HIGH PROFILE: David Rainey

This relentlessly optimistic former educator shares values with the namesake of the foundation board he chairs.

“I grew up believing it was my obligation to leave things and people a little better than I found them, that that was the work God intended me to do.” - David Rainey
“I grew up believing it was my obligation to leave things and people a little better than I found them, that that was the work God intended me to do.” - David Rainey

David Rainey's retirement involves plenty of boardroom and practically no boredom.

The former state legislator and Dumas School District superintendent is chairman of the board of the Little Rock-based Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and of the Dumas-based Delta Technology Education Center.

He also serves on the boards of the Environmental and Spatial Technology (EAST) Initiative and the Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas in Pine Bluff. And he serves as an advisory board member of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Public Health.

It's the 50th anniversary of the year Winthrop Rockefeller became governor of Arkansas. The state's then-first Republican governor since 1872 took office Jan. 10, 1967, after winning the 1966 gubernatorial election with 54 percent of the vote.

Rainey, who has been on the board for five years, says the foundation continues to maintain the values Rockefeller represented. "It's important to me as chairman of the board that we take every opportunity to highlight the [late] governor's work and values, so that people know this beloved foundation is still committed to quality of life issues for all Arkansans," he says. "I'm an old country boy with country values" that are very much in common with those of the late governor.

Rainey credits his mother, who raised nine children, with setting him on that pathway. "We liked and helped each other," he explains. "I grew up believing it was my obligation to leave things and people a little better than I found them, that that was the work God intended me to do."

His family, who worked as sharecroppers on a south Arkansas plantation, were staunch Democrats, "but we liked and admired Gov. Rockefeller. The man from New York had the same values we did, and it was not just talk -- he was doing it."

photo

“I’m confident that good educators who are successful working with kids love those kids.And there’s no question in my mind that when those kids receive love, they’re prepared to give love.” - David Rainey

[EMAIL UPDATES: Get free breaking news alerts, daily newsletters with top headlines delivered to your inbox]

Rainey attended segregated schools, elementary school in Watson and the Wolff Project School near McGehee.

"And that was the best thing that could have happened for me," he says. "How far ahead [of the norm] were we? Keep in mind -- I graduated from high school in 1963. Instead of prom, we actually took a senior class trip to Washington, D.C.

"We had this incredible sponsor, [teacher] Richard Smith, who had seen enough of kids getting drunk at prom and thought that we should have higher goals. And because none of us had ever been anyplace, he thought it would be a wonderful educational opportunity. For these country children who had never been out of Arkansas, to have this trip -- that helped set the tone for me being able to see possibilities.''

Rainey says Smith influenced his post-school choices. "I was a fun-loving teenager who, when I graduated, wanted to buy myself a car and travel, and that was my goal -- and whatever else happened would happen." Smith helped persuade him to attend college -- at what is now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff -- instead. Smith was a history teacher, so Rainey ended up ­getting undergraduate degrees in history and government.

"When you ask me how I connected to Winthrop Rockefeller, there were people in my early development whose values were similar. I admired those people. I appreciated the way they worked and supported me and helped me. And I wanted to be like them."

EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

In college, Rainey had to memorize the mission statement of John Brown Watson, who in 1928 was the first president of what was then known as the Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College:

"The end of education is to know God and the laws and purposes of his universe, and to reconcile one's life with these laws. The first aim of a good college is not to teach books, but the meaning and purpose of life. Hard study and the learning of books are only a means to this end. We develop Power, Courage and Determination and we go out to achieve Truth, Wisdom and Justice. If we do not come to this end, the cost of schooling is wasted."

That convinced Rainey that he was called "to be a positive influence in negative situations ... to set goals that related to what I can do to help and support my fellow man. When I reflect on it, I'm not surprised; I'm not surprised at all. It's clear to me that all of these influences have had an impact on who I am. And I've not regretted a minute of it."

Rainey earned a master's degree at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and a doctorate in education at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. A course in applying psychology to education rounded out his philosophy.

"Simply put, if you want something from a student, you need to give that to the student," he says. "And you need to model it through your actions to the student. So, rather than demand respect, I committed to create an environment that demonstrated respect for others.

"I'm confident that good educators who are successful working with kids love those kids. And there's no question in my mind that when those kids receive love, they're prepared to give love."

ADDING THINGS UP

Rainey spent 26 years in the Dumas public school system, including 13 years as a building administrator, one as assistant high school principal, six as a junior high school principal and six as principal of the high school, where he faced pressure to fix a major curriculum problem.

"We were graduating kids wearing honor cords who were going to university and then having to take remedial courses, especially in math," he says. The high school offered up to general math, but not the trigonometry, pre-calculus and calculus that should have followed. "Our best students were [having] to spend extra time in college, and our parents were paying for that."

Rainey restructured the math department, added the harder courses and offered summer courses to prepare students to be successful. "And we had to give them support, so we went back down to the seventh grade and added algebra," he says.

"For just doing my job," Rainey says, he received the 1992 Milken Educator Award (including a $25,000 check). It also earned him an invitation to head the newly created Arkansas School for Mathematics and Sciences in Hot Springs, a position he held for three years. "Which is how a guy whose undergrad major was history and government got to math and science," he says.

IN THE HOUSE

Rainey served as state representative from the 11th District from 2005-11. "I was a little arrogant," he admits. "I thought I knew some stuff. I was walking around with my nose in the air. People would bring up legislation that was just asinine, and asked me to sign on to it. I told them, not just 'no,' but '[emphatically] no.'''

Colleague Joyce Elliott pulled him aside and said, "'You might want to reconsider your approach. There are some things that are just going to happen, and if you're in the room, you may be able to moderate it a bit or do something. Your strategy of not signing on and not participating is not going to get you good dividends. Because you won't be in any conversations.'"

It paid off. The green freshman got a big lift from El Dorado's Jodie Mahony, who spent 24 years in the state House and Senate, in coming up with some help for the Dumas School District, which when forced to consolidate with the tiny Gould school district in 2004, had to take on Gould's $300,000 of debt.

"The superintendent in Dumas asked me if I could find some money; he didn't think it was right. So I asked Jodie, 'Do you know where I can find some money?'" The next day Mahony told him, "'Yeah. Found a million dollars. How much did you say you needed?' The money was in the federal Fiscal Relief Fund, they had to spend it in the 12-month period, and Jodie had the contacts to root it out."

Rainey cites Charlotte Schexnayder, who for more than four decades (until 1998) co-owned the Dumas Clarion and who served for 14 years in the state House, for suggesting he run for office.

"He had been in all kinds of educational circles; he has a very thoughtful demeanor, and I thought he would make a good public servant," Schexnayder says. "And he did."

She got to know him while she was working at the paper and he was coaching high school basketball. She was so impressed by his demeanor that she nominated him for the Dumas Chamber of Commerce board; ultimately he became its first black chairman.

"He has achieved a great deal in his life. He's a person with vision and I admire people with vision," Schexnayder says.

FIT FOR FOUNDATION

Rainey says his "solid philosophy of how to best serve our kids" and a knowledge of what Winthrop Rockefeller was, "giving, unselfishly, because he loved the state, and what he was doing for the state," made him a natural fit to carry on Rockefeller's legacy: "The emphasis and focus on social justice, the commitment to increase prosperity, the commitment to improve education, the commitment to strengthen communities, [and] the commitment to partner with others who have a desire to strengthen their communities -- the nonprofit infrastructure."

"He's just smart, committed and he's really all about Arkansas, and particularly rural Arkansas," says Rockefeller Foundation president and Chief Executive Officer Sherece West-Scantlebury, "and he just has a passion that things are possible, that change is possible, that you can raise your kids and make a good living and have a good quality of life in rural Arkansas. He is absolutely that champion for that.''

Rainey helped develop what is now the Forward Arkansas initiative, a partnership with the Walton Family Foundation where "parents, educators, civic leaders, business professionals and policymakers help every Arkansas student graduate prepared for success in college and the workplace," according to the foundation website.

"During the past year he's been leading us in ... what we call our 'RAP'" -- reflection, analysis and planning process, West-Scantlebury adds. "He has led us in our reflection and analysis; we will launch strategic planning in September."

Rainey, she says, is hands-on, "especially when it comes to investments and when it comes to making sure that the foundation understands grant-making in rural Arkansas. He gives that voice to what's happening in southeast Arkansas, and being a former educator, he also gives a great deal of voice around education in rural communities. And he has a passion for workforce development, which is a tough one to do in our rural communities."

TIME CRUNCH

Rainey travels a lot on behalf of his nonprofit work. "I'm getting better at planning," he says, but "sometimes they come together and cluster on me." That leaves him little leisure time. His term on the Arts and Science Center board is up at the end of the year, which he says should leave him a little more time for family and for traveling to reunions. In a way, he says, that puts him closer to that goal he had set for himself at the end of high school.

West-Scantlebury says he's one of the most relentlessly optimistic people she knows. "You do get a spirit of optimism, hopefulness -- things are possible," she says. "And that keeps you going, it's so important for a leader and absolutely important for a board chair."

Rainey explains his optimism this way:

"My youngest son has sickle-cell anemia, and he's in his 40s. Some years ago he had a really life-threatening experience, and it was serious enough that when he was in the hospital, he wrote a little note, saying to me, 'Promise me, Dad, that you will take care of Teresa [his wife] and the boys.'

"I talked with that young man last night to let him know I was back in Dumas. He has his good days and he has his bad days. [His] kids were younger then, teenagers. One of them is already married; the youngest one is getting ready to go into the ninth grade.

"God allowed that young man to survive and stay with his family. So how can I have any kind of piss-poor attitude about anything?

"All of this stuff that has happened for me? I don't just want it for me, I want it for others. And I know that's right."

SELF PORTRAIT

David Rainey

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: July 25, 1945, McArthur

FAMILY: four sons, 12 grandchildren

MY ATTITUDE ABOUT FOOD: I’m eating better.

THE MENU FOR MY LAST MEAL: I know it’s going to happen sometime. I’m just not thinking that far ahead.

I ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT EAT … without asking that God bless the food. I know it’s God’s goodness, and not mine, that I have [this food] in front of me.

FAVORITE COLORS: Blue. Green. I’m actually partially color-blind. But I get a lot of help from my friends.

IF I HAD TO LIVE OUTSIDE ARKANSAS, IT WOULD BE: Asheville, N.C., or Portland, Ore.

I LIKE TO WEAR casual clothes

GUESTS AT MY FANTASY DINNER PARTY: Nelson Mandela. Charlotte Schexnayder. She’s been my mentor for years. She’s the reason I ran for the state Legislature. [High-school teachers] Richard Smith and Letha Corbin. Winthrop Rockefeller. Aristotle. Cesar Chavez. Albert Einstein. Mahatma Gandhi. John F. Kennedy. Martin Luther King Jr. Paulette Meyer. Barack Obama. John Rankin. Eleanor Roosevelt. William Grant Still. Mother Teresa. Harriet Tubman. Nydia Velazquez. John Brown Watson.

IF I’VE LEARNED ONE THING IN LIFE, IT’S: You can’t get it done alone. You just can’t. You need others to help. When you realize that, and when you ask people for help, just the simple words, “I need your help,” gets awesome results.

I WANT MY KIDS TO REMEMBER … to love each other and support each other. That’s the beginning. That was my beginning.

THE BEST ADVICE I EVER RECEIVED: From the late state legislator Jodie Mahony, “Just start out doing something; somebody will help you.”

ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: optimistic

High Profile on 07/16/2017

Upcoming Events