20 Apr 2015 Brenda Weldon: Mayor and mother
Story and photos
by Tony Warner
Two years ago, Brenda Weldon, then 58, was cruising along as a vice president at a major bank in Malvern looking forward to retirement. Today, she is Malvern’s first female mayor.
“If someone would’ve told me three years ago that I was going to be the next mayor, I would have probably laughed at them,” Weldon said. “I had no desire to enter politics full time,” although at the time she had been an elected member of the Hot Spring County Quorum Court for six years.
The mayor’s position is a part-time job. She said she just wanted to retire from banking in eight years and spend time with her family.
About two years ago, Malvern’s longtime mayor announced he was not going to run again due to health issues. “I love this city,” Weldon said. “I’m a native. I was involved in community volunteering for more than 30 years, and a few people began coming in my office asking me to consider running for mayor. Some actually committed donations if I ran!”
It was then she began to consider the opportunities and possibilities. “I’m a strong Christian and I prayed and prayed, ‘Lord just show me what you want me to do — where do You want me?’”
Her prayers led her to a hard-fought primary election win and then a landslide victory of 51 percent over two opponents last November.
She’s learned a few things since becoming mayor. “People just want to be heard,” she said. “They want to be told the truth. They have a problem when they come to me and are looking for results. Sometimes results are slow. And the big thing I’ve learned is that progress is much slower in the public sector than in the private (sector). In banking, I could get on the phone and buy what I needed to fix a problem. Now I see it just doesn’t move quite that fast.”
Her plate is full as mayor. She took over a city with a high poverty rate, plenty of vacant stores and commercial buildings and low morale among city workers. The morale has improved. All it takes is a phone call to city hall to hear a friendly voice now. “I’m working hard with the county Economic Development Council to try and turn things around. We now have a Downtown Development Corporation actively involved in reviving that area. It’s uphill, but I’m confident we’ll achieve success.”
Despite what seems like a permanent smile on her face, all has not been rosy during her life. Weldon faced heartbreak as a young adult and greater pain as a mother. Soon after she was married, her parents divorced, leaving her father with custody of her 10-year-old sister.
“That was hard to get over even though I was already grown and married to my husband, Johnny,” she said. “Later my mother and I had, at best, a cordial relationship until her death.”
Suffering from lung cancer, her mother died while she spent the final six months of her life in Weldon’s home being cared for by her daughter.
Then, about five years ago, Brenda Weldon’s faith was severely tested when her only son, Jake, became ill with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It would eventually take his life 18 months later. “As a mom it was so painful to see him go through that suffering,” she said. “Jake was our only son, our oldest child. We were so close and I felt so helpless. It was the most painful experience of my life. It devastated me and for a while I was mad at God. It would’ve been so easy to just hide in a corner and never come out. But through God’s grace I rebounded over time. There’s just nothing worse for a mother than to lose a child. But Jake was a Christian and that’s a redeeming fact I can survive with.”
The pain is evident in Weldon’s face as she talks about her son, but a smile will resurface as she recalls her strength during that trial. “If it wasn’t for (husband) Johnny, (daughter) Jennifer and my grandkids — that’s what gets you through. But being a mother is the greatest gift I have from the Lord.”
Mayor and mother, Brenda Weldon is a strong, faith-filled person helping to blaze new trails in service to her community.
