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owler proudly confesses to hardly ever calling a repairman. If something is broken, he prefers to fix it himself — and he’s shown a natural ability to do so throughout his life. “I built my first motor and car and hotrod when I was 16 years old,” he said. “If it needs to be fixed, I fix it.” He carried that attitude with him into county government. Early in his county clerk days, for instance, he was instrumental in modernizing the courthouse with computer equipment. “When I got elected there wasn’t even a fax machine in the court- house — and no computers,” he said.
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After buying a fax machine, he bought a computer. Ten he used it to computerize voter registration in Madison County even before the federal motor voter law became reality. Te innovation did not stop there. He computerized the budget process, accounts payable and payroll shortly thereafter. He ensured that Madison County was on the cutting edge. “It’s hard to believe that as early as the ‘90s we had lots of counties that did not have computerization of their budget process,” Fowler said. “Tey still did it with a typewriter and calculator.” Te assessor’s, collector’s and treasurer’s offices soon became comput-
erized, and Fowler served as network administrator for the county. He repaired and replaced computers, ran cabling necessary for a computer network and addressed any other computer-related issues. He continued to fix things during his 12 years as county judge. When the county needed a new library, but bids for the project came in way too high, Fowler hired a couple of guys to help him dig and pour the footing, do the framing, painting, shelving and trim work. After that, “we did the same thing with the EMS station, the road shop and courthouse annex,” he said. “I tried to do a lot of facilities work while I was in office.” Te county library now bears his name: Te Wes Fowler Madison County Library. Once he joined the AAC staff, Fowler renovated the ACME Brick
Building, which the AAC owns and leases. He worked nights and week- ends for two to three months, doing everything, he said, but laying the carpet so AAC would not have to hire a contractor. Fowler’s work saved the association between $20,000 and $30,000, Villines said. “It’s been leased ever since,” Villines added.
home county. He said the quorum court typically is two-thirds Demo- crat and a third Republican. “I have a great son-in-law on the quorum court,” and he’s a Republican, Fowler notes. But like most elected county officials in Arkansas, he maintains the job is not about party politics but about doing the best job for your county and your citizens. If he’s an activist, it is more in line with promoting good county gov- ernment. As a county clerk, he spoke on the House floor before a joint session of the state legislature on behalf of the motor voter law. “It’s an honor for anybody to go down on the House floor and speak who is not a member of the House,” Villines said. Ten Fowler traveled the state on behalf of the County Clerk’s As- sociation and the Secretary of State’s office, promoting motor voter and discussing with clerks how it would affect their offices. He also was instrumental in getting Arkansas’ early voting bill spon-
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sored by Sen. Randy Laverty. “Without Wes Fowler, there would be no early voting in Arkansas,”
Villines stressed. Fowler said that prior to the institution of early voting, voters who had to be absent on Election Day had to fill out an array of forms and affidavits explaining why they could not vote on the appointed day.
COUNTY LINES, SPRING 2014
adison County politics are an interesting mix — although Fowler, a Democrat, downplays the impact of party in his
Tey had to vote by absentee ballot. “We knew there had to be an easier way,” Fowler said. He was legislative chair of the County Clerks Association at that time, and he sat alongside Sen. Laverty in committee meetings, where he presented arguments in favor of the early voting initiative. In the end, Fowler said early voting was well received by legislators. “I wouldn’t call it a slam dunk, but I think we did a good enough job of selling it to the legislative body that they could see the benefits of it,” he said. Early voting is now one of the most used forms of voting in the state,
Fowler said.
home on the weekends. He has been the first point of contact for clerks, judges and justices of the peace — via phone call and during his travels around the state. During a legislative session he could be seen daily at the state Capitol, monitoring committee meetings and often testifying for or against bills of interest to county government. “Wes is always ‘just Wes.’ He never pretends to be anyone but him-
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self. He is comfortable with legislators, and they are comfortable with him. He always knows what he’s talking about when presenting legisla- tion, and he always tells the truth. Because of that he establishes good rapport with legislators — they know they can trust him,” Jones said. Indeed, Fowler said he has been involved in writing election, purchas- ing and procedural laws for the quorum courts. But one of his most challenging AAC projects has been the codification of ordinances for the 46 counties in AAC’s risk management pool. Fowler said the process has entailed going to the counties, scanning
every county ordinance passed since the adoption of Amendment 55 in 1977, and then typing those ordinances into a skeleton code that AAC staff developed. Fowler reads every code for every county after it is typed, and then he drafts legal punches to see how many of the ordi- nances remain applicable in the face of new state statutes. After that, he meets with each county to go over the county code with them before the quorum court adopts it. Te codification project ensures that county laws are relevant and eas- ily accessible, Fowler said. “It gets them an up-to-date code of what is actually the law of their county since 1977,” he said.
honors. Fowler said one of the highest honors he received was in 2008, when the other 74 county judges voted him president of the County Judges Association. It is an organization he says is highly respected by state legislators. Fowler also was tagged as a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission
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on Highways. And just last year Gov. Mike Beebe re-appointed Fowler to a five-year term on the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council. In his role as a board member of the ANCRC, Fowler repre- sents the counties and their interests. So while he plans to spend his retirement golfing, fishing and finish- ing construction projects for his family, Fowler isn’t walking away from county government. He can’t help himself. “I love county government,” he said. “Even when I retire, I’m still go-
ing to try to be involved in county government in some shape, form or fashion. It’s just in my blood so to speak.”
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he man who has accomplished so much for county government during his 27-year career has, of course, received numerous
hile serving as government relations director for AAC, Fowler lived in Little Rock during the week and commuted back
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