The Man to Meet

By Michelle Bradford
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Kelley worked as law clerk for Arkansas Supreme Court Judge Lyle Brown of Hope. After graduating from law school in 1967, he went into practice with Eli Leflar, but the Rogers lawyer died six months later. Later in his career, Kelley was a special justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court. Back in 1970, however, Kelley's attention turned to politics when a Democrat named Dale Bumpers came to Rogers. Bumpers was in a crowded 10-candidate race for governor. He had plenty of support in Fort Smith and the River Valley, but he needed someone to run his Benton County campaign. He chose Kelley. "I'd been looking into helping someone get elected," Kelley says, "So I asked Dale, 'What are you going to do to get elected?' He said, 'I'm going to go out and talk to people.' I laughed and said, 'Jeez Dale, that's going to get you nowhere.' Later, I went to Little Rock to hear all 10 candidates speak. When I left, I knew I'd rather lose with Dale Bumpers than win with the rest of them."

Bumpers carried Benton County in the primary and won the runoff against former Gov. Orval Faubus, with Kelley handling Bumpers' push in the Third Congressional District. After Bumpers defeated Republican incumbent Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller in the general election, Kelley moved his growing family to Little Rock and served on Bumpers' cabinet.

At 30, Kelley was executive secretary to the governor of Arkansas. He and Joye were also expecting their fourth child. As Bumpers' gubernatorial term neared its end, the Kelleys moved back to Rogers, where Joye taught elementary school and Gene continued building his practice. Another young candidate, Bill Clinton, had come to town and Kelley's law clerk, David Matthews, told Clinton that Kelley was the man to meet. Kelley supported Clinton in a failed run for Congress in 1974, then later when Clinton was elected Arkansas' attorney general and eventually governor.

The Kelley family served as delegates at the 1976 Democratic Convention in New York, during which The New York Times ran a series of articles about them. Writer Roy Reed called Gene and Joye Kelley a husband and wife political team. A front-page headline read, "City baffles and amuses Arkansas family." After the convention, Kelley focused his lawyering on organizing banks and savings and loans. He'd already met people across the state through his campaign work, and despite tough resistance from competitors, Kelley helped secure bank charters in Mountain Home, Rogers and Flippin, among other places. Little Rock lawyer John Gill worked with Kelley on the charters and remembers they were exceptionally hard to get. Matters often turned vicious, he says. "Gene had the ability to analyze the situation and approach it from the standpoint of how it would benefit the community," Gill says. "He could go into a community in Arkansas that was subject to a charter, and in a short time, he knew more about the place than the people who lived there."

The same traits have helped in Kelley's adoption work. "I can't tell you how many times I've seen Gene drop what he was doing and go help someone with an immediate need," Gill says. "That's very difficult to do, but it's necessary. Especially in adoption work. When someone gives birth to a child, you drop what you're doing and go."