Barth Grayson has done a little bit of everything during his 61 years. Starting Tuesday, he will add Bald Knob mayor to that list.
Grayson, a Republican, defeated independent candidate Robert Carpenter 393-295 in the Nov. 6 general election. Grayson also defeated incumbent Mayor Beth Calhoun 173-167 in the Republican primary in May.
Grayson is a hay farmer but has been a concert promoter, a row crop farmer and a newspaper publisher, and he wanted to be mayor of his hometown.
“This is the fifth time I ran for Bald Knob mayor,” Grayson said. “Most people around here know that. I ran as a Democrat the first time because I was raised as a Democrat. Then I switched to independent. Then I decided to run as a Republican because that is how most people relate in this area now.
“At the national level, not everyone aligns with that. Under our dome, that is how we relate to our families and our priorities.”
Grayson has a vision of growing the town because of its location on U.S. 67/167 and where U.S. 167 heads north toward Batesville.
“We’re in a neat location for [Bald Knob] not having grown any more than it has,” he said. “We used to be 3,200. We’re at 2,900 right now. I’m hoping our next census that we’ll be closer to 3,000. That’s my goal — to help attract people to Bald Knob after we clean up the town and show that we need more jobs. We need a new day care in Bald knob because we don’t have enough.
“We’ve got one at the school, but it’s not big enough to meet the demands.”
Grayson said he wants to attract businesses to the city.
“In my quest to be elected, my platform was to clean up Bald Knob because we just let it go to the wayside,” he said. “We’ve got ordinances. We just need to enforce them. We’ve got some dilapidated houses. Some look like a Third World country.
“I realize some people can’t afford to do everything, and those people relate to me.”
Grayson said he’s already started working with the street department about cleaning up the city, particularly litter and weeds in the city.
“I think we could attract more businesses and more jobs and more future residents after we start cleaning up,” he said. “[Street department workers] are already wanting to know how they can work with me. I said to start working on the highway right of way. We’re going to clean up the highway right of way, and we’ll do it one or two times for the businesses in town, to show them what we want, at no charge. It’s their property; the right of way belongs to them. They will see what we want, then have the responsibility to keep it up.”
Grayson said weeds and litter have been a problem in the past. He said he’s already working with Larry Guthrie, head of the Bald Knob Street Department, on getting things looking good.
Grayson also said he wants give a “face-lift” to the entrances and exits off U.S. 67/167.
“I want people to enter and leave Bald Knob with good tastes in their mouths,” he said.
“And if they don’t, the city will go in and do the required maintenance and clean up and send them a bill. That’s not to be mean. I’m not a mean person.”
Grayson sees himself as a laid-back person, comparing himself to television character Andy Taylor from The Andy Griffith Show.
“I’ve told people I intend to run this town like Andy Taylor. … It’s his demeanor,” Grayson said. “He’s real easygoing. That’s how I want to run the city. If the people will allow me to be that easygoing, that will be great. If I have to start going by the letter of the law, in black and white, we’ll go by it. I’d rather get along with everybody and run it like that and relate to everybody.
“Once everyone understands what’s gong to be expected of them, they’ll comply. If you start allowing areas of disrepair to get bigger, you’re going to attract more people who will allow themselves to live in an area like that. If you disallow it, then they are going to say, ‘Hey, it’s over. We’ve got to clean up and comply.’”
Bringing jobs to Bald Knob is important for Grayson because of his family.
“My wife, Amy, teaches school,” he said. “She’s a middle school teacher and a career coach for the high school. That’s an important thing for the community because she helps the counselor find scholarships for the students, and that is a very high priority in this area. It’s hard for someone to go to college. I’ve only got an associate degree, but I went on student loans and had to pay them back. A lot of people, they are blessed to get to be students, and some are more blessed to get some sort of grant to go to college.
“I bring that up because it is one of the things I’m really going to strive for. We’re going to clean up this town and make it more appealing for future citizens who will, hopefully, come here. I always want to go after any and all businesses — new ones and strengthen the ones that we’ve got.”
Grayson said his son, James, 23, is selling cars. Grayson’s daughter, Sarah, 20, will soon graduate with an occupational-therapy degree. He wants them to be able to live in the area with gainful employment.
“That is what is important for their families, for them to find gainful employment in the local business community,” Grayson said. “That is what I’m going after. I’m going to knock on every business door, email them, go see them.
“I can’t do it by myself. It’s a group effort.”
Mary Lou Smith, a lifelong resident of Bald Knob and a former civic leader with the Bald Knob Jaycees and Jaycettes, said Grayson will do well as mayor.
“He’s a very intelligent person,” she said. “He’s a genuinely good person. He is what this town needs. This was not his first bid in the mayor’s race. I’ve known him a long, long time. This is going to be a struggle for him. I think, in the end, the community that elected him to office will step up and say, ‘Now, we’ve got to support him.’
“I have urged everybody to do that.”
One of the biggest things Grayson wants to see during his tenure as mayor is a railroad overpass. Right now, the city is split in half when a train comes through town, he said.
“One of my diamonds in the sky is, I’m truly going to try my best to get a railroad overpass so we can join both the north and south sides of our city together,” he said. “We are a central hub for trains. We have 30 trains come through Bald Knob a day. I hear them. I live a quarter mile from the railroad track.”
Grayson said an overpass is essential because of medical and emergency needs.
“There are people who have ambulance problems all the time because of the railroad tracks,” he said, “or they are late to school or late to their job, or people going to the Bald Knob National Wildlife Refuge. It’s not supposed to be more than a 20-minute wait, but a lot of times it is.”
Grayson has owned and operated several weekly newspapers over the years, including the Bald Knob Banner, the Searcy Sun and the White River Delta Dispatch, all of which ceased operations a few years back.
Grayson said being a reporter has helped give him ideas on what to do as mayor, having covered several city councils throughout White, Woodruff and Jackson counties.
“I’ve learned what the duties of the mayor are,” he said. “I went to many city council meetings, not just Bald Knob. I saw how other cities did it. I have got a working knowledge of how different people do different things.”
While he’s also been a farmer, growing row crops, his main business now is hay farming; he runs Hillbilly Hay Store. He’s also promoted some big concerts at his amphitheater on his family farm.
“Even though I started farming with cattle, I built me an amphitheater,” Grayson said. “When I had my farm financed through the Farmers Home Administration at the time, they wanted me to have an off-farm job to offset my farm income.
“I got a loan for it, and with the grace of God, my first showing, I was able to pay it off.”
That was the start of the Strawberry Jam, a concert event featuring Black Oak Arkansas in 1980.
“I had it there from 1980 to 1988,” he said. “I’ve had Metallica, Molly Hatchet, Nazareth, Foghat.”
That led Grayson into promoting concerts at the Riverfront Amphitheater in Little Rock, later known as the Riverfest Amphitheater and now First Security Amphitheater.
“In 1989, I had the chance to put on the first ticketed event at Riverfront Amphitheater,” Grayson said. “So I moved my music operation from my farm in Bald Knob to Riverfront.”
Grayson quit doing concert promotions in 1993 to save his family farm.
“In 1993, I got a chance to refinance my farm,” he said. “So I took the money that I was operating my concerts with, and I refinanced and saved my farm. You know how important a family farm can be.”
The Strawberry Jam still goes on but has not been an annual event at times.
“This year was the 38th anniversary of it,” he said.
Staff writer Mark Buffalo can be reached at (501) 399-3676 or mbuffalo@arkansasonline.com.