Governor, Sculptor to Receive Honorary Degrees from University of Arkansas

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Gov. Mike Beebe and Anita Huffington.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe and Anita Huffington, a nationally known sculptor who has made Northwest Arkansas her adopted home, will both receive honorary degrees from the University of Arkansas on Saturday, May 10, during the All University commencement ceremony in Bud Walton Arena.

Gov. Beebe will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree; Huffington will receive an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree. Both will address graduating students during the ceremony.

“It is a great pleasure to be able to recognize and honor two such distinct and accomplished Arkansans,” said Chancellor G. David Gearhart. “Gov. Beebe is a living example of the power of education to transform a person’s life, and he has certainly been a champion for education in our state. But more than that – he has worked diligently for most of his professional life to make our state a better place, to improve the lives of all our citizens. Gov. Beebe personifies what is meant by ‘public service’ and ‘good government.’ His political career is a testament to his focus and his dedication to Arkansas.

“Anita Huffington has brought similar diligence and commitment to her art – making the very rocks of these Ozark hills a source of her material and vision. Years ago she consciously chose to leave the ‘center’ of the art world – New York City – to make her home and her sculpture in the quiet seclusion of Winslow. Our campus is honored to own three of her beautiful sculptures and I am grateful for the opportunity to return that honor with this recognition.”

Gov. Mike Beebe

Mike Beebe was born to a single mother in a tarpaper shack in Jackson County, Ark., in 1946. He and his mother lived in many different places around the country as he grew up, finally settling in Newport when he was a teenager. He took full advantage of this new stability, attending Newport High School, learning from members of the community who chose to mentor him, and working at a local grocery store to help support his mother and himself. After graduation he took advantage of an Arkansas Rural Endowment Fund to attend Arkansas State University. He graduated in 1968 with a 4.1 grade point average.

Beebe enrolled in the University of Arkansas School of Law while also serving in the U.S. Army Reserves. He graduated in 1972 with a Juris Doctor and joined the Searcy law firm of Lightle, Tedder and Hannah. He was appointed to the Arkansas State University Board of Trustees in 1974, at the age of 26, and served a five-year term, the last two years as chairman.

Beebe was elected to the state Senate in 1982, beginning a 30-year career in state government. He served 20 years in the Senate, before the term limit law forced him out of office. In that time he became an expert on state budget matters, state policy regarding children, education and economic development, and, perhaps most important, the legislative process. He was instrumental in writing legislation for ARKids First, extending Medicaid coverage to the children of low-income working parents, and worked with Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee to win its passage.

When the state term limit law forced him to leave the Senate, Beebe was elected Arkansas attorney general in 2003 and served one term, focusing on child safety and law enforcement issues. He was elected governor in 2007 and is now finishing his second and final term.

As governor, Beebe combined his legislative expertise, his willingness to work in a bi-partisan manner and his passion to improve the lives of all Arkansans to work with the state legislature to achieve an unprecedented number of major accomplishments, including:

• Reduction of the state sales tax on groceries from 6 percent to 1.5 percent – with the potential to reduce it to one-eighth of 1 percent.
• Creation of a statewide trauma care system
• Increased funding for pre-kindergarten programs 
• Greatly improved rankings for K-12 education
• Establishment of a college scholarship program for low-income students
• Increased support for higher education, particularly research funding.

In 2011 Beebe was named Public Official of the Year by Governing magazine. He also received the Chancellor’s Medal from the University of Arkansas in 2008, and the Distinguished Alumnus award from the Arkansas Alumni Association in 2009.

Anita Huffington

Photo by William Meek, used by permission.

Anita Huffington was born in Baltimore in 1934, attended the University of North Carolina, Bennington College and the University of South Florida, before receiving a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Fine Arts in sculpture from the City College of New York. She originally came to New York City in the late 1950s to study dance with Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. She became acquainted with a diverse and individualistic group of painters, sculptors, musicians and poets during this time. She gradually found her interest in human form shifting away from dance, influenced by classical sculpture and stimulated by the ideas she encountered in the New York art world. After many years she and her husband left the city, seeking a greater connection to nature. In 1977 they found a haven in the Arkansas Ozarks, near Winslow, and her new home and surroundings became a prime source for artistic inspiration. This mixture of experiences helped Huffington find her own path as a sculptor.

Huffington works in stone, bronze, wood and mixed media. Her work reflects both the world of art and the spirit of nature.

She has exhibited her work around the country, both in one-person shows and as part of group exhibitions. Her sculptures are part of the permanent collection of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Arkansas Arts Center and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Three of her works, “Spring,” “Rebirth” and “Earth,” are on permanent display at the University of Arkansas.

Huffington was awarded a fellowship in 1992 by the Arkansas Arts Council, was given a residency by France’s La Napoule Art Foundation in 1996, was honored with the Jimmy Ernst Award in 1997 for her lifetime artistic contributions, and received the Governor's Individual Artist Award in 2005.

“My sculpture is my response to nature and art,” Huffington has written. “There is a long struggle to develop the skill and vision that allows the freedom for a spontaneous response. It is based on intimate experience with the sensual, tactile images of life but not solely dependent on the visible. Working through the known to the unknown, I use the human form and sometimes animals to penetrate the mystery and express spirit.

“My sculpture has always been a composite and synthesis of elements drawn from nature and the history of art. With sandstones in particular (perhaps affected by their rude nature), I seem to move backward through time from classical, to archaic, to prehistoric to the unknown form in the formless. Through more and more reduction, down to elemental forces of rock and earth, I seek a unity that expresses something more than the visible.”

More images of Huffington’s work can be seen at her website.