The National Park College Board of Trustees elected Joyce Craft as the new board chair for 2023 during its annual meeting on Wednesday at the Student Commons Conference Center.
The board convened for its regular monthly meeting following the annual meeting.
Craft, former vice chair, takes over for Forrest Spicher, who succeeded Gene Parker in January 2017 to become chair. She thanked Spicher for his service and leadership in the position.
"First I want to say thank you to the board members for their vote of confidence and for electing me as chair for the 2023 year, and also I'd like to thank Forrest for his chairing of the board for so many years," she said.
Trustee Jim Hale was elected to serve as vice chair while Beverly Joe was elected as secretary. The board approved Raymond Wright to serve as chair of the Building and Campus Development Committee and Spicher to chair the Budget and Finance Committee.
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Craft said she is "thrilled" to be celebrating the college's 50th year of "changing lives at NPC."
"The growth I have witnessed has been extraordinary," she said. "While I'm looking forward to reminiscing about the college's great history throughout this milestone year, I'm even more excited to continue the momentum we have created together to help our students be even more successful. When our students succeed, we all succeed.
"This is yet another example of NPC's grit, all of you. To be able to partner with other campuses to create efficiencies to better serve our students is phenomenal. The business degree and the Nighthawk scholarship that UAM is providing will be an enormous gift for many students. I am honored to be a part of such a unique and impactful partnership."
NPC announced this week a partnership with the University of Arkansas at Monticello to offer a four-year bachelor's degree in business administration.
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Craft, who joined the board in 2000, became the first woman and first African American woman to be named superintendent of the Hot Springs School District in 2007. She retired in 2015 after more than 43 years with the district. She was also the first African American woman to be accepted into the Rotary Club of Hot Springs.
In July 2020, Joyce L. Littleton Craft Auditorium was named in her honor during grand opening events for the Hot Springs School District's Junior Academy and Trojan Arena and Auditorium.
A native of Cotton Plant, she first earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff before earning a master's degree from Henderson. She continued her graduate studies at Memphis State University, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the University of Arkansas, Ouachita Baptist University, and Arkansas Tech University.
Craft began her career in education as a classroom teacher. She later became an assistant principal, interim principal and assistant superintendent before she was named superintendent in 2007. She also served a short time as interim director of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts.
National Park College President John Hogan comments at Wednesday’s NPC Board of Trustees annual meeting as the outgoing chair, Forrest Spicher, looks on. - Photo by Lance Porter of The Sentinel-Record