CONWAY — University of Central Arkansas Registrar Becky Rasnick’s office is stuffed with bears.
From a bear lamp to an oversized Arkansas State Teachers College ashtray with a bear design, she has an eclectic collection.
One of Rasnick’s co-workers estimated that she has 1,000 bears — UCA’s mascot — in her Harrin Hall office on the Conway campus.
“It just kind of evolved over time,” said Rasnick, who was wearing a purple jacket and a silver bear necklace.
Her collection starts in the hallway outside her office. A life-size wicker bear, which she has dressed with UCA hats, a jersey, graduation cords and more, is in the corner.
“It’s on loan from someone,” she said. A framed print with the dictionary definition of a bear hangs near it.
And as a metal sign hanging next to her door proclaims: “In This Zoo, the Mama Bear Rules!”
Students, co-workers and family members have contributed to her collection.
Rasnick recalled that “three big defensive tackles” presented her with a planter that had a bear sculpture as the base.
“They said, ‘We saw this bear and thought of you, so we pitched in,’” she said.
A graduate of Blytheville High School, she attended State College of Arkansas, which became the University of Central Arkansas by the time she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Education degree in home economics and science. Her name changed, too, from Brownlee to Rasnick when she married Booneville native Rick Rasnick her junior year.
She graduated a year before her husband did, and she worked with the 4-H Youth Project at the Faulkner County Extension Service.
After graduation, Rick was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army, and after going to Fort Knox, Kentucky, for training, his first assignment was in Fulda, Germany.
On her desk, Becky has a collection of carved Black Forest bears, which she bought in Germany. She showed a fountain pen with a tiny carved bear on one end, and a carved bear that holds the pen.
The Rasnicks returned to Conway in 1996 after spending three years in Stuttgart, Germany, her husband’s next-to-last assignment. He went to Camp Robinson in North Little Rock, and she got a job at UCA as an adviser for pre-med and biology students. Then she was a full-time adviser for undergraduate students and director of athletic advising. That was a new position when the university was moving from Division II to Division I athletics.
Becky Rasnick served as interim registrar and continued with her athletic advising until she was named registrar four years ago.
The registrar’s office is “the custodian of all the student records,” Rasnick said. “We have handwritten records from the 1900s; we have a vault up here.”
Veterans services and high school concurrent programs are under the registrar’s office. The office is also responsible for processing all the paperwork for grade changes; drops and adds; verification of full-time students; evaluations of transcripts for international, veteran, transfer and concurrent-credit students; clemency requests; and academic-integrity issues.
“We’re also in charge of graduation — our list just keeps going on and on,” she said, laughing. “I have to set it up. The physical plant puts out the chairs, but we put out the banners, put the students in line, do the program for it.”
Although Rasnick doesn’t advise athletes anymore, they pop in from time to time, and other students come in for her help.
The bears are a topic of conversation, of course.
“It’s kind of a comfort, and when people come in, it seems to put them at ease. They say it has a homey feel,” she said.
Students and co-workers have given her many of the bears, and a few have come from her family.
Rasnick’s husband gave her a mug with a purple bear-claw motif that he bought in Alaska.
“My husband says, ‘You have enough bears.’ He doesn’t want to support it. But it was purple. Anything purple I kind of gravitate to,” she said. “It’s hard to get bears and
purple.”
Rasnick’s son Stuart, who lives in Little Rock, gave her the lamp with a bear base that sits on her desk.
The walls are covered with framed bear artwork, from prints to watercolors. A quilt with a purple bear hangs on the wall, along with other UCA memorabilia.
One of the more prominent pieces in her office was made by her son Justin and painted by her daughter-in-law Alyssa, who live in Maumelle. Rasnick said her son was remodeling a home built in 1907 — the year UCA was established — and he got scrap wood from the home to create the sign. Her daughter-in-law painted on it a bear, a bear claw and the words, UCA Bears - Est. 1907.
Shelves hold pieces of Rasnick’s collection, including golf balls with bear designs.
“Somebody gave me this, and it’s pretty cool,” she said, picking up a bear holding measuring cups, shaped more like small dishes, with a bear design on each one. Wooden children’s alphabet building blocks spell out “Bears,” and tiny books with pictures of bears on the covers are displayed.
She has a few collectible resin Boyds Bears figurines on the shelves, as well as metal,
wood and glass bears of many sizes.
“I guess one of my prized possessions [is a set of] ASTC dishes,” she said, opening the glass door of a lawyer’s bookcase. The dinner plate has the outline of a purple bear, although the small bowl and smaller plate only have ASTC on them.
A table holds a working fan with a metal bear shape on front, and she keeps a Christmas tree up all year that’s decorated with mainly bear ornaments, topped with a bear angel.
Rasnick is an Elvis fan, too, and she got more bang for her bear with a purple Ty Beanie Baby Elvis bear that plays a recording of the late entertainer singing “Your Teddy Bear.”
She’s already planning for what she will do with the bears, at least the stuffed ones, when she retires.
“We’re going to give them to St. Jude Children’s [Research] Hospital, or the [Arkansas] State Police for Toys for Tots,” Rasnick said. “My husband says I can’t bring them home; we don’t have room.”
But until then, she’ll enjoy them at work. Like the plaque outside her office door says, “Just another day in bearadise.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.