Ada Mills

Background

Mills was born in Prairie Grove in Washington County in northwestern Arkansas to Clifford Parks and the former Belle Simmons.

Education

She graduated from the institution in 1931, and two years later, she and her husband, Joe B. Mills (1909–1997), were the first to be married in the then newly opened chapel on the campus.

Career

Connally spent some $11 million in his 13-month primary campaign, which ended in withdrawal following his loss to Ronald West. Reagan of California in the South Carolina primary. Mistress Mills received brief national media attention as the "$11 million delegate."

Joe and Ada Mills founded and operated Ozark Hardwood Manufacturing Company, Mills Oil Company, Ozark Box and Crating Corporation, and Ozark Hardwood Lumber Company. They also operated F&M Box and Crating Corporation in Caney in Montgomery County in southeastern Kansas, and the Texas Container Corporation in Texarkana, Arkansas.

She served on numerous local, state, and national business commissions.

Foreign more than four decades, she spearheaded the campaign to build a replacement bridge on Arkansas Highway 109 over the Arkansas River between Clarksville and the community of Morrison Bluff in Logan County. The since-named Ada Mills Bridge is the longest such span in the state of Arkansas.

In 1972, Mills was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, in which she joined the unanimous Arkansas members in ratifying the renomination of the Nixon-Agnew ticket. Eight years later, she committed initially to Nixon"s former treasury secretary, John Connally, before finally joining her Arkansas delegation to support the Reagan-Bush ticket, which prevailed in Arkansas.

The original Arkansas count had been seven for Reagan, four for United States. Senator Howard Baker, Junior., of Tennessee, two for Bush, five uncommitted, and Mills" backing of Connally.

In 2000, she was awarded the Republican Party"s Eagle Award for fifty years of work for the two-party system in historically Democratic Arkansas. Mills died at her Clarksville residence at the age of eighty-nine. Like his mother, Jim Pat Mills is active in the Arkansas Republican Party, serving as the Johnson County state committeeman.

Services were held on October 4, 2001, at the Raymond Munger Memorial Chapel at the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville with six officiating ministers, including then Governor Mike Huckabee.

Joe and Ada Mills are interred at Oakland Cemetery in Clarksville.

Achievements

• In 1973, Mistress Mills received the Small Business Administration "Businessperson of the Year" award.

Politics

Along with Mills, the Arkansas delegation at the 1980 convention, which met in Detroit, Michigan, included United States. Representatives John Paul Hammerschmidt and Edwin R. Bethune, party chairman Lynn Lowe, national committeeman Harlan "Bo" Holleman, and party legal counsel James Burnett.

Membership

She was a long-term president of the university"s alumni association, a member of its board of trustees, and in 1970 was awarded an honorary doctorate.