About Me

I mostly grew up in Paragould where my mothers side of the family was.  We came up here from time to time to float the river as well as when I was in the Boy Scouts.  

At 17, I entered the US Army and spent the next 11 years serving.  Duty Stations of Ft. Leonard Wood, Ft. Lewis, Ft. Polk, Panzer Kaserne in Stuttgart Germany, and Ft. Gordon.  I also served in Korea for just over 3 months on Team Sprit and was deployed to Yellowstone in the 1988 wild fires as well as deployed to Imboden Area for the 1982 floods which both Yellowstone and the floods got me awarded two (2) Humanitarian Service Medals.

As a young soldier, i brought many of my Army friends to float spring river and I remember what Cherokee Village use to be back in the day of being busy.

After getting out of the Army, I met my best friend and wife of over 30 years now and went back to school.  During my School, I got a job at a Electrical Engineering firm as a drafter then quickly moved up the ladder to become a Commercial Electrical Designer.  I was blessed to have worked on many projects to include contractor interviews and selection as well as contractor billing review.  These were multi-million dollar projects for Federated Department Stores as well as doing electrical design for Mariners stadium projects and Bill Gates Home.  

My wife and I were heavily involved at district, zone and state level of the Washington Fraternal Order of Eagles of which I served as a Troubled Aerie (Club) Agent, Past President, Past Secretary/Trustee, Past District President, Past Zone President (x2) and had we not retired back here, most likely would have gone through the State Chairs.

I am a Life member of VFW, DAV and FOE as well as a very long time member of the American Legion.

After being retired here and sending 4 kids, with one going in 1st grade now, through the Highland School System.  I decided to run for the position of Arkansas Constable which is an elected law enforcement position within my District.  I'm currently in my second term and preparing to run for a 3rd term.

If that isn't enough, I also have become the director and CEO for Sharp County Search and Rescue of which I'm a co-founder and have been involved in SAR for over 10 years now. The past couple years have been kind to us with not so many getting lost or needing our assistant but we do and will deploy across the state.  Our team also does SkyWarn in the area which means we go out in bad weather to watch for Tornadoes and such.  If your not a member of our local SKYWarn Facebook group, join here, answer the questions then monitor us during bad weather along side other media.

Because of my involvement with Search and Rescue I have been elected to the Arkansas Search and Rescue Association as a board member.  Further, I obtained my teaching credentials from National Association for Search and Rescue to instruct and evaluate many of their certification courses.  I recently became a Stop the Bleed Instructor as well and our Search and Rescue Corporation is becoming a licensed STB educator.

Now to me and SID, In 2018, because SID issued a re-assessment that was illegal, a few folks formed somewhat a group that was obviously opposed to the so called assessment and the fact SID was giving our money to the city which was wrong as well.  This group was led by Mark Kronkosky but I seem to have become the one who continues to post on social media things that seem or are wrong.  I know there are those who feel i hate or am anti-city/SID.  In fact, I only wish to see my two forms of government operate as they should and to help them not go down the road which led to lawsuits.  If I did not like this community, I would have sold long ago and moved.  I have been here for almost 20 years now.

I am concerned, very concerned about the path our current SID is and has been going down.  The lack of planning, short or long term, is scary as if they continue to do nothing and the end of assessment hits in 10 or 12 years, what is going to happen to this community?  The community we chose to retire to and raise kids now grandkids..... what happens when the state comes in and breaches dams because they have not been fixed.   What happens when there's no money coming in to maintain or even keep the golf courses open?  What happens when lack of funding closes down Omaha center and thunderbird center?  

My Vision of my kids and grandkids coming to stay with maw maw and pawpaw and have lakes to boat and fish in, pools to swim in, and golf course for visiting friends and family to play or even the playing parks are in jeopardy because our commissioners rather work on medial stuff than come up with options and plans for our future!

We can keep our amenities and they can be secured for the future but folks are going to have to wise up to the fact that it may not be our SID moving us into a financially stable and responsible future.... that may be a mix of private entities and city government.  At least these are the only legal and responsible ways I have yet to see.  

Hard decision are going to need to be made and its obvious the "Kick the can down the road" leadership we currently have does not care to attempt to compile options or enforce collecting back taxes.

I honestly see a bright future for Cherokee Village but its going to take work, hard work from our commissioners and City government.  It will also take you to do this.