The Sentinel-Record - HER - Hot Springs
HER Career
Corvette club's president driven to success Interview conducted by Lindsey Wells
N ancy Acre purchased her first Corvette 10 years ago and has been a Corvette owner ever since. Shortly after their first Corvette purchase, she and her husband joined the Central Arkansas Corvette Club, for which she now serves as president. This year’s Central Arkansas Corvette Club Show for Charity is scheduled for April 20-22 at the Hot Springs Convention Center. Last year’s show brought more than 200 Corvettes into the arena, and Nancy said they expect it to be that big or bigger this year. The club has around 350 members.
How did you become president of the Corvette club?
Nancy Acre: Well, we joined the club about 10 years ago I guess, when we got our first Corvette, and we were very involved in everything and there just came a time when I was encouraged by a lot of the members to run, and I did, and I got it. I have a lot of background in managing people; I was a school administrator for 40 years, so I figured I could manage the people and help them get things done. It took me a long time to figure out and learn all the different aspects of the club, especially the show. Our main goal every year is to put on the big show in Hot Springs. There are a lot of facets to that, and I tried to do everything, work the show, work the different spots in the show to figure out everything that was going on before I ran for president. What school were you the administrator at?
NA: I spent about 20 years in Little Rock School District and before that I spent 13 years in St. Louis. There were a couple other little things in there; I didn’t stay in one place all the time. But, basically, my career is
about 40 years. What made you get into Corvettes 10 years ago?
NA: I had always driven a sports car of one kind or another and, actually, it was my birthday and so I told my husband I wanted to trade my car for a Corvette, and I knew the one I wanted and so I looked around for a long time and it just popped up in the paper one day and we went and bought it. His question to me was, ‘Do you really want a Corvette or do you just want another sports car?’ and I said, ‘I really want a Corvette,’ so we got one. Do you still have that same Corvette? NA: No, about five years later we traded, and then about five years after that, we have a new one now. We have a 2017 Z06, which is the fastest one. What charity does Corvette weekend benefit? NA: We have two major charities, Spina Bifida (Support Group of Arkansas) and Beyond Boundaries. We also do other charities when we have the money. Last year we gave the Ronald McDonald House $ 30,000. Different years, depending on how much money the show brings in, we
give that back to charities. We have a charity in Hot Springs, Ali’s Angels, we gave them some money last year and there’s another one called the Freedom Fund, which benefits veterans. It’s kind of different each year; when people bring things to us, we just kind of pick out who we can give how much to. We’re a nonprofit club so we donate a lot of our money to charity, or the IRS. Do club members participate in other
activities besides the Hot Springs Corvette weekend?
NA: We do a lot of fun things. We go to other shows and we take our cars out on what we call ‘ runs.’ We’ve got an email system where we can contact every member and we’ll say, ‘this Saturday we’re planning a run,’ or something, and we get out and drive our cars up in the hills and have fun with them, stop and eat lunch somewhere and then come back home. That’s what our cars are for — to get out and drive — and we do that frequently, just about every weekend. Last weekend we went to Star City, down to the village down there. It has a nice eating place in a little village and shops; we had 35 cars and about 80 people that went on that run. We’ve always got things for people to do. Does the club accept new members? NA: Oh, yes — the only requirement is that you have a Corvette. We have new members coming in all the time. They’ll buy their first Corvettes or they’ll move into town and look for a Corvette club if they already have a Corvette. We have a meeting once a month at Whole Hog in downtown Little Rock and we have about 100 people that show up for a meeting every month, and we have new members that show up every month. So it’s constant turnover, people coming in and out of the club based on their lives.