The governor, a former lieutenant governor and a couple of current state legislators were just some of the high-profile Capitol well-wishers to make it out to the Arkansas State University System conference room to say farewell to Barbara Kumpe, the longtime government relations director for the Arkansas American Heart Association.
Kumpe choked up reflecting upon how many highlights in her own life took place against the backdrop of this tenure.
"My children have grown up with the American Heart Association," Kumpe said. "When I first started with Heart, I didn't even know my husband. We met, we had kids, we now have grandkids."
"They've only known the American Heart Association. They feel like the Heart Association is their office."
Kumpe, according to the association, was in the vanguard for efforts to fund tobacco tax increases and cessation programs, trans fat bans in school foods, and mandatory automated external defibrillators in fitness facilities, among other things.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who'd just gotten back from a business and trade mission to Europe, joked the Continent "could use you to clean up the air."
"They smoke everywhere over there."
High Profile on 07/05/2015