Incoming Van Buren County judge plans to promote area
Incoming Van Buren County judge plans to promote area
Dale James thought the race between him and fourterm Van Buren County Judge Roger Hooper would go down to the wire.
James was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t.
James, a justice of the peace, won the race 58 percent to Hooper’s 39.3 percent. Tony Soyani garnered 2.7 percent of the vote.
“I was shocked; I was shocked,” said James, 48, a Republican. “I was cautiously optimistic. I had a lot of momentum going into the election. I expected us not to know who won till the last vote came in.”
Hooper, 67, was surprised by the vote, too.
He attributes most of it to the fact that Van Buren County votes Republican.
“I’m a Democrat,” Hooper said. However, he said that hasn’t mattered in the past.
“The county went 75 percent Republican, and I still won,” Hooper said.
He’s not sure what happened this time. “I’m not in a position to analyze it,” he said.
James, who is vice chairman of the Van Buren County Republican Committee, said he will oversee a quorum court that had four members change in the election — three elected are Republicans, and one is an independent, the candidate who is filling James’ seat.
A lifelong resident of Clinton, James grew up an only child. His parents were farmers, raising turkeys, then chicken and cattle. His mother, Lorene James, lives in Clinton, and his father, Arthur James, died of Alzheimer’s disease a couple of years ago, he said.
In addition to being an elder with the Church of Christ in Choctaw, Dale James is on the board of the Choctaw Food Bank and just completed a twoyear term as president of the Clinton High School Alumni Association and is its vice president for the next two years.
James was elected to the Van Buren County Quorum Court eight years ago when Hooper first became judge. Hooper appointed James to the Budget and Finance Committee in 2010, and James has been its chairman ever since.
Both men said they’ve had a good relationship working on the Quorum Court.
“I would call our relationship excellent,” James said. “I still hold a great deal of respect for Roger.”
The bone of contention in the election was financial, James said, specifically the purchase of gravel from outside sources — “the majority of the purchase of gravel coming from other counties. We spent $800,000 for gravel for one year; 54 percent was spent nonlocally,” he said.
“In the past, we operated our own crusher, and I want to get back to that,” James said. He maintained that the county can save millions of dollars by that action.
Hooper said he did what made sense economically, based on the price to transport gravel and other factors.
He said improving roads in the county is one of his legacies.
“I feel like we improved 70 percent of the county roads; it was simply gravel that we did it on, I think 340 miles of county roads, 4-6 inches of gravel; then build up the base. We did 85 miles of new chip and seal. Did about the same, 80 miles of asphalt overlay, another 80 of chip and seal overlay. We did an overlay upgrade 600 miles of 820 miles in the county.”
James has worked for Walmart for almost 30 years, and he said he wants to use his sales acumen to promote Van Buren County. He has an Associate of Arts degree from the former Petit Jean Vocational Technical College, now the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton. He received an internship at Walmart and has been there ever since, he said. He’s a department manager at the Walmart Supercenter in Clinton.
“There’s not a whole lot I haven’t done at Walmart,” he said. James said that as county judge, his sales experience will be a benefit.
“I can’t wait to sell Van Buren County,” he said. “My platform was Van Buren County first — every decision and purchase,” James said.
He said the question he will ask in every decision he makes is, “Does it put Van Buren County first?” He said the county should buy or produce locally, when feasible.
Clinton Mayor Richard McCormac said he grew up with James, although McCormac is older than James.
“His whole family is [made of] honest, hardworking people,” McCormac said, including James’ in-laws.
McCormac said he has worked with Hooper on advertising and recruiting businesses and looks forward to working with James.
“It is a big change, and that’s the way public service works,” the mayor said. “I think he’ll be up to the task, for sure. I think he’ll be aggressive.
He’s already proactive, thinking outside the box about ways to bring stuff to Clinton.”
McCormac said James has visited other communities to get ideas and that being on the Budget Committee “certainly will be helpful.”
“What’s good for the county is good for Clinton, period,” and vice versa, McCormac said.
James said one of the challenges the county faces is providing jobs for its residents.
“The issues facing the county are for starters, jobs,” James said. “We are losing population. We lost 800 people from the 2010 census till now, according to Census.gov.”
Van Buren County has a large percentage of commuters, he said.
“Our people are driving great distances,” James said.
Although the unemployment rate is at 5 percent, it has improved “because [residents] moved away to work.”
“Providing jobs is No. 1,” he said of his goals. “No one is going to pick Van Buren County out of a map to locate to for a business.”
But James said businesses should consider Clinton.
“We have so much potential. We’re only 30 minutes away from river and rail and interstate commerce. We are the perfect spot. We’re the main track from the south end of the state to Branson, Missouri. We have a lot of potential we need to capitalize on. We just need to reach out to existing business owners and encourage them to expand into Van Buren County. I plan on doing most of that myself,” he said.
James is not worried about being spread too thin.
“I’ve worked two and three jobs my whole life, so no problem,” he said.
While working at Walmart for almost 30 years, he has sold preneed funeral plans on the side. He now works with Clinton Funeral Service.
“I helped my wife, of all things, sell Avon for many years for my kids’ college funds,” he said, laughing. “I took my wife (Amanda) into the district’s largest seller of Avon products.”
James said he didn’t sell the products to customers. “We would stay up on Friday nights and pack orders, and I would help deliver those orders,” he said.
The couple have two daughters, Ashley, 16, and Abby, 15.
“I didn’t get married until I was 31, didn’t have kids till I was 32. I’m just living the dream right now,” James said.