Armstrong Still a Popular Pick Among His Peers

Eddie Armstrong III is used to making a good impression on those around him.

While attending the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, a student population that was roughly 90-percent Caucasian elected Armstrong as student body president his senior year of 2000-01.

He was just the second African American in the history of the school to win such an election.

Fast-forward more than a dozen years, State Rep. Eddie Armstrong (D-North Little Rock) is still impressing his peers and holding key leadership roles.

The North Little Rock native was elected to his first term in 2012 when he won a three-way Democratic primary to represent District 37, which includes North Little Rock and portions of Pulaski County. He was unopposed in the November general election.

Armstrong, though, proved himself a capable leader in short order, so much so that he was recently elected by his colleagues as House minority leader for the 90th General Assembly, which will convene in January in Little Rock.

He said with Democrats being smaller in number now — Republicans hold 64 of the 100 House seats — his role in the upcoming session will be that of facilitator, with a stubborn focus and commitment on ensuring both parties are doing the people’s business.

“We can’t get bogged down in things that are counter-productive,” he said. “We have personalities that come from all over the state, but I’m one that maybe tries to work too much to bring about coalition-building and more pragmatic approaches to governing. Hopefully we will be able to do that.”

Armstrong, who was a member of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class in 2005, said he has envisioned a career in public service since he was a child.

Armstrong, 36, graduated from the UA in 2001 with a degree in political science and then spent two years working in the Washington, D.C., office of Boys & Girls Clubs of America, doing governmental relations work.

While there, he met Archie Schaffer, a corporate affairs executive for Tyson Foods Inc. Schaffer told Armstrong he had first taken notice of him and his accomplishments while Armstrong was in college.

Soon after making the connection, Armstrong was packing his bags for Springdale to begin work as a lobbyist for Tyson’s governmental affairs division. He credits the poultry company with fine-tuning his desire and skill for working in the public arena.

“My passion and desire have always been to help people, serving the least of these,” he explained. “It’s important for me to find ways to be involved in an infrastructure that allows the opportunity to affect change. I’m a guy who loves to work and meet new people, so I’m comfortable with it.”

The opportunities for involvement have been plentiful since Armstrong left Northwest Arkansas. He resigned from Tyson in 2005 to return to his hometown and begin his own government relations consulting firm.

That same year he also launched the Eddie Armstrong Scholarship Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on providing scholarships to minority students from single-parent households. He also spent time as a special assistant to North Little Rock mayor Joe Smith.

Armstrong pushed pause on those endeavors to seek elected office. He dissolved the consulting firm in December 2011 and stepped back from the EASF in order to run, and likewise left the mayor’s office. His occupation is currently a territory sales manager for Pathology Partners LLC, a Little Rock-based toxicology lab.

Armstrong, who married his wife, Sherra, in July 2013, said he loves to cook and frequently entertains guests.

“I love to have company and make great meals,” he said. “When it’s time to sit down and turn [work] off, I do. Sherra is real big on telling me, ‘You built a third of Rome today, but you can’t build it all today.’ Family is important and Sherra has done a great deal to make me understand that better.”

As for future ambitions, Armstrong said he is prayerful for a day when Arkansans elect a minority to a statewide office, or even send someone to Washington, D.C., to serve in Congress.

He said those are ideas he wants to be a part of.

“Now that I am in this industry, inevitably, I am going to serve one way or the other,” he said. “Whether I am elected or helping to get someone elected, I will be involved in this arena. I am hoping there will be some history with me involved in it.”