice, because you have to call her Madame Justice. At the time, she didn't want to be a madam of anything, so it's just justice. We learned some of those things.

[0:22:33.5] KM: You have everything memorized.

[0:22:34.7] SC: Yes. They ask you what's the better reason rule of law and why? We're going to set the law of the land, what should that law be and why is it reasonable that it should be this answer, and why is that good for all of us? It can be a place where there’s a little bit of laughter. I was in a case and Judge Scalia, it was a case out of Alvarado, guy was a petty criminal. Sentenced as a habitual offender, so he got 40 years for breaking into a vending machine where he got $40. It’s a little harsh. I was on the state side so we said, “You bet, and he had to have four felonies and he had eight felonies.” One of those felonies had been pardoned and nobody knew it.

In the middle of the argument, they raised this issue that he had been pardoned. Justice Scalia said, “Mr. attorney general, where were you when this was going on?” I said, “Justice Scalia, I was in the 5th grade.” He just, “Never mind.” Yeah, I loved it. I was telling –

[0:23:34.2] KM: Why would that get to the Supreme Court?

[0:23:37.5] SC: It was the issue of fundamental fairness. What had happened was the defendant said it's the burden of the state to meet all the requirements of the law and that is the law. The requirements were to submit for conviction showing he committed four felonies. We did pick four, but one of them was flawed. He said, “You don't get two bites at the apple. That's what the law should be.” We said, “Well, we have four more we can choose from and we shouldn't be penalized for not knowing the facts.” He said, “You're the one supposed to know all kinds.”

[0:24:07.2] KM: Yeah. Yeah, you should.

[0:24:08.4] SC: Yeah, and actually we won that case. Court agreed with us.

[0:24:11.2] KM: What was the agreement? That he –

[0:24:13.0] SC: The agreement, he got sentenced to 40 years for a robbery of a candy vending machine of just over $41. It was a harsh punishment. This was not a bad person. This was a guy –

[0:24:24.5] KM: Well how do you – I mean, how do you do that when you don't believe in it?

[0:24:27.9] SC: Well, it's hard.

[0:24:28.9] KM: It's the law.

[0:24:30.0] SC: It’s the law.

[0:24:31.0] KM: Speaking of that, let's move on to the one that – the case that got so much national attention. It was the McLean versus Arkansas Board of Education. It was when Frank White signed a bill act 590, 590 requiring the balanced treatment of creationism and evolution be taught in schools and you had to defend it, even though it was unconstitutional. The American Civil Liberties Union sued the state and it’s called the McLean versus Arkansas Board of Education.

Nobody thought you defended the state very well, though. They thought you are on the other side that you were defending, because you didn't – well, you can go ahead and talk about the Scopes Monkey Trial and why you chose to do it the way you did.

[0:25:13.0] SC: Well, a lot of people came to me. Frank White said, “I didn't read this bill before I signed it, but it's one of those guide bills. It's a good bill, I'm going to sign it.” We read it and said, this is really not a good bill. There's lots of issues with this bill. They didn't make me king, they made me a lawyer. They elected me a lawyer and lawyer is to represent the interests of the state and by all kinds – of every tenet of judicial interpretation. What the legislature adopts is presumed to be constitutional, so it's entitled to be defended as constitutional.

What got some of the Christians upset with me was I had been asked to offer a lunch with me as a fundraiser for the ACLU, and that was about a year before this trial law started. I said yes. I was a real hot ticket, it went for $12. I didn't do much for charity, but they said, “Well, he's playing on the other side of the other team side and he's trying to help the other team.” I said, “Look, here's what this is. The only way the state wins is this; we don't know the answer to where in the world was created and how it was created. We all have opinions.”

At its lowest common denominator, there was one opinion that says, it just happened and the other one says something made it happen. If you're going to be allowed to teach creationism, you say there's one, it just happened, evolution, and creationism is an evidence that there was the possibility of something that made it happen.

The court here, Justice Overton said, “That's all right academically. In the classroom, someone's going to say teacher, teacher, what's that something? Is that something God? Does that God go to the Methodist Church, or the Assembly God or does that God not go to church at all?” He said on a practical side, “You're creating all just huge havoc.” We lost and then I wouldn't appeal and that made some of the people on the Christian side also unhappy. I said, “I'm a good enough lawyer to know if you know you're not going to win, don't waste your time and don't waste your money.”

[0:27:25.4] KM: Well, even though it was a state case, it got national, international attention.

[0:27:31.7] SC: Oh, yeah. It was billed as Scopes Trial 2. I come out the federal court down here one day on Capitol Avenue and there's a guy in a gorilla uniform. He's got a microphone, he says, “Mr. Attorney General, I'm so-and-so gorilla with the banana news network,” and I'm just trying to get away.

One day I was in the courthouse and we took a break in the afternoon and a person comes and says, “Are you the attorney general?” I said, “I am.” He said, “You need to let me testify.” I said, “Sir, I'm sorry. That's been said long ago.” He said, “I know all the answers.” I said, “Sir, I appreciate all that. I'm trying to get to the restroom.” He said, “You need to understand something. God spoke to me and he's given me all this information.” I said, “Again sir, I'm really sorry. Not going to happen. Want to tell you the truth, I need to move on.” He said, “Well, you need to know God and I are pissed.” I said, “Marshall? Marshall come help me, because this guy is beginning to frighten me just a little bit.”

[0:28:35.1] KM: Wow. Yeah, the TV evangelist Pat Robinson denounced joining the 700 Club saying you were undermining the state defense, because you limited the scope of the defense to explaining creationism as legitimate science, rather than the sacred Word of God. The only legitimate ground for the state to uphold would been science. Because you were trying to say is it science? They felt like – I didn't really understand.

[0:29:04.9] SC: They felt you couldn't – someone were called biblical literacy. If the Bible says the camel passed through the eye of the needle, the camel did pass through the eye of the needle. If the Bible says that there was – the earth was created in seven days, those were seven 24-hour units and people said, “Well, when the Bible was being written how do you know that was the measurement of a day? Do you really believe that a camel could pass through the eye of a needle?”

Perhaps that so, but maybe that's just an example of the things that being written in the Bible. The literalist said, “If it says it in the Bible, it is in the Bible,” which got one of my witnesses in trouble. The cross-examination said, “Are you a literalist? Do you believe the Bible is true, every written word is true?” “Yes sir. I do.” Does the Bible talk about flying saucers and UFOs? He said, “Yes sir, it does.” He said, “And can you tell me that passage?” He said, “Yes. In the book of so-and-so, there are flying objects in the sky and they are there as a part of.” He said, “So you read that to me and that the Bible says that UFOs are legitimate.” He said, “Yes sir, I do.”

That really hurt our credibility a whole lot. Pat Robinson did sue me. He was on TV one morning. He said, “Steve Clark is crooked,” and used his hand to make a quick example. I see him the next day and he said – the next solo and he said, “I didn't say Steve Clark was crooked. I said, it looks like he is crooked.” We settled that lawsuit. Reverend Robinson wrote me a handwritten note apologizing.

[0:30:41.7] KM: He did?

[0:30:42.4] SC: He did.

[0:30:43.6] KM: Well, in 1987 Louisiana did the same thing.

[0:30:45.5] SC: They did.

[0:30:46.0] KM: You were just cutting-edge. You really were. This is a great place to take a break. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Mr. Steve Clark, the president of Fayetteville Arkansas Chamber of Commerce, where we’ll hear about his political and personal fall from grace and the road back. Hindsight is 20/20 and sharing wisdom is what this show is all about and I bet this smart man has a lot to say. Last, we'll talk about Steve Clark's current passion, Fayetteville Arkansas and the opportunities that may be awaiting you there.

[BREAK]

[0:31:20.5] RR: You're listening to Up In your Business with Kerry McCoy. If you've missed any part of this show, or want to learn more about it, go to flagandbanner.com and click on the radio show, or subscribe through your favorite podcast application. We'll be right back with the phone number for calling.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]

[0:33:26.7] KM: All right. You're listening to Up In your Business with me, Kerry McCoy and I'm speaking today with Mr. Steve Clark, president of Fayetteville Arkansas’ fast-growing Chamber of Commerce. If you've got a question, you can send an e-mail to questions@upyourbusiness.org and I'll need to get you in touch with Steve Clark. He's not hard to find. You just go to Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce and there he is everywhere. You actually have one of the best websites I've been to in a long time.

[0:33:55.1] SC: Thank you very much.

[0:33:56.9] KM: It's really good. There's so much information. We're going to talk about all that. Before we do, we got to talk to about what everybody always asked about and you'll be famous for this forever. I'm sorry, but it's really – you are a shining example of what to be and a glaring morning of what can happen.

[0:34:14.9] SC: Correct.

[0:34:16.3] KM: I said that to you earlier. I thought that was smart when I said that earlier.

[0:34:18.8] SC: It is smart.

[0:34:19.7] KM: I wanted to share it again. He's a shining example and a glaring morning. Before the break, we talked about your success as an Arkansas young attorney general. Now we're going to continue with your life story and I just want to say this before we do that I think it's really generous that you're so open about this. You talk about everybody, you share what you want to learn. Then reading about you, I realize why you do that because it goes to the core of who you are. You're a teacher and you learned a lot and you're teaching by telling your life story, which is what this show is about and you're spreading the good news that can come from it, because I read where you said, “If my life stands for anything, it's do not quit.” That is your quote. What do you want to start? What were you found guilty of, or how do you want to start?

[0:35:06.7] SC: Either way. Part of what is a part of this story is I'm an alcoholic. I'm a recovering alcoholic. If I'm sober through the 10th day of October, I'll have 24 years of sobriety.

[0:35:20.7] KM: Congratulations.

[0:35:21.5] SC: Thank you. I had 24, or 28, or 30 years of being a practicing alcoholic and I was world-class. I was obnoxiously obnoxious alcoholic. I wouldn't mean, but it was incredibly loud. I learned to whisper in a sawmill. Wherever I was, I go and make all kinds of noise and I thought I could sing. I sang one night at Cajuns Wharf, it was not one of my finer moments and I always used to sing Honky Tonk angel and Amazing Grace. Felt they had a theme that went together. I don't know whether it did or not.

I refuse to recognize that. I had friends that said, “You think you drink too much?” I said, “No. I work hard, I play hard. If you can't keep up, then don't get off the porch.” It also created a great deal of arrogance in me and it became a false narrative. Instead of saying what's really going on? I was seeing what I wanted to go on. That's part of it. Then as I announced for governor in 1990 and against my friend Bill Clinton, we were basically in the head-to-head tie. I had a shot at winning. About 10 days into it, a story broke about phantom diners. I'd used a state-issued credit card to buy food and alcohol and said it was all for state purposes. I had about a nine-day trial. The jury said, “No Steve. It wasn't all for state purposes. You over a five-year period spend at least $250 and no more than $2,500, but you spent our money on meals and alcohol, had nothing to do with being attorney general. That's illegal, that's theft by deception.” They fined me $10,000 and said, “Go and sin no more. We're going to slap you on the hand. We're going to tell you that's wrong. Don't ever do that again. You are a felon and you will pay the court costs.”

You mentioned shortly after that, the bar showed up at my door and said, “Hey, we don't like felons to have bar licenses. You want to fight about it, or do you want to do something else?” I surrendered my law license and then later got a license in Texas, which I've had 20 years just about now. It was frankly the best thing that – two best things that ever happened to me. One was that I finally realized that alcohol was one of my demons that had control of me. Secondly, I was – I put the plug in the jug.

Because of my conviction and my disgrace and I went from who sue to who see virtually overnight. Instead of people saying, “Hey, you're going to be the next governor. Hey governor, I want to look forward to this.” They went across the street, because they – I pitched myself often as the guy who fought on the side of angels. Angels liked fighters, but they like fighters that are honest and they like fighters that are sincere and I wasn't.

What I did was dishonest, what I did was unethical, and you just have to be – I have to be direct about that now. That's part of how I have sobriety is that I'm just honest about the truth. It gave me so much more. I wouldn't be married to the lady I'm married to now and I don't love anybody in the world including my daughters and grandchildren more than I love my wife. She came to my life and then the opportunity to go back to the practice of law came into my life. I actually ran for office once again. I ran for mayor, I lost.

[0:39:00.0] KM: Mayor of Fayetteville?

[0:39:00.7] SC: In Fayetteville. I lost the – I announced for the governor's race. I wasn't on the ballot, because I withdrew before the ballot was actually made, but I got a few votes; my mother wrote my name and some other people. I got a few votes, but I lost. Then I lost the election for mayor. Those two losses probably were the best things that ever happened to me. I have the yard signs from those campaigns framed in my home office, so I can see that Steve Clark for governor. Boy you were blessed that didn't happen, because had I been elected governor, I'm not a bad guy, but I was drunk. I was going to embarrass myself, I'm just going to embarrass our state, I was going to hurt somebody, I was going to drive into a polar, into another car. I was going to do something that I would be ashamed of the rest of my life.

When I ran for mayor I thought, “Well, I got one more circle.” I obviously going to win and I finished third out of a field of six, but it was two days later they offered me the Chamber of Commerce job. I've never had a job in my life that I liked more than the one I have now, because I get paid to get up every morning and make Fayetteville a better place to live. That is a wonderful job. My job is to create opportunities for people, my job is to create opportunities for our community and then part of that our state, but our community in particular, to demonstrate to the world that we love everyone. We don't care where you're from and who you're married to and how long you been here and who you love and what you believe. We just want to know what are your skills, what are your passions and what we commit to do. The rest of that, welcome. It’s just like I said, I'm very excited about what I get to do.

[0:40:44.5] KM: It's a political position.

[0:40:46.7] SC: It is.

[0:40:47.2] KM: Without having to run for office.

[0:40:49.0] SC: Yeah. I don't have to go to the Gillett Coon Supper and I –

[0:40:52.0] KM: What do you call it? The Gillett Coon Supper. I forgot about that. Yeah, okay.

[0:40:55.7] SC: Yeah. Coon does not taste like chicken, let me tell you that. I don’t care what they tell you. It doesn’t. Yeah, it is political in one sense. I get a lot of the enjoyment that I got from being in public service.

[0:41:06.3] KM: Because you're still promoting people and opportunities.

[0:41:09.0] SC: That’s correct.

[0:41:10.5] KM: The stimuli that you liked from politics in the beginning.

[0:41:12.9] SC: Absolutely, absolutely.

[0:41:14.6] KM: Does your law degree help you?

[0:41:17.5] SC: Oh, absolutely without any question. A couple ways it helps me. Both, when we're looking at a company that's coming to Fayetteville, or looking to come from Fayetteville and they've got documents about things they want and do they comply with regulations that the State Arkansas Economic Development has, I can read all that, understand all that. If we're looking at trying to craft some new opportunity for a company, I've worked with the legislature and with the courts long enough and say, “We can't do that, or we can do this, or we need to talk to X, Y and Z to do that.”

Yes, it's a benefit. We have lawyers. I'm not the lawyer for the chamber. We have lawyers. The person who represents them self as a lawyer is a fool and I don't want to be a fool. Fayetteville is a wonderful place in which to live. I tell people, I told somebody this morning before I came down here and I said, you want me to describe Fayetteville quickly?

It just abundant blue sky, an abundance of trees everywhere, extraordinary food and the friendships are forever. Nobody wants an acquaintance. They want a friendship for forever. When you can see the sky to the center of the universe and you can set under the shade of a tree and you can enjoy virtually any food you'd like to eat and the person sitting next to you is going to be your friend for life, that's a pretty sweet place to be.

[0:42:42.2] KM: I guess that's why it's growing so much.

[0:42:43.6] SC: It is growing. We grow more than one person every six hours.

[0:42:46.9] KM: What? That’s a weird way to think of it.

[0:42:48.8] SC: At breakfast, there was someone new this morning, born there and moved there. At lunch, tonight at dinner and at midnight and they will start again.

[0:42:56.6] KM: That’s an interesting way to think of it. Governor Mike Huckabee pardoned you.

[0:43:01.4] SC: He did.

[0:43:02.2] KM: How many years ago was that?

[0:43:03.6] SC: Oh, wow. 2005 I applied for a pardon first and governor Huckabee turned that down. I applied for a pardon again and governor Huckabee turned that down. The governor didn't have state reason, they just say yes or no. I applied a third time and Governor Huckabee did grant that pardon and I will be forever grateful to him for that.

[0:43:27.3] KM: That is a true Shakespearean story right there. I wish people could see your face. People on Facebook can see your face to see how sincere you were about all of that. I think you can hear it in your voice. I want to take this moment to tell everybody that you're listening to Up In your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. I'm speaking today with Mr. Steve Clark, the president of Fayetteville Arkansas fast-growing Chamber of Commerce.

You're in fable, in love, seeking employment, you run for mayor, you don't get to be mayor, but a few days later you get to be the chamber, or the president of the Chamber of the Commerce. You've already said what it is that you love about it and you've already told us our growth rate, which is one every six hours, which is a weird way to put it. What is the current population in Fayetteville?

[0:44:10.5] SC: We're right at 90,000. By 2021, we'll be over a 100,000 people. Our region is about 540,000 people.

[0:44:18.3] KM: Really?

[0:44:18.6] SC: Uh-huh. It's changing, so more than half the people who live in Benton and Washington County weren't born in Arkansas. That's an interesting number and a statistic and it's important to us. It helps us become even more diverse and even more rich with opportunities. I was telling these people, “I'll speak to you this morning,” I said. When I speak out of state, I say my name is Steve Clark and I'm from Fayetteville, Arkansas, the epicenter of the universe. They all get going. I said, “I was expecting that. Every break today, I'll have another factoid about for you about my hometown.” At the end of day, you're going to come ask for my business card.

I say that tip out my library. We have a public library and we're getting ready to expand it by another 80,000 square feet. We have more than a million visits a year, which means with 90,000 people, everybody in our town goes 10 times a year. That tells you about Fayetteville and its citizens. If we didn’t I tell you at my library, you can get a fishing pole, you can get inline skates, you can get –

[0:45:19.3] KM: At the library?

[0:45:20.2] SC: At the library.

[0:45:21.2] KM: A fishing pole, inline skates. Probably a bicycle, rent a bicycle.

[0:45:23.9] SC: Rent a bicycle and you can get tools. You can get tools to work in a garden, tools to work around your house.

[0:45:30.0] KM: They're all rentable?

[0:45:30.8] SC: Yeah, all rentable. They would go, “What, at the library?” Then I say, “You know, did I tell you about my university? Did I tell you about our trails?” In Northwest Arkansas, we have 350 miles of trails. In Fayetteville, we have well over a 100 miles of trails. My wife and I liked to ride. We were not bicyclists. We started about two years ago. Last weekend, we rode 21 miles and we’re just laughing and giggling like we were 12 and 11.

[0:45:56.9] KM: You have some of the best bike trails in Fayetteville.

[0:45:58.7] SC: We do. We have some.

[0:45:59.6] KM: You're right. If you go to your Chamber of Commerce, Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce website and look at the statistics you're talking about, somewhere I read that it has some – best place to live. Let's see. Where's the one? Here, top best places to bike in Arkansas by the peoples of bike. That was in 2018. That was just recent. You’ve even been nationally recognized for your bike trails.

[0:46:24.9] SC: We have been nationally recognized for our bike trails. We've been nationally recognized as the best place for millennials to live. We've been recognized as the best place to start a career. We were recognized as the most recently the 5th best place of all metropolitan areas in the United States in which to live.

Now part of that is because cost of living is very reasonable. You can afford a house, there are lots of housing opportunities, food and transportation, those issues are not outrageous as compared to others. We still have a hard time getting people to recognize Arkansas and Northwest Arkansas. We've been trying to recruit programmers and computer programmers.

We had a conference about a month ago called the nowhere conference. We've been reaching out to people on the East Coast and West Coast, come to Fayetteville, come to Northwest Arkansas, work here, there's lots of companies. It's really great. They're going, “Where? I don't know where that is. Don't know where that is.” We said, we have the nowhere conference. Come and we'll show you what happens in nowhere. In nowhere, a $100 will buy a $116 worth of goods and services. In nowhere, you can rent an apartment with two bedrooms for about $650 a month and in New York, that’s $6,000. Here are the differences.

You have all the culture, all the art. We have two murals on the chamber walls. One was done by kindergarten students, kindergarten through 4th grade. They’re sunflowers. We didn't pick the topic. We said, “We want you all to do a mural.” They came, paint it with their hands. They painted their hands yellow, put them on there. That made the leaves, their thumb is brown and then they did their fingers to be green, and it's called Sunflowers Rising. We use it as the message at the chamber. Sunflowers look for the light so we say “Always be looking for the light. Don't go the dark side.” Our kids told us, that's what they want to do.

We have another mural the high school students did and they did it in abstract. I say, “Well that's great, except I represent a bunch of old white men and old white men are not too flexible. Abstract they don't usually understand, so I need a storyboard.” I said, “You cannot use a sentence or a phrase, but you can use words. Not any more than 15.” They said, this is Fayetteville. This is in the eyes of a 16 and a 17-year-old. Such an important story for we at the chamber to understand. We're progressive, they said.

We are funky, they said. Some of my people said, “What’s funky?” I said, anything you want it to be.” What a great thing. It could be anything you want to be. We're progressive, we're funky, we're community, we're diverse, we're conscious. I said, “You had talents.” We listen. We try to understand what somebody's telling us, because we're not just hearing noise. We're trying to hear what they're saying in that noise and said that we're artistic.

[0:49:20.8] KM: Yeah, you've got great culture up there.

[0:49:22.0] SC: Yeah. That is a big part of what we get to do and that's a part of why I like this job so much. What we then with those nowhere programmers, we said, “So see. There's art, there’s culture, there's music, there's Broadway and theater, there’s trails, there's outdoors, there's educational opportunities, there's wonderful cuisine, there's interesting opportunities for conversation.

[0:49:45.9] KM: There's low crime.

[0:49:47.4] SC: We just virtually have none.

[0:49:48.4] KM: I went to the hospital one time there, because my kids I want to scope there. One time I had to go to the emergency room for something minor and there was one person in there; nobody with a gunshot wound, or stab. I was like, “Well what's going on in this emergency room? Where am I?” I don’t know if I like that or not. It’s like, “I want to see the real Fayetteville.” I got in and out really quick though. I was surprised.

[0:50:11.0] SC: Well, healthcare is a big part what we're doing. You want to hear my elevator speeches?

[0:50:16.5] KM: Yes.

[0:50:17.0] SC: Fayetteville is table is eds, meds and innovation. We wrap that in culture and –

[0:50:22.0] KM: Eds, meds and innovation. That's education, medical and what's the last one?

[0:50:26.1] SC: Innovation is entrepreneurship. We can teach you –

[0:50:29.5] KM: Real estate. Real estate up there is off the chart. I saw where it's one of the number one places for people to move there in real estate, because that you can just sell and sell and sell. There's just so much property to sell. I guess, the Arkansas State Lottery has done great things for Fayetteville.

[0:50:45.1] SC: Arkansas State Lottery has done great things across the state. Yes, we've had our fair share.

[0:50:49.3] KM: Yes, because you've got the big college up there.

[0:50:51.6] SC: Yeah. The university's been huge and lots of the students that enroll there were there because of the lottery scholarships.

[0:50:57.7] KM: Are you going to put a ceiling on how tall they can build a building in Fayetteville?

[0:51:00.8] SC: We do have a ceiling. Right now it is six stories.

[0:51:03.8] KM: Oh, good. Does anybody trying to fight that?

[0:51:06.8] SC: No, we haven't had – we've had a couple times, but that view shed what you can see is really important and whether that's the sky or trees or the hills of the mountains, or whatever it may be, we're very conscious about trying to make sure our canopy cover. Meaning, the trees that are there that cover, so it's just not all – we didn't tear down trees and make parking lots.

[0:51:30.2] KM: Right. Drives me crazy. Makes me crazy. I think cutting down trees are like right there with murder.

[0:51:35.3] SC: It comes pretty close.

[0:51:36.0] KM: It does to me. I know. I'm a tree hugger. I'm sorry. Does Fayetteville, Rogers and Bentonville work together as a unit for Northwest Arkansas, or did they work independently?

[0:51:47.2] SC: We work together. Probably the greatest reason that we've had success in Northwest Arkansas is that we collaborate on everything. We spend our time and we start with this position. Let's look for the similarities. There'll be some differences. Forget about that. Let's see what we've got in common and let's advance that goal. In economic development, we often will find ourselves around the table with a prospect who said, “I'll bring this business here and it will bring 300 jobs or 3,000 jobs.”

There's the five mayors, so it's Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville and Siloam. Then there's the five Chamber execs. We say, “Okay, the only mistake you can make is not coming to Northwest Arkansas.” Now we each want 20 minutes to tell you why we think you should come here. Before you agree to all that, we're telling you if you decide to come to any of these five communities, the other four will help in any way that they can. We've been honest about doing that.

[0:52:46.1] KM: Do you all meet every year? Do you all meet once a year, or how often do you meet as a group?

[0:52:49.2] SC: Once a month.

[0:52:50.2] KM: Once a month.

[0:52:51.6] SC: Yeah, we talk the third Wednesday of every month. We talk about what we're doing and we do things collective. We even do that with our legislation. When we go to DC to talk to our members of congress, we don't ask for, well this is what favor wants, this what Springdale wants. We say, for the region, this is our ask. It started, the first one was on the Bella Vista bypass. Some guy came to me and said, “Bella Vista is not favor.” I said, “I know that.” He said, “Well, I thought you didn't because you said, Vista that's all what you do is fund the Bella Vista bypass.” I said, “Why would the Fayetteville Chamber care?” I said, “There are seven stoplights between Bella Vista and Dickson Street. That bypass will take those seven lights out and they're going to get here about 15 minutes faster, and there's going to have a whole lot more options in Fayetteville than they are going to have in Bella Vista.

Our senators and the congress were saying, we are all sitting together and Springdale said what Fayetteville said and Rogers said and we expected Bentonville and Bella Vista. Siloam said, “You don't want anything else? No. We’d like to have this.” If you get us this, next year there'll be something else. It may be in one of the other communities, but that's been our greatest tool for success is we all – we wouldn't have half of what we had if we didn't work together.

[0:54:11.3] KM: I mean, just think about Bentonville with the 21C and the –

[0:54:16.4] SC: Crystal bridges?

[0:54:17.0] KM: Crystal bridges. My gosh.

[0:54:18.4] SC: I knew, I knew wouldn't call momentary to be coming in second month of 2020. We have a new School of Art at Fayetteville, so we got a 160 million dollars to fund a college of art, or School of Art.

[0:54:32.3] KM: What?

[0:54:32.9] SC: Yeah, 160. The largest amount of money ever given to a public educational institution to grace. We’re hiring 21, or 23 brand new art professors. For us, that's very good for economic development, because we have – in my chamber, we have what we call a Fab Lab, it's a digital Fab Lab. We have woodworking shop and we have art and 3D printers and laser engravers. If you can – sometimes people know what they want to do, but they can't visualize it. If they can draw it, that picture can be worth a thousand words.

If you come to my office, you'll see a picture of the human body and this is all about dealing with what food does as an energy source for cells. When you look at it, you think it's a piece of art until you get up close. Half the body is a little bit bigger, the right half is a little larger than the left half. The difference is in the right half, there are cupcakes and pancakes and all kinds of sugar. Over here, there are vegetables and fruits. A cell's energy source is called a mitochondria. This is what that's all about. It was done by a biology student to understand biology.

[0:55:39.8] KM: Oh, art to understand biology. I was wondering where you were going with that.

[0:55:42.9] SC: That’s what it is. We’re excited about that.

[0:55:44.6] KM: Yeah, that’s really exciting. You are such a deep thinker. I love talking to you. We’re running out of time.

[0:55:50.0] SC: I love talking to you, by the way. Let me thank you for all that you give to all of Arkansas, not just central Arkansas.

[0:55:56.9] KM: Oh, that's sweet. Thank you, Steve.

[0:55:59.6] SC: Well, it's important what you do and the message you send and the things you've done to give us all both inspiration and also joy. Thank you, Kerry.

[0:56:09.3] KM: You're welcome. Thank you. If someone was to come to Fayetteville, what do they do? Call the Little Rock Convention Center? Why would people call you? What do they need to do? Go to your website.

[0:56:20.1] SC: They go to our website.

[0:56:21.0] KM: Find the events you've got coming along.

[0:56:22.8] SC: Yeah. We've got all of them. Let’s see, we have –

[0:56:24.7] KM: You have statistics at the yin-yang. It's bizarre how many statistics are on there.

[0:56:29.0] SC: We do have a lot of it. That's the lawyer in me –

[0:56:31.3] KM: Boy, you can tell. You can tell.

[0:56:31.4] SC: - getting all the evidence. All the evidence, here it is.

[0:56:34.3] KM: All the evidence. Boy, it is there.

[0:56:36.0] SC: We have an app at the chamber. It tells you about all the events. We have an app for the region, which is called leisure list. You can pick any of those five towns, or you can pick the region. If you want to know what's going on tonight, or tomorrow night, you want to know who's playing music and what venue and what town, you want to know if that’s –

[0:56:55.7] KM: That’s on your website?

[0:56:56.7] SC: Yeah. The 5K run, we’ve got all that.

[0:56:58.5] KM: If you want to know if you want to move there and why you want to move there and anything about your industry, that's all on your website?

[0:57:03.3] SC: Yeah.

[0:57:04.3] KM: You need to do my website. I tell you whoever did it, did you have it done right up there in Fayetteville?

[0:57:07.7] SC: We did.

[0:57:08.4] KM: Wow. Whoever did it, did a great job.

[0:57:09.7] SC: Thank you.

[0:57:10.3] KM: What advice would you give yourself from 20 years ago? Stop drinking earlier?

[0:57:14.3] SC: One would have been stop drinking earlier. Two, quit trying to be a big dog. Just get up and face life on life's terms.

[0:57:22.0] KM: What do you want your legacy to be?

[0:57:24.2] SC: That I didn't miss the dance that I participated.

[0:57:27.0] KM: You sure did. Boy, you hung in there. I've never known anybody to hang in there so good. Let's see, who's my guest next week? I've got to give you a gift. I have a gift for you that you're going to love.

[0:57:35.5] SC: You do. Oh, look at here. Yes, I like that very much.

[0:57:39.1] KM: I knew you would. It’s a US flag and an Arkansas flag, 4x6 inch desk set. Do you have one in your office?

[0:57:45.1] SC: I do not, but I do now. It’ll be sitting right there on my desk.

[0:57:47.2] KM: It’s amazing how many people don't have that simple little desk set in their office that are professional men like you.

[0:57:53.1] SC: I love it. Thank you very, very much.

[0:57:55.5] KM: You’re welcome. My guest next week – let's see Roger, who did I put down?

[0:58:00.8] RR: You have Professor Linda Holzer. She is a professor of piano at University of Arkansas since 1995.

[0:58:06.9] KM: Oh, my gosh. This girl, she fell in love. Let me just tell you a little bit about her accolades. She's performed at the John F Kennedy Center Performing Arts, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, New York public radio station, noontime concert at St. Patrick's Cathedral in San Francisco, abroad at Europe, Asia, Australia. She just got home from Europe, because I had to wait a month or two to get her here and this is the reason I got to know her is she's in love with an American classical composer, the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer from Arkansas, Florence Beatrice Price, 1887 to 1953. Did you all know about her? Did you know about her Roger?

[0:58:51.7] RR: No, I did not.

[0:58:52.3] KM: John is over there shaking his head. Did you know about her?

[0:58:55.1] J: No.

[0:58:56.1] KM: I didn't either. I went to a thing and saw it and was in love with it. All right, if you've got a great entrepreneurial story you'd like to share, I'd love to hear from you. Send a brief bio or your contact info to questions@upyourbusiness.org and somebody will be in touch.

Finally to our listeners, thank you for spending time with me. If you think this program has been about you, you're right, but it's also been for me. Thank you for letting me fulfill my destiny. My hope today is that you've heard or learned something that's been inspiring or enlightening, and that it whatever it is will help you up your business, your independence, or your life. I'm Kerry McCoy and I'll see you next time on Up In your Business. Until then, be brave and keep it up.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:59:47.6] RR: You’ve been listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. If you would like to hear this program again, next week a podcast would be made available online with links to resources you heard discussed on today’s show.

Kerry’s goal is to help you live the American Dream.

[END]