Gentry resident makes run for District 91 seat
BENTONVILLE — “Here it goes; my hat is in the ring,” Delia Haak announced as she threw a white hat in the political ring July 15, launching what she calls “A New Adventure” during a rally near the steps of the Benton County Courthouse in Bentonville.
Haak, a long-time resident of Gentry, is seeking the Republican nomination for the Arkansas House of Representatives District 91 seat, which will be open with the retirement of Dan Douglas in 2020.
“I plan to wear out several good pairs of walking shoes to meet people and share a vision for the growing opportunity for District 91,” Haak stated. “I know what it is like to live below a budget, even a small one, and I want to keep my focus on getting good things done and not get distracted on things that don’t matter.”
During a recent trip to Washington, D.C., last June, Haak took her seven grandchildren to see the political process in action. The group toured the U.S. Capitol building arranged through Congressman Steve Womack’s office. While waiting to go into the House of Representatives, Haak wanted to make sure that each of her grandkids paid close attention to the workings of our government.
“Who’s going to step up and run for political office?” Haak asked her grandkids. “You must do this, you must engage this, you must get involved; and they (grandkids) looked at me and said, ‘Why, you, grand-mama.’”
Shortly thereafter she received a call from Tom and Gloria Hopper requesting a meeting which eventually sparked an interest in running for Douglas’ seat in the Arkansas House.
“We felt a great love for the people that have helped us make this a wonderful land of opportunity for us,” Haak concluded. “We want to give back for our kids and grandkids following us, behind us.”
In 1976, Delia and Bill Haak were married in what she called a patriotic ceremony complete with a red, white and blue wedding cake. In August 1979 they moved to a little two-room house on a 47-acre farm near Gentry. There they began their dream of starting a business.
Shortly after moving to Gentry, Haak went to work as a secretary for the Gentry school system. She worked for the Gentry school for two years. While serving in that position, she decided, with the encouragement of her husband and co-workers, to finish her college degree, which she had started before her marriage.
She began attending Northwest Arkansas Community College. In 1985, Haak took a job as a secretary in the office of President John Brown III at John Brown University in Siloam Springs. While working at JBU, Haak completed her bachelor’s degree in business. Later she attended the Sam Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where she received a master’s degree in business administration. She later completed a doctoral program. In 1999, she designed and implemented a master’s degree program in leadership and ethics at JBU. She taught at JBU until 2009 when she joined the Illinois River Watershed Partnership.
Since becoming a member of the Illinois River group, Haak learned valuable lessons in how
to work with people, communities, businesses and government officials to find a commonality that will help bind people together, something she plans on carrying over to her political career should she get the Republican nomination for the District 91 seat.
“To find common ground, we must know people; we must listen and seek to understand them. We must be reliable, resourceful, inventive, impartial, genuine, hardworking, honest, transparent and trust worthy —RIGHT—we must be right !” said Haak.
“To represent people in the state House of Representatives one can’t just say no,” she explained. “If saying no to everything is the case, we don’t need a person to apply wisdom, experience, common sense, intelligence or compassion to solve complex issues. We can save taxpayer dollars by having a no button for the District 91 seat or, for that matter, we can have 100 no buttons in the house and conduct business that way. But we need thoughtful, fair, disciplined, conservative ideas, voices and voters to represent the thoughtful people of District 91.”