GRAVETTE -- State Rep. Gayla Hendren McKenzie, R-Gravette, will run for re-election to the House District 92 seat, she said Friday.
If successful, she would win a second term.
McKenzie, who holds a law degree, now owns and operates Ozark Stone Designs, a stone veneer manufacturing plant in Gravette.
District 92 covers the extreme northwest corner of Benton County, with the Missouri border on the district's north and Oklahoma on the west. The district includes Gravette, Hiwasse, Maysville, Sulphur Springs, Decatur and the western side of Bella Vista.
McKenzie has no announced opposition to date. She had no GOP primary opponent in her first bid for the office in 2018 and defeated Democrat Chris Birch with more than 71% of the vote in that year's general election.
Candidate filing for partisan offices begins noon Nov. 4 and ends noon Nov. 12. The Republican primary is set for March 3. The general election is Nov. 3, 2020.
State House members serve two-year terms and have an annual salary of $39,400.
McKenzie spent 27 years as the owner and programmer of the KBVA radio station in Bella Vista. She succeeded her father, Kim Hendren, as District 92's representative. Her brother is Senate President Pro Tempore Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, and her uncle is Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
McKenzie sponsored Act 834 of 2019. The act allows college students to retain their state scholarships if they drop to part-time student status in their senior year.
The students must be far enough in a degree program to still graduate after completing the senior year, however. Before that reform, students who sought to drop to part-time status to take a job were forced to give up their scholarships, which went only to full-time students.
NW News on 07/20/2019