it wasn’t my call. “Now it is.” “The impressive part about know-
ing her this long, what I’ve seen is she asks the smart questions and worries less about looking smart and more about being smart,” Bill Vickery says. “She’s going to look you over and listen, and she’s going to ask, ‘Now, why are you doing it this way?’ She’ll ask the penetrating question.”
BEYOND THE BOSS Having grown up as a third-
generation Bentonite and now living in Bryant with her husband and two children, Newton describes herself as “quintessentially Saline County.” Her life outside the ATA office is tied up with getting her kids off to school, she said. A Friday night ritual, Newton says, is eating as a family while running into friends at Larry’s Pizza. “It’s just about a mile from our house.” Her husband, Josh, is an attorney
for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Their children are seven-year-old Nash and six-year-old Nyla. “I grew up with an alliteration name, Shannon Samples. I decided I wanted my kids to have the same kind of alliteration name. Those were ‘N’ names that we liked,” she said. “Whatever names we were to select had to sound good, as though they were being introduced as the starting for- ward for the Arkansas Razorbacks. So my husband would announce them very animated, long drawn-out way. Those names passed the test.” An early reconciler of her own
checkbook, Newton said she went to college intent on being an accountant. Before the job opened at ATA to man- age the self insurers’ fund, Newton was recruited out of UCA to work in the payroll department at Maverick Transportation. In the small office at the Victory
Building on Capitol Avenue, the other office employees joke with her about her being constantly on the go, born out by “a well-documented fact that I leave the house with no makeup on and put it on in the car whenever I get where I’m
ARKANSAS TRUCKING REPORT | Issue 1 2015
AT A GLANCE Shannon Samples Newton
BIRTHDATE: Feb. 19, 1979 HOMETOWN: Benton CURRENT HOME: Bryant FAMILY: Husband, Josh; children Nash (7) and Nyla (6)
COLLEGE: University of Central Arkansas, bachelor’s degrees in accounting and computer information systems
OUTSIDE WORK INTERESTS: “I’m a sports fan. We like the Razorbacks. We watch every game on TV. I love Fantasy Football, I have two trophies in my office. I do follow the NFL more than college football …And I love the horse races. I was almost born at the races. My mom went to the track on Feb. 18, they had a car accident coming home and she was in labor the next day. We’ve always gone to the races in Hot Springs. I took a personal day to go to opening day this year.”
MORE LIKE MOM OR DAD? “Actually, I’m probably more like my grandmother, my dad’s mom, Ruth Samples. She was college-educated and taught civics. If you were to draw a parallel, it comes from her, my boldness, my confidence. She always believed in me, pushed me, nothing was ever ‘good enough’ for her. She and I had a special relationship. She passed in 2006.”
FAVORITE MUSIC? “Top 40 of both pop and country. I bought the new Taylor Swift CD. I still buy CDs. My two favorite channels on Pandora are my Taylor Swift channel and Keith Urban channel. I spend hundreds and hundreds of hours listening to Pandora.”
YOU’RE A GAMER? “Yes. I’m kind of a gamer. I like to win. We play games a lot …board games, cards, Wii. I love all the strategy games. I could sit down and play some puzzle on my phone for 45 minutes and not stop. There’s a lot of competition at the house. My husband played col- lege basketball at UCA and still plays competitive basketball.”
FAVORITE TV SHOWS? “I’m a big Bachelor fan and we have a weekly watch party. On a less embarrassing note, my husband and I watch Parenthood, The Mentalist, Person of Interest.”
WHAT ARE YOUR AWAY-FROM-WORK PLANS FOR 2015? “I run. I’m training for the half-marathon in the Little Rock Marathon [Feb. 28–Mar. 1, 2015]. I have never run 13.1 miles. I’m up to eight miles now without stopping, and that’s a long way.”
going,” Newton said. That ritual started in high school. “My life is overcommitted and
under-resourced,” she says with a laugh. She may be the association’s presi-
dent, but she still does the job she was originally hired to do, and looking back she calls it her “baby” while adding,
“I wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have a self insurers’ fund.” Today, 56 members pool together for that fund, she said. The fund became a membership driver for the association, providing a tangible benefit for smaller trucking companies.
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