Page 26 - ATR 2 2019 digital

Balanced

books,

better

highways

How Gov. Asa Hutchinson passed the largest

highway bill in the state’s history

to drive stick shift in, the same car he had at the University
By Bethany May of Arkansas School of Law where he earned his JD, and the
Managing Editor same car he would park in Fayetteville while he hitchhiked to
Atlanta or Memphis to date Susan before they were married.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson says, “You can’t grow up “I didn’t have enough money to put gas in the car and
in Northwest Arkansas without understanding the trucking buy my law books, so I would park the car and I would hitch-
industry.” However, he got his formal trucking education in hike,” he recalls.
the United States Congress while representing Arkansas’ third Of course, now he would advise 22-year-old Asa not to
district from 1997 to 2001 when he served on the U.S. House hitchhike to see his girlfriend, but that was a different era. He
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, which still spends a lot of time on Arkansas roads though, especially
he says, he joined intentionally because of trucking’s heavy during his re-election campaign last year, when he heard
impact on the citizens of his district. from citizens that the pavement that connects our state is a
Prior to serving on the transportation committee in growing concern. And in response, transportation became
Washington in the late ’90s, some of Hutchinson’s experi- a top-tier priority in his 4-Ts platform, right alongside Tax
ence with Arkansas roads was less conventional. His first car reform, Teacher pay and state Transformation.
was a ’66 Plymouth Valiant. It’s the car his wife Susan learned


PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN DAVID PITTMAN

26 Issue 2 2019 | ARKANSAS TRUCKING REPORT