Brown first ASMSA graduate to serve in state Legislature Service Driven

Giving back to his community through service is nothing new for Matt Brown (’00).

As an attorney, Brown has served as coach for Conway High School’s mock trial team and worked with youth in the Faulkner County Teen Court. He was a member of the Conway Planning Commission, helping guide the city’s growth. He’s also served as a Justice of the Peace on the Faulkner County Quorum Court.

Brown has now added the title of State Representative to his list of accomplishments after being elected as a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives to represent District 55, which includes a large portion of Conway. He was officially sworn in during a ceremony in January.

While officially becoming a member of the 94th Arkansas General Assembly was exciting, what made it memorable was having his family there with him, his grandmother in particular.

“What was special to me that day was the fact that my 91-year-old grandmother — the daughter of dirt-poor, Depression-era sharecroppers with only an eighthgrade education herself and the matriarch of a large extended family — got to come to the Capitol and see me, one of only a handful of people in my family to go to college, the first person in my family to get a graduate degree, and the first person in my family to ever run for office — get sworn into office. I thought it was kind of cool, and I only wish my grandpa could have been there to see it as well,” Brown said.

Election night was much more stressful than the day of his swearing in, Brown said. He felt that he had run a good campaign and was cautiously optimistic, but once the polls closed he had a small ball of stress lingering in the pit of his stomach at his watch party. Then, the early voting results were posted.

“My heart started beating fast, my adrenaline surged, and my hands started to tremble as I tried to scroll through the early vote results for my race. But when I finally got there and the numbers showed that I was ahead with such a margin that the day-of vote could not change the outcome, the sense of relief and excitement as the stress melted away, and hugging my little girls and them being so happy and excited for me even though they don’t yet fully comprehend what an election was or why I was excited, cannot be described,” he said.

Several people with ties to ASMSA have served in the state Legislature. A few include David Rainey, who was the school’s director from 1993 to 1995 and later served as a state representative; Dr. Johnnie Roebuck, a state representative and educator from Arkadelphia who was appointed to the school’s inaugural Board of Trustees and served throughout the 1990s; Charlie Cole Chaffin, who co-sponsored the bill that created ASMSA as a state senator and later taught chemistry at ASMSA; and Steve Faris, who served on the school’s Board of Visitors after several terms as a state representative and state senator.

Brown said being elected to the state House of Representatives was “a case of being at the right place at the right time.” He had not originally planned to run for the seat in 2022. Brown was serving as a Justice of the Peace on the Faulkner County Quorum Court when candidates began announcing their intentions.

The state went through a redistricting as the result of the 2020 Census, changing the lines for districts in both the state Senate and House. The previous office holder announced he was going to run for the state Senate, leaving the seat without an incumbent. The new District 55 included almost Brown’s entire JP district.

“I also ended up being the only elected official living within District 55 who was in a position to run for the seat. I thought that if I didn’t at least try, I’d probably always regret it and would always wonder ‘what if.’ So I threw my hat in the ring, and the rest is history,” the Republican legislator said.

After graduating from ASMSA, Brown attended Hendrix College followed by the Bowen School of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Before coming to ASMSA, Brown had a passing interest in law but was keener on medical school.

“AP Chemistry at ASMSA soon disabused me of that notion,” Brown said. “But while I was at ASMSA, I discovered that I had a talent for research and writing, which in turn led me to the humanities and ultimately to a legal career. The classes that had the biggest impact on my future, without a doubt, were the writing classes, both for college, law school and my career as I practically write for a living now.”

His work focuses primarily on corporate, banking, and real estate law. Brown has enjoyed politics since middle school, but serving as a state representative wasn’t initially on his list of goals.

He planned to eventually seek a district or circuit court judge position, both of which are elected positions in Arkansas.

“Therefore, I got involved in local politics both because I liked politics and to also try to start learning the political process and to start making connections for a possible eventual judge run,” said Brown, whose initial foray into government was as a member of the Conway Planning Commission.

“When the Justice of the Peace seat opened up for my district, I thought that there could be no better way to learn how to run a campaign for office than to actually run for office. So I ran for Justice of the Peace and won (in 2020).”

Brown credits his time at the school for leading him to where he is now

“I think I can safely say that but for ASMSA, I likely wouldn’t be where I am today,” Brown said. “Although I did well academically at my home high school, I never really fit in and was never part of the whole high school ‘scene.’ I just really felt like I was going through the motions until graduation.

“ASMSA changed all of that. I went from a school with 1,200 students to one with only 200, from being just another anonymous face in the crowd to being a part of a community. ASMSA taught me how to come out of my shell, taught me how to get along with people from all kinds of backgrounds and taught me how to be confident. I really feel like the school did more to make me the person I am today than any other school I ever attended.”