Samantha Evans
Bigelow woman makes a difference through Uncommon Communities
Samantha Evans, or Sam, as she prefers, stands up from her seat in a downtown Conway coffee shop, and she is a presence.
She is tall — 5 feet, 11 inches — and she’s wearing heels, despite a steel rod in her leg as the result of a car accident. Her long hair is in braids, and the green top she’s wearing pops under a black jacket. Her smile is big and bright.
She suggested the meeting spot. She reserved a quiet room and arrived first.
There’s a reason this 32-year-old single mother, who describes herself as “a girl from Bigelow,” graduated from Spelman College in Atlanta, earned her master’s at the University of Minnesota and came home to change the world. She knows what she wants.
Evans, a program officer at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mountain who coordinates the Uncommon Communities initiative, is working to make a difference one town at a time. The Uncommon Communities initiative is a community and economic-development program designed to build leaders in rural communities.
“I like making a difference in the city I grew up in; I like making a difference in the state of Arkansas,” she said.
A pivotal experience in her life was being selected in high school to tour Washington, D.C., sponsored by Arkansas Rural Electric Cooperatives. She’d never been on a plane before.
“I met Blanche Lincoln,” a former U.S. senator from Arkansas. “She was phenomenal. I’d never met a woman who could be so direct and so positive at the same time,” Evans said.
She also met Rick Love, an employee with the cooperatives, who helped her get an internship in Washington, D.C., with then-U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder of Little Rock during the summer after her freshman year at Spelman, where she majored in political science.
Evans’ overwhelming memory of Snyder is “he’s a fast walker,” she said, laughing. She would get him a chocolate milkshake and walk to the legislative sessions with him. Evans said she learned a lot about government and servant leadership.
Evans said going to Spelman, a historically black, all-female college, was “the best decision I ever made. It was the best time of my life. I learned about diversity.”
In addition to black women, the college had many Asian exchange students, she said.
“Mother had always wanted to go to college there,” Evans said. Neither of her parents graduated from college, although her mother went to
We work with communities to build up their quality of life.” Samantha Evans PROGRAM OFFICER, WINTHROP ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE
the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and her father to the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
Evans planned to eventually go to law school, but she went to graduate school at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. She worked part time in community development for CommonBond Communities, which built affordable housing.
“I said, ‘I want to be with people and work with a city.’ I felt like I was a city organizer,” she said.
She earned a master’s degree in urban and regional planning.
While she was in graduate school, her son, Jeremiah, was born. Evans said she was struggling to take care of him, work two jobs and finish her degree. A two-week study-abroad trip offered an opportunity to finish her credits.
She went to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Cape Town, South Africa, which is where Evans had an epiphany about Arkansas.
“I viewed the jail where Nelson Mandela was held on Robben Island,” she said. “He spent [almost] 20 years there. You’re going on that island, and you can feel it.”
Evans said she worried about how to raise an AfricanAmerican male.
“Standing there answered it — knowing what Nelson Mandela did — to be strong, to reconcile your differences, to see people, that black men are strong and can raise a nation. No matter what your background, you can lead a city,” she said. “I worked with social workers and developers from all over the world. They were amazed at these kinships, the resilience and how people cared for each other [in Cape Town].
“I thought, ‘I’ve got that in Arkansas. I can pick up the phone and get anyone.’ I went all the way around the world to find Arkansas.”
She knew it was time to go home. In 2009, she moved back to Bigelow.
“I want my son to know his grandparents. It’s not about giving up; it’s about doing what was right for my son. It does take a village to raise a child,” she said.
She wrapped both hands around a demitasse cup of French-press coffee, occasionally refilling the cup from the small glass pitcher beside it. Behind her was a life-size mural of smiling children.
Evans said she had a happy childhood, and that’s what she wants for her son, who is now 8.
“I grew up in Toad Suck, right along the Arkansas River — a mile and a half from Toad Suck Park — and I just thought that was normal,” Evans said. “It’s my happy place. I remember Toad Suck Daze at the river. … It was almost like a Renaissance fair.” The river flooded in 1990. “I remember standing on that hill and seeing nothing but water. I’d never seen anything like it.”
The Toad Suck Bridge was impassable, and her mother couldn’t get to work, Evans recalled.
It was on that bridge right before Christmas her senior year at Bigelow High School that black ice almost ended everything. She was going to take the ACT a second time. She was coming back from buying a watch to time herself during the test and was on her way to pick up a friend, who also was taking the exam. Evans was driving her new Mustang, which her parents had bought her.
The last thing she said to her father was, “Wish me luck.”
She hit black ice and had a head-on collision with a dual-wheeled pickup truck. She broke her femur, an arm, her collarbone and ribs, and punctured her lungs. Evans spent about two weeks in the hospital.
“I had to learn to walk again,” she said.
She was sidelined from the basketball team, but she graduated as salutatorian.
As a member of the National Youth Leadership Council, she spoke to the annual meeting of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association in Nashville, Tennessee.
“I told the doctor, ‘I just need to be able to walk across the stage and give my speech,’” she said. “I’d never given a speech to 30 people, much less 5,000 people.”
Evans took her walker, but she left it backstage when it came time to give her speech.
“Without that Rural Electric opportunity, I don’t know where I’d be,” she said.
After earning her degrees and moving back to Arkansas, she stayed home with her son for four months and looked for a job.
“I came out of Spelman in serious debt,” she said. “It was $28,000 a year, and my parents worked factory jobs. I love my mother to death because she never complained. I never had to have a job in college.”
Talking about her parents’ support brought tears to Evans’ eyes. Her mother has worked almost 30 years at KimberlyClark in Conway; Evans’ father has worked nearly 40 years at Virco Manufacturing Corp. in Conway.
Evans got a job as a planning technician for the city of North Little Rock for about a year.
“I didn’t want to do land use; I was a community developer,” she said.
In 2010, she bought a house in Conway and was hired as assistant director of Main Street Arkansas, part of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.
“I was there five years, going all across the state seeing all these little towns,” she said. “In small cities, we worked to rebuild buildings and dilapidated storefronts to booming storefronts with thriving businesses,” she said. “I worked on preservation and downtown revitalization, but I came from a city that didn’t have a stoplight.”
Evans decided to expand her focus.
“I wanted to have a greater impact on the state of Arkansas. I wanted to have an international focus, but I also wanted to be where it was still rural,” she said.
Cary Tyson, Evans’ former boss at Main Street Arkansas, was working at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute as a program coordinator, guiding Uncommon Communities.
“He had become a great mentor,” Evans said, and he told her about a job opening on the mountain.
She was hired in July 2016 as a program officer working in agriculture and health. She helped farmers learn how to supplement their income.
“It was great. I told Marta [Loyd], our executive director, ‘You could have hired me as a chimney sweeper.’” When Evans learned about Winthrop Rockefeller and the institute, she was inspired, she said. “I work for a legacy — Gov. Rockefeller. The heart of our mission is to continue his legacy. He worked for people and used his experience to build up the state of Arkansas.
“We call it the Rockefeller ethic. Like Gov. Rockefeller, we believe that there is power in bringing people together in searching for solutions in a collaborative way. And that is what our programs do. We bring people together in that structured environment and provide an opportunity for them to ask really big questions about the challenges facing Arkansans and our country.”
In June, she was asked to take over the Uncommon Communities program when Tyson moved out of state. Uncommon Communities started in 2015 as a pilot program in Conway, Perry, Pope, Yell and Van Buren counties.
Loyd said Evans has been “a stellar addition” to the programs team at the institute.
“Her bright mind, keen organizational skills, sense of humor and ability to build strong working relationships with our partners make her a great fit,” Loyd said.
Janet Harris, director of programs, called Evans “smart, organized, poised” and always ready to gain new knowledge and skills.
Evans, who calls Harris a mentor, said she was a little intimidated when Harris suggested she take on Uncommon Communities, but Evans decided the program was a perfect fit for her.
“This program is the lifeblood of these communities,” Evans said. “We work with communities to build up their quality of life. I get to work in the county I grew up in.”
In Perry County, she said, participation in Uncommon Communities brought about the formation of a school parent-teacher organization, a city splash pad and even a goat festival.
One of her favorite memories of an Uncommon Communities experience happened the day of the solar eclipse. She was going to downtown Morrilton, in Conway County, to meet with leaders.
“All these folks were outside the chamber, different colors and backgrounds, sharing glasses. They were oohing and aahing and sharing stories. They were just staring at the solar eclipse and being human,” she said.
The Conway County Leadership program was reinstated after several years, thanks to Uncommon Communities, too, she said.
Evans said she appreciates that Uncommon Communities is “resident-driven.”
“We do a common thing in an uncommon way, is what I like to say,” she said. “I was in Dardanelle last night at the library until 5 o’clock. Bankers, leaders … got together for two hours to ask, ‘How can we make downtown Dardanelle better?’”
She said her goal is to build on the successes of Uncommon Communities, mentor young girls and “inspire the next generation.”
Evans said her mother, who grew up in Menifee in Conway County, still remembers separate water fountains for blacks and whites.
“I don’t think my ancestors would have even thought I’d be standing on that mountain where Rockefeller used to live — not shining his shoes, not cleaning his house,” she said. “I’m there to make an impact and to build on his legacy.”