On Anne Marie Doramus' desk is a block calendar that counts down the days until duck hunting season.
On this particular day, the calendar reads "30 days til duck szn" and Doramus is ready. The self-described tomboy shows up for work on a Wednesday wearing an old Razorbacks golf team sweatshirt she swiped from her husband, running pants and not a trace of makeup on her face.
"Of course, I had girlfriends, too -- don't get me wrong -- but I was always playing on the playground with the boys and digging in the dirt. Talking about going hunting, all of that fun stuff," the 28-year-old says.
Since she was a little girl, Doramus has always run with the boys. And she still does. In June, she was appointed by Gov. Asa Hutchinson to the all-male state Game and Fish Commission. She is not only the sole female member, but she is also currently the youngest member -- by far.
Ken Reeves of Harrison, chairman of the commission, says Doramus is the perfect fit.
"We've needed someone from her generation. Some of us are 70-plus years old," says Reeves, 71. "The number of hunting and fishing licenses are down. The younger generation is not taking up hunting and fishing like my generation did."
Doramus is the first woman to be appointed to serve a full term. Pat Peacock of Stuttgart served 1994-95 to compete for the term of Maurice Lewis.
"This wasn't a token appointment of a female. It is an outstanding appointment," Reeves says. "She does hunt and she does fish, she's very energetic and she's very intelligent."
Reeves hopes to go with Doramus on a duck hunt or two after the season opens Nov. 23.
"I am a little worried because I am afraid she will outshoot me," Reeves says.
Doramus, who works for one of her family's businesses -- Arkansas Bolt Co. -- as director of sales, grew up in Little Rock -- the youngest of four children of Libby and H. Lee Hastings III. She spent her childhood chasing behind her three brothers -- Lee IV, Grant and Andrew.
When Doramus was 3 or 4, she began begging her father to take her duck hunting.
"I'd been asking to go -- asking and asking and asking -- because my brothers were going and I wanted to be with them. If they were doing it I could do it too. That's how it was when we were all at home."
While the family's duck hunting camp wasn't really fit for a little girl, her father finally relented. Hastings thought his daughter wouldn't like to be out in the cold and he thought the loud booms from the shotguns would frighten her.
"He put me up on a dog stand -- and hunters will know exactly what that is -- and I would hand him a shotgun shell and I watched the dog go out and fetch the ducks. I was as happy as I could be."
She first shot a gun at 6 or 7. Her target was a can. She says she really didn't like it but still wanted to go hunting with her brothers and watch the family's black Labrador retriever BoBo retrieve the ducks.
"That changed real quick," she says. "I probably shot my first duck when I was about 8. It was an easy shot. It landed right in front of me. Then I was running around with my 20-gauge and I was hooked ever since."
Lee Hastings describes his daughter as a "people person" and a "fantastic hunter."
"I knew the minute she got [the appointment to the Game and Fish Commission] that she would do a fantastic job," Hastings says.
For Christmas -- instead of a Barbie or an Easy-Bake Oven -- Doramus asked for duck calls or camouflage outfits.
"I still have a closet full of camo. In fact, camo is probably my favorite color, if I am being completely honest," she says.
ARKANSAS BOLT CO.
The Hastings family is best known as a wholesale liquor distributor. Harry Hastings Sr. opened Moon Distributors in Little Rock in 1935, two years after alcohol was legalized with the repeal of Prohibition. In 1955, Moon bought Central Distributors. Together, Moon and Central of Little Rock represent Arkansas' oldest, continuously operated alcohol distributor, according to the company's website.
Harry Hastings Jr. -- Doramus' grandfather -- was building a new liquor warehouse and couldn't find the exact bolt he needed. He realized the need for a distributor of bolts and fasteners and founded Arkansas Bolt in 1962.
Doramus' office has a large window overlooking a massive indoor warehouse where workers to assemble the orders. The Little Rock headquarters encompasses 200,000 square feet and employs about 65 people. The company also has offices in Batesville; Lewistown, Pa.; Red Bay, Ala.; and Bossier City. In all, Arkansas Bolt has about 100 employees.
Lee Hastings III is president and Grant Hastings is vice president. Lee IV and Andrew both work at Moon Distributors.
At one time, Doramus thought she would like a career in aviation. Her father and grandfather both had pilots' licenses. While in college at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Doramus interned at Air Resource Group, a full-service aviation firm. She also started working on obtaining her pilot's license.
At Air Resource, she honed her sales skills. Doramus says she owes her success in sales to Cheri McKelvey, who taught her the art of cold-calling customers. McKelvey is vice president and partner of Air Resource Group.
"She's like the girl-next-door. There are no airs about her. She is easy to talk to and I just love the girl to death," McKelvey says. "I tell her mom and dad 'I know you had her, but she's mine, too.' She's just a sweetheart."
After graduating with a degree in journalism and advertising Doramus spent about six months working at Air Resource but realized she was "ready to spread my wings and handle my own accounts" and went to work at Arkansas Bolt.
"I started off doing small projects, working a little bit with our online sales and working alongside my dad, my brother and our employees here, most of [whom] have been here since they were teenagers," she says. "Its a pretty big family unit."
Now, she is the company's sole person responsible for the sale of fasteners -- hardware devices that mechanically join or affix two or more objects together. Arkansas Bolt sells hardware to industries ranging from automotive to garage doors. The company takes pride in visiting in person every facility where it buys the hardware. Doramus has made one trip to China. Her father returned to China for another visit on Nov. 2.
With her work at Arkansas Bolt and the Game and Fish Commission, Doramus has had little time left to fly. After checking her flight logbook, she says her last flight was Sept. 30, 2015.
She also is a member of the Arkansas Livestock Show Association's board of directors. Arkansas Bolt is within spitting distance of the Arkansas State Fair Grounds and Doramus made it a point to visit this year's fair every day. The fair was Oct. 11-20.
"She is one of the most involved board members I've ever known. She takes that responsibility seriously and it shows," says Doug White, president and general manager of the Arkansas State Fairgrounds. "Always smiling, always with a positive comment, and always interested in improving the fairgrounds and the experience for our patrons. During this year's fair, she attended functions, from livestock to pageants, every single day. She is a real treasure."
GAME AND FISH FOUNDATION
Doramus was serving on the state Game and Fish Foundation board of directors when a person -- she won't say who -- encouraged her to apply for a seat on the commission. She, again, was the only woman on the foundation. But that never bothered her.
"I'm more comfortable in a room full of men than I am in a room full of women," she says. "That's just how it is because I talk to them about hunting and I can talk to them about fishing and I can talk to them about the outdoors. There's just always something I can always relate to. I know that sounds kind of weird, but that's just how it is."
After doing a little research on what it would take to be on the commission, she decided to apply online. Not long after, she bumped into Gov. Asa Hutchinson at a luncheon in Northwest Arkansas. She didn't know him very well but had met him a time or two.
The governor approached her and said he would like to meet with her about a possible appointment. Her immediate thought -- "Oh, my gosh. Did that just happen?"
"Anne Marie embodies the three essentials I look for in a Game and Fish commissioner," Hutchinson says. "She has a deep love for hunting, fishing and the outdoors. And she didn't read about it or see it on television. She has lived it from childhood. She is committed to conserving the natural resources of Arkansas so that our children and grandchildren can enjoy it. My final [criterion] is that a commissioner bring a unique perspective to the commission. Anne certainly brings a different perspective.
"After I announced her appointment at a press conference, Anne Marie shared some thoughts about her life," Hutchinson adds. "She talked about her vision and the responsibility of the new position. But she also recalled singing with her family on the way to the woods, and about watching the sun rise over the prairie. Those are the sentiments of someone who has the outdoors in her soul, which is what we need in the people we are trusting to lead our state to love and conserve our natural heritage."
NATURAL BEAUTY, NATURAL STATE
Doramus' decision to forgo makeup most of the time comes from the inner self-confidence she said she obtained from her family and her personality. "I am very much an old soul. ... I mean, heck, my favorite things in this order are dogs, coffee and reading the newspaper."
But her childhood wasn't always easy. She struggled in the sixth grade with school work and was only comfortable around her family and at the family's farm. Her mother enrolled her in a tutoring center but she didn't like it. Then her mother found her a one-on-one tutor -- Lisa Moody.
"I didn't know anything about her, but she was tough. And she was tough on me," Doramus says. "She started off as my math tutor but then eventually got to the point where she was helping me with a little bit of everything."
Moody continued to serve as Doramus' tutor through high school and helped her in college.
"Her taking the time to do that with me made a huge impact on my life and gave me confidence," Doramus says. "She was a really big influence on my life at a time where I really needed it, where I really was struggling in self confidence and in school."
Moody recalls that she started with the basics -- making sure Doramus' work was neat: erasing mistakes instead of crossing them out, and using a ruler.
"She started taking real pride in her work. Then when it came to learning vocabulary, we looked for ways to make it fun, like acting out the words instead of just memorizing them. I always knew she could do great work, and by the time she was a senior, she was teaching her classmates how to do it.
"It is so thrilling to see how she has grown from a little girl into such a fine and successful woman. I give her all the credit. She never missed a tutoring session, and I certainly can't say that about everybody," Moody says.
A MATCH MADE IN PRESCHOOL
Doramus met her future husband, Joe Doramus, at Saint Mark's Episcopal preschool in 1993. Other girls would tease her because she was always talking about Joe Doramus.
Doramus' grandmother took a photo of Anne Marie and Joe. He is wearing shorts and work boots and she is wearing a white dress.
"I still can't believe it -- to this day -- because I was so hard-headed, but she got me in a white dress and in the photo, we are holding hands and Joe is pulling up his shorts and I'm looking down and smiling. I had a big smile on my face."
On the back of the photo, her grandmother wrote "Anne Marie and ?"
They both went to different elementary schools and didn't see much of each other until middle school. Both played golf and would run into each other on the golf course. Eventually, they began playing golf together.
In high school, Joe went to Little Rock Central High School and Anne Marie went to Episcopal Collegiate. In their senior years, Joe's prom date canceled at the last minute. He asked Anne Marie to be his date.
"I didn't think anything of it. I was like 'Oh, this is my friend Joe. He's so nice. Of course I want to go. We're gonna have so much fun.' And next thing you know, summer's over and we're dating."
The two went to the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, where he played on the golf team and she joined Chi Omega sorority.
"We've never broken up. We've never really gotten into fight or anything like that," she says of Joe, an investment banker at Stephens Inc.
The two are both hunters and have two dogs, a black Labrador retriever named Baron (as in a Baron Beechcraft airplane) and a Dachshund named Bocephus (Hank Williams Jr.'s nickname).
Who is the better hunter in the family?
"I know more, so that's an unfair question," she says. "I am a better duck caller. I will tell you that. Joe's a really good shot. But better duck caller and dog handler? You better believe it's me."
SELF PORTRAIT
Anne Marie Doramus
• DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: Aug. 22. 1991, Little Rock
• I DRIVE A: Green Tahoe. My go-to-the farm vehicle is a 2003 Chevrolet pickup truck.
• MY FIRST PET WAS: A black lab named Boomer. He slept in bed with me. That dog was so spoiled. He died in 2016. It's the worst day of your life when that happens. The names of all of my dogs start with the letter "B".
• I LISTEN TO: Country music. New country, '90s country, '80s country, Red Dirt country, classic rock. Anything you can possibly imagine -- rap. I like everything. You've got to be well-rounded.
• MY FAVORITE MOVIE IS: Forrest Gump.
• MY LAST BIG VACATION WAS: My honeymoon. We went to Argentina to dove hunt. We went skiing and we went hunting, we went to the wine country. We did the whole deal.
• WHEN I AM MAKING DINNER: I'm not super creative in the kitchen. I will say that I'm pretty basic. I do baked chicken. I do steaks on the grill. I love working on the grill. Anything on the grill.
• PEOPLE SAY I LOOK LIKE: My mother.
• THE WEIRDEST THING I'VE EATEN AT THE STATE FAIR: Last year I had the pizza with cricket on it. And the cricket tasted like a Cheetos puff.
• ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: Adventurous.
High Profile on 11/10/2019