Mayor-elect Penney-Bell shares outlook on office By: Becky Bell - Texarkana Gazette Mayor-elect Ruth Penney-Bell did not plan to run for mayor. In fact, she attempted to recruit other people to run, but to no avail. “I made at least five phone calls,” Penney-Bell said, “but they all turned me down. And I kept getting calls from people saying that they just wanted me to give them a choice.” Despite her reluctance, Penney-Bell ran for mayor and defeated candidate David Haak, a prominent businessman with an abundance of political experience at the state level, having serving in the Arkansas House of Representatives and the state senate, and locally as a former city director. Winning the Nov. 4 election makes Penney-Bell the first woman to be elected mayor for either side of Texarkana. “I’ve never felt different because I was female,” said Penney-Bell who has served on the city board since January 2009. “And I’m not expecting special treatment because I’m female.” But Penney-Bell does hope directors will give her a chance to become immersed in her role as mayor as she and other directors did when Mayors Horace Shipp and Wayne Smith were elected. “I think for a time, they will give me a break, but I’m not expecting it to last for four years,” Penney-Bell said. “I think they will give me a chance knowing I will not be up on all the things that Mayor Smith was up on. There is going to be a big learning curve for me. I’m not accustomed to dealing with big budgets with a lot of department heads like he was.” On election night, Smith, who has been in office for the past four years, said he would help Penney-Bell with anything he could about learning her new office. But some things are not teachable. Some things just come with the experience of doing the job. “My advice has always been to look out for the citizens and not special-interest groups and listen to what the citizens say and research their concerns. If they are legitimate, then you have to do something. If they are not, you also have to tell them they do not have legitimate concerns,” Smith said. Over the past several years, controversy has surrounded Texarkana, Ark.’s operations. Much of that has to do with the firing and rehiring of City Manager Harold Boldt and questionable transactions that took place during the construction of Crossroads Business Park. Smith said he thinks there is more to come from a group that does not feel they have the control they once had. “Unfortunately, there is a small group in Texarkana, Ark., that has for years had their way, and now they are losing their grip on City Hall, and they are not accepting it well. Whether it is me or Mayor-elect Penney-Bell, that is something that will have to be confronted until that small group realizes the citizens wanted to elect someone to represent the citizens and not that small group. And I have the utmost confidence that Mayor-elect Penney-Bell is going to handle those confrontations in a very professional (manner) and with high integrity.” Penney-Bell said one of her goals as mayor is to make all citizens feel welcome at City Hall. “I want the citizens to feel like this building belongs to them,” Penney-Bell said Wednesday during an interview at City Hall. “I want them to think this building belongs to them because, in essence, we are servants taking their money. It is incumbent (on us) to treat taxpayers with respect.” Smith said he thinks Penney-Bell has a strong history of representing citizens in her ward and in others when she has received calls. “I admire her for the fact that she has always stood up for her constituents,” Smith said. “We were not always 100 percent on the same side, but even when she disagreed with me and voted different from me, I still respect her for her willingness to represent her constituents.” Penney-Bell ran for Ward 1 director in 2008 and 2012. Had she not won the mayoral race, she would serve on the board until 2016. However, the mayor-elect does support term limits. “I do not believe in making a career out of public service,” Penney-Bell said. “If you serve much past six years, there are personal agendas.” Penney-Bell does not know what will come of the obscure law that was brought up after the election regarding her serving as a director while running for mayor. This has been the case with past Texarkana, Ark., mayors. However, she said she is going to continue to stand by a mantra someone was good enough to share with her before Election Day: “Someone told me during the campaign that character is not built, it is revealed,” Penney-Bell said. BEFORE CITY HALL Penney-Bell’s life began in Ben Lomond, Ark. When she was about to graduate from high school, she told her parents that she wanted to go to college. “My daddy said, ‘We are poor, and we can’t afford to send you to college,’” Penney-Bell said. “Mother said, ‘God will provide a way.’” Penney Bell’s mother took her first job outside of the home at a dry goods store in Ashdown, Ark., to provide spending money for Penney-Bell and her other college-bound daughter. Then the family experienced another blessing. “Daddy worked on U.S. 71, and he got some easement money and then the dam went in, and he got more easement money,” she said. Penney-Bell took a student bus from her home to Texarkana College. Later, she transferred to Henderson to complete her degree in education. “I taught junior high in the beginning of the fall of ‘64, and I loved it,” she said. “I had found my place. I loved the kids as if they were mine, and it was a fun experience. Some students still call me and come by and visit.” Her memories of school during that time included the enjoyment of managing extracurricular tasks that kept coming her way, including being the sponsor of the student council and newspaper adviser. “I thought they were honoring me, and they were dumping everything on me,” she said. “I was like a happy idiot.” Penney-Bell said she always asked her superintendent if the students could have parties, and he was agreeable as long as there were enough chaperones. She even let her students talk her into trying to play games with them on the playground at the old North Heights Junior High School. “I had a fine time. I tried to play baseball in spike heels and a girdle,” she said, laughing as she thought back to that time in her life. “I have the athleticism of a gnat. Back then, you had on heels, you had on hose, and you could not wear too much eye makeup.” She taught school for years and then took off to be a mother to two children, Josh Davis and Jessica Davis. After an ugly divorce that was finally finalized in 1989, Penney-Bell said she clung to her faith in a whole new way. “I learned to live my faith,” the 72-year-old said. “And to this day, I still get down on my knees and pray every night.” Penney-Bell was also a small-business owner and a manager. She is now president of R&J Properties. Penney-Bell recently remarried and sighed Wednesday when she had to call her husband, Charles “Buddy” Bell, and tell him she would just have to meet him at church because she was still at City Hall. She asked him if he has put all the butter and pepper into the new potatoes and then asked him to bring along her “church cake,” which is a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and pecans. “I call it that because I can make it in about 45 minutes,” she said. Even though Penney-Bell said she stands for transparency and does not want one Freedom of Information request coming into City Hall ignored, at the end of the day, she is still a southern lady who brought some cookies she made to her election night party. When questioned about how she had time to bake on Election Day, she revealed that she had made them the week before and frozen them. LOOKING FORWARD Penney-Bell said one of the things she most wants to see happen for the city is more retail development in Crossroads Business Park—for the benefit of more tax dollars collected and for her own personal benefit with the purchases she would like to make. “I would love to see some dress shops out there where I could buy a silk blouse,” Penney-Bell said. Penney-Bell said it is unlikely that she will stray from the pants and blazers she wore as a director. “My kids say I was born in a blazer,” she said. During an interview on election night, Penney-Bell said one of the reasons she had ran is because she wanted her granddaughter, Lora 14, to see that being a woman doesn’t mean you are restricted in what you can do in life. Lora seemed impressed with her “mamaw” and showed support by sacrificing her perfect attendance record at school to spend the day out campaigning with her mother, Mandy Davis, and her father, Josh Davis, who represents Ward 6 on Texarkana, Texas, City Council. Penney-Bell said she thinks being a modern mayor carries more responsibilities than mayors of the past, who cut ribbons and kissed babies. “I really do think the mayor is the face of the city,” Penney-Bell said. “People want to be able to call them with questions and concerns. If a stop sign is down, I know I’m going to be called, and I expect that.”
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 15:08:00 +0000
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