Bigger and better things
After lean years, Redman found success in career, volunteerism.
Gloria Redman is 100% the Southern lady. She’s also a spirited adventurer and big-hearted listener with a keen sense of gratitude that has helped her navigate cancer during a pandemic.
The story of Gloria Cates Redman often feels as unlikely as it is entertaining. On April 7, AR Kids Read will honor her with its Lifetime Achievement Award at Spellebration 2022, a spelling bee fundraiser. As Redman reflects on her life’s journey, two things quickly become clear. First, this tiny, grace-filled woman with sparkling eyes and good cheekbones has had a remarkably varied and adventurous life. And second: Gloria Redman is a born storyteller.
There’s the story about surviving the disastrous Northridge earthquake that hit California in 1994 in her nightgown and full-length mink coat. Of winning over inaccessible Hollywood executives with her homemade banana bread. Of singing “The Yellow Rose of Texas” at a large dinner party in Scotland. Of being lifted into the air by a strong wind on Fifth Avenue. And the story in which a “horrified” Redman found herself dancing in the aisle at a Broadway show with a nearly naked Brazilian man.
She delivers the colorful tales with vivid details, dramatic pauses and spot-on comic timing. She easily slips from her soft, genteel Texas accent into different voices — the highlight is the rich Scottish brogue of an elderly male friend. It’s delightful.
Brian Bush, executive vice president at Stephens Inc., says he first met Redman 34 years ago. “The day I met her I thought she was just the most beautiful, charming lady I’d ever met. That holds true today,” Bush says. He calls her “the quintessential Southern lady,” comparing her to Dixie Carter’s character in “Designing Women.”
“Julia Sugarbaker has always reminded me of Gloria,” Bush says. “She was very elegant, very sophisticated and very strong. All of those apply to Gloria. She is no wilting daisy. Gloria has this rare combination of beauty and gentleness, but there’s an inner strength in there one should not mistake.”
He’s not the first to bring up her resemblance to Carter. “Everybody says that!” she says brightly, not unhappy with the comparison. She talks about meeting her famous doppelganger at a trade show. Waiting in line for an autograph, Redman asked Carter’s assistant where the actress got her hair styled. “He told me the name of the salon, so the next time I was in L.A., I made an appointment,” Redman says. Her timing was uncanny. “When I go, there’s Dixie Carter! We sat next to each other and visited while we had our hair done. She was so nice, and so, so sweet.”
KAUFMAN COUNTY VETCH QUEEN
Redman has fond memories of her “storybook” upbringing in Kaufman, Texas, a farming community 35 miles southeast of Dallas. Her father, H.R. Cates, was a big man with a larger-than-life reputation. He owned one of the most advanced cotton farms in the county, following the latest science. Her mother, Florene, was the musician for their Baptist church and created a comfortable home for their girls, Peggy, Gloria and Norma. Redman is the middle sister — “the best part of the sandwich!” she quips.
She talks of her mama’s fresh-baked cinnamon rolls, fried chicken and homemade pies, of riding bikes through the cotton fields. And of her tremendous shyness.
“I was such a shy little thing,” Redman says. But music brought her out. As a girl, she began singing for local civic group meetings. And despite her shaking legs, Gloria Cates was named Best Vocalist at a state competition in Houston.
She was Homecoming Queen her senior year in high school. “Oh, I was also named Kaufman County Vetch Queen!” she exclaims. Vetch, newly introduced at the time, is a plant that enriches soil with nitrogen. “I suppose I ought to be embarrassed about that one,” she laughs.
She pledged Chi Omega and majored in home economics at Texas Christian University. It was a continuation of her lifelong training in “proper” women’s pursuits. “Growing up, my sisters and I learned to cook and sew and sing and dance and play piano,” she says. “We never did any work beyond that.”
But those skills in cooking and performing would prove essential to her astonishing career.
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
She and her girlfriends planned to earn enough money to go to Hawaii, get jobs and live the island life. But while working in Texarkana, she met a senior in medical
school named John Redman, from Arkansas. They were married within a year.
While John was in residency, Gloria supported them at various jobs until his urology career took off and she no longer had to work. They built a house and a “very good life” in Little Rock’s Pleasant Valley and had two children, Rachel and Jake. Gloria took tennis lessons, cared for the kids and threw lavish dinner parties, where she forged friendships that would prove indispensable.
The two remained married for 14 years, but their marriage had a power imbalance; when the children were 7 and 8, she divorced him. She has had romances and says she “came close three or four times,” but she never remarried. “At a certain point, it wasn’t worth the bother.”
MAKING IT ON HER OWN
The newly single mother, who hadn’t held a job in nine years, needed to make enough money to pay the mortgage and support her children. In these lean years, she had to tally the cost of every ingredient needed before going shopping.
But her first post-divorce job, selling radio advertising, taught the still-shy mother how to talk to strangers. The secret? “They gave me a sheet of questions to ask about people’s businesses. … I learned people love to talk about themselves if you just let them,” she says.
Another friend connected her to a better-paying job at the Arkansas Poultry Federation, the lobbying arm of the industry that at the time employed a quarter of all Arkansans. Redman cooked omelets at the Capitol; started a monthly TV cooking show on four Arkansas channels, offering seasonal ideas for using eggs, chicken and turkey; and shared tips in 60-second radio spots.
A busy working single mom, she cooked a family dinner every evening, read Rachel’s and Jake’s homework and saw to her household. “I wouldn’t take $4 million for those early years I had with my children,” she says. “That was a special time.”
Her prospects turned when a friend who’d attended her lavish dinner parties asked her to sell advertising for his new venture. The project was Take One, a customizable video magazine. Redman sold it to video rental places such as grocery and video stores. Take One was a hit, and for 12 years she sold it to increasingly large accounts.
Her kids were older, so she spent a week each month in either New York or L.A., as well as traveling to events around the United States, landing accounts and maintaining client relationships. She worked hard and excelled, and she started making “very good money.” Thanks to a generous expense account, she always stayed at The Plaza when she was in New York and the Beverly Hilton when in L.A.
“I was in lots of situations that were lots more worldly than me,” she confesses. But she “decided to be a little adventurous” and explore the cities and invite new experiences, accumulating fascinating stories along the way.
Her extensive travels also enabled another passion — attending sports events. She has been to the NCAA National Championship game (ask to hear that story), the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, Wimbledon and the Masters. The British Open three times.
And she attends every Hogs game she can, especially football. Her children both attended the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and her eldest granddaughter is now a UA freshman.
“I’m a running back wannabe,” she confides. “But I’ve realized now, that’s not going to happen.”
NONPROFIT LIFE
Three years after Take One sold to a new owner, Redman accepted a job directing the Arkansas chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. She arrived after an organizational upset that had left the nonprofit with no board, six weeks before its Great Strides walkathon. There was no chair, no committee. So she got on the phone.
“I called all my friends and said, ‘Look, when Great Strides comes on this date, I need y’all to be there and I need you to bring a little bit of money,’” she says. “They jumped in and helped me. Our chapter was one of three to exceed its previous year’s number by 80%.”
Redman loved working for the foundation, especially with the CF families. But six years later she took on community affairs at the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences at the request of another old friend, institute co-founder Dr. James Suen. She’d talk with oncologists about new cancer research, then share that information with the public. In those six years before she retired, Redman gave 900 civic programs around Arkansas.
She has served on many different boards and helped countless philanthropic efforts. Currently, she’s most active with the Arkansas Service Commission, Women and Children First, and AR Kids Read. Gov. Mike Beebe and then Gov. Asa Hutchinson appointed her to the Arkansas Service Commission. She helps oversee the AmeriCorps program, administer federal grants and promote volunteerism through Engage Arkansas.
For about 15 years, she has served on the board of Women and Children First, the largest domestic abuse shelter in the state, and she says, one of the best anywhere. Because of the substantial emotional and practical help clients receive, the abused only return to their abusers once or twice on average. She says the national average is eight or nine times.
Donald Wood, executive director of Arkansas Just Communities, recruited Redman for the AR Kids Read board about eight years ago after meeting her at a philanthropic event. “She’s so warm and inviting,” Wood says. “She gives a genuine sense of being interested and caring when she talks to you. I knew she’d be a wonderful addition to our board.”
Redman explains the work. “We recruit tutors for secondand third-graders in the public schools. I thought, ‘If I’m going to do this, I’m going to start on the front lines, so I know what we’re doing.’ So I started tutoring right away.” Redman says the tutors read a book with a few students at a time, and talk with them about what they’ve read. “Just a little time with those kids can make a big difference to them,” she says. “I would love it if this profile helped us recruit more tutors!”
Wood says the nonprofit’s Lifetime Achievement Award “couldn’t go to a better person: Gloria’s been an incomparable advocate for children and children’s education.”
NOT A SOLO JOURNEY
Redman says the love of friends and of her children and “four amazing grandchildren” has sustained her through a “very intimidating” time.
She has spent the past two years being treated for cancer at CARTI, in the middle of a pandemic. “It’s been hard, but it slowed me down in good ways, too,” she says. “I’d sit on the patio in the late afternoon with Jesus Calling [a daily devotional]. Even though I was alone, I’d look around and say, ‘Look at this blue sky! Look at these trees and this grass! We live in Paradise and we don’t even notice it, we’re so busy doing!’ It’s made me very thankful.”
She’s working on her recovery, expressing hope and gratitude. “Dr. [Jamie] Burton has been wonderful, so aggressive in my treatment plan,” Redman says. “And my friends have been so good to me; they’ve come to see me during the worst of the chemo, and carried me places when I wasn’t up to driving, brought me food, made sure I ate. Just wonderful.”
“I’m thankful for all God has given me,” she says. “But I believe strongly, ‘To whom much is given, much is required.’ So I do my best to do my part.”