29 Sep 2010 ‘A community treasure’ – Chamber recognizes Mary Acklin

Her efforts to help others have not gone unnoticed, and recently she was presented with the Good Neighbor Award from the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce during the group’s annual meeting.

Raised in New York, Mary and Troy Acklin married in 1953. The Acklins are known for their quality rental property business, T and M Rental Property, which Mary and Troy started in 1967.

Mary became an LPN at Conway Human Development Center and worked there 36 years. She was one of the center’s first black employees. She asked her boss if they could find someone to serve on the board of the chamber, and she was selected.

“I am so grateful to be in the chamber,” she said. “I started as a very young woman.”

On the night of the annual meeting, she said, “All the kids came, and I wondered. I didn’t know what was going on. That was so wonderful.”

The Acklins have five daughters and Mary credits her beloved husband for putting all five through college. “He had 80 head of cattle and 120 head of hogs. He would sell that to put the girls through college,” she said.

An active member of Mount Gale Missionary Baptist Church, Mary relies on her faith during hard times. She discussed a particularly traumatic event in which faith sustained her.

Troy worked for Union Pacific Railroad for many years. In 1993, he suffered devastating injuries when he was run over by a locomotive. Doctors did not believe he would live through the night.

Mary said she told the doctors, “His life is not in your hands; his life is in God’s hands.”

Friends, relatives, coworkers and ministers from around Conway gathered at the hospital to support the family.

“We were packed in there like sardines,” Mary said. “All these people, white and black, all color, were like our family. God’s people. I can’t express how good it was to see this in Arkansas, in Conway.”

Her husband was in the hospital for a year. He lost both his legs and had to undergo physical therapy to learn how to walk on prostheses.

She noted this was not the first time her husband had been seriously injured. When they were a young couple, he was in a vehicle accident and spent about a year in the hospital that time as well.

“I looked at him as another Job because God meant to put that on us for a reason,” Mary said.

Troy worked on the railroad until three years ago, when he became ill with Alzheimer’s disease. Mary now cares for him at home.

“We had a wonderful life,” she said. “All the tragedy we went through, I didn’t see anything God couldn’t handle. I have to say the Lord has been good to me. I have never been where I’ve felt real sad.”

Mary serves as Sunday school secretary, sings in the choir, serves in the Deacons’ Wives Ministry and Missionary Society and visits the sick and shut-ins.

She is president of the Pink Rose Arts and Civic Club, an organization that awards scholarships. She is the Worthy Matron of the Order of Eastern Star and in 2000 was selected for the International Who’s Who of Professional Businesswomen and the Business Women’s Hall of Fame.

Brad Lacy, president and CEO of the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce, said, “Mrs. Acklin was selected by our committee because of her longstanding commitment to the community. So many times ‘community’ means something very specific to an individual: A neighborhood or group of people. Mrs. Acklin has always seen ‘community’ in a very broad sense.

“She has invested her time, talents and money in so many causes. Whether it was investing in scholarships or investing in a new chamber building, Mary Acklin demonstrated a civic responsibility that few people can match.

“It was wonderful to see someone like her receive recognition when she did those things never seeking or expecting to get that. She has invested in the lives of so many, which was evidenced by five tables of supporters at the event. She is a community treasure and an example of servant leadership.”