Atkins Mayor-elect Rowdy Sweet has seen the best and worst of Pope County.
It’s a bit of a contradiction, just like his name.
“My mother — she passed away this April — she told me I was named after Clint Eastwood in a show called Rawhide — Rowdy Yates.”
Sweet said his parents didn’t have cattle, but he thinks his grandfather liked the television show.
“I get called Rodney and Randy, and then people say, ‘Your first and last name — isn’t that … an oxymoron?” Sweet said, laughing.
Sweet, 45, ran as a Republican and swept the Nov. 6 election with a vote of 81.2 percent to independent candidate Michael E. Hern’s 18.8 percent. Longtime Mayor Jerry Don Barrett did not run for re-election to the part-time position.
“I’ve been running for about 1 1/2 years; I wanted to keep Republicans from running,” Sweet said.
A Navy veteran and a captain at the Pope County Sheriff’s Office in Russellville, he graduated from Atkins High School in 1992 and started his military career.
“I left to join the Navy and was in Navy aviation, working on the flight deck of aircraft carriers,” he said. “I made three different cruises to the Persian Gulf, worked as plane captain, directing planes around the flight deck.”
It was a bit of a culture shock.
“Atkins is about 3,000 people; the aircraft was about 5,000, 6,000 people. I went to a boat with more people than the town I came from,” he said, laughing. “I had people in boot camp from Chicago, New York, went overseas to … Hong Kong.”
Sweet met his wife, Nicole, on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, Washington, where she lived. Her mother and brother still live there. The Sweets have two children, Parker, 18, and Lily, 15.
In 1999, after he left the Navy, they moved back to Atkins.
“All my family’s from here; my grandfather (the late Dwane Luter) was a state trooper for over 30 years. I had always wanted to get into law enforcement,” Sweet said.
He worked in the jail in 1999 at the Pope County Detention Center in Russellville.
“I worked in the jail about a year and went on the road as a street deputy, from 2001-2005; then I went into criminal investigation,” Sweet said. “I loved that. I did it for 10 years. I was the lieutenant over the criminal investigation division about eight years.
“I’ve enjoyed all of it. My 10 years as investigator, I investigated everything from homicides to your little thefts.”
Sweet said he investigated four or five homicides, which mainly involved drugs.
When Shane Jones became sheriff in 2015, Sweet took over the captain’s position to run the detention center.
“This job opportunity came up, and it’s more of an administrative-type [position], planning the budget, speaking at the Quorum Court meetings,” Sweet said.
“We attend a sheriff’s convention twice a year, and sometimes the governor or the attorney general will speak to the big crowd there,” he said. “This job and being more involved in administration — that’s what got me interested more and more [in being mayor].
“I want to make a difference. I grew up in Atkins; there’s nothing wrong with Atkins right now. My son’s 18; my daughter’s 15. I want it to be a place they want to come back to someday.”
Barrett, 74, also grew up in Atkins and said he has known Sweet and Sweet’s family all his life.
“Twenty years is a long time in the mayor’s office or any other office, for that matter. It needs to be someone younger and more energetic,” Barrett said.
“I think it’ll be an easy transition. He’s been coming to our meetings,” Barrett said of Sweet. “I’ve taken him to some meetings with me that I have to attend before the end of the year, to meet people.
“There’s a lot for him to learn, but hopefully, we can keep an open line of communication.”
Barrett said he told Sweet not to hesitate to call him.
“He said, ‘What’s a good time?’ I said, ‘The last 20 years, it’s rung 24/7, so I guess whenever you have a question,’” Barrett said.
Sweet said he expects to use Barrett as a resource.
“We work well together,” Sweet said.
The mayor-elect’s goals are to see that the city is run efficiently and to attempt to get the city more involved with the school district.
Also, infrastructure needs to be upgraded in the community, Sweet said.
“We have a water company we run, Atkins Water and Sewer System. The infrastructure needs updating [for the sewer],” he said.
“We’ve got some sewer ponds and sewer lines that have to have a lot of work done,
just ready for upgrades,” Sweet said. “It’ll be a timely situation. They’ve already got a plan in place to start doing it. It’s things that have to be fixed because of [the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality].
“We got a bond issue [approved] and money for it; the engineers will start work.”
However, Sweet said, there is no timeline set. He said Barrett
is working to try to get a 10-year plan approved through the ADEQ.
Sweet wants to work on beautifying the community, too.
“Every city has properties they need to clean up,” he said.
Overgrown trees need to be cut back at the 94 exit, Sweet said, adding that he has talked to a state representative about the issue and plans to talk with state Highway and Transportation Department officials.
“We have a huge American flag on a pole that you can see as soon as you get through the Blackwell area. … It would just make it look a lot nicer,” he said.
Sweet said he also plans to “work on parks and rec in the area to try to get some grants for updating [the city’s] baseball fields,” as well as upgrades for sidewalks on Main Street.
“I’m looking forward to the next couple of years, working for the city and improving anything we can,” he said. “It takes time.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.