by Renee Hunter

While he was Morrilton’s mayor, Stewart Nelson, saw a lot of good things happen.
“It was a very exciting time to be mayor,” he said. “Our community has been really alive.”

Nelson ran for the office as a result of covering city government for the Petit Jean Country Headlight, for which he has written since 1974. “After covering city government for a while, I decided I could do it better than the people in charge,” he said.

Several projects were completed during Nelson’s 12-year tenure:

• A $1 million project to replace downtown sidewalks that were laid in the late 1920s. Donations paid half the cost, and Charles Jackson provided free supervision.
They kept hitting snags, including lead pipes that were discovered under the old sidewalks. In addition, two forgotten gasoline storage tanks were unearthed and had to be closed according to PCE regulations. “We just had issue after issue after issue,” said Nelson.

• Refurbishing the Rialto Theater, which had been slated for razing “to build another parking lot.”
Nelson says his only input was to say “let’s not tear it down,” and others carried the ball. Morrilton leased the building to a private group headed by Bill Stacks and Lindle Roberts, which paid for the renovation with private monies. As part of the lease agreement, the group holds a monthly community event in the redone theater.

• Rehabilitation of the city parks and construction of several walking trails.

• Construction of a bypass between highways 9 and 95, which had been in the planning stage for 20-25 years.

• A $1 million sewer expansion project, which features a zero-discharge system. The treated effluent is used to irrigate farmland instead of being discharged into the Arkansas River.

“I don’t know that I did that much,” Nelson said. “All I did was facilitate a few things and get them started.”

Also during his term, this town of 6,500 lost two manufacturing plants that provided 1,000 jobs, more than half the jobs in Conway County. Instead of bemoaning the loss, residents set up a job fair to help the resulting unemployed. “They were our friends and neighbors, and we worked hard to find them jobs,” Nelson said.

The city then managed to attract two new companies: an ICT Group call center and a Bosch Communications Systems plant that manufactures communications components.

Within three years, three-fourths of the lost jobs were replaced.

In 2006, Nelson lost his bid for a fourth term, but the loss didn’t faze him. Instead of going “home” to Germantown, Tenn., as many expected, he remained in Morrilton and found other avenues of involvement.

“I’ve enjoyed being a part of Morrilton,” he said, adding that he is like a lot of people who come to the town expecting to leave and then deciding they like it enough to stay. “I stay just as busy now as when I was mayor,” he said. “There are opportunities for mayors and there are opportunities for people to work at care centers and literacy councils.”

At the Conway County Care Center, Nelson is the “go-to guy.” He drives regularly to the Arkansas Food Bank and the Arkansas Rice Depot in Little Rock to pick up food for distribution to the hungry of Conway County. On each trip, he usually picks up $3,000-$4,000 worth of food.

“Our goal is that no family should go hungry,” he said. He also makes sure the facility’s roof doesn’t leak.

He joined the Conway County Literacy Council board in 2007 and also provides math tutoring. “Our biggest problem is funding,” he said. “We have more people than we can teach and not enough money to teach them.”

As a board member of St. Anthony’s Medical Center Foundation, he helped raise $25,000 for the hospital last year.

And he continues to maintain an interest in the city’s development and to provide stories and photos for the weekly newspaper.

“We have a great group of people who are trying to restore Downtown Morrilton,” he said, adding that while the downtown is full of second-hand stores, the stores are for the most part not empty.
“We’ve got everything that a big community would have except a lot of problems,” he said. “There are so many small things going on in Morrilton that make the town what it is.”

Nelson came to Arkansas with Levi-Strauss after earning his bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee at Martin. Later, he worked for Maybelline in Little Rock. He earned his MBA in 1976 from the University of Central Arkansas.

“The teachers were good; the opportunities were good; the classes were good,” he said. “I just can’t quit bragging on UCA.”
In his “spare time, “if I can ever find time to do it,” Nelson is an Extra Class ham radio operator, and he is taking a computer class at the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton “for fun.”