Woody Stewart wants to be Alma’s next mayor; new voice

story by Marla Cantrell
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Woodrow “Woody Stewart, 71, wants to be Alma’s mayor.

He has a truckload of ideas, the time to do the job, and a plan he believes will bring industry, higher education, and visitors to town.

“I think Alma deserves more than they’re getting. We’ve got the best school district in the state, as far as I’m concerned,” Stewart said, “so why not the best town?”

Stewart retired after spending 37 years at aerospace manufacturer McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis. He was a lead man in the machine shop. He and his wife moved from Illinois in 2004.

“I paid $3,500 in taxes one year in Litchfield (Ill.). And it was cold. We found the top three states for low taxes: Alaska, Rhode Island, Arkansas. Arkansas was the third cheapest, but it was the warmest.”

He’s spent $275 on signs with the slogan: A New Voice for Alma. He’s gotten $75 in donations, and five people to help him get his message out.

“I just spoke at a birthday party at the senior center,” Stewart said. “I campaign every day. I won’t do anything negative. If I can’t take the high road, I won’t take any road at all.”

Mayor John Robert Ballentine, who’s been mayor since 1993, is his only opponent in the November race.

“Some people think because I haven’t lived here all my life, I’m an outsider,” Stewart explained. “But this is my home now, and I plan to be here until I die. I think I have some new ideas, some new blood.”

Stewart served two terms on an Illinois school board in the 1970s. When he got to Alma, he ran again.

“I ran for the school board when I first arrived, and I pulled something like 57 votes,” Stewart said. “Nobody knew me.”

Some of his ideas are simple ones: He wants to schedule neighborhood meetings with the police chief. He’d also put city council members phone numbers on water bills so they’d be easier to contact, and form committees to brainstorm about ways to improve the city.

But he has bigger plans as well. Stewart wants to develop an industrial park. He wants a shuttle service for those traveling to Fayetteville to work, saying there were 20 people in his neighborhood alone who would use it. He wants to bring in a new car dealership, a bowling alley or theater, restaurants like Olive Garden and Red Lobster, and a junior college or trade school to town.

“Right now we’re a bedroom community. Well I say if we build a better mousetrap the mice will come.”

He admits he doesn’t know the ins and outs of government, but he doesn’t think that will stop him.

“I might not be able to get all of it done in 4 years,” Stewart said. “But we’d work on what we could, and most of it wouldn’t cost the taxpayer anything.”

Stewart attended two years of college while working for McDonnell Douglas. But most of what he knows, about leadership and working as a team, he learned while on the job.

And what a job it was.

“I met all the astronauts. … Charles and Diane came through. They toured separately,” he said, as it that may have been a sign of the trouble to come. “I was there when they made the first space (vehicle) they sent the monkey up in.”

But his most memorable day on the job came in the 1960s.

“President Kennedy flew in on Air Force One,” Stewart said. “And he had a bad back so they went out there and had a fork lift with a cage on it. And he stepped on it and it brought him right down. This was before these cell phones, so they had red phones hooked up every hundred feet. I shook hands with him and explained how the different machines worked and he got on a machine and bolted a part down and punched a button. He was so thrilled. … They had Secret Service everywhere, even on top of the building with guns. He came alone, I didn’t know why. I was disappointed. I always thought his wife was a neat lady.”

Stewart remembers the day Kennedy was shot in Dallas. He was at work that day as well.

With an impressive career behind him, he wants another challenge. And he thinks being mayor of Alma fits the bill.