Garner, nonprofit leader, running for state House

FAYETTEVILLE — Most people know Denise Garner as a volunteer, nonprofit group leader and retired nurse practitioner. She hopes to also be known as a state legislator.

Garner, 61, intends to run for the House District 84 seat won in 2010 by Charlie Collins, a Republican, who is running for a fifth term. Adrienne Kvello, a Democrat, also has thrown her hat in the ring.

That means a Democratic primary.

Garner said she has spent her life developing a set of skills desperately needed in the Legislature. She founded Feed Communities, a nonprofit group helping people learn to cook from locally grown produce, and its associated publication Edible Ozarkansas.

Most recently, Garner started Role Call, an organization that helps people find their place in politics, she said.

Garner has served on numerous boards, contributed to major community projects and initiatives and received awards in philanthropy. She stepped back from some of those efforts to focus on running for office, she said. Garner ran for Democratic Party of Arkansas chairman earlier this year and lost to state Rep. Michael John Gray, D-Augusta.

“I’ve watched years of hard work for nonprofits and in health care be wiped away with the swipe of a policy pen,” Garner said. “I know that elections matter, and I know that policy is king.”

Garner listed jobs, community development, education and health care among priorities if elected. Many of those issues went by the wayside with the intense fervor surrounding the gunson-campus bill sponsored by Collins, Garner said.

That legislation became a law that higher education and police didn’t want, Garner said. Democracy doesn’t work without listening to constituents, she added.

Garner said she would support Kvello if she becomes the Democratic nominee. However, Garner said her four decades in the nonprofit sector set her apart from the 39-year-old Kvello.

Garner has been married for 41 years to Dr. Hershey Garner, a prominent radiation oncologist and founding physician of the former Northwest Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute, now Highlands Oncology Group. They have two sons, Wes and Adam, and two grandchildren,

Jack and Emma.

Arkansas House District 84 encompasses much of eastern Fayetteville, a swath of Washington County south of the city, Greenland and the northern part of West Fork.

Candidate filing begins Feb. 22 and ends March 1. The primary is set for May 22 with the general election Nov. 6. Arkansas House members serve two-year terms and have an annual salary of $39,400. Members can serve 16 years during their lifetime.

Garner