Mayor Rick Petty Sr. said he hopes things are on the upswing for the city of Mountain Pine.
“We have our issues. … What city doesn’t?” said Petty, who was sworn in as mayor Jan. 1. “We are working to solve them the best we can.”
Petty said the city did receive a bit of good news recently.
“We received a letter telling us a Dollar General [store] is coming,” he said. “It’s going to be in the 2900 block of Mountain Pine Road … sometime this year.”
Petty also pointed out many of the items that have been brought to City Hall that are part of the Mountain Pine Historical Museum, which is being developed by Jimmy Long and his wife, Brenda, along with other local citizens, including Virgil Redwine.
“It’s all about history. A lot of people just travel around the country looking at museums like this one,” Petty said.
“Nobody knows it’s here,” he said. “Some of our own residents don’t even know about it.
“An open house for the museum is planned sometime in March.”
A tentative date of March 10 has been set, with a ceremony to begin at 10 a.m. (See related story.)
In the meantime, residents and visitors are invited to see the museum during normal business hours at City Hall, which is in the Mountain Pine Municipal Building, 241 Main St.
Petty readily admits Mountain Pine “has some issues, … some problems,” but he hopes by being “level-headed,” he can help alleviate some of those issues.
“My mom and dad taught me to be level-headed,” he said. “They told me, ‘If you are level-headed, you will always prevail.’”
Petty, 59, was officially elected mayor in a runoff on Nov. 29, 2016. Prior to that, he served as interim mayor for several months.
Petty was an alderman on the Mountain Pine City Council when the City Council voted out the former mayor in mid-2016.
“I was appointed [interim] mayor and took the oath of office on July 12, 2016. That was my mother’s birthday, and that’s when I wanted to be sworn in,” Petty said.
“I ran [for mayor] in the general election in 2016. There was a runoff, and I won that race. I’ve been elected for a two-year term,” he said.
“I don’t know,” was his reply when asked if he would run again in 2018.
“I also said that when I ran for alderman. I was up for two more years on the City Council when they appointed me mayor,” Petty said.
“Being a mayor is not an easy task — not even in a small place like Mountain Pine. All towns have problems,” he said.
“Mountain Pine has not had a full-time mayor since 2003. I try my best to be here all day, every day. I’m either out on the streets working with the guys out there, checking on the town, or here in the office,” Petty said.
“I try to do the best I can,” he said. “Right now, I can’t say if I’m going to run again or if I’m not.
“I’ve got some health issues, but I get up every day and go on. I don’t ever look over my shoulder. … I don’t ever look back; I just keep going forward.”
Petty said among the issues facing the town are getting a reserve water tank back online and fixing the bad roads.
“We have that water tank offline now, but it is going back online soon,” he said. “That tank is our reserve tank. We buy our water from Hot Springs; we are getting our water straight from Hot Springs now.”
Petty said he is also working on getting the city’s streets and roads paved.
“The previous mayor was able to get some money [for improving roads], and I have
applied, and been approved, for a $250,000 paving grant for a Class II city, which is what we are, that will be good until 2018,” Petty said. “Then we can reapply for it. That should be enough to cover the streets.
“But it’s not going to be an overnight fix. We are in line for this. There are many other cities that may be ahead of us. It may be late into this year or early in 2018 before they ever get started.”
Petty said a recent survey of the city shows 5.1 miles of streets in Mountain Pine.
“It’s been some time since we’ve had the roads paved,” he said. “About four years ago, someone did a chip-and-seal project, but that did not last long. If we can get the roads paved during my term as mayor, it will be the first time in many years that our roads are all paved.”
Petty said the city has a lot of issues.
“We are not going to be able to fix them all in the next two years,” he said. “It’s going to take some time to get everything together. We have an old water tank, old sewer lines. We’re just going to do it as well as we can.”
Petty said he could not do his job “without Tammy and Becky,” referring to Tambrea Bailey, the city’s recorder-treasurer, and Rebecca Bailey, the city clerk.
“They keep me on the right path,” he said.
“I also have a street crew that deals with a lot of things,” he said. “They are Mike Oliver, J.J. Long and Jack Hads.”
Petty also works closely with the City Council. Current aldermen include Ed Jones and Stacy Delaney, Ward 1; Jonathan Arnold and LaTonya McElroy, Ward 2; Joann Palmer and Virginia Long, Ward 3; and Rick Petty Jr. and J.L. Long, Ward 4. Virginia Long and J.L. Long were elected in the Nov. 8, 2016, general election.
Petty said the City Council meets at 6 p.m. the third Monday of each month. The next meeting will be Jan. 23 at City Hall, which is in the Mountain Pine Municipal Building, 241 Main St.
“The public is always welcome at our meetings. In fact, I invite them to attend,” he said.
“I like to hear if somebody has any ideas or complaints. If there are complaints, I want to try to solve the problem. I try to do my best,” Petty said.
“We have a lot we would like to do, but funds are always an issue,” he said. “I have to watch our budget. I have already cut spending down some, but I can only do so much.
“We have issues … problems … we are always going to have some, but if we are level-headed, we can work our way through them.”
Petty said he has lived in the Mountain Pine area 15 to 20 years.
He was born in Texarkana, Arkansas, a son of the late Paul and Mary Lou Petty. He has one brother and two sisters, who all live in or around Texarkana.
He attended Liberty Eylau High School in Texarkana, Texas.
“I dropped out of high school but did attend National Park College later and got my GED in 2009,” Petty said.
He spent many years “driving a tow truck, mostly around Hot Springs, until I got to where I couldn’t drive one,” he said.
I’ve had back problems most of my life. I’ve had five back surgeries. I had my first surgery when I was 26,” he said.
“And I had a brain aneurysm in 2006. I thought I was going to die,” Petty said.
“We all have aches and pains,” he said, “but you still have to get up and go.”
Petty has four adult children — Shaun Petty of Jessieville, Rick Petty Jr. of Mountain Pine, Kattie Petty of Maumelle and Terri Brannam of Lawton, Oklahoma — and 10 grandchildren.
“I have others who have ‘adopted’ me as their dad,” Petty said, smiling. “I have about 40 that call me paw-paw, too.”
Rick Petty Sr. became a minister in 2014.
“I just felt a calling to do it,” he said, adding that he preaches on occasion at mainly Baptist churches.
“I’ve preached at Macedonia Baptist Church here in Mountain Pine. I feel you have to live by your heart,” Petty said.
“When a pastor calls and asks me if I will preach at his church, … I sit down one night and pray, and the next morning I get up and can have a sermon ready. It comes from my heart,” he said.
“I’ve done one memorial for a good friend,” he said. “That was hard. And I’ve married three couples.
“My passion is preaching.”
When Petty is not working, he said, he enjoys hunting and fishing, “But most of the time I play on the computer or spend time with the grandkids. We like to go up to the [Blakely Mountain Dam] and feed the geese,” he said.
“There is good trout fishing here,” he said, noting that Mountain Pine is near Lake Ouachita below the Blakely Mountain Dam. “I’ve also caught some good size stripers (bass).
“There are beautiful trails up here, too. You name it; it’s here.”
Petty said that when he first moved to the area, he was a camp host for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which built Lake Ouachita
between 1946 and 1954 and maintains its campsites and boat ramps.
“The scenery is awesome. The trails go on forever. I worked mostly at the Stephens and Joplin campgrounds. Lots of times, it was just me and the animals,” he said.
“I enjoyed my time there,” he said, smiling.