Linda Smith of Plumerville has always liked helping people, and once she got a job doing that, she didn’t stop for 40 years.
Smith retired in December as county administrator for the Conway County Department of Human Services in Morrilton.
When she started in 1975, it was a temporary, “practically week-to-week” job for what began as the Arkansas Department of Social Services.
“I kept hanging in and hanging in,” she said.
Smith, who grew up on Petit Jean Mountain, honed her work ethic early on.
“I started working when I was 12,” she said. When her brother Tommy got rheumatic fever, she and their sister, Barbara, took over his job in the swimming pool, called The Bathhouse, at Petit Jean State Park.
“We made snow cones and rented baskets to people going swimming to put their belongings in and collected money for their swimming fees,” she said.
She worked at The Boathouse every summer afterward. “I was actually a waitress, and they sold little souvenirs and stuff, and I unpacked souvenirs. We rented canoes and paddle boats and did all that.”
Her parents were role models for hard work, she said. Her mother, Dorothy Hubbard, was Winthrop and Jeannette Rockefeller’s personal maid. Smith’s father, Linard Hubbard, worked as a truck driver for Winrock Farms, hauling cattle, etc. She said the Rockefellers treated her parents well.
“They wanted people to be down to earth around them,” Smith said of the Rockefellers.
Smith graduated from Morrilton High School and married her husband, Gary, when she was 18. They moved to Plumerville, his hometown. She worked and attended Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, but didn’t graduate. They moved to Little Rock for three years with her husband’s job, but moved back to Plumerville, and she was working in the service department at Sears and Roebuck in Morrilton.
Her father-in-law, Earl Smith of Plumerville, served on the “welfare board,” she said, for the social services department. He asked her if she’d be interested in applying for a temporary position in that office.
“He said, ‘You love to help people,’” Linda said.
She got the job, which was funded through the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act.
“I quit my job [at Sears] and started to work there, and I just loved it. It was very, very different to me, because I knew nothing about welfare, nothing about anything I was doing,” she said.
The first day she was sent to Hot Springs for training.
“I came home just bawling because I said, ‘I have no clue what this is about. I am so not going to be able to do this job.’” She said her husband and father-in-law were supportive and told her she absolutely could do it.
And she did.
“I worked at it, worked at it, worked at it,” she said.
She started out in the basement of a former bank building in Morrilton with “no windows, no nothing.”
“I was making $250 biweekly,” she said.
Smith said that when she first started working at the department, there were eight employees. She was responsible for Aid to Families With Dependent Children. “You certified them for Medicaid and food stamps, and that was the whole ball of wax back then. They got a welfare check. … You had to certify them what they were eligible. We did home visits back then,” she said.
“They were all kinds. One year, we had a really bad winter, really bad. The roads were iced over, frozen, and this lady called me and said, ‘We don’t have any food.’”
The woman lived way out in a rural area, Smith said.
“When I got there, all she had in her house to eat was a bag of flour, a bag of potatoes, and she had five little boys,” Smith said. The children slept on mattresses on the floor, she said.
“The next day, we started trying to get things for that family. Before it was over with, we had the kids off that floor; we had them a stove that was safe.”
Smith said one of the children came by and thanked her several years later, and he wasn’t the only one through the years.
“It’s a hard, sad job, but you get some feedback once in a while,” she said.
Smith said her co-workers, including Merlene Wegner, made the job easier. When Smith started, Wegner was a clerk-typist.
“She was just like a godsend,” Smith said.
“Back then you did everything on a Dictaphone machine. We dictated everything we did — their name, their address, their kids — and she had to transcribe everything,” Smith said.
Wegner retired as a supervisor from DHS and lives in Perryville.
“She’s the godsend, not me,” Wegner said of Smith.
The two knew each other when they were growing up, and Wegner said she didn’t know where to begin to describe Smith.
“She is just a beautiful, wonderful lady,” Wegner said. “I don’t say that because I grew up with her. I say that because I worked with her, I’d say 20-something years, and I know what kind of character she has and what kind of caring heart she has.”
Wegner said Smith was the office liaison for the Adelaide Club’s Angel Tree project.
“I have seen her give up so many Christmases with her own family so she could be there at the office to get these food boxes together, and presents,” Wegner said.
“I would always say, ‘Linda, you need to take a Christmas vacation with your family,’” Wegner said, “and she’d say, ‘Oh, no, this is important. I’ve got to get this done.’
“It never mattered how busy she was in her office. If somebody came in and needed to see her, she always saw them. She hardly ever got time to take lunch because she would take calls during her lunch time. We’d say, ‘Linda, just tell them to hold your calls; you’ve got to have time for your lunch,’ and she’d say, ‘No, I’m available if I’m here.’”
Wegner said Smith also made the round of civic clubs and organizations to tell them what programs were offered through the office.
“It’ll be hard to fill her shoes; I’ll tell you that,” Wegner said.
To become an actual “service worker,” Smith had to have a college degree or work experience.
“I went to school every time they offered anything,” she said. “If it was on Saturday, I went.
“I just kept working and working. I wanted so bad to be a worker, so I kept hanging in and hanging in. We had an employee quit. At the time, I had enough credit that I could apply.”
Smith changed titles again in 1980 and in 1982, when she became a certified social worker. “I was really proud of that,” she said. In 1984, her title changed to county director.
In 1986, she became county administrator.
The DHS supervisor in Faulkner County retired, and Smith’s boss, Lou Dillard, took that position.
“I had no intentions of applying for [Dillard’s] job at all. People just kept asking me, asking me, ‘Are you going to apply?’ ‘You need to apply; you need to apply.’ I finally sent in my application, thinking, ‘I don’t have a prayer of a chance,’ and I was hired,” she said. “I just thank the good Lord all the time.
“I loved helping the people. It was just a rewarding job for me.”
Although Smith worked for the Conway County Department of Human Services her entire career, she worked as interim county administrator in Faulkner, Jefferson, Perry and Van Buren counties.
The 67-year-old said she decided it was time to retire because the job became more computerized and impersonal.
“To be honest, … it’s a lot more technical,” she said. “I’m a people person; I like being involved with people. You don’t get to help the people like you once did. I hate to say that, but it’s the truth. That’s just not me.”
Smith’s desire to help
people extended beyond her job. She was integral in establishing the Conway County Care Center, which provides food, clothing and utility assistance; Coats for Kids; the Conway County Literacy Council; the Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Conway County; Family First; and the Alcohol, Tobacco and Drug Coalition.
The Conway County Care Center’s board vice president, Leann Haynes, called Smith “an angel among us.”
“She’s such an important piece to this community and helping the needy for 40 years. It’s not a job for her; she’s a missionary,” Haynes said.
Smith has been recognized for her efforts, too. Honors include a human-rights award for the city of Morrilton, the Peggy Goss Award, the Outstanding State Employee Award, the Public Service Excellence Award, the Division of County Operations Director’s Leadership Award and others.
Jan. 13 was declared Linda Smith Day, and a reception was held at the Morrilton Area Chamber of Commerce.
“Oh, my goodness, I couldn’t believe all that. I was overwhelmed,” she said. “That was just really, really neat. I thought that was very special.”
Smith said now that she’s retired, she and her husband plan to do some traveling; they like to camp and fish.
“I haven’t gotten out of the working mode yet, so I don’t know. It feels kind of like I’m on vacation,” she said.
It’s a much-deserved break after 40 years.
“My story is that I’ve just worked hard, and I’ve just been in it for the people, and that’s the God’s truth,” she said. “I loved my job. I love what I did; I loved the people. Conway County folks have been really, really good to me.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.