Senator Tracy Steele to speak at SouthArk Spring commencement
EL DORADO — About 300 students will graduate from South Arkansas Community College during Spring Commencement at 7 p.m. May 12 at the El Dorado Conference Center.
The guest speaker will be former State Sen. Tracy Steele of North Little Rock, founder of the STAND Foundation and the current director of the Arkansas Health Services Permit Agency.
Steele attended Rice University on a basketball scholarship and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science.
Steele was the first director of the Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission, a position that he held from 1994-2006.
In 1999, he was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives for the first time, eventually serving two terms.
In 2003 he was elected to the state Senate, eventually serving two terms and becoming the first African American Senate majority leader in Arkansas history. STAND, a non-profit leadership development organization, was established in 2008.
In 2012, he was elected to the North Little Rock School Board, where he still is in his first term of office. In 2013, he was named the director of the Arkansas Division of Youth Services, leaving the department the next year. In 2015, Steele accepted an appointment from Gov. Asa Hutchinson to head the Health Services Permit Agency.
Steele and his wife, Cassandra, have two children and are members of Little Rock’s Grace Temple Church.