In keeping with the Mountain Home theme, state Sen. Shawn Womack, who represents the area and is a Mountain Home native, was tracked down in the state capital.

While Womack is considered a young gun on the Republican side of the aisle, he doesn't think so.

"Oh no, I'm practically an old-timer," the 34-year-old said in his office. "Seriously, if you look at combined legislative experience, I have a combined eight years now." And that puts Womack among the most experienced legislators in the state.

The key is the combined experience. Womack was first elected to the state House as a 26-year-old rookie politician. He then ran for a special two-year state Senate term and then ran again for Senate, but this time for the standard four-year term. He is eligible for one more four-year term. And in this era of term limits, Womack pulled off a neat trick: he could be elected to three state Senate terms.

With the coming session, Womack has one large piece of healthcare legislation on his mind.

"One of my goals is to secure funding for an AHEC center," Womack said.

AHEC is the Arkansas Area Health Education Centers program, a joint venture between the state and UAMS.

AHEC bills itself as the "primary educational outreach effort of UAMS and the principal means of decentralizing medical and other health professions education throughout the state."

Currently, seven teaching centers are scattered throughout the state, but Womack thinks it is time for Mountain Home to get one as well.

"A feasibility study was done, and it would work," he said. "It would have a 10-county service area, and it would be one that would be split. Part of it would be here (in Mountain Home), and the other part would be in Batesville. So it would serve all of north-central Arkansas, and it is something the area needs."

A quick glance at the map shows that the new AHEC center would be carved out of portions of three areas: northwest, northeast and Fort Smith. And geographically, the idea of a split center makes sense as well.

"Hopefully, we'll be able to get that done in '07," Womack said.



Clinic for a Cause

Central Arkansas Volunteers in Medicine Clinic doesn't exactly sing as a name, but "yeah, that's what you get when you have two lawyers trying to think of a name," said Little Rock attorney Amy Johnson. "We'll come up with something better."

So while the name may not exactly grab you, the idea behind the clinic does.

"We want to open a clinic that provides charity care in downtown or midtown Little Rock," Johnson said. "We want to make it free, and we want to put it in place where people need it."

Johnson, a Fort Smith native who Practices healthcare law for Kutak Rock, got involved early on.

"It started at the Methodist church," Johnson said. "That's when Matt (House, another young lawyer) got involved, and it went from there. But people need to realize that this isn't just the Methodists or young lawyers working on this. It is a pretty broad spectrum of people."

Indeed. It also happens to be a broad group of people who are also politically connected.

The Methodist church is the Quapaw Quarter United Methodist Church in Little Rock. The pastor there is Rev. Betsy Singleton. Her husband is Vic Snyder, the doctor, lawyer, Marine Corps veteran, and new father. In November, he was elected to his sixth term in Congress for the Second District.

"She has been really involved," Johnson said of Singleton. "She's been there from the start. Now he (Snyder) has a very busy schedule, but he's been helping us out, doing what he can."

Johnson said a core group of 30 to 40 have been attending the meetings, but "we have well over 100 folks who are involved in this effort."

Another political person is Kathy Webb, the new state representative for the Hillcrest area. It is her restaurant, Lilly's Dim Sum, which will be donating a portion of its December receipts to help fund the clinic.

"I knew it was going to be big, but I had no idea," Johnson said. "To get this up and going will be in the millions, and we have, like, $2,000 on hand. But we will be doing things to help raise money. Some of the hospitals have also said that they will be helping. Children's said they would help us with the lab services. So we have some things working."

It just won't be very soon. "We are hoping that we'll open up in late 2007, but we have so much that we have to do. Find a building, purchase it, get it renovated. Hire people. So much to do."

For more information, you can to go to the Web. Oh, wait … "that's one of the things we don't have done yet, but we are working on the Web site. People can call me or Matt or they can e-mail either of us."

To contact Johnson, her number is (501) 975-3107 and her email address is amy.johnson@kutakrock.com, and House's number is (501) 372-6555 and the email address is mhouse@jamesandhouse.com.



In Case You Missed It

Dr. Gene Shelby won his race for the state House. The ER physician at National Park Medical Center in Hot Springs will represent District 25.

Shelby becomes the first physician in the state legislature since Dr. Scott Ferguson of West Memphis dropped out to make a run for the Senate in 1998. Ferguson lost in the primary to eventual U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln.

While Shelby was the only physician in any of the state races, others with a connection to healthcare ran and won as well.

Johnny Hoyt, a retired school administrator, won the District 60 House seat. Hoyt will represent the Morrilton area and is the brother-in-law of Conway ophthalmologist Dr. Stephen Magie.

In the House District 65 seat, it was two retired healthcare administrators who faced off: Mike Helm and Democrat Tracy Pennartz. Helm is the former president of the Sparks Health System in Fort Smith and Pennartz said during the campaign she would retire from the Western Arkansas Counseling and Guidance Center, where she served as associate director.

It was Pennartz who won the race with 61 percent of the vote.

The current session of the State Legislature starts in January and not all of the committee seats and chairmanships have been determined.

So such plum assignments like public health have yet to be decided.


January 2007